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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?