Adventures in online dating

I hate eating crow. The aftertaste, that bitter and lingering flavour on my tongue  — the one where I proclaim I’m 'never' doing something only to turn around and do it awhile later? Blech…. 

I have only myself to blame. Yup, I did it to me so there can be no whining, no complaining.

I’ve signed up to an online dating site. After boldly proclaiming that “it’s not for me,” it turns out I’m at least going to give it a try. What the hell am I doing? I truly have no idea. 

This all started before Christmas. I was hanging out with a girlfriend and we got to chatting. She’s hoping to meet someone with whom she can have a relationship. I’m in an amazing place in my life and, while I’m not 'desperately seeking,' I’m open to the idea of dating. After much discussion, it seemed online dating was the way to potentially meet eligible men since neither of us are meeting men any other way.

We decided to do this adventure together. We’d peruse the profiles of any men who might like our profile and any messages. And if we decided to meet anyone in person, we’d arrive and leave the meeting spot together for safety reasons. Of course, we wouldn’t sit in on the actual date (although that would be interesting).

So we built profiles, and added pictures and information designed to catch the attention of the right suitor. And then, quite honestly, I did nothing. I didn’t peruse profiles. I didn’t know, really, what to do. Which sounds kind of foolish but it’s the truth. 

It didn’t take long for me to catch some 'likes' onto my profile and a few messages as well. At the beginning, there were 24 likes. I had no idea how to respond to this so I did the only thing I felt I could do: I ignored them for a day. And then I started slowly looking at a few of them. It didn’t take me long to realize that, in an effort to stand out, most of them sounded the same. How was I supposed to know who I wanted to respond to? I couldn’t hear a voice or see a smile. I couldn’t look someone in the eyes and see the sparkle, the twinkle or the dullness or distraction in them.

The first message that came through was kind of an accident. You see, this man liked my profile. After reading his, I decided to like him back. Except this isn’t Facebook where I like something and then I toodle off. Oh no, liking back means 'let’s talk.' And I had no idea that’s what it meant so, moments later, I found myself being messaged. And the conversation went a little something like this:

“Older women are my weakness.”

“A youthful spirit and attitude are mine.”

“I’m 45.”

And suddenly he was discarded as a potential suitor. It wasn’t his age, although he is below the age range I had set. It’s that he lied about his age. He listed his age to be 50 on his profile and, in our first interaction, he responded with an age different than what he said. If he’s going to lie about his age, what else is he going to be untruthful about?

My second message started out fine; generic messages about the bitterly cold weather. After two of these, the next message went into a bit of detail about his life. He started out with a greeting that used my name but later he used the name of a different woman! In the last paragraph, he asked if my children lived with me, which would’ve been fine except I don’t have kids. Solid F for copy-and-paste skills.

So, even though I can have a bratty attitude, a potty mouth and a bit of sass, I dug down and found the grace to compose a message that busted him on his copy-and-paste abilities but in a  direct, tactful way. Needless to say, I haven’t heard from him again.

The last man I’ve messaged with was someone I started a conversation with. I started it generically (when you’re looking for common ground, winter in Alberta is a great place to start). The bantering in the messages seemed OK; well, except for the part where he wasn’t sure about watching my hockey team but would “kiss my neck even more” during the game. If we had been flirting, that comment might’ve been appropriate but, on its own, it was a little, well, weird. 

The messages we exchanged after that seemed fine until I messaged about my vehicle being frozen. I talked about putting a trickle charger on the battery and getting a new battery. And that’s when the interest started to wane. I didn’t ask for help. In fact, I don’t need help. I have some basic automotive skills and my friends include a retired mechanic who can give advice or a hand when required. The next day, I messaged him to ask how his day was going and he said he was flying out for work. Talked a bit about what he does and his schedule. And then he asked if I was working that day. I told the truth: I’m retired aviation and worked in a greenhouse this past summer. My plans were to travel in fall and I got to Portugal for the month of September and then had a medical hiccup that paused my plans. The response back? "You’re a busy lady." And not another message since.

There have been a few men who’ve told me I’m beautiful, which is nice, but honestly, I’d rather you complimented me on something I said in my profile. I’ve had a few brief messages where it’s clear there is no common ground. “Lots of men must be interested in you,” one wrote. What am I supposed to do with that?

Ultimately, whether I should be or not, I’m entertained at this point. Maybe if finding a partner was something I really craved, something that I thought would be the key to finding happiness, I’d take it more seriously and peruse deeper. But it’s not. I’m just in such a good place living my life as it is now that a partner would have to be a truly interesting, exceptional man to make me want to shift and balance my life to include him. And while I don’t think I’ll meet him on a dating website, I could be wrong. But I think, much like when I met My Favourite Husband, he will just appear one day and I’ll say “oh, there you are” … or not.

In the meantime, I’ll keep posting my adventures on my Facebook page for my friends to follow. I’ve received offered of bodyguards, offers to teach me to flirt, words of advice to be safe and cautious. My friends mostly laugh and make ridiculous suggestions but also in the mix are a few other widows my age who’ve also tried online dating. My posts have encouraged them to share and, like the reason I write this blog, if we can connect with each other and feel a little less lonely, discover a little more common ground, the world is a beautiful thing!

Now please excuse me while I go see if my next Prince Charming has appeared on this website.

❤️