“Do you want to be pregnant?” Asks a random guy on a dating website. “Huh?”
I respond. He repeats, “Do you
want me to get you pregnant?” Laughing and deciding to play along for second, I
answer, “Why, do you want to be a father?”
Random guy responds quickly, “Not yet, maybe someday, but I am willing
to be your sperm donor!”
Ummm thanks?!
This is just one of the many hilarious and often disturbing stories
that I could tell you from my dating disasters, er, adventures of the last few
years. If you think that one has to be
the worst, keep reading…
Let me give some background first. Yes, I tried online dating. You have to understand, I was one of those
girls who swore I would NEVER online date.
I felt like it was something to be reserved for that time in your life
where you have tried everything else and desperately want to get married and it
is your absolute last resort. Then it seemed I was hearing story upon story about women and men in my life and elsewhere who were in no way desperate, and they were meeting these great people online, falling in love and living happily ever
after. The storybook romances almost
every girl dreams about had been moved to the world wide web of opportunities.
So yes, I gave in and created a profile, my original profile
probably read a bit like this... “Hi, my
name is Jessica, I am wonderful and amazing and we won’t talk about the million
things that make me a walking basket case, but instead I will spend the next
few paragraphs extoling my virtues and exaggerating (just slightly) my outdoor
amazingness. And if you don’t believe
me, here are a few of my pictures that are in no way (*wink* *wink*) the only 3
I could find that I actually like of myself and show me in the most flattering
and awesome situations.”
Or something like that.
With such an opening is it any wonder that I was soon
inundated with “Winks” (the passive aggressive form of hello) and e-mails from
would be suitors?!
But I digress…back to the disasters…
--Side note - if you get bored of reading these dating stories, don’t
forget to scroll to the bottom and read about the life lessons learned from
these experiences before you leave! ;) --
To protect those involved, I will use nicknames instead of
real names in my stories (my friend Dave was pretty concerned for the poor guys
involved; I assured him I wouldn’t name any names).
Let’s start with best pickup lines by e-mail:
There was the “Foot Fetish Guy” whose idea of the best way
to get a girl to respond to his e-mail was to tell them he was obsessed with
feet and ‘was I willing to let him caress, pamper and worship my feet’???
Old Guy – asked me if I was looking for a sugar daddy and
let me know that he was well endowed both physically and financially, if I
would just give him a chance (he was 62).
Young Guy – asked me if I was one of those ‘hot moms’ he is
always hearing about and wondered if I would be his ‘Cougar’ – I was actually
offended at that one, I am DEFINITELY not old enough to be a Cougar, but I
guess in comparison to his 20 years on this earth I would seem to be.
Issues Guy – told me I had a beautiful smile and that there
was something in my eyes that made him believe we were ‘meant to be’, but that
because of his recent divorce after finding his wife in bed with his best
friend he has trust issues and would need to know that I don’t lie or cheat
(seriously, all that in a first e-mail?!)
Polyamorous Guy – asked if I am interested in thinking
outside of the box and would be willing to join he and his wife in a polyamorous
relationship. (I hadn’t even heard of
that before online dating)
I honestly could go on and on and on, but I will spare
you! Those are just e-mails, if you
think those are fun, …wait for it…
Let’s see, there was “Video Game Guy” who seemed great over
e-mail, but when meeting in person at Starbucks, he told me (in excruciating
detail) about his favorite video games and rushed through the end of the coffee
because he “couldn’t wait to get back to finish a game he was close to
solving”, but really hoped we could do this again sometime when he wasn’t in
the middle of a new game.
There was “Party Guy” who I was excited to meet because of
all of the travels he talked about in his profile. We went to dinner where I sat for two and a
half hours listening to the best places to ‘get wasted’ in the USA! (Minnesota, really?! Might have to check it out ;)
Some of these guys were truly nice guys, whose only dating crimes
were cluelessness about girls, and maybe social rules in general…
There was “Awkward Guy” this guy was seriously a
gentleman. Over e-mail he was so
complementary and really made me feel special.
We met for our first date at a sushi restaurant (my fav) everything had
lined up to be a perfect evening. When I
got to the restaurant I walked in and spotted him right away – at 6.4’ he was
the tallest person in the place. The
waiting area of this restaurant was tiny and
packed and as I approached Awkward Guy he instantly recognized me and bellowed
out “Jessica! Nice to finally meet you,
you look just like your picture!” Ok, if
you don’t understand just from that why I was instantly uncomfortable, I will
explain. Online dating is still a bit
embarrassing to admit and from the amused and sympathetic looks I was getting
from the crowded lobby; I knew they could feel my pain. Still, he was such a nice guy, it wasn’t
until sitting at dinner talking about our lives that I decided he wasn’t the
one for me. This was ultimately when he
shared with me that he and his ex-wife still lived together because it was
easier on the kids and that it was a great situation and that he thinks her new
husband is great and that she will just love whomever he ends up with. Big Happy Family?? Ummm not for me.
The next two I tell you about I have to preface with the
fact that I really am not a snob, promise.
However, that being said, you only have one chance for a first
impression. It is usually the guy’s job
to pick the place to go on the first date, whether it is just coffee, or
dinner. Normally, guys, just a tip, on
the first date a girl isn’t looking for the nicest most expensive place to go,
but she is looking for a little creativity and thought. You don’t even have to spend any money; you
could go to a beautiful park or somewhere interesting, free and fun. It is not about the money spent, it is about
the creativity that shows who you are.
If that makes sense.
IHOP Guy – so you can guess by the nickname where this guy
took me on our first date. Seriously, he
was a really nice guy, but IHOP? He
asked me where I wanted to go, I told him to just be creative, he chose IHOP - It
wasn’t a deal breaker, but it also wasn’t a great first impression.
Another guy, we’ll call him “Second Date Guy” was obsessed
with kissing me on the first date before we had even met in person. We had a hard time finding a time to meet up
and so we ended up talking for a couple weeks beforehand by phone and e-mail,
which I normally won’t do. I have had
bad experiences with that because you can too easily get emotionally attached
to someone before actually meeting and seeing if there is ‘chemistry’. Anyway, Second Date Guy would call me and
talk about how much he already wanted to kiss me and was there anyway I would bend
my “no kissing on the first date rule” for him.
I told him no, that I most likely would not kiss him on the first
date. So he came up with this elaborate
plan for our first date. We would meet
for drinks in the afternoon, our ‘first date’ and then after that we would go
to dinner, ‘our second date’. I gave him
props for his creativity and told him we would see how drinks went. I have to tell you that the fact that he was
so focused on the physical aspect of our relationship even before there was a
relationship was a bit of a turn off for me (it was more than just talk of our
first kiss that I had to steer him away from).
At this point though, we already had the date set up so I reluctantly
went, but had my best friend on stand-by for a “oh no there is an emergency and
I have to leave” phone call if needed. When
I got there I told him right off that I wasn’t free for dinner and we ended up
having a great date. Again though, he
gave me the impression throughout the date that he was more interested in the
physical aspects of dating, especially when he told me he was bummed I didn’t
wear something more revealing to our date.
When I was hugging him goodbye, he left me with these parting words, which
I am sure were meant to spark regret in me for my decision to forgo the ‘second
date’, he said, “it is too bad that you can’t go to dinner, I was going to take
you somewhere really fancy, like Olive Garden!”
‘nuff said?
The final story I will tell you before I turn to
the more serious, life lessons side of my dating disasters is about Karate Guy. Karate Guy seemed perfect on paper and in person. He was fit, a martial arts expert, with
gorgeous blue eyes and blond hair and we loved all of the same things. We met up for FroYo next to a local park and
talked about everything. We were really
hitting it off! He suggested we keep the
date going and walk over to the park and enjoy the beautiful day. We talked as we walked and everything seemed
to be lining up magically. We found a
grassy knoll to sit on as we continued to talk, there were people everywhere,
children playing with their parents nearby, people exercising, etc. Karate Guy and I were deep in conversation
when I noticed that he kept scooting closer to me, which was fine, I was
definitely feeling the chemistry. However,
when he was almost in my lap, I realized he was going in for the kiss – in all
honesty, I wasn’t too bugged by that. I
liked him; it was a bit forward on a first date, but why not? So I kissed him back. Ladies, he was a great kisser! But then the trouble started. Remember, we are in a crowded public
park. All of the sudden our kiss went
from a nice kiss to him pushing me down on my back and before I could say
anything one of his hands was down my shirt and the other was reaching up my
shorts! I quickly sat up and awkwardly
said that I think we were moving a little too fast for me. I was all of the sudden grateful to be in a
public park and thankful for my rule about always dating in public places. Still the fact that he was that aggressive in
a crowded park told me a lot about him. The
walk back to the car seemed to take forever and was awkward! Bummer.
_____
As I am writing and remembering these and many other
stories, they don’t seem as bad as they did in the moment. I do admit to leaving some stories out for
the sake of such a public forum, but really, I think it could have been a lot
worse if I hadn’t been pretty diligent in screening out the real ‘winners’ in
the e-mail phase. A girl can’t be too
careful out there! I’ve been lucky to
have experiences that are more funny than scary.
I do have to tell you that not all of my online dating
experiences were awful. I have met some
truly great guys online. Even if they
are not ultimately a ‘love match’ some of them are still my friends today, some
even have become close friends. There
are even those I think could have worked out differently if time, distance or
life’s sometimes ugly circumstances didn’t get in the way.
For me, online dating became a bit addicting. If I was feeling down about myself I could
just pop onto my dating site of choice and feel instantly better about myself reading
emails from guys who would sing my praises in every creative way you can
imagine, just to get my attention. That
superficial high was always only temporary however and usually left me feeling
worse off about myself then before.
It also became a way for me to question my morals and blur
the lines between what I knew I believed to be true and what I questioned. For example, if I really liked a guy, but he
was more casual with his faith in God, I would find myself making excuses for
him and thinking maybe I was the one who needed to change. Or with the physical boundaries, guys would
tell me that my boundaries were outdated and they would make me feel like I
would be alone forever if I didn’t relax those boundaries a bit.
It all became too much for me. It messed with my mind and my heart almost on
a daily basis. I began to question
everything I had been raised to believe in.
I needed a break. I needed to
refocus my life back on my savior and get it off myself.
Online dating wasn’t the problem; I was the problem. I was so nit-picky with dating, I had no idea
what I was even looking for, let alone what my own personal identity even was.
Ladies (and guys as well), you will never be happy in your
marriages, relationships or even friendships until you take your focus off of
you or looking to another person for your happiness and put your focus on Jesus
and on loving those around you. You need
to find your identity through who God created you to be and not on what the
people in your life tell you that you should be.
People will always disappoint you and let you down. There isn’t a perfect “prince charming” out
there who will never let you down or hurt you.
We are all works in progress. We
have to be willing to look beyond the obvious imperfections that we all have to
see the heart of the person and ourselves. We have to be willing to forgive ourselves
and others and grow from the negative experiences, not let them hold us back
from our future successes.
“For
you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise
you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I
know that full well.” Psalms 139:13-14
I have recently taken a break from dating to figure out who
I am and to be content just being me. I
am not saying I wouldn’t date if God brought along the right man, but for now,
I am content with just me and Jesus.
