I joined the online dating world this past June. (Horrified Gasps) I know, I know the stigma! But being a Single LDS Lady in the south is like being single in Antarctica, slim pickings at best and if you are a Tall Single LDS Lady forget it! I thought online would be a good option to get to know people and ease back into dating since its been a long time since I have been in this scene.
For the most part it has been good. It has been a very different experience to walk into. There is a whole other code of rules and games then in person dating. I started this journey by reading everyone's profile I was interested in and if I was interested after reading what they said I would find common ground and send a paragraph long email. I was so excited to be 'dating' again that I went full force and head long into this process. The possibilities were so exciting to me and everything was new! What I didn't know was that the majority were lazy and didn't bother looking at your profile before sending a 'flirt' with something like "You're Cute!" or "Hi". Oh man those flirts get under my skin. Then after all the hours I spent sending out thoughtful emails I only got a few back, and of those most were short one sentence replies to my inquiries and nothing beyond that. First learning curve, wait to invest time to make sure its worth investing.
Then the IMing feature seemed like the answer to the email dilemma. Here is a way to find out if I want to invest time in them. Perfect! I had some really fun, snappy conversations but then I got several creepers. My first encounter was Mr. Early Bird. I may need to add a caveat here that at first I would reply to every email I received and every IM because I didn't see the harm in it and I thought it was the polite thing to do, right...
Ok back to Mr. Early Bird.
This guy lives in North Carolina and started IMing me. I replied and check out his profile and realized he didn't have the things I wanted height included but before I could make my escape he had already said I think we should meet in person and that he would drive down to meet me. Literally this was four lines into our FIRST conversation ever!! SAY WHAT?! So I politely said oh I think we should get to know each other better before we meet in person and wasn't that kind of a long drive. He said oh no it was only like 2.5 hours and what did I want to know? So I ended that conversation as quickly and nicely as possible. I am all for showing your interest and taking charge but four lines in, really! Especially since the first two are Hi, Hey. Yeah way creepy!
Second was Mr. Digits
Now this guy was very...aggressive. His profile sounded interesting and when he started IMing me I was looking forward to getting to know him and seeing if the interest would transfer to our conversations. But again I was shocked and a few lines into our dialogue he wanted my number or Skype name so we could talk because he didn't like IM. By this time I had become much more cautious and put the brakes on and for him that meant goodbye. He said I couldn't live in fear and I need to be willing to take a risk. Because giving you my number proves I don't live in fear?! Really it would have proved I had no sense. The best part of Mr. Digits was he was on another dating site I was on and approached me again a few weeks later and didn't even realize that I was the same person. This time he was willing to get to know each other a bit before hand, must have gotten rejected enough to realize that was way to bold of a maneuver to try out that soon but the conversation was dry and I didn't try hard at all because I wasn't interested at this point and I remembered crazy aggressive guy.
The third IMer that really sticks out is Mr. Must Be In A Bikini.
Now this whole experience with him just cracks me up. Seriously he was way out of line but I found the whole thing hilarious and mainly because I had no interest.
Mr. Must Be In A Bikini started to IM me. I checked out his profile and he fit all my qualifications except he was a bit young but I figured what the heck. We started IMing and I was reading through his profile and it was apparent to me that I really didn't have any interest in him and the conversation wasn't very engaging but so far things were at least fun so I kept chatting in case I had misjudged him and he just had a bad profile. Well I asked him what his favorite place in Utah was and his reply was you'll have to come out and see but you'll need your bikini. I already knew after he wrote this were the rest of the conversation was going but I let it play out and watched it unfold. This was the rest of our conversation that I can remember:
Me: 'So its somewhere with water? but I don't wear bikini's'
Him: :( Why not?
Me: Because I don't think they are modest
Him: I think you would look good in one
Me: I probably would but I'll never wear one
And then his end went dead. Totally cracked me up. But that confirmed for me that he just wasn't my type. Second learning curve, don't be nice unless you are interested because you will regret it!
Obviously these are the extreme examples and there have been lots of great IM and email conversations but these are more fun to tell and I can remember them. I have learned alot about myself through this online process and I have become much more selective and not afraid to be that way. And it has paid off for me and I hope those that I was blunt with. I did like two men enough to cross the huge gulf between online to in person. Tune in for the details on those two meetings.
