Image by spike55151 via Flickr
By Marlo Heresco
I’ve attempted the internet dating scene a few times. Ahhhh, who am I kidding. I’ve done it more times than I care to admit. It’s been an on-again, off-again, love / hate relationship. Somewhat comparable to my exercise routine. I figure if I participate just a little, I’ll get some sort of positive result. No such luck.
I began internet dating for the first time around 2002 (I’m guessing). I would sit, hidden behind my computer, wondering what to expect. When I first signed up, I was happy to get notifications people had sent messages. I would reply and the exchange of words would begin. Eventually there would be a meeting. I can’t ever remember seeing my new date and thinking Wow!…in a positive way. Almost every time, I would feel the sensible sudden urge to do a sharp turn back into the crowd I’d just merged out from. What the hell. He doesn’t know what I’m wearing and his inevitable ‘What happened?’ e-mails are easy enough to avoid. Nothing a little ‘delete’ can’t take care of.
I tended to migrate back to the painful internet option when the bars, dog walking, community volunteering, dance clubs, social clubs, book clubs, on-line networking, neighbor meeting and blind dates didn’t work out…oh wait, no blind dates. That’s where I drew the line. I always thought internet dating was ‘blind-date-enough’ and one source was plenty.
That pro
cess went on for a few years. Apparently I don’t tire easily. I really can’t say if it was more off than on, but it’s off now and has been for a long time. In the last seven years (since my first internet dating profile went up), I have been on a disastrous amount of unsuccessful dates. I have met the strangest of the strange face-to-face and I have to say, I had some great stories to share with friends!
One day I’d finally had enough. Absolutely out of the blue. I accepted defeat and knew I had met enough strange people to last a lifetime. I never did internet dating again.
Since those days, a lot has happened in my life. I scaled the corporate ladder. No applause necessary – it wasn’t a tall ladder. I managed a nicer car, a more suitable apartment and traveled – stepping foot in 164 cities in 25 countries – lots and lots of travel (you may clap now). The kind of travel you can’t do when tied down with a loved one. I look back on my strange internet dating days years and see how much I learned by not turning back into the crowd. I sit here once again, still single and still hidden behind my computer, typing a very different ending. One even I didn’t expect.
