Lately I find myself mildly horrified at the dating world. Usually, it is because I am still in it at all.

For a while, my single status could definitely bring on a bout of generalized anxiety disorder. However, my grandmother used to tell me that, “it was better to be alone than in bad company.” Well, considering she was a divorcee in 1950’s east Texas while raising an infant son, I do not take her advice lightly.

Truly, the longer I find myself “keeping at it” by giving online dating “one more shot,” the more I find solitude preferable. Seriously, the quality and quantity of bad company available makes celibacy enticing…after all, there’s always Netflix to fill those long, lonely nights.

A discerning reader might be questioning what all the fuss is about? After all, if I am still single, it must be because:

A. I’m physically displeasing to the opposite sex

B. I’m not interesting/ my personality sucks

C. I’m too intimidating for most men

D. I’m too picky

Well, about that…sometimes that tired phrase, “It’s not you, it’s me” may have some truth to it. But, bold as it may be, I can tell you that in the cases that follow, it was most definitely not me, it was soooo them.

1. The “Golden” Boy

Last year, I decided to try an online dating site I had never tried before. I spend a lot of time focusing on work, but I know I need to focus more on my dating life. Thus, I renewed my effort into the foray of online dating. I was on the site less than a day and I was getting a ton of notifications, when this little gem appeared:

Him: Ok umm yeah its Random. Lol but, you were dared to give someone a golden shower and in return received $10, 000 for doing it. Would you chug water and do it, Or probably feel offended for being asked and decline? Umm It’s a legitimate question.

Me: Get a life you disgusting troll.

Him: Actually I’m sure you do things that are to others, seconds I’m pretty sure I do have a life considering you’re the one who’s 31 and single. So that says a lot about your life of having a relationship. But thanks for the advice

My initial response was anything but elegant (the troll line was the result of several revisions). So, being a Christian woman, I reigned in my ire as much as I could. I shouldn’t have responded at all, but my itchy trigger fingers got the best of me. His response? He basically told me that I was old, single, and pathetic. (There’s a pun in here somewhere about being pissed off– I just know it.)

Truthfully, this was the most flagrant and disgusting online dating interaction I have ever encountered. The others have been a little creepy or disconcerting, but never outright gross.

But…to each their own. May he have happiness showered upon him…by someone who had a whole lot of asparagus.

2. Mr. Too Complimentary

I have been accused by friends as being “overly cautious.” I take issue with that. In a world where a woman can be randomly abducted in the Target parking lot or chained up in some sadist’s basement for years on end, I fail to see how being “overly cautious” is a bad thing. When my radar starts going off about a guy, I tend to follow it.

However, in the wake of the overly cautious accusations, I ignored my radar. I put those alarm bells on silent. After all, on paper, Mr. Compliment was a winner: tall, athletic, handsome, and a lawyer.

Seemingly? Yum.

Mr. Compliment and I ran into each other on a couple of dating sites. We would communicate, but we never actually went out. At one point, we even became Facebook friends…still, we had never met (see caution was totally thrown to the wind!).

After a couple of years, we came across each other again. This time, we decided to get coffee. So, we traded numbers. We exchanged a few texts. In his first to me, he conveyed that he hoped I’d had a good weekend. He called me gorgeous. It was after 9 PM (In my experience, when a guy messages after 9, it has never led to any real, substantial relationship). In the mean time, there were still emails going back and forth. In one of them, he mentioned something about cuddling with me. Do you hear the foghorns going off? I sure did. I backed off and let things go silent.

I won’t lie…the silent fade is how I like to let most lack of lift off romances go…meaning, if I have never actually seen you in person and things get weird, my guilt complex gets a day or two of exercise while I let the deafening silence convey my newly ignited disinterest. Truly, this guilt thing could easily be its own article about the ingrained obligation to not be rude so many women feel when rejecting a man, but I digress. Another time, perhaps?

Over the next couple of days (and in the coming weeks), I started to question myself.

Had I been too hasty?

Was I guilty of being “too picky”?

Was I letting a good guy go?

So, I reached out a few weeks later. By that time, I knew I might be too late, but I was kicking myself that I may have been too hasty and dismissed a man that could be a great guy. I had convinced myself that I made a rush to judgment and barred myself from potential happiness.

I was too picky.

I was too cautious.

He responded to my offer of coffee with this:

“I thought you weren’t interested because I thought you were beautiful and wanted to cuddle…”

Wow. He totally nailed it. I inwardly chastised myself. Maybe I am just not used to someone finding me attractive and being so blunt about it.

Still, those little bells were jangling. I decided to deflect with humor:

ME: Well you should prob meet me first. LOL

HIM: You are beautiful with an insane body.

ME: Thanks. But photos can lie. LOL

HIM: Lol…not really…beautiful face, perfect skin, awesome dark hair, nice perky chest, great legs, etc.

HIM: Disagree?

I was so not okay with the turn this conversation had taken. It stopped being complimentary when he mentioned my “perky chest.”

What the hell? This guy had NEVER even met me, but he felt like it was okay to talk about my breasts????

I let things go silent, and I called my best friend, Rachel. Incidentally, in the past, she was one of the people who suggested I might be too overly cautious. Luckily, her instant reaction validated my instincts. She said he sounded like a creeper.

I finally felt justified, but I was still nervous about offending him. But, I defriended him on Facebook anyway, and in the mean time these rolled in following his previous text above:

HIM: Or not.

HIM: And I’ll stop texting 🙂

HIM: And you defriending me… alright, good talk

HIM: Weird

I never responded.

Truth be told, I still feel conflicted about the whole thing. It weirds me out that he started talking about my body in that way. At the same time, I feel like a lot of that may be me– that it is instead a product of my own insecurities. I think that on a lot of levels, I was afraid that he would meet me and be disappointed.

However, I was also scared that I would meet him and wind up at the bottom of some hole putting the lotion in the basket.

Like I said…conflicting emotions.

 

Part Two coming soon…