Everyone's doing it but me.

On-line dating has been a primary source for meeting people and arranging dates for the past several years. I have also wasted hours and hours reading profiles of strangers, sending carefully composed messages to men who had nice profiles and who rarely responded, and being perplexed as to why the only (okay, the vast majority) men who ever initiated contact with me on-line were either extremely unattractive or incredibly creepy.

One day I woke up and realized that everything about on-line dating made me feel as if I didn’t measure up. But measure up to what exactly? I’m still trying to figure that out. I have friends who on-line date regularly, successfully and who even seem to have fun with it.  I’m still not sure what I was doing wrong; but I do know that even after years of profile tweaks, following advice in articles about how to do it successfully, more profile edits by male and female friends, periods of actively sending out messages, or winks, or ratings usually followed by crickets and then periods of despair and petulant avoidance... I still rarely had positive experiences.

The realization that on-line dating failure was actually hurting my self-esteem was a particularly tough moment of truth. The fact that I could feel rejected by (perceived) legions of eligible men in cyber space, and that this feeling was affecting me so deeply shocked me.

In real life I am confident, sometimes overly so. I am fiercely independent. I think that I’m pretty. (We’re not supposed to say that. Ever. Are we?) Much of the wonder and fabulousness of being thirty-something is coming into my own ability to be true to myself at all times, knowing that people are free to take it or leave it, and understanding that the ones who choose to take it are the only ones who matter. 

Yet somehow, the cumulative effect of on-line dating has left me feeling less-than. Less than my friends who can easily book four dates with four normal guys, in the time it takes me to get a single message back from a non-creepster in my age range. Less than the hundreds of other girls in my neighborhood with profiles who all must be prettier/younger/wittier/friendlier/easier to match than me, and who are undoubtedly having fabulous dates all the time. Less than what I know I actually am.

Once I had this realization though, the action plan was clear. Complete and total demolition of every account I had ever created. Match. OK Cupid. E-Harmony. Chemistry. Obliterated.

I’ve opted out of cycle, and it actually feels pretty good. But, sometimes when I’m feeling particularly lonely I still contemplate logging back into an old account (They never let you actually fully delete them you know.) “just for fun” or “just to take a look”. This is when I take a deep breath and spend an hour organizing my closet, or re-folding all the clothes in my dresser, or giving myself a mani/pedi.  Channel ling my unrest into something that makes me feel good about myself, even if it’s a silly project, gets me in a positive mindset. Which is where I need to be here in the real world.