Am I Lazy, Overly Cautious or Just Picky?

Coming back from a presentation I commented on this beautiful park and lake we were driving past. A buddy in the car said that the park was also a great place to meet girls and offered to loan me one of his dogs ’cause “girls love dogs.” I just thought that the park was a pretty.

Then Brother Matt mentioned during his recent Florida visit that my current and persistent lack of a girlfriend was causing mom to openly worry whether I’ve changed my gender preferences. Thanks mom. The truth is I’m beginning to wonder: have I become lazy, too cautious or too picky when it comes to dating?

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Let’s Be Friends… For Now

I visited my e-Harmony profile today. It’s been awhile. With Pepperdine fading into a confusing memory and things beginning to settle down on the house-front, I feel okay about re-investing some time on the social side of things. Today I also took a survey on my satisfaction with the e-Harmony service. I’ve been on the service since January 2006. I’ve been matched with 1,251 women. For a couple months in 2006 I dated one of my matches. My matches or I have clicked the “close” button 1,236 times. There are currently 15 matches in my queue and I’ve gotten responses from four of the 15. I’m in e-mail communication with one match outside of the service. Fortunately the survey didn’t ask for numbers.

In the time that I’ve had my one dating experience most relationships have gone through whole life-cycles from discovery to death. Truth be told, the vast majority of my time with e-harmony I haven’t been actively pursuing anything as much as kept the service in my emotional back-pocket as a “Plan B.” I had a lot of fun the first few months when I was convinced that my former relationship was over and loved the possibility of meeting someone who was specially selected for me. Then that former relationship came back… kind’a. Well, it didn’t quite come back as much as it just took an extended period to expire. In the meantime, some of the air was let out of my e-Harmony expectations to the point where I just kept the subscription so that I could feel like there was a possibility of something for me in the future. Then when that former relationship really expired (for real this time!), it took almost all of my ability to trust myself and relationships with it. At that point I kept the e-Harmony account because I wasn’t ready to kill it too. Lately I’ve been thinking that it’s time to change a few things.

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Electronic kisses

It was Valentine’s weekend for some. For me it was just another weekend spent grading student blogs. But after reading an article in the UK’s Telegraph online newspaper titled, “Valentine’s Day: Technology is killing romance,” one of my students wrote a blog entry weighing the article’s premise that, because of technology, people don’t write love poems or letters to each other anymore. She said that a survey of over two-thousand people revealed that 62% had never sent a love letter (via the postal service). At the same time most everyone said that they had sent a text-message love note. My student shrugged that even though a text message isn’t anywhere as good as a real love letter, a text message is better than nothing. I’ve heard this one before: if it’s not on paper, written by hand, it’s just not as real. I don’t mean to be cruel or even crude, but I think that’s just bullshit.

Well, I was a little gentler when I began my response:

I’m curious, what is it in an electronic Valentine’s message that make is not “expressing yourself with your own thoughts”? I’ve been known to use every communication means at my disposal to let my beloved know that I was thinking of her. From 140 character text messages, to “Hello” IMs, to overly long voice-messages, to rambling emails, I found the “electronic” experience to have a certain level of “presence” that I didn’t experience before. Granted I might have over-used said technologies.. a bit… resulting in … let’s just say that my options are very flexible these days. But that’s not because of technology, that’s because some folks just don’t know how to put one word after another in a coherent (and passionate) manner. What’s that old saying about a good painter never blaming his tools…

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Conditional Unconditional Love

The ideal of love is it’s unconditional nature. The closest we usually come to that kind of love is the love between a parent and her child. But even that love has it’s limits, it’s conditions. I know that I’ve come up against my own limitations with a love that I thought was permanent and eternal. I thought I saw the face of God with this love and poured all that I had into it. But I was wrong. Time and trust were broken and I had to walk away. So much for the face of God.

I’m looking for a hard headed woman,
One who’ll take me for myself
And if I find my hard headed woman
I won’t need nobody else, no no no.
- “Hard Headed Woman” by Cat Stevens

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Not Fair

Yeah, I know, get over it. But there’s something really cruel about going to one’s e-Harmony account, find a few cuties in one’s “matches” folder only to see that said cuties have “closed” the match before you even get a chance to say, “Hello.” Argh. It’s no doubt a sign of my own shallowness that I’m irritated enough by being “rejected” by attractive women to write about it. Nah, it never feels good to get the “closed” message, but after getting and giving the “closed” message over a thousand times I can feel myself teetering toward giving up on the whole process. Just like everyone else, I want to be attracted to my potential mate, but these two examples really add insult to injury. Thanks, e-Harmony. I wonder how I might do on plentyoffish.com? jbb

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Answering eHarmony Questions – “What’s the Skinny” edition

I’ve been an e-Harmony member long enough that I’m beginning to wonder if I might be eligible for some prize, just for hanging in there so long. It’s that old adage: the older I get the pickier I get and the less marketable I get. No fun. Actually it’s not that bad. Occasionally someone will say something nice and it’s just enough for me to ramp up again and give it another try. Only problem is that occasionally I’ll have a great question/answer exchange that normally would only be shared between my matches and myself, which frustrates the writer in me.

For example, one young lady asked: In your Must Haves/Can’t Stands profile, you state that you “can’t stand someone who is overweight.” Hopefully, you can see from my photos that I am in no way “Skinny.” I’m a “Healthy size” girl! :- ) Where does that leave us?”

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872

Today I went to lunch with my dear friend Kathy and she asked me how the e-Harmony thing was going. The discussion prompted the following note: Remember me talking about there being hundreds of closed matches. Tonight I checked the numbers and it turns out that since beginning this little e-Harmony journey three years ago next January (with probably about four months off for confused behavior)) I have had 872 closed matches. That means since January 2006, counting the current 18 matches who are active, I’ve had 890 “matches.” Kind’a stretches the meaning of “matches.” Wow, almost 900 times… that’s a lot of human potential pissed away. I imagine that I might be able to figure out how many times I pulled the trigger versus how many times my “match” did, but that’d probably just get depressing. Does make one wonder. The computers have been working at it for nearly three years and almost 900 times the humans have said, “you must be kidding…” And yet I still entertain a ray of hope that somewhere someone …

… and I will agree with the damn computers and get on with a life well lived. jbb

Music: “Don’t Bring Me Down” by Electric Light Orchestra from the “All Over the World: The Very Best of ELO” CD

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e-H Time

It’s time. Some might say that it’s long past time. I turned in the final grades for my first class here at Full Sail. I wrote a script for and then did an audio podcast/interview for another course director. Then checked into Second Life to monitor students coming in looking for assistance with the new class I’m the assistant course director: Corporate Training and Motivational Development. I’m really looking forward to the new experience and what the new students will come up with. While my avatar sat waiting in Second Life I decided to update my profile in e-Harmony.

I’ve been here for over three-months and it’s actually been over a year since I did anything with the e-Harmony account. Yeah, it’s time. I guess part of me was hoping that maybe something would “happen” socially given all of the great people I work with. Alas, like everywhere else in the world there’s a real taboo about dating co-workers. Damn. So it looks like I need to turn it over to the ol’ stand-by. I mean, I’ve been giving them my money for … probably about two-years, with two separate “campaigns” that lasted four to six months.

It was an incredible experience the first time that abruptly ended when I reconnected with you-know-who. The second time wasn’t so great, mostly because I wasn’t entirely sure that this was what I was supposed to be doing. Hopefully the third time will be the charm. I don’t have the blind conviction of the first time (that was fun, but didn’t end particularly well), nor the ambivalence of the second go ’round. It’s that saying about the insanity of doing the same thing everyday but expecting things to change. So beginning today, I’m taking another step toward that change that I’m looking for. Let’s see if we can’t take advantage of the previous experiences without getting confused about what’s “supposed to” happen. “Supposed to happen,” that’s funny. jbb

Music: Wheel by John Mayer from the “Heavier Things” CD

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The Void

What is it about me that I find myself continually staring into the Void? Ignoring the obvious fact that I don’t have enough of a “Life” to distract me, I marvel that I often find myself fighting the feeling or subconscious sense that there is nothing beyond this life. I’ve been known for over-thinking the simplest things, so when it comes to contemplating truly big issues my hesitancy and fear are very real.

When Kim and I divorced twenty years ago I was tired of feeling like shit for being a flawed imperfect human. Clearly I was doing something wrong in that my non-Christian friends seemed so much more comfortable with themselves (or maybe they were just much better at hiding their own self loathing… ). I was tired of not measuring up. So I stepped away from my faith and tried to learn to appreciate myself, the good and not-so-good, living one day at a time. Sex and relationships weren’t the problems they’d been before, but I was haunted by the thought that all we have is this life and after that there is nothingness.
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