It’s time… to rethink a few things. It’s time to report on successes and failures. It’s time to come to terms with that age-old nightmare of running down the middle of the street buck naked… like Will Ferrell did in “Old School”.
Last summer, I cleaned out all of Hub’s clothes. Most of
them were donated to charity and a lot was able to be consigned to the resale
shop at the hospital where he received his treatments. I looked at the process
this way – I had to clear out the old to make way for the new. It’s a good
strategy for mental health, for sure. But it was necessary if I was going to
possibly find someone to share my life – what might be left of it.
One major problem is that I haven’t dated since the 1960’s.
Now, that was a decade of Peace and Love, and many of us of a certain age
remember grasping at the freedoms we thought we had at the time. Now in 2014, I
want to start dating again? Am I crazy? What has changed? How do I get back
into the dating pool? I sucked at dating in the 1960’s so what makes me think
I’ll be any more successful at it now?
Armed with these questions - and a nagging vision of Hub,
the security nut, in my head saying “Hmmmm…”- I signed up on Match.com to try
my luck in the new world of online dating. I’m well aware of the Internet’s
history of screwed up anonymity and predatory personalities. There are people
with no life who just love to become others in an online dating community. (I
think many live in “gated communities” and not the upscale kind)
Now, to be fair and honest, I do know several couples who
are together because of Match.com. They seem very happy and content in their
relationships. And I am very happy for them.
Guess my problem is that I miss that couplehood. But before
I go swan diving into this pool, I need to know just what I want – and what
would be considered “settling for”. At this point in my life, I refuse to just
settle for anyone. As a teen, I would go out with someone so I didn’t have to
stay home on Friday or Saturday evening. Now, no! I’ll stay home before I go
out with just anyone.
Match has a profile set up that allows you to put in as much
or as little information as you want. Of course, they say the more information
the better. You are also to put recent pictures up. You are also to write a
description of your likes and dislikes in a date. You are supposed to sell
yourself as if the date was a job interview. I never looked at dating as an
interview process before, but, looking back, yes, I was searching for someone
special with whom I could share my life. But now it seems like I’m asking for
romance by microchip.
Not totally sure what to expect from this process, I spoke
to some of my friends who used this particular site. Women can be brutally
honest when discussing their dating experiences. To sum up, my women friends
said they had a range of nice guys looking for a sugar momma to keep them well
into their old age to total creeps looking for a quick roll in the hay. They
found the men who were legends in their own minds. For some reason, the
consensus was that men using the site were not interested in a real woman with
real ambitions and abilities. They agreed that the men they met thought the
women were desperate and would do anything to get a man.My friends suggested that I be ready to just get a few free dinners out of the experience and be happy with that.
Once your profile goes “live” you get shopped around – like
a piece of meat. The site delivers to your inbox a selection of potential
matches based on some algorithm that predicts relationship happiness and
longevity. I guess this is no different from the teen dances, where the girls
are on the floor and the guys hug the walls, until a slow dance comes along,
with groping possibilities.But now I'm working with a few pictures (maybe), and a few words and a whole lot of guessing.
And you wonder why I think dating sucks?
To be continued....
That sucks...good luck.
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