Having any relationship end or getting a divorce starts a chain reaction of many changes, many adjustments and many "news." By far the oddest new has been reentering the dating world. The last time I dated I was 20 I was clueless about relationships and even worse, clueless about myself. It never was thought out or logical I just floated from date to date, I think until somehow I ended up engaged to be married. Dating as an adult is an entirely different story, firstly you have to decide how are you going to date. Are you going to wait for Mr. Right to bump his shopping cart into you and declare his lust for you over the red cabbage? Are you going to let your friends and family set you up with people? (this options scares me )? Or like me mostly due to circumstance I chose to try online dating. I had no preconceived ideas, so I set up my online profile, downloaded a few photos and let the online dating experiment begin.
I woke up in the morning to literally hundreds of messages, I now realize so many people are on those sites for so long, that they can find the fresh meat easily within the search tools. I initially spent time reading each and every message, to both be polite and for entertainment purposes. I found people are far more forward hiding behind their keyboards, than they would ever dare be in person. After a couple weeks or so on there I felt overwhelmed, so I started to think of it almost as a business deal. I eliminated all the suitors who where too young, too old, too crazy, too sexual, all the people who I wasn't obviously attracted to also. I was left with about 30 possibilities, men in the correct age who had left normal messages and seemed like they may be safe to meet in a public day time setting. Then I set about giving them dating appointments, almost like my own private speed dating, I told them all I would meet them for coffee but I only had a few minutes (easy escape).
I met with a news anchor, a couple of lawyers, a gastroenterology, marine, salesman, banker, CEO, realtor, stunt man, and a plethora of other business type men, that I'm not sure what they did exactly. Statistically only about 50% looked anything like their photos they often showed up looking older, balder, larger or in one case much thinner, and often shorter than they proclaimed, which as I am 5.8 but always wear heels they can't fake with me. These are the highlights or as I like to think of it as the "truth is stranger than fiction crowd".
Date number 3 consisted of a man we will call him Gary, at first appearing very normal, attractive nice great smile. However after the first 5 min of polite greetings he lent over the table and with his face far too close to me (personal space please) he asked me if I would guess how many times he had "peed" today and yes he used the word "peed" in the first 6 mins of meeting him. I had no clue what to say which was OK as he seemed uninterested in my response and launched into a 35 min dissertation on Dr. Oz and urination output. Luckily my friend Dora was my wing girl and rescued me with an emergency call. I'm still not really sure what he was saying, but I am 100% positive that is not a first date or meeting conversation to have. Men take note.
Date number 6 honestly an extremely good looking man, unbelievably fit like a grown up Abercrombie model. He seemed promising, educated, nice, but then he killed any attraction I could have ever had with him by talking the entire time about himself he droned on.. I...I...I....I... and then to add insult to the self absorption he had the nerve to ask me if we could go back to his house for sex, it was 11 am ... wow... my answer apparently shocked him, the word no he hadn't heard before he said... even worse.
Date number 13 a very intelligent interesting successful businessman who sealed his fate by telling me, that he had cheated on his wife the entire time he was married, but it was his wife's fault as she wasn't attractive enough for him, yikes I was so tempted to accidentally spill coffee over him in solidarity of his no doubt long suffering ex wife.
Date number 20 the man who must have swallowed some kind of dating advise book. He had a very odd way of asking me a question (that partly is good dating etiquette act interested in the other person ). However after EVERY question I answered he asked "so how does that make you feel ?"so example... Does your family live close to you? my answer "yes " his bizarre follow up question "how does that make you feel ?" hhhmmm after the first 3 times he said it I started to literally think that my friends had set me up and I was being pranked. "So how does that make you feel" ? I asked him joking in return...he was not amused, and I left.
Date number 22 probably the most clinical of all the dates I was questioned extensively, about my baby making body parts, if they still worked after my divorce, could he see pictures of my children, can I have more children, even at my age ? RUDE and after assuring him that I did not desire to have any more children, his answer was "well what's the point of this date then?" I wasn't aware that I was an incubator, I thought I was a person who knew my worth doesn't lie in my womb. It did give my girl friends a good laugh though afterwards.
Date 28 I saved this for last because it really is the most bizarre, a very successful CFO of a very large company, invited me to lunch which actually broke a rule of mine but I went anyway, not so easy to escape lunch... All seemed normal ish a few too many references to us being somewhere together in the future comments like "when I take you to Tahoe".. "when we are in Geneva " seemed presumptuous but I was willing to let it go, he seemed sweet, educated, interesting, well traveled had a lot of the qualities I tend to like. Right before we left lunch he gave me a far, far too expensive gift with a note that said " to the beginning of our happy life ". Now as much as I do like gift's I like gifts that are thoughtful and appropriate for the occasion. His gift just made me very uncomfortable , so as we walked to the cars after lunch I became alarmed, when he informed me that he had one more gift for me in his Bentley. That to me is a red flag, I was by now even in daylight not going anywhere near his car with him, safety first . I politely declined any more gifts and tried unsuccessfully to give him back the lunch time gift, but he just laughed at my nervousness. Saying" look it's fine I will take a photo of it and text it to you". As I got in my car the text arrived a photo or something that I couldn't quite tell what it was, a ridged metal bar with two cuffs at each end.. his follow up text said... "leg spreaders" now this was before 50 shades I rapidly googled it and well it definitely is the strangest gift or date I have ever been on. I would say he disappeared after that, but not before flooding me with other extravagant gifts culminating in him sending me a 20 page sex slave contract...at which point I informed him I had met the love of my life and it wasn't him. The contract he sent me though proved to be highly educational for me and my friends as we spent quite a few evenings reading it and educating ourselves on S&M which came in handy when a year later 50 shades came out.
The most interesting part of the experiment was out of 30 men I met over that 10 days, 29 of them asked me to go out again, the one person who I thought was probably the most normal was the only one who didn't ask me out again, I can only presume because he had better social skills that made him realize I wasn't interested.
In case you are wondering, no I never dated any of them again although one of them became a friend of mine so it was an interesting experiment and I made a friend...I don't think I will repeat that again though, I'm going to wait for divine intervention or a hot guy in the produce section will work too, as long as he's not buying rhubarb I despise rhubarb.