What Do You Get When You Get A Notification?

A fellow .com dating friend recently mused about the feeling you get when you get a notification of contact from someone, and how in the long run the feeling is usually more negative than positive.

I have to agree.

Every single time I would get a notification that someone was initiating contact I would think, "This isn't a drill! Make sure your seat-backs and tray tables are in their full and upright position, and let's DO THIS THING!" Then I'd proceed to view the initiators profile.
And, like my friend said, 9 times out of 10 there was just "something" missing.
You know what's the worst thing to have missing from a profile? A profile picture.

It's ridiculous really.

People who don't post a picture usually have some excuse that they aren't posting a picture because it forces people to be shallow; that people place too much merit on physical appearance.
I think people WITHOUT pictures are the real culprit of placing too much merit on physical appearance. Just post your picture already! If you don't have a picture, I guarantee I'm not delving any deeper into your profile.

Even if there IS a profile picture, 9 times out of 10 there is some unnamed "something" missing.

What's hard about all that though, is that there is no possible way you can fit yourself into an online dating profile. So 9 times out of 10, even if there was "something" missing, I'd respond to the contact, because maybe the missing "something" just didn't fit into their profile.

PS: Did anyone get the reference to my post title and the picture?

Cyber Staring

Most dating websites allow you to see who has been viewing your profile.

The site I pay for not only tells me who looks at my profile, but how many times they've looked at my profile.

There are a few men who have viewed my profile over 25 times, but they have NEVER contacted me in any other way. It's weird.
I'm going to call it Cyber-Staring.

If I cared enough I might contact them, but I don't...so I won't.

Can I Have A Definition Please

How does one go about defining their online relationship?

What's even trickier is defining an online "relationship" that is long distance.

Ideally the people you "meet" online live relatively close; close enough that meeting in person isn't that big of a deal. But what if the person you meet lives 13 hours away in Texas?

Is your relationship any less valid because you haven't held hands, hugged, kissed, or even SEEN the other person in the flesh?

If you couldn't tell...I've immersed myself into the above stated situation. To be honest, I didn't immerse MYSELF, the other person involved kept tossing buckets of water at me essentially saying, "I'm all in, and I'm going to keep dumping buckets of water on you until you realize you're all in too."
(you know me and my metaphors, haha)
While talking on the phone yesterday, he referred to himself as, "my boyfriend".
CAN he be my boyfriend if we haven't met? Or does he automatically become my boyfriend when he steps off the plane in St. Louis and we meet "for real".
He feels like a boyfriend.

Everyone who knows our "situation" thinks he is my boyfriend.

Obviously HE thinks he's my boyfriend.

There is no doubt in my mind that if we lived closer, and had met already, I would be calling him my boyfriend.

I guess what is really holding me back from calling myself his "girlfriend" is the stigma of being in an online relationship.
I've judged others for their online relationships. I've also judged others for their "hastiness" of defining their relationships.

Maybe this is yet again a slap in the face by a humble pie.

I found this pinterest-ism the other day:
Sometimes the greatest relationships are the ones you never expected to be in. The ones that sweep you off your feet and challenge every view you've ever had.
If that's the truth, then I guess I'm in the greatest relationship.
I never EVER expected to have the "feelings" that I do for this guy. It's so unexpected that I spent a good two weeks trying to talk him out of it because I thought he was crazy.

But it's happening. And it's weird. And exciting.

Some of the advice my co-workers and friends gave me about "relationships" (because I've never really been in one and I had no clue how to be in one) was that once you find someone worth being in a relationship with it'll be effortless. And I thought I knew what they were talking about. I thought the relationships I'd formed with the other people I'd met online were effortless. I was wrong. WAY wrong.

THIS relationship is effortless.
Well...except for this "defining who we are to each other" bit.

Silent Understanding

I am the queen of remembering people.
In fact, I'm a Super Recognizer, which is someone with an amazing ability to recognize faces.

I learned a long time ago that not everyone has this ability. I use to recognize someone and I'd say, "Hey! Remember like 4 years ago you were in Nauvoo on family vacation, and your family went to the Fudge Factory?! I was working that day!" Or "Remember that class of 175 students you were in last semester, you sat in the 3rd row and had a purple checkered book-bag? I was in that class too!" People don't remember stuff like that, and to have someone basically say "I was watching you!!!!" is unsettling for them.

I've learned to not say anything to someone I recognize until they say something to me. If I'm with a group of friends I'll say, "See that guy in the green shirt? He was in the Allyn House last year and bought a bookmark!"
I was working on Saturday and a man walked into the store who I knew I had seen before.  My mind started making connections, placing his face into different scenarios in my head trying to figure out where I'd seen him before. Then it hit me; I'd seen and read his online dating profile. What's more, he had emailed me a couple of times.

It's been a good three months since the last email, but I felt really weird. I kept trying to hide my face so that on the off chance he DID recognize me, we didn't have to have that awkward, "Hey!" conversation.
As far as I know he never made the connection. After about twenty minutes of wandering around the store with his friends, he left without buying anything. For which I was actually grateful, because then I didn't have to 1 on 1 interact with him.
I'm surprised I haven't seen more people wondering around Nauvoo from online. It's an LDS dating site, and Nauvoo is a LDS tourist destination.
I hope that if I see someone whose profile I've seen and they reocginze me too, we'd just do that casual head-nod/smile that says, "Yeah...I know you're a .com dater, and you know I'm a .com dater, but we don't have to talk about it!"

Take A Leap

A million points to whoever can name where this image comes from. And just like the the Swiss army, the points don't matter! Also...a million points if you can name where that "line" came from!

.com dating is scary.

I've mentioned in previous blogs how hard it is to trust what you are reading in people's profiles, and what you are being told by the people who talk to you.

How do you ever really know that what they are saying it real?

How do you ever really know what their intentions are?

I don't even think those "worries" are exclusive to .com dating. You never really "know" people. People you thought would never be capable of doing something, do the very thing you think them incapable of. How do you trust people?!

I'm not a weirdo who thinks no one can be trusted. I KNOW some people in the .com universe are honest. I know this because I'm one of those people, and others have to exist. Plus I've seen real live .com dating success stories.  Still, I'm very very very skeptical of the strangers I meet online.

I was contacted by a guy recently who was very forward. Not inappropriately forward. Just very much like, "This is what I'm thinking...how do YOU feel about it?"
I've had other guys be forward, but this guy's (we'll call him, Nonso) forward was different.

After a few days of talking to Nonso, I confessed to him that .com dating is kind of creepy, and scared me for the above stated reason: You just never really know who these people are.
I said to him, "You don't know me, and I don't know you!"

He then called me out.

He said for someone who professes to be a Christian, trusting God 100%, I don't have any faith.

He said, "If you really want to know if my intentions are pure, ask God, because He DOES know me."

I was...surprised.

Nonso is 100% right.
I spend all this time worrying about who these people are, and the answer is SO simple.
But sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to grasp.

Men vs. Women

Ain't that the truth!

Make Your Own Kind Of Music

That quote/phrase/saying, (whatever you want to call it) sums up my feelings exactly.

I was taught by my wonderful mother that I have worth, and I shouldn't base my success as a woman on if I have a boyfriend/husband. As a result of her constantly reminding me to love ME, I feel like I DO love me. I am a confident, independent woman.  I don't "need" someone to complete me, because I AM complete. If I had a husband he wouldn't be completing me, he'd be an addition to my complete-self.
Metaphor Warning: It's like singing a solo compared to singing a duet. Both can be beautiful, both can be awful; but one isn't better than the other just because there is an additional voice. Does that make sense?
But...just like the picture above says, there is something so appealing about having that "someone".

Which is why I ".com date". Because even though I'm happy singing my own song, it doesn't HURT to want someone to sing with.

Right?