Online Dating Disaster

So I was recently conned into the whole eharmony site. During an especially lonely moment, I set up a profile and took their “test”.

Within days, I had over 60 “matches”. However, after reading just a few profiles, I realized there was no way I could date through this site. The questions they ask you when filling out the profile aren’t geared toward fishing out the bad apples of the bunch. I think I should submit questions to these sites so. My questions would be:

· Are you a serial cheater?
· How do honestly feel about accepting your match’s child from a previous relationship?
· If you were to become a step-parent would you be comfortable being just a friend to your step-children and not a “parent” or a “disciplinarian”?
· Are you just looking for someone to clean your house, cook for you, and do your laundry?
· Do you have any sanity issues that we should be aware of?
· How do you get along with your mother? (if they respond that their mother is the most important person in their lives, it wouldn’t be a good sign)

I actually met my second ex-husband online. Yup, I said second. He was someone I should have asked the above questions. I probably would have learned a lot about him early on and saved myself and my daughter a lot of heartache.

No honestly, it wasn’t quite that bad. He didn’t cheat, he seemed able to accept my daughter and compromise on his position in her life, he did his own laundry and he even did the dishes, he seemed pretty sane until he got back from Iraq, but the mother issue was always there.

He deployed to Iraq for a year with his Army Reserve unit and when he came back, he couldn’t deal with our life, the house, my daughter, his job, and he started drinking a lot. My poor baby turned herself into someone else just to try to win his approval. It became pretty apparent that he was never going to give it to her. I had to ask myself if it was worth it. Was being with him worth what our marriage was doing to my daughter? The answer was pretty clear to me. Of course, it wasn’t worth it. So we said goodbye and started over again on our own.

I met my first husband when I was 17 so of course, there were really no important questions asked. It wasn’t until we were married with a three month old that reality intruded and I started kicking myself for not asking more questions. But to borrow a quote from my friend from college I was “young and dumb and looking for a place to land”.

I can honestly say now that I think I used my first husband more than he used me. I used him for a way to get out of my mother’s house. Having unprotected sex means that at some point you are going to get pregnant. I can say now that I didn’t think it would happen to me but secretly I wanted it to happen because it would force the issue and I would be able to leave with no guilt. (He used me for many, many things that I won’t get into now.)

So anyway, I sort of rambled off the subject here…what was I talking about?

Oh right, online dating. So it took me about three days and the weekend before I realized that this was a bad idea. After my last experience with online dating, what could I have been thinking?

My only defense was that I was conned by the commercials. You know the ones I mean. The ones with the happy couples talking all about how they met online and they felt so safe and secure with the process and then they met and knew they were right for each other, blah, blah, blah. Those commercials and the sappy romance books that I love to read are not a good combination at this point in my life. I have been divorced for 2 and 1/2 years. I haven’t had a conversation with a man who I was involved with since November of 2004. (Yes, we lived with each other for three months and didn’t speak.) So of course, I was feeling lonely and blue and thought for half a second that online was the way to go.

But honestly, I don’t feel safe with the process. In fact, I feel more scared of meeting some strange psycho online than being set up on a blind date or something. I plan on calling this weekend to cancel my membership and get a refund. No more online dating for me.

I don't really feel like I need to date. I feel pretty whole being a single-mom. It isn't like I am looking for my soul mate. I do have to admit though that having someone to lean on and talk to would be nice. Companionship. That is what is missing.

You know what, I am actually embarrassed to admit this, but I am not sure I even remember how to date?