We have come a long ways since “You’ve Got Mail.” Online dating is no longer the wave of the future. It is here in full bloom and here to stay. Yes, it can be daunting and risky. But, what form of dating isn’t? My step-daughter and I joke because she found her fabulous husband of 10 years in a bar and I found mine (her father) online. Ray and I have now been happily married for almost 7 years. But that is not to say it was all smooth sailing out there in the cloud! Here is a glimpse of my journey.
First thing I discovered is the importance of the profile. Initially I left things rather wide open and I got some – what is the word? Oh, yes: losers. One who just would not go away. One that turned out to be a scammer. An attorney that I dated for three months and who turned out to be way too much like my ex-husband. And then my gardener. That was tricky. He was rock scaping my front yard and I really needed him to finish it! In looking at his profile I saw he was 10 years younger than me. So I very truthfully told him that I simply did not date men younger than me. And, yes, he did finish my yard.
Then I changed my profile to say I only wanted to date men who had a master’s degree or higher. Since I am a professional with an MBA, that made sense anyway. That did help the traffic flow. Even then, the profile mattered. There was an engineer. As I am sure you know, you communicate inside of the dating site system until you agree to meet. He suggested that we get together for lunch. I decided I had better take another look at his profile. Good thing. His idea of a fun weekend was to go camping in a tent in the middle of nowhere. So I wrote back something like this, “You seem very nice and I am sure I would like to meet you. But, you need to know that I am a couch potato.” Never heard back. That was the idea.
Another thing these sites do is give you five pictures a day of people in the system that match what you say you want. So I would scroll through and, based on picture alone, decide whether to click on the picture and look at their profile. Ray’s picture came up. I scrolled past it. Then, like a cartoon character, suddenly changed direction and went back. Good thing. He had a black fedora on and a martini raised in his hand. It was some time later that I realized what his picture had told me: “I am going to enjoy life – just try and stop me!” We now enjoy life together.