My recent response to online dating...
Well, that was a colossal waste of time.
Not because he wasn’t nice enough or couldn’t carry a conversation. He wasn’t bad looking or too terribly awkward. He was a very normal guy, who was only a little nervous, and I really have nothing bad to say about him.
But why is it that a few minutes of in-person conversation can tell you infinitely more about someone than a few emails and a scripted online profile? If the guy I met last night had come up to me when I was out with friends, I would have spent two minutes tops talking with him and walked away. The End.
Instead of walking away, I spent almost two hours with him on a perfectly good Friday night, and left with all of my qualms about dating reconfirmed.
It’s a colossal waste of time.
And something in me had hoped I would be surprised. I really had tried to squash any expectations (good or bad) and was just going to go and see and it wasn’t a big deal. If it was bad, maybe I would have a good story to tell. But it wasn’t even really so bad. It was just… pointless.
One of the main of the reasons I gave up on dating a few years ago was that I couldn’t figure out why I continued to spend time either a) looking for a guy or b) with guys that I didn’t really like, when there are so many people I DO like to spend time with and so many things I would rather be doing that are actually interesting. It just dawned on me that if there are only 24 hours in day, maybe I should not waste precious hours doing things (and/or seeing people) that I didn’t enjoy or didn’t enrich my life. And there you go, dating = done. It wasn’t even really a conscious decision, and definitely not a hard one to make.
But now here I am, a bit older, a few more gray hairs later, and something in me hit a tipping point and swayed toward doing what I’d always taken a very firm stance against = online dating.
Let’s be honest, it was really 70% joke, 25% challenge, and 5% interest. But that 5% interest really was there, and I can’t deny it. But even with eager friends setting everything up and me not really doing much except a final screening, it still felt artificial, too much like a Biggest Bargains page on Overstock.com. All you have to base your choices on are two-dimensional images and how well they can string a sentence together. Why on earth was I thinking that would be enough?
Has it come to this? Is this really how I’m supposed to meet people now?
I suppose I could go out on the town, like I used to, and meet guys who are now likely much younger than me who are likely there with few honorable intentions. I could go to church and be lumped in with all the ‘older singles’ groups, filled largely with folks that there is no question why they are still single. Or I can online date and spend hours staring at images on a screen, when two minutes of flesh and blood could give me a more accurate synopsis and, getting back to my original point, not waste anyone’s time (his included).
Are these really my only options?
And then there’s the other not-to-be-spoken-aloud question, am I this desperate?
As I have gotten older, I have watched single women around me lower their standards with each passing birthday. Jerky or dorky boyfriend here, marathon online dating there, with each outcome as unfulfilling as the last. Aren’t we supposed to be getting wiser as we get older? Shouldn’t the bar be going up, not down? I am continuously mystified by women who settle for less than they deserve just in the name of being with someone.
And then there’s my other big issue – my ego. Frankly, I am spoiled. I have always been used to being “looked at” and not “looking for.” And maybe that’s the mentality I need to shake, the humility I need to find, or maybe that’s the question I need to answer – do I really want to “look for” someone at all, like a holy grail of happiness? Or would my energy be better spent (there’s that theme again), searching for happiness inside myself, rather than in travelboy074 from Columbia, MD?
Or, is all this “find contentment within yourself” stuff just my own proverbial cop out? (It has indeed served me well over the years.) And maybe my blatant determination not to “waste my time” is just a defense to shelter and protect my time, for people I love, things that I love… and there’s maybe the real fundamental issue in all of this = I do have time to share and love to give, and having a really special person to share that with and give that love to, I think, would be wonderful. And maybe, overall, it just makes me sad that there really seem to be no good options out there on just how to find that.
Except, of course, the one that’s been there all along….
God, can you help a sister out?
8.29.2009
8.05.2009
expectant
For months now, I have been counting babies – pregnant friends, friends delivering, another colleague with one on the way, and even a sister! Finally, I decided that I just had take a tally of this baby boom happening around me, and when I did, even I was shocked at the number – seventeen. That’s right, seventeen little ones that I know who have either recently arrived or are on the way. Is there a Facebook group for that?
As the number escalated over the past few months I have pondered aloud to friends that surely there is some symbolism, some deeper meaning in this. One wisely pointed out that all it meant was that I was in my mid-30s. Another said that there is indeed a global baby boom happening right now. I’ve about deduced, though, that it may just be God’s way of telling me to be patient.
See, while seemingly half the women I know are hatching out bambinos, I have been scheming for months (ok, maybe longer), trying to find the escape hatch out of what I have deemed a miserable job/city/life/whatever. I have been interviewing, looking at houses in my destinations of choice, searching online for jobs, writing plans and building websites for my own dream business – in short, flailing about in daily indecision about what is my next perfect step. All the while thinking that certainly staying put was not an option. Wait? No way! I couldn’t take another day.
Long story short, I am still here. Any day now I am hoping for news that will point me in one way or the other. Surely, that door of opportunity will crack open and hopeful glimmer of light will soon trickle through…
But still I wonder, what if it doesn’t? I mean, I have apparently accepted that I’m just going to have to endure daily “misery” until i do something else or move somewhere else. So, if I don’t get Divine Direction soon, is this my assigned state of existence from here on that I need to just learn to accept?
When I actually stop to think about it, though, how much of our lives are spent waiting? Comparatively, there are likely a lot more dull/boring/routine days than enlightening ones; we spend a lot more time behind closed doors than skipping through open opportunistic ones. Life is largely made up of “in the meantime,” which is why I guess the Bible talks so much about daily prayer and a day’s work and new mercies every morning. God gets routine – after all, he invented orbiting planets, flowers that bloom every afternoon, and lapping waves against the shoreline.
And this is where I can take a lesson from the expectant moms in my life = after months of watching their bellies grow, of waiting (often uncomfortably) for the due date, what results is among the greatest of all joys. Sure, there are routine feedings, hundreds of diaper changes, but as that precious New One develops and blossoms, all of those months of waiting are largely forgotten. Every first giggle, first smile, first tooth are new treasured moments sprinkled among otherwise normal hours.
But new baby or no, can’t we all approach our daily lives a bit more that way – looking for magical moments amid the “dirty diaper changing” we all do? Knowing that months of being uncomfortable, months of waiting, will result in something wonderful? Can’t I, at least, learn from the many, many new lives growing around me that there are some growing opportunities for me right now as well?
What sound is more soothing to my soul than waves crashing against the shoreline, over and over and over again? What is more hopeful than rays of light spilling over the horizon, regardless of if that horizon is brand new, or the very same one I saw yesterday...
"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
As the number escalated over the past few months I have pondered aloud to friends that surely there is some symbolism, some deeper meaning in this. One wisely pointed out that all it meant was that I was in my mid-30s. Another said that there is indeed a global baby boom happening right now. I’ve about deduced, though, that it may just be God’s way of telling me to be patient.
See, while seemingly half the women I know are hatching out bambinos, I have been scheming for months (ok, maybe longer), trying to find the escape hatch out of what I have deemed a miserable job/city/life/whatever. I have been interviewing, looking at houses in my destinations of choice, searching online for jobs, writing plans and building websites for my own dream business – in short, flailing about in daily indecision about what is my next perfect step. All the while thinking that certainly staying put was not an option. Wait? No way! I couldn’t take another day.
Long story short, I am still here. Any day now I am hoping for news that will point me in one way or the other. Surely, that door of opportunity will crack open and hopeful glimmer of light will soon trickle through…
But still I wonder, what if it doesn’t? I mean, I have apparently accepted that I’m just going to have to endure daily “misery” until i do something else or move somewhere else. So, if I don’t get Divine Direction soon, is this my assigned state of existence from here on that I need to just learn to accept?
When I actually stop to think about it, though, how much of our lives are spent waiting? Comparatively, there are likely a lot more dull/boring/routine days than enlightening ones; we spend a lot more time behind closed doors than skipping through open opportunistic ones. Life is largely made up of “in the meantime,” which is why I guess the Bible talks so much about daily prayer and a day’s work and new mercies every morning. God gets routine – after all, he invented orbiting planets, flowers that bloom every afternoon, and lapping waves against the shoreline.
And this is where I can take a lesson from the expectant moms in my life = after months of watching their bellies grow, of waiting (often uncomfortably) for the due date, what results is among the greatest of all joys. Sure, there are routine feedings, hundreds of diaper changes, but as that precious New One develops and blossoms, all of those months of waiting are largely forgotten. Every first giggle, first smile, first tooth are new treasured moments sprinkled among otherwise normal hours.
But new baby or no, can’t we all approach our daily lives a bit more that way – looking for magical moments amid the “dirty diaper changing” we all do? Knowing that months of being uncomfortable, months of waiting, will result in something wonderful? Can’t I, at least, learn from the many, many new lives growing around me that there are some growing opportunities for me right now as well?
What sound is more soothing to my soul than waves crashing against the shoreline, over and over and over again? What is more hopeful than rays of light spilling over the horizon, regardless of if that horizon is brand new, or the very same one I saw yesterday...
"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)