Online dating is a weird thing. Apparently it's become widely accepted and I even read somewhere that 1 in 5 relationships started online. That's a weird thing.
Confession time. I signed up for an online dating service. Two, in fact. Although one required monthly payments and I'm just not about that. The other, which is free, has been a bit of a roller coaster. I signed up on a whim and then was too lazy to complete a profile so I uploaded a picture and left it at that. A week later, I signed back on and had 26 messages. It shocked me that so many people would be interested with only a picture to judge (I'm no troll but by no means a "babe" either). I perused some of their profile and was surprised at how not lame a bunch of them were. That's pretty rude but, I mean, what had I really expected out of the experience? Not to meet many winners, that's for sure.
Spent several hours figuring out the site, responding to messages and all that. It was interesting. I instigated conversation with one person whose profile impressed me. It made me nervous actually. But I literally had nothing to lose (save a little dignity) so I did it.
What's weird is that that one person ended up being the most interesting. After some light conversation, I thought to myself that I might actually be able to develop feelings for this person somewhere down the line.
That freaked me out.
I immediately disconnected myself from the dating website and now I'm here, contemplating. How could something of substance stem from an online encounter. It works for some people--I don't doubt that--but I absolutely can't see how it would work for me. He's one of those people that if I had met him in person first, I'd probably be mildly interested. But I didn't. I met him through a computer screen and that's weird. It's weird. Really weird.
I did what I thought was the cordial (aka chicken shit) thing to do and sent him a message saying I was gonna take a break from the site because I was a bit overwhelmed. He could e-mail me or find me through some other social media if he felt like it. But he hasn't. Not that he needs to; I probably wouldn't.
The other weird thing about online dating is that you never know how many other people they're talking to. I'm chatting with him but there are dozens of other guys sending me messages as well. Where does the exclusivity step in? If I ignore all these messages, am I being rude? Closing doors that may end up having more potential than this one I'm walking through right now? And how many girls are sending him messages? He's cute and interesting so why would he need to turn away from those? That would drive me nuts, to be honest. I'm not the jealous type but I like to know what kind of competition I'm dealing with. In online dating, there really is no way to know. Again, it's weird.
I just can't deal with it right now. Taking a two week sabbatical and then maybe I'll take another stab at it. Not holding my breath for this "interesting guy" but maybe there'll be others when I return.
