Online Dating at 36 - The Good, the Bad, & WTH?

Ever since we connected, Bachelor #4, D, and I have had amazing communication. We've had phone calls that have lasted for hours. Our first date went 6 hours - a very, very easy and comfortable 6 hours. Our second "official" date was last night, another easy 6 hours, but in between, on Monday, we also got together and just hung out and enjoyed each other's company for about 4 hours. When not around each other, we're texting, thinking of each other. Poems and terms of endearment and sweet messages are flying back and forth. But last night, things changed. We had a serious adult conversation. Now, it isn't that our other conversations have been flippant or fluffy, but this was a deep one. One that was not easy, because it was us stepping back from the rose-colored glasses and trying to determine what our future should really look like. Was it a future together, or not? Some of you may be thinking it's much too early for that conversation. We've only k...

Once again, I've been handed a situation I really don't quite know how to handle. Yesterday afternoon, I went to hear several of my friends in a concert. After the concert, I was invited and encouraged to join them for drinks and dinner, and of course I accepted. The table I was at had friends from Texas, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire -- how often are all of us in the same room? I had been texting with D and told him that when I got home I would call. He suggested he should come over to my place. Currently, my place looks like a platoon of 3 year olds tried to cook in the kitchen, and then continued their revelry by strewing laundry up and down the hall before harassing the cats into shedding everywhere and in general making a huge mess. Yeah, no. He's not coming over until I've cleaned. So I ended up at his place instead, quality time together neither of us had planned for. "The kids" were home, so D and I were sitting in the sun room area ta...

I love literature. I love crafting words into written images, and reading how wordsmiths better than me create such vivid scenes using only printed words that you can feel like you are there. Characters are crafted, locales described, weather explained, even the smallest of details you can glean from their words and your imagination. Poetry is particularly rich for that. I think it is in part because poetry often uses just little snippets, phrases, ideas that are magically woven into something so complex you can dissect it forever and still come to a different interpretation every time. And while I am an above-average writer (or so my friends who read this blog say), poetry is not a form that I think I've ever used to express myself. Maybe I'm not enough of a hopeless romantic, or maybe my experiences have left me so scarred and jaded I'm too cynical to write poetry. It takes a romantic heart to capture and put into words the essence and feelings behind the beauty of na...

Yesterday with Bachelor #4 was normal, typical even, if there is such a thing at this point in getting to know someone. Texts messages went back and forth during the day, nothing terribly exciting or crazy, certainly not like Bachelor #3 who was pretty much sitting around waiting for me to text him. I knew he was busy in the evening, but as I was leaving work after rehearsal I sent a "hope the rest of your day was great" kind of message. Nothing that demanded a reply, feeling pretty sure I'd get one. I didn't. This morning, still nothing on my phone. I went in to play for school Mass; nothing. This wasn't like him, and odd scenarios started running through my head. You all know how I am! Then at 11:15, just as I was about to walk out the door to work, I got a text from him. A long text. It was a sweet, chatty message that he had typed up late last night and, in his exhaustion, forgot to send. He said he was just picking up his phone to see how my day was goi...

At the risk of dating myself horribly, I remember the days when we would be excited for phone calls, especially if they were coming from our crushes. We both had to be home, of course, and when the phone rang our hearts would jump as we either waited for our parents to answer the phone or as we ourselves picked up the receiver. Was it our crush? Was it someone else? Then if we were fortunate, we would spend a chunk of time talking to our crushes, chatting about anything and everything, while our parents or whoever complained we were tying up the phone. Of course, there was also the flip side: being the one to make the call. Would he be home? What would his parents think if they answered? Your hands sweat and your heart beats crazily as you push the button to "dial" the touch-tone phone. You listen to the ringing on the other end, wondering if his dad would answer, if he would answer, or if you'd get the answering machine. Should you leave a message? I mean, anyone can h...

Yesterday I posted a blase little post that was basically random musings and in it dropped the news that there appeared to be a Bachelor #4. Well, indeed there is. This latest candidate, Bachelor #4, is a 42 year old divorcee. He has partial custody of his son, and lives in the next suburb over from me. (Hey, in a sprawling metro area like this, that's kind of a big deal!) 5'11", blonde and blue, and labels himself "slender." He works as a business analyst for an online shipping facilitation company, which leads me to a tangent. What is it with guys in the shipping industry coming to me? Bachelor #4 works for a website that supplies shipping quotes to companies that, well, need to ship stuff. Bachelor #2 owns a shipping company. Seriously, what is up with this? Back to Bachelor #4. He has a degree from a local Baptist college. Uh oh. I was raised Baptist. My dad is a (mostly) retired Baptist minister. I left the Baptist church with some intentionality wel...

Things are quiet on Match right now, at least for me. It is Mother's Day, graduation season, and overall a generally busy time for many people. I'm not taking it personally, and besides, I haven't exactly been reaching out, either. That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about random things related to Match. First Musing:  a "new" feature on Match. I say "new" because they didn't have it the last time I was on Match. You're given 10 or so pairs of thumbnail pictures and ask to choose who, between the two, you prefer. All you have is a picture, their screen name, age, location. No, that's not shallow at all.  Choosing preferences based upon profile pictures. *eye roll* Sometimes choosing between the two is almost impossible. Sometimes, you hit "skip" because I wouldn't choose either one if they were the last two guys available. Sometimes, guys you have interacted with - or in my case, dated in a previous round o...