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

Good evening, fair readers!  Tonight's thesis is an exploration of the art of "hitting," as in, "hitting on someone."  Most all of us have been there, either as the recipient or the "hitter."  Sometimes it is painfully obvious, and sometimes it is more subtle... a sly double entendre, an "innocent comment."  More accurately, it is how being hit upon can perk up someone's day. This post is inspired by two events that have happened recently.  The first was a Facebook status posting by a friend wherein she was announcing with great glee that she was fairly certain she'd been hit on.  The second was an incident that happened to me this evening.  In both cases, the ladies involved were not 100% sure we'd actually been hit upon, but the effect was the same: we were both flattered. The painfully obvious ones can often be comical.  For me, one in particular comes to mind.  I've mentioned it here before on this blog, as it came via...

I wasn't planning on writing today.  Things have been fairly quiet in my little dating world; G and I are texting but that's moving at a relaxed pace so there's little to "report."  Match has been quiet as far as winks and emails, overall; as I wrote a couple posts ago, I suspect the post-holiday period is generally quiet for folks either because of finances or simply trying to get back on track after the holidays.  And let's face it, not everyone is looking to be paired up right before Valentine's Day, because that can be... well... awkward. However, I took a few minutes today to go through my "Daily Matches," something I haven't done in close to a week.  I perused the usual collection of "laid back" and "easy going" guys who may or may not be into sports and who are looking for their dream woman.  I read through profiles, all of which save one were actually written with a demonstration of fluency in the English languag...

Two days a week, I am in a classroom teaching -- or, at least trying to teach -- various musical concepts to children in Kindergarten through 8th grade.  I am in my third year at this school, which is small, has a fairly low year-to-year turnover in students, and is also Catholic.  That last part is important, not because I can talk about God and Jesus, and not because I can judiciously use "Catholic guilt" to my advantage as a teacher.  It's important because there is still a strong belief in the Catholic church that marriage should be a woman's ultimate goal.  (Unless she's to be a nun, of course.) So it doesn't surprise me that my students are often interested in my marital status.  They even go to the extent to be "concerned" about me and another colleague, who is also unmarried and yet not a nun.  Having been in K-12 education now for 5 years, it no longer surprises me that 4th and 5th graders are increasingly interested in members of the oppo...

Lately my Match inbox has been seeing a remarkable amount of interest from African American gentlemen.  Now while getting emails and winks from African American men isn't necessarily new, in the past week or so it has been almost exclusively communiques from non-Caucasians.  I include other races in my "acceptable ethnicities" on Match, but the fact is I've never dated anyone who wasn't, well, white. I can hear some of my gay friends right now whispering, "once you go black, you never go back."  And at least one gay friend will loudly proclaim, in his best Jewish accent, "don't listen to 'em, honey."  The demographics of my friends cover the spectrum: white, black, Asian, Indian, gay, straight, bisexual, male, female, transgendered, able-bodied, physically-challenged, Democrat, Republican, Independent, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a major or minor subcategory or seven.  Frankly, those "classifications" mean nothing to...

One reason I shied away from dating -- serious dating -- for so long was the simple fear of rejection.  There is a difference between self-esteem and self-confidence, at least in my opinion.  In my lexicon, self-confidence is what you think about your brains and abilities; self-esteem is how you view yourself compared to others, particularly in the physical sense.  Being a relatively intelligent and talented woman, I have self-confidence in spades.  I can carry on a conversation, whip up a fantastic meal in the kitchen, teach a room full of kids (or adults), and play the piano or sing for you at a well-above-average level. Put me in a room of attractive women, and I become a wall flower.  A fat, unattractive wall flower with floppy arms.  But, fabulous shoes. Whether or not that is actually true is subjective.  What matters is how I actually view myself.  My battle with my weight has been life-long and those who have known me for several years...

Just two days ago, I blogged that there were no gentlemen around, or at least "in the running."  I mentioned that D had decided to text me again, and that I'd gotten an email from an interesting widower, but that otherwise life was quite quiet.  Perhaps even boring. Never fear!  This is internet dating!  For your viewing pleasure, shall we take a look back into what this kind of stuff was like before the internet? Now here we are in 2013, and frankly things haven't improved all that much.  Even the hairstyles.  We do now have Photoshop and text messaging, though. Which brings us to D.  I never did reply to the "morning beautiful" text message.  So tonight he decided to text again.  The electronic communication to rival Hemingway?  "Hi"  This time I thought I'd be somewhat polite and reply. "Hi, stranger.  Long time." His answer: "I know boo... what are you up to?" Maybe I'm hypersensitive, maybe I've b...

If I had to sum up my dating life in one word right now, I'd have a hard time choosing one.  However, it is safe to assume they'd all be synonyms of either "quiet" or "boring."  Since things are a little crazy elsewhere in my life with some unexpected (yet fiscally very welcome) freelance work last week, quiet is perfectly okay. So to keep us all up-to-date on the quietness, here is where each of the previously mentioned gentlemen stand. M -- haven't heard a peep from him since our last date, nor have I reached out to him.  I guess it doesn't get much more "mutual" than that.  And, it turns out buying the movie tickets left me with a whopping $7.38 in my account until payday, which was 3 days -- and an almost empty gas tank -- away.  That was like pouring salt into my already bitter wound about the situation of him springing "dutch" on me mid-date -- literally mid-date. D -- good ol' D.  Today he decided to return to tex...

Tonight was date #3 with M, and as you've probably gathered from the title, I'm letting this one move right along.  Nothing to see here.  We're walking, we're walking... It wasn't that he necessarily did anything wrong.  From the first meeting, I was skeptical about my attraction, but as I gave him a second (and third) "chance," I thought something might be developing for me.  What was developing, I realize now, was an attraction for the person I was imagining was behind the text messages.  That person would say certain things, react in certain ways, and that's just not who M is.  It's definitely a pitfall of building a foundation upon emails and texts. Genuinely, he's a nice guy and it's not that he's unattractive, but I can't say I honestly find him attractive in the way that I would like to, even could say need to , find the person I am dating.  Maybe it was the bad jeans that I've now gotten to see twice.  More realistic...

Today I have started and have left as unpublished drafts at least two new posts.  They were inspired, for lack of a better word, by an anonymous person wishing to leave some comments on a post.  The comments they submitted were mean-spirited and contained vulgarity and thinly-veiled threats, and it was clear by what they said that they are not someone I am actually friends with in real life.  Although I choose to moderate comments to prevent spam, even if a comment is critical of me or a decision I've made, I'll publish it as long as the comment is done respectfully.  These were not, so I did not publish them. But then I found myself writing these posts that were all "deep" and even a bit esoteric about choices.  I knew the comments that I read at 5:30 this morning had hit a nerve, because upon reading them I almost burst into tears and the memory of them plagued me throughout the day.  "Sticks and stones...?"  Yeah, right.  Ask anyone who has e...

So the last time I blogged, J3 had come back into my life -- and back into my bedroom, admittedly -- and I had date #2 on the calendar with M, although I wasn't overly excited about it.  I was counting on that chemistry to develop with repeated exposure.  It's definitely time for an update! Let's start with J3, shall we?  Would anybody -- anybody --  be surprised if I said I haven't heard from him since Tuesday night?  Nope!  If I were a betting woman, I'd bet that he'll be like my friend in CA described: a shark attack.  He'll text or otherwise be in contact when he wants some action, and at any other time I won't hear from him.  I'm willing to be just a booty call, because as I've said before in other posts it satisfies my "needs" so I can move at a more appropriate pace with better guys. I think I need to find the "Jaws" theme and make it his text tone. Now we come to M.  On Friday we met up to see the movie "Lin...

I haven't made any resolutions for the New Year.  The past few years I haven't, and it hasn't been because I don't think I need to change or improve.  It's been because those processes have already been in motion, save one: finding a boyfriend.  I didn't make that a resolution last year, nor when January 1, 2012 rolled around did I say, "This is the year I get back on the dating horse!" Frankly, most resolutions are either almost impossible or, at the least, very difficult.  What little of the "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve" I watched (Jenny McCarthy, you are NOT funny, and Fergie, you are hosting a family friendly national TV program, not shooting a porno, you don't need to "make love to the camera") included their poll of the top 5 resolutions.  They included the to-be-expected ones of lose weight, be better with money... and, somewhat to my surprise, "to fall in love." That's easier said th...