online dating and widowhood

New Year’s Eve


I went out for dinner with two girlfriends tonight. Really nice place near my home. While we were waiting for our table my married friend struck up a conversation with a couple of guys at the bar who were watching the Bears/Packers game. She did this for me because she knows I would never even think to notice that there were unattached men in the room or that they were nice looking.

She also did it because she is not overly approving of the fact that the only men I currently talk to live in cyberspace.

One of them, upon hearing that I am a Packers fan, suggested that we buy each other rounds every time the team we were not rooting for scores. It was a sweetly transparent way to establish contact and pave the way to further interaction.

It was about then that the hostess came to seat us and we bid the gentlemen goodbye, but once we got to the table, Vicki suggested that we send them a round anyway. Sure, I agreed, but it made me uneasy.

My last live encounter with a man is still a pretty vivid disaster, and my latest attempt at online flirtation is not much less so.

They sent us drinks too. And they came to thank us and say goodnight before they left. Nice looking. I still notice. I don’t react.

The rest of the evening was nice. Fun even. We even planned another night out in a couple of weeks. Home before midnight though.

The last New Year’s I saw in was 2001. Wow. That was a long time ago. The last full year I had with Will before his illness claimed him and morphed him into a stranger.

I have been reading on the YWBB all these posts about how miserable everyone is being without their loved one on New Year’s and how no one has hope, or much hope, for the new year.

I can’t relate. I lived in limbo for years. One year was not a bit different from another and there was no hope of improvement. I am not in limbo anymore, but I am not really going anywhere either.

According to the astrological charts, 2007 is supposed to be a great year for me. Things are going to improve noticeably. It doesn’t say what, if any, effort will be required from me.

Cupid.Com


I ran into an old coworker last weekend. I had ventured out to watch a colleague’s funk band at a local venue and she was there with her new boyfriend. She met him on Cupid.com. A widow herself, she told me that “when you feel ready to get back out there”, she thoroughly recommended online matchmaking.

“Back out there”. Sounds innocuous enough. Though not an actual place, it is often made to seem like a real destination and somewhere you should want to strive to get back to. There is that scene in the movie “When Harry met Sally” where Marie asks her fiance to promise her that she will “never have to be back out there again” and he readily assures her she will not.

So, “back out there” is not prime emotional real estate but a place where the unattached are banished. Kind of an east of Eden thing. The man she was with seemed pleasant enough, if a bit drunk for my tastes. After my experiences with the relationship Nazis at eHarmony, I was not keen on the idea of another dating site.

To me it seems much too like the ads you see of Eastern European girls looking for husbands. And the basic premise of online profiles seems to be that you should be as much unlike yourself as you can get away with so as to attract someone who maybe will be okay with who you really are. Fine line walking.

Cupid has some plusses that e did not. You don’t have to take a personality test. You can browse profiles rather than wait for them to be selected for you. You can send generic interest messages to men you think you might want to get to know even without paying for the service though the downside of this is that if the man in question isn’t a paying member, he won’t be able to respond to you. It’s a nicer way to waste time than e. Aside from that, it is not proving to be much fun. Online dating is just not fun. Not that I remember dating before my husband as being incredibly entertaining but it had a social element that web-dating does not.

A few people have looked at my profile. A few of them have “winked” at me. One guy sent me an email that practically asked me to go “steady” with him. I deleted it. Most of the men are old. So am I now, I guess. They are divorced. They have kids. Why this bothers me I am not entirely sure. I don’t have expectations of finding men “out of the box”, not at this point in my life, but part of me still wishes I was young enough for that to still be a possibility.

I think that I am still getting over the feeling that I lost a lot of what was left of my youth to my husband’s illness. I still want that back. Seeing what I am stuck with (got to get over that) for dating and relationship prospects just reinforces my new status. Another plus is that they sponsor speed dating events though it looks like it is hard to sign up for them. The women’s slots are taken up very quickly which just reminds me that the field of competition is densely populated and competitive in my age group.

The downside of Cupid is that it nags at you about your profile. Mine is apparently not “positive” enough which I think means that I am being too honest. It also lets people block your profile which is supposedly anonymous, but I sent a “wink” at a guy and now his profile has disappeared, so it is not that anonymous. Even online, rejection sucks.

You are also expected to fork over a significant fee for the privilege of what amounts to blind dating. Not flush enough at the moment for that. Finally, it is still impossible to get a read on any of these guys from a photo and a badly written essay. That personal touch is just so important. Eye contact. Tone of voice. Tilt of head. Whiff of cologne. How can you judge anything without chemistry? But, as long as it is free, I will mess around with it. It is at the very least, something to do.

Online Dating


Today the Chicago Tribune ran a front page story on online dating services that basically pointed out that the anonymity of the net provides a veritable playground for scammers and unsavory characters. In Florida now, rape crisis centers are required to ask victims if they met their rapists online. In California there is a legislator trying to force online dating sites to either provide background checks or clearly state that they do not – buyer beware. One Chicago woman told the reporter that she was letting her match.com membership expire after an incident with a semi-stalker.

And all this gets me thinking – again – that perhaps there is more to be wary of than to be aware of when looking for companionship on line. I am not particularly concerned for myself. Hey, I blog, right? But I have a child now and her safety is primary. I have been online myself on various message boards for six, maybe seven, years. I “know” people who I consider friends even though I have never met them in person or even talked to them over the phone.

I approached dating again through eHarmony with much the same trust level that I started chatting with my now friends at the Dragon’s Realm (a soap opera board) or at BabyCenter. Now a week into it, I have more ambivalent feelings about it than I have ever had about posting on websites where I “knew” no one.

eHarmony purports to use a scientific process of assessing compatibility based on 29 essential personality attributes to select potential matches for their customers. They then guide (or force) you through a process of careful communications to determine interest levels and further compatibility before allowing the participants to email each other through there site to ensure anonymity until both partners are ready to strike out on their own and arrange a meeting.

It seems safe. Its seems plausible. Until I remember that I knew I would date my husband the very first time I saw him and we barely exchanged glances and let alone words at that first meeting (oh, and I was with my then boyfriend who was so annoyed by the way I stared at Will that he even asked me if I was going to dump him for Will).

I got to know Will through conversations and activity and watching him interact with shared acquaintances. I can’t do any of these things through eHarmony. I can’t even see what some of my potential matches look like until halfway through the “dating” process when they agree to release their photos to me (whether out of fear of my being a stalker or their having low self-esteem I don’t know).

Every time I open my email and see another eHarmony summons I feel more and more uneasy and it’s not because I haven’t dated in eight years either. It’s because this is just not natural. Mother Nature fully intended for us to be smitten at first glance (or whiff if you’re a pheromone believer) because we are visual, auditory and tactile creatures. One of my possible dates asked me if I prefer men long and lean, athletically built, proportionate or large. I chose all of the above and added that I really look for pretty eyes and facial hair and the rest just fall into place where they may.

Conversely I have taken to quizzing my possibles on their physical preferences just to see if they will lie to me. After all, what woman could ever believe a man (or two or three) who claim that it is the inner beauty of a woman that truly trips his trigger? I am waiting for the day I run across a personal add that says, “SWM looking for 5’5″ blonde with great legs, double D’s and little feet. If you look like I might want to have sex with you, maybe I will spring for Starbucks and get to know you.”

Since I am into eHarmony now for $60, I will play this check yes or no game a bit longer but seriously doubt now that I will ever consent to meet with any of these men (seventeen now and counting). What I am looking for can’t be measured or quantified or assessed. I want to see someone and feel my heart skip and my stomach flip over. Play that grown-up version of peek-a-boo across a crowded room, wonder what his voice sounds like before he summons up the courage to talk with me and be thrilled when it sends shivers up my spine. Sorry eHarmony.