Adventures in Online Dating: The Hard Truth

I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I’d avoided online dating as long as I could.

In the years since my divorce, I have had many reasons not to try online dating.  Let’s be honest. The hard truth is that I really hoped that I wouldn’t have to. I hoped that meeting eligible guys would happen naturally and I wouldn’t be required to get so far outside my comfort zone. 

It’s one thing to meet someone at a party, the gym, or even the grocery store; you make interesting conversation, flirt a little, smile with the glow that comes from that spark of interest. You figure out who you know in common, talk about what’s going on around you, exchange numbers, and say you’d like to get together again some time. As opposed to relying on a dating algorithm to match you up, meeting someone in your community feels a little less vulnerable, more natural and organic. IRL, you can always hope to do a little digging to find someone who knows something about this person - you know, the whole 6 degrees of separation theory - and armed with that knowledge, feel less awkward meeting them for a first date. Or perhaps have a better idea of if you want to go out on a date with them at all. After all, if a friend can do the "vetting" for you, can't you just save yourself some trouble on the front end and avoid an awkward date altogether? 

Thinking back to the guys that I met organically, I either knew him from an earlier stage of my life or could identify a friend in common to vouch to some degree for his character and that he truly was divorced (which I hear isn’t always guaranteed when meeting someone online). Online, my mind jumps to the place of “just who the hell are these guys and how do I know they aren’t axe murderers?”  Or maybe I don’t wonder if they are really murderers, but how do I know they are who they say they are? The end of my marriage definitely left me with issues in trust; issues that I am still working on healing.

I think every divorced person wrestles with online dating for different reasons, but I could be wrong. Maybe when you first got divorced you couldn’t wait to jump on a dating app and check out the fish in the aquarium. If so, more power to you! For those who, like me, are a little more apprehensive about this, let’s get over this hump together. 

Ahem…”humps ahead?” Seriously???

The truth is that, Covid or no-Covid, guys that are a good fit for me are not going to just show up at my door. (The Amazon guys don’t count because they are all moving so fast that conversation wouldn’t happen if I wanted it to. LOL.)  And, while I did go out on 2 dates with someone that I ran into at the grocery store (yes, really), that is not a reliable way to meet men. 

If there is one thing I’ve learned from this whole Covid thing, it’s that I am not at my best in isolation. Though I am an introvert, I am also wired for community.  Spending all day in my own head is not great for me nor is it good to depend on my relationships with my children to meet my needs for connection. 

I believe that much of what I have learned about myself in the past few years of inner work must be put into practice within relationships, and for me that does include dating relationships.  I would love to find someone I enjoy spending time with, so considering my current work-from-home circumstances, if I am going to meet someone who doesn’t have an armload of cardboard boxes, I need to broaden my horizons and join the brave new-to-me world of online dating.  

Yeah, sure -- I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I think I’m ready. Instead of looking to my Amazon guy for my daily dose of conversation, I am actually looking forward to him delivering my copy of Margot Starbuck’s “The Grown Woman’s Guide to Online Dating” this week. I may never master the art of flexting (that means flirting via text for those of you equally as hip as I) and I can ASSURE you there will be no TikTok uploads on my dating profile, but at least you won’t find me loitering around the grocery store hoping someone notices me in the vegetable aisle and decides to come say hi. 

My attitude has changed, and I am going to look at this experience as a win-win adventure where I have the opportunity to meet new people, go to fun places, revamp my social skills, and see myself from someone else’s perspective. No matter if any first dates turn into a relationship, I have something to learn from the experience that I can take forward the next time I sit down to dinner with a man, make interesting conversation, flirt a little, and smile with the glow from that little spark of interest.