what made you...
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| Wed, 09-13-2006 - 1:28pm |
decide to do online dating?
For me I found that i wasnt having much luck offline. I dont live in a neighborhood where there are people my age, there is no one at work (they are married, gay or im not attracted to them) and most of my friends are in RL's these days leaving me with not many opportunities to go out. I found myself getting frustrated because my friends are more apt to stay in with boyfriends than go out for a night on the town....and i cant go out alone. I was meeting people when i went out, but going out was seldom. I think that if i had been going out more nights a week i'd have increased my chances of meeting more people, but as i said, i had no one to go out with often ): i had a break up in June, met a guy i really right after that (at a bar through a friend) and things seemed great for 6 weeks with him...then it changed and he didnt seem to like me anymore. I felt so frustrated...thinking hmm, when's the next time i'm going to meet someone cool? who knows! so i went online and i'm glad i did. I have no clue if i will find what i'm looking for, but it's great talking to guys who are in the same situation as me (single with a lot of friends in RL's).

I do not know your age, but as a general rule, the older you get the hard it is to meet single people, especially if you do not live in a bigger city. I live in a town of about 20,000 and there are very few prospects for people in the 40-something category. What sparked me to do OLD was a very bad blind date that a good friend set me up with. It was a double-date, and I wondered how bad it could be since my friend and her hubby were going to be with us. Well, it was not good. I have written about this blind date on some other threads. Let's just say it was VERY uncomfortable, the guy was very unappealing, and we had nothing whatsoever in common. I came away very disappointed as I really wanted to be open-minded about it. The guy seemed to like me OK, but I think he could tell that I was not his "match". I also remembered why I disliked blind dates to begin with. None of them had ever been really good, but I went because I continue to hear stories of blind date set ups that end in marriage. Well, I can keep hoping anyway.
I have not been active on any dating site for a number of months now. I have been trying to get over a 3 1/2 month relationship that ended in May. It was the longest time for me to date someone since my long-time ex and I broke up in '99. I have not had the desire or energy to try OLD again. Personally, I have been disappointed too many times. If you read many of these threads, you will learn that it takes a very thick skin to do OLD. Some are better than others, and I am not up for more let downs. I am just now feeling like I am getting over the worst part of my depression about this last relationship. Maybe other people bounce back more quickly. I never have, so if you get hurt easily, you will find OLD to be very tough on the ego. If you can have a care-free attitude about it, you'll likely do well with it. However, keep in mind that for every person who finds just the right one, there are hundreds (maybe thousands) who have had no luck at all with it.
The e-harmony ads are a bit misleading in my mind. I still have a glimmer of hope that anything IS possible, but the odds for finding the right person with an online dating service is a gamble. I also got tired of paying the membership fees for the sites with having so few matches. Maybe you will have better luck than I did, but for now, I am not planning on re-subscribing.