“I will NEVER go online dating” Famous last words…

We really have to be careful of what comes out of our mouths – especially publicly – or we will find ourselves with our foot in our mouth. I don’t know about you, but I never found dating fun. Growing up as a person of faith, it was always brought to my attention that if you are the type of person who wants marriage and family, you shouldn’t really be dating someone who doesn’t have the same goals. Sure, when we’re young we want to go out and have fun, but what usually ends up happening is that one person starts to develop romantic feelings for the other (in my case it was usually me) and that can lead to trouble.

When you’re young, you usually meet someone in high school or college. If you don’t end up marrying that person, you are now out in the working world and might meet someone there. Have you ever heard anyone say that you should never marry anyone you meet in a bar? Guess where I met my first husband? The thing is, everyone seems to go with the “opposites attract” theory. But in reality, if you want a successful marriage and partner in life, my opinion is that you need to choose someone who is more like you in the ways that matter to you – your non-negotiables – but who is different enough in ways that will challenge you and keep things interesting.

If you aren’t a person who drinks much, or at all, WHY would you continue to go to bars to meet someone with whom you want to spend the rest of your life and be a co-parent to your future children? And as it turned out, that first husband of mine turned out to have an alcohol and drug problem that had devastating consequences to our marriage. It ended in divorce, but it gave me my incredible son, so I would do it all over again to have him.

After a few years of stepping back from dating, I was ready to test the waters again. I ended up going a high school reunion and connecting with one of the math teachers who also attended. We ended up dating for 10 years before he married me. I’ll spare you the details of why I stayed in that relationship so long. If you were MY friend and he didn’t marry you within a few years, I’d tell you that you were crazy – speaking the truth in love, of course.

That marriage lasted six years. I took another three-year dating break before a 15-month relationship with a narcissist. That relationship was the turning point for my realizing what I was doing wrong in the choices I was making, and that old definition of insanity started creeping in – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

I took a course from a relationship coach named Rori Raye that was quite intensive. You didn’t just watch a video or listen to a podcast. There was HOMEWORK involved. You needed to engage in the process if you wanted to see change in your life. There were many topics covered, but the one thing she talked about with which I was never really comfortable and had only tried for a few short spurts of time, was what she called circular dating. This is basically dating a lot of people at the same time until you get what it is that you want. And that doesn’t mean keeping yourself available for the guy you like the most.

You are worth more than that, and if the guy for whom you have the most feelings isn’t giving you what you want, then there are other “fish in the sea” who will. And the easiest way to meet a lot of people without going on blind dates from well-meaning friends, hoping to run into a handsome bachelor in the produce section at the grocery store or at the gym, is to put together several dating profiles with recent, attractive photos of yourself (guys are visual, girls), and explore the online dating scene.

If you’ve never taken the plunge, let me tell you that everything that you hear about online dating is TRUE. I know a few people who had to kiss a lot of frogs before they found their prince, but because there are so many sites and apps from which to choose, and in my opinion there are too many choices. The repeated experiences I had were that someone would start out gung-ho, chatting you or sending you messages consistently for several days, and then it was like they dropped off the face of the earth.  People want to move so fast that if you don’t respond to them in a day, they think you’re not interested and move on to the next.

I experienced many of the things you hear – ghosting, being disingenuous, standing you up, then calling you two hours later to see if you want to try going out again (you’re kidding me, right?), forgetting a year later that they stood you up once with no explanation and chatting you up like you’re a new person to them (KEEP A SPREADHSEET PEOPLE – THIS STUFF IS TOO COMPLEX TO KEEP IN YOUR BRAIN!), people who are racist, have no social graces, or who don’t care enough to take the time to wash the dirt from under their fingernails before meeting you for the first time. And this is supposed to be progress?

I am all for women being empowered, earning equal pay, choosing their own path, but I’m a child of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and I truly believe that the empowerment women felt during the sexual revolution of that time, forever ruined the courting rituals between men and women. (Don’t shoot the messenger – I may lose some friends here). As soon as women felt empowered to do the chasing, men didn’t have to work for it anymore.

We know that men and women are wired up differently – and that’s by design. But as soon as women started acting like men in relationships, I think it became confusing for men. Men are born hunters and they typically like the chase, so when women turned the tables, men didn’t know how to behave anymore. There was no courtship, there was no pursuit by men – and that’s because they could have a woman no matter which way they turned. It would take a strong man to turn down what was being consistently offered to him, with no promise of a future or taking the time to really get to know someone on a deeper level. 

For the women who were part of the “free love” revolution back then, things probably worked out for them just the way they wanted. But they modeled that behavior to their daughters who, generation after generation, have taken it to a whole other level. These daughters have complained that “there are no good men out there. Men only want one thing. I can’t find a man who’ll marry me.” And why would they? If all women were conducting themselves in a way that commands respect, then men would have no choice but to become chivalrous again.

I know that times change, and we’re supposed to change with them. But change doesn’t always mean progress. It was so time-consuming to manage these dating websites, that I could have better spent the time marketing my real estate business instead, with better results.

I wish I could tell you I met someone and lived happily ever after, but that wasn’t the case. I did meet one person online of character and integrity who came to mean very much to me. He was actually the first person I met online. We dated fairly regularly for about a year before I started the circular dating thing, and he was in-and-out of my life for the next three years while he got counseling and did some work on himself.

It ended up that he said he was content in his life not being in a relationship or dating, but I think that men who have been hurt extremely badly by a wife or girlfriend in a long-term relationship, sometimes just don’t want to take a chance on getting hurt again, no matter how much they say they want to or feel for you. It is difficult to continue spending time with someone you love if you know the endgame (for lack of a better word) isn’t going to give you what you want. But he was the one person that I felt was sincere in his heart, and I’m so grateful for the time we spent together.

And I guess you could say that I AM living happily ever after. Ladies, our worth does not come from being in a relationship but from seeing the person God sees. The woman he created you to be and all the gifts and talents he gave you that are unique to you. Find your worth in that, in other relationships, in doing things you love to do.

I said “never,” but I did. And it gave me some valuable things that I will carry with me. But I can say with confidence, after another year of processing, that I will never do online dating again. Instead of always chasing butterflies, it’s more rewarding when they come to you. I am certainly open to another relationship that leads to marriage if that is God’s plan for me. But it is not something that I will pursue. It will have to happen organically, and if it doesn’t, I will be content with other things in my life.

Even if your experiences were not what you’d hoped for, or something you considered a negative experience, I’m sure that they taught you something. Something about yourself. Something about human nature. Something about your values and what you will no longer compromise in your life just to have love.

Love comes in many forms. And whether positive or otherwise, it is still – ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS.