Hello readers. I know it has been forever but I stepped away intentionally because I needed to re-group from an online dating situation that made me re-evaluate that entire bat shit crazy world.
I am not going to share anything that most of you haven’t experienced but this is my story. Before I back up to the beginning of time I feel I should explain the silence since August. It is an important element to why I started this blog in the first place. I was, most recently, on a dating site called Zoosk. Like my other attempts on match.com, plenty of fish and Bumble, it was brief. I have learned that the same men are copying and pasting their profile with little originality. It’s like “Hi there. Have you got anything new and inspiring to say since you started online dating 10 years ago? Oh, can you also post current pictures that are a true representation of you?” I have been on exactly 4 different sites and have not lasted more than 6 weeks on any. I think that was a record for me. I mostly enjoyed being single and just living my life. I often thought that perhaps there isn’t someone for me. Who ever said that everyone needs a life partner? Maybe some of us are just meant to be alone. Not that alone is a bad thing. I embraced it. In fact I look at my closets and wonder where there is any space to share with a man. Being single for as long as I have, you just take over your personal space. I used to leave a dresser drawer empty in hopes a man would arrive and I could say “LOOK! This drawer is for you!” I took the long road of dating because I knew exactly what I wanted and it is about goodness and kindness and laughter. So before I start at the beginning, let me begin at the end.
This past summer, while sitting poolside with one of my ride or die girlfriends I decided to create a profile on Zoosk. This way we could shop for men while sipping cocktails and marveling that many of the men trying to meet her were also talking to me. We are vastly different looking goddesses. She is a blonde hair, blue eyed beauty with a slim figure and I am various stages of brown hair or rose gold, brown eyes and curves. We would laugh because we thought men had a type. We look nothing alike. We decided it was merely because we had a pulse and would engage conversation. As usual, many men just like to be pen pals. Let’s be honest here. I am running out of time on earth. If you are truly looking for a life partner, let’s see if there is any real connection face to face. If not, I am moving on. I super enjoyed the ones that told me they weren’t making any effort to drive to meet me. I had to drive to them. What?! One man was more than 2 hours away. Not happening. This site seems to not understand your parameters that you elect for only showing matches within a certain radius. My favorite was the man that was nearly 5,000 miles away. He was in Hawaii. Does that even make sense? No. Just a dumb site overall. I think I was on there for about 2 weeks when I heard the news of a friend whose sister had gone missing. A friend of mine reached out and proceeded to give me details of her disappearance. I was sick to my stomach because you truly put yourself at risk on these sites. Against her advice I agreed to talk to a man that lived locally. He convinced me to meet him at a nearby lake to go for a walk. I thought I could feel safe saying yes. I walk the perimeter of this lake all the time. There are generally other people there with their dogs. It’s peaceful. Okay, fine. I went.
I arrived at the lake and we happened to park next to each other. We had the awkward “Nice to meet you moment.” I wish I could explain the vibe I got because I instantly knew something was off. None the less we started our walk. He proceeded to tell me why he recently had moved to this community, which was only 3 months prior and then told me he was selling his home so suddenly. It boiled down to a broken relationship. My thought was “well that didn’t last long.” Then I started hearing him tell me that he has a history of police showing up with whoever he has been with. That’s when the first red flag went up. Then he shared that he has anger issues and is in therapy and he only typically dates equally angry women. Second red flag. Then he asked me what made me angry. What pushed my buttons? I explained I don’t really get angry. There are better solutions than anger. I explained that I am more of an empath and you should be able to try and listen to another person and work through issues without anger. Then he raised his voice at me and I thought “I may be in trouble here.” He was loudly saying “Something has to make you angry! Let me show what my last relationship was like.” As I am standing on the walking path of the lake he raised his arm, bent it and stepped into me and shoved me backwards. I caught myself before losing my balance down the back of this hill and thought “I can outrun him because his knees are bad. And where the hell is everyone?!” No one was around. I know my face showed shock but I remained calm and just started walking. He followed and never said another word to me. I simply got in my car and drove to a bar where I knew some friends had gathered. I was shook but never said a word to anyone. The only thing going through my mind was how stupid I was putting myself in that situation and have I learned nothing from writing this blog?! This was an angry man and the next day I had someone look up all the public records on him. He clearly is a troubled man. A lot of court documents. It was at this point I decided I was going to log off online dating forever because between this incident and the news that a friends sister was found dead after meeting someone online, I decided it is time to check out.
This happened in August. I am finally coming clean with it because it has bothered me. It shut me down. I just told a few friends the other night for the first time. It is NOT okay for a man to hit or shove you. It pissed me off. It scared me but I am okay. I just wanted to explain the reason for the silence. I needed to be ready to share this. I have moved on to a much happier place since then and I am off online sites forever. Now that I’ve shared the worst of it I promise the rest of the stories will have you laughing.
I am happy now. #Livelovelaugh #smile #avoiceforwoment
Time to rewind from the beginning!
A Voice For Women 