Online Dating – Just Not My Thing

I am a single woman in my 30s.  Having ended a relationship over a year ago, I had decided to embark on a journey on my own for a year.  Well, that year ended, and I found it was time to get back on the horse, so to speak.  Although I have a somewhat active social life, it is now more restrained that it was previously.  Gone are the nights spent in dance clubs and weekends spent in hangover-ville, to be replaced with meals with friends, yoga classes, and socialising within the same community.  Having exhausted options to meet men in my circle, especially since the yoga community is at the moment made up of 90% women, (guys, come on, get your assess into the studio will you?) I was led to the only option (apparently) left.

Love

So, in an attempt to get back in the market, I joined an online dating site. I’ve heard that some people find these sites highly effective.  However, one might need to go through hundreds of profiles to find one that fits.  So, not wanting to have to scroll through hundreds of personals, I joined one of the sites where people are matched with you based on some form compatibility.  What could be compatible with a Muslim yogini ex traditional Malay dancer with one foot in the yoga community and another foot in the corporate world, and dyed red hair to top it off, I honestly don’t know.

So anyway, there were a few nice guys on there, and a few weirdos as usually happens on an online dating site, well, and real life. The fact that I didn’t end up dating one of them for a fun time is a big step forward for me. To be completely honest, I met a couple of people who if I had met in any other circumstance would have become friends.  I am told that the site I am on is more “serious,” for people who really want a relationship, which according to some, it looks like I don’t.  And herein lies the problem.  It’s not that I am 100% not open to a relationship.  The fact that I am on a dating website proves that this is not the case.  It’s that either date or part mentality, leaving no space for anything else.  Those who know me know that I don’t work well within black and white situations.

It seems to me that a lot of times, everything else we do is something to tick off the list.  Finish school, check.  Go to university or trade school or whatever, check.  Relationship, check.  Marriage, check. Baby, check. And the truth of the matter is, I don’t want a relationship to be something that I am checking off a list of things to do.  Perhaps I am a dreamer or a silly idealist, but whatever happened to the magic of infatuation? And then from that infatuation leading into love? Or a friendship that blossoms over time into something more? Or even letting go of force and allowing something to develop organically? We rush everything, and this is just something I don’t want to rush.  When you go on that first date generated from an online meet, it is make or break. The option of becoming friends is just taken out of the equation, because of course, when we’re on dating websites, we have everything else in life but a relationship, so that becomes a goal.

A relationship as a goal? I can’t deal with that.

It seems sometimes that although we want relationships, we are not really open to falling in love.  Yes of course it is important to have an idea of what you want in a man, but which attributes matter to us, and at what point do these attributes become another thing we are doing more for the benefit of everyone else? It seems with all the logic and algorithms and boxes to tick, that everything comes from thought and intellect, but what is love if not a matter of the heart, a matter of feeling? Sure, there’s sex, but if there’s anything I’ve seen in our society is that although we have sex with more people in our lifetimes, we’re actually more likely to have some barriers up (including alcohol) and therefore less likely to be intimate.

I strongly believe in surrendering to what is, and that nothing happens until it is time to happen.  We need only be open to it happening.  There is effort and push in everything, and perhaps in this matter, there need not be.  So perhaps, it’s time I shut the account and allow what will be to be.  After all, if one doesn’t fall in love, it doesn’t mean that one leads a loveless life. And being alone doesn’t mean that one is lonely. Call me old fashioned. Call me a confirmed old spinster. Call me a hopeless romantic, or just call me plain hopeless, but you know what? For some things in life, it’s really great to just be able to trust and surrender.