ONLINE DATING IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

I have come back to the land of normal - well, as normal as I can be! It has been nearly two weeks since I signed up for online dating and I hardly slept that first week. After a few lessons on what not to do, I finally learned it is just a numbers game, and don't get so excited.  I have had four good nights sleep.

First a little about me. I have that expressive personality I talked about yesterday, and I hate to remind you, but I am the monkey. Okay....are we done cracking up? You will all get your chance to show your true colors, I will get around to talking about each of the social styles. We all have some funny quirks.  The expressives are emotional, fun loving, lively, spontaneous, sociable, to name a few. You get the picture. (The positives) I did not sleep much because I was so excited about meeting Mr Right, and of course when you are a new member, you get lots of smiles and emails.  I kept checking email 100 times a day, and getting excited and nervous all at once.  It is still uncomfortable for me because as I said earlier, everyone knows when a member has looked at your profile. There are files for every action: smiles sent, emails sent, a favorites file, members who have looked at you, IM file, etc. Of course there are the same files for me, the receiver, as there are for everyone.

Why is it uncomfortable for me? Excuse me while I be a little vulnerable....I would rather have all the prince charmings chase after me, and then I can sit back and say - yes, yes, politely decline, no, no, OMG! No! Let me see if I can explain how it looks. After you log in, the 'profile activity' page appears, and it is filled with little boxes (about 2 1/2" in size) of men who are members. A photo, age, city and state, and the beginning of their blurb talking about their personality. Some guys don't post a photo. I have learned to be skeptical about those.  If you see someone in your, let's say 100 mile radius, that looks interesting, you click on the words SEE PROFILE. Here is where I become shy and reserved. Which are words that never describe me! Everyone knows when someone looks at your profile. Okay, some might say 'so what'? Well, What if they see my photo and profile and don't get immediately interested, or if I look more than once, that darn web site keeps notifying them of the member that 'checked them out'! I think it's very uncomfortable, I'm sorry, I know I'm being a wimp. But, as my friend Julie always tells me, that's why I signed up in the first place. To find a wonderful man to cherish and adore me, a man that when he looks into my eyes I feel loved and protected, and I melt into his arms when he hugs me, and my hyper-spazzy moments are washed away because I found my Prince Charming! I guess I didn't mention I am an incurable romantic, now you know! Intellectually I know she is right, and I am getting better. I am sleeping and eating and not checking email constantly - yes, I had to force myself last week to eat 3 meals every day. Gaunt is not a good look for me, yuck!

All humor aside, here are some things to look out for if you do sign up. And by the way, I strongly suggest it because I know lots of people that have had great success and even found a spouse, and are happily married. I guess I got all my negatives thrown at me in my first week, but now I know and I am extra cautious. Day number two I received a smile and as always you have the opportunity to read his profile and respond. He had  gorgeous green eyes, handsome face, big smile, all of it. I responded back with a short email and a thank you. He sent a cute card the next morning - he seemed like such a gentleman and a romantic. I wrote a much longer email, gushing a little too much about how I thought he was sweet and thank you for his email and kind words. He wrote a long email, and he sounded wonderful. Then after two long emails from him, he sent a short one, did not respond to anything I said except to say that's nice, or some innocuous statement. But his tone had changed,
and he asked for my phone number and a personal email "so I can be rest assured", whatever that means. I was done. He sent 2 more short emails saying "hope you are having a good day, write when you can". Blah, blah. Two red flags, actually three, not having a conversation back and forth, tone change, and asking for my personal information.

Two days later I am online and an IM chat box comes up.  A man is asking to chat, his age and his city all comes up, also PRESS here to see his profile - Yes, No thanks, or Maybe later. I told myself to be brave and hit Yes. I did -and he was fascinating. His writing reminded me of someone whose English is their second language. I found that fun and interesting. Everything isn't always as it appears. I asked if he spoke another language and he said yes, Italian. Well, stupid me got excited - I am half Italian, and male members can see Italian is important to me because Italian is even part of my user name. It was not a long chat, but I did what you are not supposed to EVER do until after you meet them! He asked for my email....but  I gave him an email that I only use for companies that I don't want to have my personal email. I know, I know, I should have known better!  The next morning I have an email from him. I am still excited and not sleeping much. But the email was strangely reminiscent of the creep with green eyes. When I read it to Julie, she said the same thing. Red flag...my emails were forced now. I want to play detective because I can't let this guy keep doing this. I say a few things about myself and ask him more questions. He isn't all that bright because his writing changed, it was hilarious. He forgot to write his broken English emails. He sounded just the same - maybe he hit copy and paste. Scary thought, maybe he has done that many times before to scores of women. This has a good ending.

I stopped writing to him and the next day called the customer service number. They were great, I had written down the information so I wouldn't forget anything. We talked about a half an hour and I found out they had closed his account (the guy I met on IM) the next morning. As we were talking she looked up green eyes and said there were some inconsistencies. I gave them permission to read all my emails from him and I forwarded my outside emails. Within the hour he was also gone from the website. I am hoping he is gone for good. I did have one other creep send me a smile. I naively felt I needed to respond to all of these. I learned you DO NOT need to respond to all of them. Sometimes I am too nice and don't want to hurt people's feeling. I also have to admit something embarrassing - I gave a couple guys the 800 number so they could get help to post their photo. Stop laughing so I can finish this, please! Anyway, this last guy was from Missouri or someplace and I just politely declined in an email and said we aren't a good match and too great a distance. He had not posted a photo. (Beware sometimes, not always.) Mr. Nasty wrote, 'please send me your phone number and call me, or text me some photos of you, and I will text you photos of me'. Yuck!!! Delete and block, my favorite things to do.

Live and learn. We all have to be cognizant about the precautions of online dating- really any online activities.  I am not sure what these guys think they can do. But I guess there are desperate people out there, especially lonely women. I deleted that email account, even though it had very little info in my profile. Sorry about the length, but with online dating so big now, I am hoping this helps some women to learn from my mistakes.
Thanks and God bless!   Aleta

"Give yourself fully to the adventure of today." author Sarah Young