Adventures in Internet Dating

Single, never married, no kids and 39 years old.  Definitely not how I saw my life playing out.  It is definitely not for lack of trying.  In my adult life I have been engaged once, in two other long term relationships, and dated others.  I have exhausted all of my current resources, and am past the age of meeting people in clubs, etc.  A few years back I started experimenting with internet dating sites, and have had no luck there either.

I really struggled with match.com.  There is just way too much to weed through, especially once you have tried contacting a few people and received no response and begin to look at the ratio involved.  It just became more and more frustrating.  I kept at it though, and didn’t give up until I had actually managed to talk to a few people in an attempt to make progress only to be ignored once photos were exchanged.  That’s right people, I am NOT Brooke Shields!  Nor am I Angelina Jolie, or Megan Fox.  Never mind the fact that every one of the guys I had been emailing with prior to the photo exchange were most definitely not Brad Pitt, or Johnny Depp, or Viggo Mortensen.  There was one guy that made it past that stage, and I decided I was done with him when he asked the weight question and then would not relent in his quest for an answer.  I just don’t find that to be an acceptable question.  My bottom line assessment of sites like this—most of the people on them seem to be looking for physical perfection combined with intelligence and a sense of humor—something they are not likely to find.

I went to eHarmony next.  It seemed like a place where I might find people who were looking for something serious and doing so in a realistic fashion while focusing on all of those things that are far more important than physical appearance.  I also liked the thought of them pointing me towards people that would be good matches based on a personality profile.  I have actually tried eHarmony twice, showing that I do believe in it in its truest form.  The first attempt was about 4 years ago.  During my 6 months or so of membership I ended up advancing to the open talking stage with 3 men.  Each of them seemed great.  I had a lot of things in common with each of them, and had some great conversations.  The first one finally asked if we could go to lunch.  He picked me up and took me to a nice restaurant by the beach.  Everything was great through the first 5 minutes at the table, and then his cell phone rang and he actually answered it and everything was downhill from there.  Between the other 3 phone calls he took during our date he proceeded to talk like an entirely different person than the one I had been talking to for weeks.  This brings me to guy number 2.  Frankly, I should have known things were not going to go well when my gum flew out of my mouth when I flipped my hair over while blow drying it.  It got completely stuck in the front portion and I had to cut bangs (which I HATE!).  Then he was late because he got a flat tire.  But despite the signs of catastrophe we went to dinner, and two people who had had a million things to talk about in emails and on the phone suddenly were unable to find a thing to discuss.  This brought me to guy number three.  We spent hours and hours talking on the phone, it was looking so promising!  We made plans to meet for coffee and as I was headed out the door to meet him he called me crying to say he didn’t think he was ready to meet…needless to say that is just too much drama for me!  My second try with eHarmony can be summed up much more quickly.  All I can say is that I don’t know how I can possibly be matched on so many levels of compatibility with men who cannot properly spell!  Seriously, I am no perfectionist and we all misspell things here and there, but if you can’t spell your job title properly we are most certainly not going to be a good combo.

I decided after my second try with eHarmony to try Chemistry.com.  It seemed like a blend between eHarmony and match.com, so maybe this would work.  I guess I can say that it turned out to be just that.  Each day when I would go check my matches I would first weed out the guys I had already received as matches on eHarmony (I guess I was not the only one trying various options!), and then I would occasionally find one I thought was worth contacting only to not get a response or stop getting a response once photos were exchanged.

I have to say I did learn a lot from the whole experience.  I learned that I have moved past settling for less than what I deserve just to not be alone and I learned a lot more about what is important to me in a man.  I have decided I would much rather be alone for the right reasons than in a relationship for the wrong ones.  And I have learned that there is nothing wrong with not being half of a couple.  Yes, I get lonely, and I have not given up the dream of being a wife and mother (though I may opt to do the latter of the two on my own).  I just moved, and I may give eHarmony another chance, maybe the pool of people to choose from will be better here.