Sombody help me out here!

[Goddess4ever]

Alright....I hope nobody thinks that I am an egomaniac here....but I am perplexed! Alright...so awhile ago, I decided to see what this "internet" dating was all about. SO...I went to a site, posted a profile, yadda, yadda. I DID NOT put my picture up for a reason, but I made it clear that I do have one, and that all they had to do was ask for it. Anyways...I get messages all the time. I respond to almost all of them, with the exception of the ones that are not in my city, or when the guy is wwaaayyy older than me (I am 25). Now, my friends and family compliment me on my peronality...and the way that I look. The number 1 thing that I get complimented on is my sense of humor. I do tease people, but I make good natured comments of myself as well (Yes, I make fun of me...lol). The men on this site, as well as my friends like me for sense of humor, my intellegence, my conversational skills, my depth, my warmheartedness, my confidence etc, etc. I seem to get asked all the time, why I am single.

 

When the picture question comes up, I send it over. Now, there are 3 "types" of responces that I get.

 

1)Gotta go! (I state in my profile that I am not some fluffy girly-girl, and if you are looking for someone to look good on your arm, so that ppl think you are "the man"...look somewhere else. Obviously they "run" because they aren't attracted to me)

 

2)Wow, you're really hot (These ppl I don't end up talking to for long because they are only looking for sex)

 

3)They say cool, or thanks....and we continue chatting...and the inevitable "do you want to go for coffee sometime" comes up.

 

Let's just say, there has been far less in category 3. Anyways, I am just wondering if there is just something wrong with men online. I don't have a lot of experience in this area...so I am curious. There aren't a lot of ppl that I really click with (which is fine....because not everybody like everyone else). But I am finding that it is denting my self-esteem more than it should be. Some days, I am like "Whatever"....and I don't really care if they are attracted to me or not. Somedays, it stings more than it should. Some days I feel like these men are looking for absolute perfection. I guess I am just tired of being told that I am so funny, and have such a great personality, blah blah....then they never follow through on it. Is this the Male equivelent to playing mind games? Or am I misperceiving something? If anyone can help me out....it would be really fabulous!!! Thanks a bunch

[SLBG]

Hi Goddess4ever,

 

Thanks for the great post.

 

I dont think you are the only person that feels that way, and I dont think that this problem only applies to men.....

 

There is a sad fact in life.... most people spend there whole life looking for the right person when they are right under there nose.

 

The internet seems to attract many different people, some are nice, some are strange. Online dating seems to attract alot of people as it seems like an easy way to find the perfect partner.

 

If you walk into a bar you will see lots of different people, most of us only ever look at the people we are attracted to. We dont give others a 2nd look and would never consider that they could be the perfect match.

 

You need to consider all the people you dont look at, understand that these are all lost oppertunities and that Mr Right could be the other side of the bar.

 

Now online dating has grown over the past few years, more and more people are signing up to sites, adding there pics and profile and hopeing that the right person comes along.

 

If love and happiness was as simple as a few clicks on the internet we would all be in love with our perfect partner.

 

I think you need to give the online dating a chance, dont let it get you down as there are alot of people out there all looking for the same things as you.

 

If you search to hard you will not find what you are looking for. Most people that meet there perfect partner often was'nt looking. Dont spend your life looking for some one esle to make you happy.

 

Learn to be happy with your self, learn to love you and be happy on your own.

 

Once you have done this people will see this, they will sense your confidence and want to be apart of your life.

 

Im sure alot of people find what they are looking for on the internet but dont give up on the possibilty of meeting a partner in the real world.

 

You never no whats round the corner. Stay positive and get your self out there. Open up the possibilities of meeting a partner, go out with your friends, join a club but overall ENJOY YOURSELF.

 

Remember: You dont marry the person you can live with, You marry the person you cannot live without.

 

Good luck in what ever you choose.

 

SLBG

[shes2smart]

Oh my God...this sounds so familiar! I went through something similar in my mid to late 20's, although back then it was the local newspaper's personal ads, not the internet.

 

I went through all the angst about my looks. I scribbled pages in my journal along the lines of: "is it more important to look good or be a good person...if being a good person is more important why do I keep getting rejected...these guys are all idiots and can't think for themselves, they've all bought into the cultural stereotypes of "attractive" and I don't fit"...and on and on and on.

 

I'd have what I thought were great conversations on the phone with potential dates, get to the "meet for coffee" part and then never hear from them again. I always wondered what was wrong with me.

 

And then, after bashing myself good and hard for a long while, the lightbulb went on...there's nothing wrong with me. I am who I am, I look the way I look, and if someone doesn't like it, it's not my problem. Maybe I don't spend hours at a gym, and maybe I refuse to starve myself and be rail thin, but those things aren't "me" anyway.

 

When I'd go meet dates, I started approaching it differently. It's not that I didn't try to make a good first impression....I just changed the approach. Focused on being myself, instead of trying to be what I thought they might want...and if that meant I showed up in a t-shirt and jeans with a flannel shirt tied around my waist because that's what I felt like wearing, that's what it meant. If they couldn't get beyond a few extra pounds or the smallish breasts or quick wit, then I really shouldn't be spending time with that person anyway.

 

To some extent, I think all of this is just part and parcel of the dating process. It just gets accellerated when you're dating through the personals or online, because there's less information to work from. Think about all you are losing when you lose face to face contact -- not just the outer appearance, but you're losing voice inflection, you're losing body language, you're losing that subtle energy all of us give off. Someone may look compatible "on paper" who in reality is like oil to our water. If you would've encountered this person in person, they might've never been interested but you wouldn't have been aware of it because they would've kept interaction with you brief if there was interaction at all. It takes longer to make that determination with personal ads/dating sites as it's indirect interaction for the first portion of the process.

 

Some other big breakthroughs I had with this:

 

1. I realized it's not my job to make them like me or find me attractive.

 

2. I will be rated to my outward appearance to some extent -- that extent will vary from person to person -- but that doesn't mean I have to conform to their standards of beauty or anyone else's. They have just as much right to their priorities as I have to mine.

 

3. What men find attractive is highly variable among individual men and not nearly as narrow a definition as I think it is.

 

4. I needed to focus less on what they thought of me, and more on how I felt about my interaction with them -- did I feel comfortable talking to them, did I feel we were speaking the same language, did I feel like they were treating me with respect and kindness?

 

Meeting people, dating, and establishing a relationship is hard. It can be demoralizing. It can make you feel really, really bad about yourself if you let it. If you need to take a break from it for a while to get your own sense of balance back, do that. It got a lot easier for me when I got a little more detached about it and didn't take the guy's priorities for himself so personally.

 

After blathering about all that, here's the twist:

 

I had a profile up on a website. All it said was "single 37 year old female in northwest ohio. my yahoo ID is (yahoo ID) message me if you want to find out more."

 

An arrogant little twit of a 26 year old did just that. We chatted, it went well, he saw a pic of me thought I was attractive, we met in person he thought I was gorgeous. I felt comfortable around him, shared a similar sense of humor with him, and often end up blurting out the same thought at the same time--even the first time we met. I ended up marrying him less than a year after our first in person meeting in 2001.

 

It was only after I had truly given up caring what other people (specifically men) thought about me, and just focused on being who I was with no apologies that what happened was able to happen.

[cleverme123]

Well there are a bunch of sites that you can find someone on, BUT; First, you will meet the ones interested in sex. Then, you will run into a bunch who will tell you anything you want to hear and then you go out and they never see you again. Possibly ones with wifes or girlfriend interested in playing around. You have to really make sure you know who it is that you are talking to. I myself had some really bad experiences on the net dating thing. You have to watch the site and see who it is your talking to in depth, I strongly suggest that you carry conversation on over a period of time before meeting or calling. If you would like to know more in depth about some things I experienced you can pm me. I don't want to post it in open.

Finally, there are few that aren't all bad. I met my husband through the cupid junction and it compared a lot of things and stated we were 100% match and oddly enough we were, but it took a lot of time. He lived about 40 minutes away and we saw each other very frequently. There are plenty of head cases, some nice guys, some idiots, just depends on who you see. State what you want no "just in it for sex things" and you will screen out most of the bad ones.