Mid Life Crisis or Dating Crisis?

Does anyone out there remember the days of courting and romance? The days when a man called a woman, they went out on two dates before he kissed her on the cheek at her front door? Well someone remind me what that was like. If you are single in today’s world, you are lucky if you find that again. Many singles have lost the traditional sense of dating. I don’t know what dating is like in most of the country but in the central part of the United States where I am from, it seems to be about how quick you can get someone in bed.

Ok, I am a female in my mid thirties who has not dated since I was 20 years old. When I got divorce from my husband of fifteen years, I was scared to death to "date" again. I didn’t know if I remembered how to do it any more. When I was 20, it was about parties and hanging out with your friends. If you "hooked" up with someone, that was great. Well now, I don’t know what it is about. Not only am I single in my thirties but I am also a single mom. Now that word seems to scare 90% of the single men out there. Do they not realize that they are also titled as "single dads"?

I tried the conventional way of going out with groups of people and trying to just meet men where ever we ended up at. Well usually you end up at a bar, and honestly, a bar is not where I want to meet the man that I am hopefully going to spend the rest of my life together with. Most people where I am from go to bars looking to hook up for the night, not a life time. So, when that flopped I tried meeting men through my friends. The downfall to that is if it doesn’t work out, your friends feel bad and sometimes it ruins a good friendship. I then proceeded to thinking maybe I could meet someone through work. Well that was fine accept for the only men that were interested had a downfall, they were MARRIED! Ok, so what does that leave me? Since this is the day of technology and every singles dating article you read talks about online dating. So after months of thinking about it, I thought I would give it a try. I have a few friends that had met men online and one has even gotten married to the man she met online.

If you have ever done the online dating, you know that first off you have to come up with an intro line. You have to decide if you want to be funny, honest, mind blowing or just plain stupid. So for some ideas I decided to got on and look at some of the intro lines others had come up with. You want a comic relief, just go through and read some of the things people come up with. Some are very creative and they get your attention, others are just plain stupid. I want to share with you a few that I thought were absolutely off the wall and why would you say that and I really wonder about the people that click on these and want to even view that individual’s profile. Here are a few of my not so favorites:

"Horney as hell and not getting satisfied"

"Sex Sex Sex and that is all I want"

"Nice guy with a attitude" (note the misuse of grammar)

"Yes I am an IDIOT but damn I’m fun"

"Bored in hotel"

Those are just a few of the intro lines that just appalled me. Do these guys really think that they are going to get a good decent woman to respond to them. And who knows, maybe they are one of those guys that is trying to see how many notches they can get in their belt. Seriously girls is this the kind of guy you are looking for? Well not this girl. Don’t get me wrong, there were some really unique intro lines and some that were just to the point, plain and ordinary. Finally I decided to go with a simple intro line, now that that was done, it was time to proceed. I thought the hardest part was over.

The next step in this "project", was to describe yourself. What? Have you ever tried to describe yourself? Now that is a challenge. What all do you tell someone that you don’t know about yourself? Are you honest? Do you say the blunt truth, sugar coat or hit and miss with it? Wow, this was going to take some time because I am the last person who can describe myself. I didn’t know what all to say. I didn’t want to tell everything about myself because I believe in leaving something for the imagination. I also didn’t want to be too vague and sound boring as some would say.

So here we go, I decided to tell just a little bit about myself. I didn’t want to tell all of my hobbies and passions, some things you don’t want a man to know until you get to know them. There are way too many "weirdos" in this world today. I went with the "hit and miss" version. Telling just enough to get someone curious but not too much to give away your entire life. It took me at least two hours to finish my descriptive section of this online dating profile, not because it was that long, just because I spent most of that time having a personal debate with myself. I think it would of been easier just to have a close friend of mine do the descriptive part of it for me. I think some days my friends know me better than I know myself.

The next step to this game a questionnaire section. It ask you for your sex, what sex you are looking for, your location, age, religion, job status, income, zodiac sign, kids, and etc. I was almost expecting them to ask me my blood type and shoe size. You do have the option of not answering a lot of the questions, you can put "any" or "I’ll tell you later". The cool part was you could take these personality test. One was your type such as a giver or idealist. The other one determined what your romantic personality was like. I found these rather interesting. After I took those two test I sent them to my closest friends just for the humor of them. All of my friends responded that those test described me to a tee. The results told me things about myself that I almost didn’t want to admit. I turned out the be a "Giver" and my personality type was a "Romantic". My ex would of laughed at that but what he didn’t realize is that I was never my true self with him because he didn’t deserve that part of me.

The last step in this was to post your photo. Whoa, step back a minute! I did not want my photo online. One I know that when I would get bored I would go through and try to see who was posted on these sights from the town I lived in and use to think how pathetic they are for being on these sites. I surely didn’t want someone I know doing the same thing to me. Yes, my attitude towards the whole thing has changed and I no longer judge people for doing it because where I am from it is really hard to meet new people. I decided to skip the photo option because I still wasn’t sure I wanted my photo posted. I am not a fan of having my picture taken and sorry guys, but I am a mom of three and not all of us a fortunate enough for things to go back to normal after three kids in five years. Granted I am not a "dog" but I am also not "Barbie". I decided I was going to go about this with the "personality" approach. I was curious to see how many guys would respond with out a photo posted. "Submit", now we wait and see.

After about a month, I was starting to get discouraged because there was no action on my profile. I thought ok, this is another flop but I was out of options. Finally after a few more weeks I started getting a few messages sent to my profile account. A few of them, I would read their profiles and didn’t even waste my time replying because there was nothing about them that I was interested in or they didn’t fit my type of man. Granted I am not quite sure what my type is but I know when I see it I will know it. One night I was online goofing around and got a message from a guy that I thought might be ok so I responded. We talked briefly back and forth and he started asking a lot of personal questions. Well I would not give a lot of information out to someone I don’t even know. I am willing to meet someone in a public place where I know others but I will not tell them my life story over the internet. This guy got an attitude because I wouldn’t answer his questions the way he wanted me too so I politely told him to get lost. Ok, one down how many more will we have to go through?

After a while, I decided maybe I should make the first step towards this online dating instead of waiting for them. One weekend when I didn’t have my children, I stayed up late and was reading through profiles. I found this one guy who’s profile just really intrigued me. So I sent him a message. I was really nervous about it and I really didn’t think he would reply back, reminding you that my luck with this whole dating thing was not any good. A few days later he replied back. I thought ok we can do this now. We spent a few days sending messages back and forth and he seemed like a really down to earth guy. Well of course he was insisting on me sending him a photo. I wasn’t too sure of this but thought ok I will do this. The only problem was I didn’t have any photos of myself, I was always the one taking the photos.

A few more days went by and he was till asking for a photo so I told him that over the weekend I would see about getting someone to take a picture of me so I could send it to him. The funniest thing happened over that weekend. I was at some friends house and this guy shows up. Introductions were made and it turns out that the guy I had been talking to was also a friend of my friends. Talk about a small world, yes I do live in a small town and I knew that he was also from the town I lived in. We didn’t talk much that meeting because one I had my children with me and two it was kind of awkward for me. I am normally a really outgoing person but some situations I am not comfortable in and when that happens, I am not as outgoing. He left before I did and he said he would talk to me later. Well guess what, never heard from him again. At first I was ok with it and just figured that I wasn’t his type. Needless to say, at this point in my life I was use to rejections.

A few days later I get another message from a different guy. We talked only a few times through the site and he asked if he could call me. At first I was leery of giving out my phone number but thought why not. It was a cell number and you can’t just look them up in the phone book search online and find an address to that number without paying and most people aren’t willing to do that. We finally decided on when would be a good time to call. (He had not asked for a photo so I thought this was a good sign). When I received the phone call I was rather relaxed, considering a phone conversation with a stranger is much easier than a conversation face to face for me. We talked for a while and he asked about me and we shared some information about each other. He talked about meeting for drinks one night. I thought ok, he didn’t even know what I looked like. (I knew what he looked like because he had his picture on his profile).

The next day I thought I should probably be considerate and send this guy a photo of me. I sent him a message through the dating site and told him if he gave me an email address I would send him a photo but to be nice because I don’t take good pictures. After receiving his email address, I sent him a picture. He replied back and said not to worry cause I looked good in this picture. What a relief I thought, a guy who isn’t all about looks and material objects. So I waited that week for him to call back and set up a night to go have a drink. Guess what girls, he never called. At first I didn’t think much about it but then I started to get kind of upset over it. Not so much upset, maybe more angry than anything. I decided to just let it go because if looks was all he was looking for than he wasn’t the man for me anyway.

After another month of this, this kind of behavior started to become the pattern of my online dating experience. I was getting really discouraged about this whole dating thing, my gosh it had been almost two years and I still had only been on a few dates and they all ended up as a disaster. Men just wanting sex! This is when I decided I was going to share my experience with others. I am sure I am not the only single mom/woman out their that has gone through this. Our society puts so much pressure on women about how they look, what size they are, their completion, hair color and so on. It is no wonder we have so many young girls who become anorexic and why we have so many doctors going into plastic surgery. Sorry girls, but I like to eat and I can not afford plastic surgery. Surely there is a guy out there for me who will like me for me, the average person that I am.

I finally just gave up on online dating and started to use it as "research". I have as of now deleted my profile because I was tired of dealing with "stupid" men who seem to think that they are hot enough to get the perfect woman. Guys, look in the mirror, you are not Val Kimore from "Top Gun" just like most of us women are not Cindy Crawford. I think that most of our society has forgotten that true love doesn’t come from what is on the outside but from what is in the inside.

Yes I gave up on online dating but I haven’t given up on true love. Granted what I was looking for 17 years ago when I met my husband, ex-husband now, is totally opposite of what I am looking for now. I think as women, we want the hard body and the stud also when we are young just like the men want the perfect "10". The only difference is, women tend to grow up and realize that there is more to it than looks. Men, most of them won’t ever get that. That is what makes us so different. Men need to realize that most of us women who have children have put our bodies through hell delivering children, raising children and taking care of our families. Not all of us are fortunate enough to be blessed with the opportunity to go fix the damage that has been done. Just because our bodies have been a little bit mangled, doesn’t mean that our hearts have.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have faith that there are a few good men some where out there and hopefully some day I will meet one of them. Until then, I am content being who I am. I let my ex try to change me and realized that that was a major mistake. So for you girls out there that are losing hope and faith in the dating world, don’t give up. Don’t lower your standards and don’t beat yourself up trying to be someone you are not. Mr. Right will find you and love you for who you are, not what you look like. So until he finds you, enjoy your life, smile every morning when you get up and look in the mirror and remind yourself what a beautiful person you are inside and out. Always be true to yourself and always dream big.