I spent the last year or so on my own trying to focus on myself and healing from the craziness that was my life when I was married for six years. It was a necessary part of the process for me. Amid the control and abuse, I’d lost a sense of identity. I started asking myself a lot of questions trying to sort through the garbage that had been put in my head. There was a ton of self-doubt. Doubt about my ability to love, my sexual identity, my spirituality, and my self-worth. I started to ask what I really wanted in life and who I was. The answers came slowly almost to the point of being excruciatingly slow. But, they did come.
A few months ago I decided that maybe it was time to get back into the game. Starting to date again was a pretty scary prospect though. In the past ten years, I’ve become fairly introverted. I didn’t realize this until I started asking all those questions of myself. So the idea of meeting new people was a confounding one. You have to figure out where to meet people, how to sort through all of the information overload to find someone who fits your personality. Let’s face it, the world is filled with weird people.
I decided to try online dating. Why? Well, its simple really. I work weekends and evenings. Most of the options offline are on days and times when I work. So, I have to make plans in advance to attend things. And I can’t always guarantee the time off. I’d like to get to know someone before I go through the trouble of making all that effort to get together over coffee only to discover that we’re not even remotely suited to one another. Now, I’ve tried sites geared for BBWs but found that I wasn’t getting the attention that I wanted. A girl likes options after all. So I went to paid sites like eHarmony that promise to help you find someone compatible with you. That was a waste of time and money. Not only is the process long to sign up but the process to even get to talk to someone you’re matched with is ridiculously long as well. So, I started with the free sites. Shouldn’t meeting people be free?
I ended trying out Zoosk, and finally I’m on OkCupid. And on the OkCupid site, I’m getting messages from people. What I find the most disturbing though, is the absolutely absurd amount of people who are on these sites looking for a quick hookup and nothing else. It is like the whole of human interaction depends upon the connection of genitals. Now, maybe the fact that I am not into casual sex makes me entirely out of touch with modern dating rituals. If that’s the case, I’m more likely to remain single.
Since when did flirting become making blatant sexual advances? It seems that I get more messages just blatantly asking for a hookup or friends with benefits rather than engaging in any sort of meaningful conversation. Flirtation used to be an art form. It used to be a matter of appealing to someone’s mind as much as their sense of attraction. Now, it seems that flirtation is more about being crude.
Women want to feel desirable, I’m no different in that regard. But there is a difference between appealing to my sense of self-confidence and simply saying “Hey, I want to hook up.” I’m not the hook up type and if they even bothered to read my profile that would be obvious.
I’m still on the site but, I find myself disgusted by the apparent lack of quality individuals on there. I simply don’t go on as often as I did when I first signed up.
My goal in going on the sites was to meet people to socialize with and maybe from that meet someone that I connected with on a more intimate level. Truth is that I’m wondering if the effort is even worth it. And I’m trying to think about other ways to meet people locally. There aren’t many options outside of the bars and I’m just not a barfly. Finding other things is difficult in the area when most of the activities are in the evenings and on the weekends. For me this is more about widening a social circle. It isn’t about sex. And yet, I feel like an odd duck in the modern age.
State of the Fluff 