Dating 2013

Fast forward to 2013.

Here I stand as a divorced, single mother trying to navigate my way through the dating waters. I have to admit that the process is not inspiring much confidence at this point. Because I have been severely lacking in time and opportunity to get out and meet people the 'regular' way, I have opened up to online dating. To call it interesting is definitely an understatement.

Online dating has its positive and negative points. For example, it is, in my opinion, a great way to take your time and really learn how a person thinks. Since there is no actual face-to-face interaction in the early stages, you become forced to actually communicate. However, because there is no face-to-face interaction initially, you are not able to see their body language to determine if the words that are being typed really matches up with how they are feeling. Consequently, it is much easier for someone to be on the computer saying any and everything about who they are, how they feel, and what their goals are. If insincere, the chances of feeling frustrated once the actual meeting takes place is drastically increased because you feel as if you wasted so much time and energy on someone who was not the person you thought they were. In short, online dating is just as hard as dating offline. In both instances, a good relationship with God is paramount because discernment is crucial for weeding out those who are not genuine.

Add to the mix being a Christian woman dating, and it becomes a mess. In my experience, when you tell people that you are Christian and dating, one of two things happen: 1. They immediately assume that you must be boring or a prude. I had one person tell me that he was afraid to flirt with me because he saw me as a Mother Teresa type. Really, dude? Or 2. They want to "test" my Christianity by attempting to talk under my clothes. I think I have been approached by pretty much every type of sexual deviant you can think of! LOL. Don't get me wrong. I am BY FAR not a prude, but some of the people out there have taken things waaay to the next dimension!

So far, trying to reenter the dating world has not been a very successful endeavor for me. I have met some really nice men who I could see forging lifelong friendships with, but there have been no real sparks. I am hopeful, though, that God has the person He has ordained just for me that does not require settling.

I will keep you updated with any new developments...