Online Dating - Yeah or Nah?

Like most singles, I have taken a dip in the online dating world.   I met both my husbands on Match.com.  You would think I would run in the opposite direction now, but I'm obnoxiously persistent sometimes.  Nah, I'm more likely just daft.

The online dating world is all around funky.  I do it mostly for entertainment when I'm bored.  When they message me, I then realize they are actual, real life people.  This realization is both shocking and amusing.  I no longer cater my responses to the profiles of who is messaging me.  My favorite is when they ask immediately if I work out.  I really, really, REALLY want to say, "no, my hobbies are eating pizza, chips and ice cream, and spending hours on the couch watching reality TV with my five cats."  It would be a lie, but the entertainment value of seeing how fast he unmatches me...priceless.

I used to answer in my most hopeful self...
"Yes!  I love to work out!  I swim, bike, run, lift weights, do yoga....you name it!"

My profile pic

All of which are true, but like once a year for the cardio exercises.  Weights I do often.  But that honest answer to a fitness fanatic doesn't get me anywhere.  So in the past I lied because I just really wanted him to like me.  Regardless of whether I liked him.  Yes, I was that sad.

The real answer is: "yes, I do work out but am not a fanatic and do not enjoy spending more than an hour a day on it.  I have other crap to do."

This answer is appealing only to a certain group of people.  But headliner:  I should personally appeal to only a handful of people.  And vice versa.

Honest answers usually weed out the ones who aren't a good fit or genuinely interested.  As interested as you can be with a few pics and a few words on your phone screen.  Honesty is always the best policy with someone you haven't met yet.  As long as they're not asking anything intimate and inappropriate.  Which unfortunately happens.  Often.  No, I do not want to share my favorite position.  No, I will not show you what undergarments reside under my clothes.  Firm. Eye. Roll.

(Pandora just played the score to the Cinderella movie.  Dear Pandora: if I wanted to listen to sappy movie music, I would have created a station for such.  But I chose Chopin which is the opposite of sappy and romantic...epic fail.)

I annoy even myself these days.  I can't watch romantic movies.  I quickly change the channel if a country song is about love.  I am the epitome of the disgruntled woman who has been burned one too many times.  I actually told my friend that her husband is going to mess their 9 yr. old up by being too sweet to her because she will have a skewed perspective of what men are like.

Pause for dramatic effect.

Check on the old, crotchety woman now taking over my body.

I've often thought that maybe my dad is to blame for my failure at romance.  It doesn't get better than him.  Even when I was young and wounded by seeming daddy issues, I knew how amazing he was.  He didn't quite set the stage correctly for picking a mate.  He was too good.  Is too good.  I should have allowed him to pick my mate.  Maybe I would still be happily married if we had gone this route.

As it is, I'm stuck in a world where lasting love is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.  We can do romance.  Temporarily.  But most of us can't keep that candle burning for long before we tire or run far away because the reality of loving someone through thick and thin causes us to drown.

People, including my lovely non-fanatic fitness self, are hard to love.  We desperately want love, but our instinct is to push everyone away.

Or maybe we are genuinely happy with our couches, N
etflix, and online dating apps.

For now, this is where I am camping out.