Confessions of A Reformed Desperate Dater; My Story Part 1
How do I know so much about desperate dating you ask? Sheepishly, I must admit that I started out my newly single life as a desperate dater. After my divorce, I found myself a single mom in my mid-40s adrift and untethered for the first time in almost 20 years. I didn’t remember how to be without a partner. I was so used to being a we, I had forgotten how to be a me. So I desperately dove back into the dating pool to start looking for my replacement man.
I made aaallll the rookie mistakes too. In my defense, I was VERY out of practice and the dating scene had changed. A lot. For an introvert like me, online dating felt like a godsend. From the privacy of my couch I could craft a witty online persona and shop for prospects at my leisure without having to meet anyone in person. It was a relief to find some interesting candidates and I turned into a regular chatty Cathy. Online anyway.
Before I knew better, I would spend days, even weeks chatting with someone before meeting in person. I would often, in my head anyway, have a whole future planned out for us before we had even met. Very embarrassing to admit that, But I was desperately trying to find someone, anyone who would make me feel wanted and desired and complete again. That’s even more embarrassing to admit, it sounds so weak! I am obviously not proud of this, but this was honestly how the aftermath of divorce felt for me emotionally, raw and unvarnished. At least initially.
I did manage to get off of my couch and out of my house and go on a few disappointing dates. Sadly, but not surprisingly, reality did not match my fantasy future. That’s the long and the short of it (sometimes very short of it; what is it with people lying about their height on dating profiles??). That sounds incredibly shallow because it is, but I’m trying to make a bigger point here. Lying on your dating profile is a symptom of larger problems with online dating. Imagination vs reality. How we imagine ourselves and others to be can be far from accurate. How we imagine our lives to change when we finally find the right partner can be a total mind fuck. You’ve got to get out of your head in order to succeed and start living and creating a satisfying life for yourself, in the real world. In the next article I’ll share with you how I did just that.
Karyn Shomler AKA kc is me
