If you could just stop looking for someone special, you might save yourself some pain

As I mentioned the other day, I've wanted to post about dating, girlfriends and ex-girlfriends. This past month has been very strange, with some developments in the relationship department.

First off, I joined a dating site - a very popular one - as I've done in the past. It has worked fairly well as far as finding dates and interesting people to meet, a couple of whom have turned into good friends. I met the girl I moved to Houston for on there and my most recent girlfriend was met through the site as well. I like being able to weed out the people I think I'm not going to be a good fit with before I go and spend time and money on something that has no possibility. I'm also "over" trying to pick someone up in a bar - as if that has any real potential anyway.

In any event, the first few days of being on the site are fraught with reading dozens of women's profiles, viewing their pictures, deciding whether to email them. Then, if I do, what do I say to (a) break the ice and (b) grab their attention? After the initial fun of it and waiting for responses, it actually gets annoying trying to find "new" women to message because the women who show up in your (sometimes too specific) searches are always the same ones you've already sent an email to. On the rare occasion that you do find someone new and they meet your criteria, you send them an email and again, hope for the best.

Usually, within a day or two, I'll begin getting responses. From there, sometimes things they say, questions they ask or responses to questions I've asked, will either keep me intrigued or tell me that this isn't someone I prefer to meet.

Conversely, after a few days of having my profile out there, I also begin to receive initial emails from women who are definitely not my type (how they ever thought that I am their type remains a mystery) or only saw a picture of me and decided to email me. I can usually pick those women out easily because they ask me a question that, had they read my profile, would've been answered already. My favorite example of this is the woman who sent me an email telling me she "must be dreaming" and that I'm "her perfect match". Really? After checking her profile, I determined we were never meant to be just by reading the first line in her "About" section. It read, "First and foremost, Jesus is a part of my everyday life...would prefer someone with the same values." Check please! If you know me at all, you'll know that I do not partake in a religion of any kind and it is clearly stated in my profile that while I don’t have a problem with you exercising your right, please don’t think that I’ll be joining you. This was an easy decision to give her a polite, "No thanks". There's much more, funny stuff to that story, but I don't care to talk about it, so I digress...

Now, of course after reading and re-reading women’s’ profiles and a few communications with them, either through email or over the phone, some of them are ready to go out. This is where it gets interesting.

First, there was the San Diego girl who moved here last year for work. We started communicating on a Saturday morning and by that evening were meeting for drinks. Our personalities meshed incredibly well and we had a good, flowing conversation the whole time we spent together. We left the bar around 130 am and decided to get together the next day as well for lunch and a movie. Well, with the crappy weather that day, she offered to order take out and rent a movie at her place. That was fine by me. We spent the majority of the day together, but by the end, even though we interacted well with one another, she irked me. There was no sense pursuing something with her if I could hardly stand her after just one day.

Next, there was the high maintenance girl. She emailed me first, with a simple, but effective, “What’s up?” She was very attractive, which of course grabbed my attention, but after reading her profile, I was much more interested. I emailed back to tell her she was intriguing, funny and had remarkable eyes. We communicated one more time before she told me to call her to get together. She preferred that rather than emailing or spending time on the phone. So we met a couple weeks ago for lunch on a Saturday at a place near her house. After about 45 minutes, I knew this wouldn’t work because of numerous reasons, but mostly because I could already tell, she was high maintenance. I say that as though it’s a bad thing, it’s not. I have plenty of friends who are that way, but they’re not people I could date. Anyway, we ate and talked and I think we both knew this would be it, but we were polite and when we finished, we decided to leave it at that. As we were saying how nice it was to meet each other and eventually goodbye, she did give me a nice hug however, which was a little surprising, though it’s always nice to get a hug from an attractive woman in a public place :)

To be continued...and then some…