Don’t Believe the Hype on Match.Com

It’s time for another fabulous blog hop put together by the tireless Deborah Nam-Krane! If you haven’t already, please check out Morgan’s entry yesterday. Our theme this time around is….

Reality vs. the Hype!

Nowhere is this more true than in the world of online dating. Before I got divorced, I wrote about books, movies, pop culture. Then life threw me a curve and suddenly I’m back out there. Since I met my ex-husband in 1989, a lot changed in the dating world while I was busy doing other things. In college, I met my boyfriends at parties, in the dorm, in classes, through friends. Even when I was married, I had some FOMO when I looked at my single friends’ profiles and watched them evaluate the available men in town. There seemed to be so many attractive guys on those sites. Surely I’d find Mr. Right right away!

Then I found myself on several of these sites – Match, OKCupid, Plenty of Fish – and learned first hand… Don’t believe the hype!

For instance:

The hype: He’s 50 years old.
The reality: He’s 64… he “accidentally” inputted the wrong date and Match won’t let you change it. (This last part is true. But there are so many of this type of accident that it’s obviously not an accident.)

The hype: He lives for the water, always out on his boat.
The reality: A friend let him borrow his boat once. But he’s planning on buying one for himself someday! (I really don’t want a boater but a lot of women around here are)

The hype: He’s a cyclist/paddle boarder/runner
The reality: He did all those things before hip and knee injuries. Now he hangs out on the couch all day.

The hype: What great pictures!
The reality: Too bad they’re 10 years old.

The hype: He never smokes.
The reality: Because his mouth is full of chewing tobacco.

The hype: He has three great kids but his life doesn’t revolve around them.
The reality: That’s because none of his baby mama’s will let him have anything to do with them.

The hype: After a fulfilling career, he has a part-time job at a golf course to keep busy and because he loves the sport.
The reality: After he retired in lieu of getting fired, he went through all his money and this gig was all he could get. Good thing he likes it because he’ll be working there till he dies.

The hype: He’s a cultured guy who likes theatre, literary fiction, and classical music.
The reality: Hockey and NASCAR!

The hype: He’ll take care of your pet like it’s his own.
The reality: Calling the SPCA when you leave the house for longer than a half hour.

The hype: He’s Mr. Fixer Upper and wants to help you with your home repairs.
The reality: He doesn’t fix up his own place either!

The hype: Jami is going on these crazy online dates and writing blog posts so you don’t have to!
The reality: Jami met a great guy on Match.com and is no longer on any of the sites! She’ll probably need to find something else to blog about!

Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for Caroline’s entry!

Match Who?

It was our 5th date in less than two weeks since we’d met on Match. A whirlwind, even though I said I didn’t want to get too involved too soon. We were walking on the beach just before sunset, holding hands. A more romantic setting could not be imagined.

Suddenly he stopped, turned to me, and said in a very serious voice, “I have to ask you a question.”

My stomach plummeted to my knees. I really liked him; he was everything I was looking for, and most importantly, there were no red flags. Still, I was serious about not wanting to get too involved too soon. I’d made that mistake before. What was he going to ask? What should I say?

I nodded.

“What’s your last name?”

Ahh, the logistics of the Match meet-up. I wasn’t hiding anything. I told him. I even told him how to spell it.
But I didn’t mention that on Match, I’d deliberately spelled my first name wrong… and he’d been spelling it wrong ever since.
If things work out, he’ll learn soon enough!

On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog

I met him on Match. He was cute, and local, and my age, and a liberal. I “liked” him. He messaged me back. We went out a few times; I was starting to like him, even though he said he didn’t like to talk because he was a “doer.” I didn’t call him on how insulting that was.

Then he emailed me an invitation. His email address contained a year that, if it was his birth year, made him nine years older than he’d claimed to be on Match. When I casually asked him about it, hoping that the year was a sports milestone or something else that would keep him my age, he brushed the comment away. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been meaning to tell you about that.”

It seems that most men dating online do not know how to correctly enter in their birth years. In their profile, they bashfully explain that they are actually 10 years older, or 15, but they had made a mistake and Match wouldn’t let them change it. Some are honest enough to admit they deliberately lie because the women they had been attracting were too old. Others wait until the first message or meeting.

I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me. After all, he didn’t seem his age, and I probably would have hit the like button anyway.

Probably.

But when he called me the next day to “let me off the hook,” he blamed me. I had made him feel uncomfortable. I suppose because I called him out for lying.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why people lie about facts on their profile that are so easily uncovered. Do they really think that once they reveal they’re ten years older, or only separated instead of divorced, or twice married instead of just once, that the object of their affection will look past the lie because they’re already so attached?

Maybe they will. Maybe I expect too much. Maybe I should pretend to be five years younger (of course that would mean lying about my son’s age, too), a marathon runner, an experienced boater.

Nah.

I’d rather be alone as myself than with another person as a lie.

Direct from Plenty of Fish!

Most messages aren't worth writing a blog about. They're either "Hi, pretty lady," or a more appropriate, "I like your profile, please check out mine." (Most of these haven't actually read my profile, otherwise they'd realize I don't want to drive 30 miles to meet someone.)

And then today I got this:



I'm going to be an old lady with 20 cats...

It’s a Small World…

My former brother-in-law and his wife have the kind of messy relationship one usually sees only on certain types of soap operas. As such, they are always on or off. Last week she called me – they are off again. And now she’s on Match. (We live in the same Florida county, BTW.) So she’s describing her latest date, and the details sound familiar, and I ask his name, and sure enough…

It’s this guy!

Cue the Disney soundtrack, folks!

Since she doesn’t care about politics, it could be a good match except for the aforementioned messy situation with my ex-BIL. And perhaps if he’d been more upfront with me, I’d clue him in, but he wasn’t, so my loyalty lies completely with her.

This situation was bound to happen sometime, and will probably happen again. My sister-in-law and I are in the same age range, and I have plenty of single female friends my age who are also dating online. We might not be looking for the same type of guy, but the guys don’t seem to be that picky.

Right before the High Holy Days, I heard from not one but two Jewish doctors! Alas, they were both too far from me to make meeting worthwhile. It seemed like a cosmic joke from the universe.

I went on two meet-and-greets last week – the first one was with a jerk, but the second one turned out to be a nice guy. But a really busy nice guy. I hope I’ll see him again.

Today’s my birthday. Wishing for a publishing contract and a guy!

Cyrano, Anyone?

“I think I’m pretty easy to get along with. I think it’s because I like to listen just as much as I like to talk. People find it easy to communicate with me and I think that’s a big reason why.”

Match has a section for people to describe themselves “in their own words.” I have a hunch that they also provide templates to those who don’t know enough about themselves to do it, because I find the previous description crops up over and over again.

Match must also give people suggestions for a bucket list, because is it really possible that so many people want to ride in hot air balloons before they die?

Here’s a message I got on Plenty of Fish over the weekend: “A committed Democrat! Well now, committed is a pretty good word for it! I can overlook quite a bit for a nice smile. 😊 Especially since I really don’t like wasting my time with politics.” No, I did not respond. But I did read his profile, which earned me another message from him: “caught my favorite crazy democrat looking say hi.”

It’s scary out here in dating land. Although the snarky part of me wanted to reply with, “I don’t like wasting my time with assholes,” it’s safer just to not reply at all.

Speaking of Plenty of Fish, they appear to have added a new feature in which they message you with “It’s a match!” and a link to someone’s profile, which implies that you’ve already liked this person. I fell for it twice before I realized there was no way in hell I would have liked someone who dropped out of high school who lives on the other side of the bay. Thanks a lot, POF.

New message! Just “H” Didn’t even take the time to completely spell out “Hi.” Wow.

Why am I doing this again? The new TV season has started!

With Friends Like These…

A few months ago, fresh off my latest break-up, I began chatting with a guy on Match. The conversation went so well online, I asked if he wanted to meet me in a half-hour at the local wine bar. There we talked for another few hours. The chemistry was great. I told him I had jumped into my last relationship much too quickly, and was determined not to do that again. He called when I got home. Since we had a few people in common, we became Facebook friends – something I never do after just a first meeting. But it seemed like we were destined for something good, if not a romance, at least a strong friendship.

We went on two more dates that week, meeting up at First Friday and having dinner, and then brunch on Sunday. He went out of town for work, but texted me every morning. “Good morning.”

Just good morning. I’d get these texts every day, but no plans for anything else. Then slowly I realized that all our in-person meetings had been initiated by me.

When Father’s Day weekend passed without seeing him, I rationalized it as he had a visiting child in town. The texts came less frequently, but when he said he missed me, I proposed a Saturday night date. (He’d been out of town with work every week.)

On Facebook, he started complaining he was sick. So I wasn’t surprised when I checked in with him Saturday morning to hear that he was too sick to go out. He was really disappointed at not seeing me, but what he had was awful and he didn’t want to risk giving it to me.

No worries. I had an early dinner with a friend and then went home, thinking it was going to rain. It didn’t.

I checked Facebook around ten. He had also been on Facebook – to check in to a local downtown hot spot, along with the people we had in common.
It was middle school all over again. It was Marcia “something suddenly came up” Brady. My cheeks literally burned as I read this casual update, thinking about what an idiot I was. Being left out by the cool kids. Maybe they were laughing at me.

I should have unfriended him right then and there. Instead, I updated my own status: “Should have gone out tonight. Everyone’s checking in to fun places.” And waited for an apology that never came.

I never heard from him directly again. (He liked a few of my posts and asked me about a movie I’d checked into; I didn’t answer that.)

That was three months ago. I got over it, of course, but remained disappointed that what I thought was going to be a great connection turned out to be a dud; that who I thought was a great guy was just another phony.

I didn’t unfriend him. I should have.

Yesterday he started posting vacation pictures with his girlfriend.

Is there anybody out there?

This morning I woke up to four new “likes” on Match. No messages, just likes. One was from a guy I’d met at a meet-up a year ago and repeatedly rejected. The other three weren’t what I was looking for, either.

The culture of on-line dating seems to be that if you get a like or a message from someone you’re not interested in, just ignore it. That’s what I do. Yet I sent a message to a guy last week who messaged me back that he had met someone, forgot to hide his profile on OKCupid, and only liked to date one woman at a time. I appreciated that. Still, I can’t imagine any guy would like to get my message, which would be something along the lines of, “I specifically said I’m looking for a Democrat around my age that lives in St. Pete. Did you even bother to read my profile, or do you honestly believe that a 65-year-old conservative who lives in New Port Richey is close enough?”

It’s hard. You send a like or a message, and you never hear anything back. You don’t know if he got the message and isn’t interested, or if he got it, meant to reply, and then forgot, or just isn’t active on the site anymore. If you pay for the site, you see likes and messages; some services let people join for free but don’t let them see “likes.” Most daters will mention in their profiles whether they can see likes, but sometimes people don’t update when their subscriptions expire.

If you’re paying for Match, Match will let you take a look at who’s viewed your profile. It’s a good way to see everyone who’s checked you out but didn’t find you attractive enough to like you back. A few minutes ago, one of those inappropriate likes sent me a message thanking me for checking out his profile. Obviously he didn’t realize that since I didn’t like him back, he wasn’t going to hear from me.

I always check to see who’s viewed me. A lot of the guys I’ve liked aren’t on that list. Are they still on the site? Or is my Match profile picture so bad they don’t bother clicking on my profile?

Is there anybody out there?

Match sends its members suggested matches every day. It doesn’t bother weeding out folks you’ve already liked or messaged. That can lead to accidental stalking; repeatedly liking the same person without realizing it. Yesterday I liked a guy enough to want to send him a message. When I clicked on the message icon, my old message came up... the one he’d never replied to. Yikes.

OKCupid spares its members this embarrassment. After you like or message someone, they hide their profile from you. You can erase them from your mind until you’re lucky enough to hear from them. A few weeks ago, I messaged a guy who’d liked me a year ago. Turns out I was wise to ignore him the first time around, and I’m sure he didn’t spend that year pining after me, but it gives the decision to the pursued, not the pursuer.

I’ve stumbled across many profiles in which men lecture women on how they should behave online or on dates. I think this is misogynistic behavior, but I understand the impulse. My profile would be a diatribe on what not to do, if I gave into my lesser angels.

But with all its drawbacks, online dating does have one obvious benefit going for it: knowing that the person on the site is interested in dating. The most interesting men I’ve met lately, I’ve met in real life. And I have no idea what their status is.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

… but sometimes you get what you need.

And sometimes you get nothing!

I’m being very specific on my search. I want a guy who lives in or close to my town, who’s politically progressive and close to my age. I spell out all this and more in my profile.

So yesterday I was excited when I got a “like” from a guy who fit that bill. And his profile was very well-written, which I consider a good proxy for intelligence. We texted back and forth all day.

Then this morning he casually drops that he’s sick of the traffic on the way to his job, so he’s moving closer to it. So out of my city and to the nearest big city, which is a good 30 miles or so and across a major bridge. “Would you consider dating someone who lived there?”

Of course not! It says in my profile that I’m dating in town and not crossing that bridge. Good luck to you.

Why would someone look for matches in City A when they’re planning to move to City B? Why not just wait until the move to City B is complete, and then search there? Does logic go out the window when it comes to looking for love online?

I wish he'd been as upfront as the profile I got from a guy who told the world that he was a “little person,” so his match needed to comfortable dating a midget? (His words, not mine.) Thank you for not hiding that! (Although that guy’s pictures were all of him sitting down, so if you didn’t read the profile, you might be in for a surprise.)

Dating 0, Staying home and watching old Grey’s Anatomy 1.

Don’t Cry for Me, St. Petersburg

It’s definitely not a good sign when you end up literally crying on a date.

Not all out sobbing, mind you, but teary eyes, blinking, red cheeks, etc.

I had myself convinced that I was embarking on a major depressive episode and should get screened by a doctor right away.

But as soon as I got home and climbed in bed with my favorite long-canceled TV drama, I felt so much better. And I realized that the reason I didn’t feel connected to this guy, whom I’d seen three times in the past week, wasn’t because I was depressed.

It was because he kept pushing me for a connection I didn’t feel.

Honestly, I should have gotten up and left when, a half hour into our first meeting, he tried to convince me to go back to his place for “just some light making out.” But he was cute, with amazing eyes, and we had a lot in common – books, TV shows, bands.

And I hadn’t been out with someone I genuinely thought was cute in quite a while. So I tried to convince myself that it didn’t matter that he was pushing to get physical, or that he kept interrupting me (all men seem to do this), or that his track record with women and jobs was abysmal.

He was cute! And he lived close by.

But at dinner he tried to press me into going back to his place to drink. “I’ll get you an Uber home,” he said. And when I tried to feel some kind of connection to this guy, and ended up with nothing, I teared up.

When we sat on the beach at sunset, he said, “I had pictured us kissing at this point,” all I could picture was getting the hell out of there.

I told him that I needed time to heal. I apologized for thinking I was ready for a relationship when I clearly was not. When he dropped me off at my front door, he didn’t even wait to see that I was safely inside before peeling away.

And slowly, I realized the truth. I am ready for a relationship. Just not with him.

When the right guy comes along, I’ll be here. Until then, I’m accepting no substitutions.

Can it be called ghosting when there was never a body to begin with?

Everyone is familiar with the term “ghosting” – you’ve been ghosted when a friend or romantic interest suddenly stops replying to texts and calls. It’s painful because there’s no reason why, never any attempt at closure… the person has just disappeared, like a ghost.

That hasn’t happened to me yet. Everyone who has disappeared from my life has been very kind about explaining why they weren’t going to be in it anymore. But I have had its weird predecessor – cricketing, maybe? Named for what happens when you’re expecting a reply, but instead there’s just silence. A silence so loud you can hear crickets. You’re in the middle of a text conversation, and suddenly that person just. Stops. Answering. For no good reason.

“Text” isn’t really the right word here; I don’t give out my phone number to men I haven’t met in person, so all these conversations have happened only on the dating apps.

A few times, it’s happened because I’ve refused to give a man my number. We’ve liked each other on the app, exchanged some messages. Now he wants to chat; I tell him I prefer a face to face meeting rather than give my phone number to a stranger on the internet. The response: crickets.

Or they are suddenly going out of town and strangely enough will not have access to the internet while they’re gone, but they will definitely get in touch as soon as they get back. Instead, you guessed it: crickets.

In one case, a guy answered my standard opening message of “You seem great; please check out my profile and write back if you think we have important stuff in common” with a message thanking me for writing and complimenting my smile. I thanked him and asked a question about his neighborhood. Cricketing ensued. Perhaps he thought I was already planning to stalk him?

Another time, I was the cricketer. A guy asked me what I meant by “progressive St. Pete.” I said I was a progressive looking for another progressive. I then proceeded to receive a string of messages on how I should move to L.A. Not only did he get crickets from me, I blocked him.

Disappointing, yes – especially the guy I messaged first – but ultimately good that they reveal themselves early.

And the guy who blew me off last week because he was sick? He’s been messaging me often, and now we plan to get together on Friday. Will he actually show up this time? Stay tuned.

Whose Job is it Anyway?

I was a teenager in the 1980s, not the 1950s, but even then, my mother sounded like Lorraine McFly in Back to the Future, putting down Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer Parker for being the one to call him. (To be honest, calling him three times in the space of a few hours when they’d already been together after school is really excessive.) “I don't like her, Marty. Any girl who just calls up a boy is just asking for trouble…. I think it's terrible! Girls chasing boys. When I was your age I never chased a boy or called a boy or sat in a parked car with a boy.” (Of course later we find out that Lorraine was pretty hot to trot, or maybe it was just Marty was so irresistible, she couldn’t help herself.)

My mom was the same way, warning me against chasing boys, telling me that any boy I called would see me as desperate, and opining that if a boy liked you, he’d call you, so if he hadn’t called, it meant he didn’t like you, so why bother calling him?

I didn’t listen to my mother, but she had a point. The guys I went after were not as into me as the guys who went after me. Still, it was an easier time then. Men were still expected to make the first move. Women were expected to be asked. It was such a big deal for a woman to ask out a man that an entire dance was dedicated to it.

Now… not so much.

Of course, this is both good and bad. Women are expected to go after everything they want in life – sports, jobs, etc. Of course they should go after a man they’re interested in. At the same time, as the term “emotional labor” becomes more and more prevalent in recognition of how married women run the household, even in households of two earners, it’s interesting to note that this phenomenon is creeping into the dating scene as well. Men don’t just want wives who’ll arrange their social life, make their doctor’s appointments, sign up their kids for school and make the grocery shopping lists… they want girlfriends who’ll make the first move, plan their social lives, come up with creative dates, and keep the passion fires burning.

It starts online. There’s even a dating site where women have to make the first move. Yes, it’s based on the premise that online dating can be dangerous for women, that men will harass them, and of course this is one hundred percent true. But it’s also true that many men can’t even be bothered to get someone to take a decent picture of them, to write out a profile, or to send a message that says more than “Hi.” Why have a website where only women can make the first move when so many of us are forced to anyway?

It’s possible that just as many women are equally brief online. I wouldn’t know; I don’t see their profiles. But I’ve lost track of the number of profiles I’ve clicked on, wanting to know more about a man, only to be told to “ask me anything! I’m an open book!” So much easier to put the onus on the woman to ask questions, rather than taking the time to write out a profile explaining who they are and what they are looking for in a mate. And there’s the old “I’m new here; will update later” from four months ago.

Last week an attractive guy “Hi!” ed. Usually I ignore these brief ones. But he was cute, so I sent back “hey there.”

I heard nothing back.

Men, you’re not just competing with the other lazy men on the site. You’re competing with our friends, with Netflix, with Meet-Up groups. There are so many other things we can do rather than wait for Mr. “What do you want to know about me” to put together a few sentences to describe himself.

If you’re not going to put any effort into your profile, I don’t think you’ll put in any effort to meeting me.

I was supposed to have a date tonight. I reached out to him; said I’d liked his profile and please check out mine and write back if he liked what he read. He said he did. We made plans for tonight. This afternoon, he begged off sick. I was, of course, understanding.

I’m not expecting to hear back from him again. Oh well. It’s rainy tonight, and I’ve heard good things about that Netflix series “Typewriter.” I’ll be fine.

This is why you should read the entire profile

The weather was bad on Friday – lots of scary thunderstorms. I’d been chatting with a guy on POF during the week (he reached out first), and we agreed to meet Friday night, but play it by ear in regards to the weather. I sent him a note Friday afternoon, went to my writers’ meeting, then came home and settled down with a good book. The storms passed around 7, and I waited to hear from him. And waited.

Oh well. It was a great book. Definitely not a wasted evening.

This morning my phone beeps with a message from him. I’m already done – not a big believer in giving second chances to make a first impression – but curious as to what he might say. This was it:

“Sorry Hun, not political at all but I can’t stand illegal immigrants, and ur party seems to thrive on them, I’m sure simply for more votes, plzz think about the well being of the country ty MJF.”

So, definitely dodged a bullet there. I thought about sending a note back saying, “Here’s a thought: Why don’t you read someone’s profile before contacting them; you can save yourself a lot of time that way,” but I realized I’d save myself even more time by not replying at all.

I have two bestsellers waiting at the library for me.

Every day something new!

Lunch meeting with a fellow writer. His opening line: So I've been unemployed about two years now...

Then I come home to find a message: Opposites attract! I look forward to our discussion. He's a conservative who lives 25 miles away from me. I guess it's good to know upfront that someone's going to ignore your boundaries right away!

Someone Should Write a User’s Manual

When I first started this game, I stumbled across a profile of a man who used his time to explain to women what was wrong with their profiles and dating habits. I actually found his points enlightening until I got to the line about “don’t post pictures in bathing suits and then say you’re not into casual sex.”

Needless to say, I didn’t “like” him.

But I’m reminded of this guy on a regular basis, because I’m often tempted to write out such a list myself. The number of men who are on Match, yet lack basic communication and relationship skills, is mind-boggling.

Of course, if they had these skills, they wouldn’t be on Match, would they?

So here’s what happened to me this weekend. I had gone on several dates with a guy who contacted me after reading my Match profile (the one that says, among other things, “I vote and date blue… it’s important to me!”). They went well; there was good conversation; he took me out to a few nice meals and picked up the check. And barely touched me.

I decided it was time to reciprocate and give things a chance to blossom, so I invited him over to a home-cooked meal, warning him that I wasn’t really that great of a cook.

There aren’t a lot of cute little jokes in this story. Suffice it to say, he showed up empty-handed and after dinner told me he was a Republican, due to his overriding believe in lower taxes.

I don’t think I’ll be seeing him again. (Although I still showed him my favorite horror movie.)

I’m not going to be writing a list on Match, but if I were, it would include “Don’t go to a woman’s house for the first time without bringing wine or flowers or something.” And don’t contact someone when you know you’re not what she’s looking for.

Tomorrow, I’m going to lunch with a man who may be a complete whack-job. Stay tuned for more adventures.

Learning the Rules

“Seven o’clock?” my friend Dee said. “That is late for a happy hour. That’s his way of getting out of having to buy you dinner. Next time, ask if you should eat first.”

Dee’s been divorced for years, and moved to St. Pete about three years ago. She’s been one of my friends tutoring me in the fine art of internet dating.

Too bad for Steve that I hadn’t talked to her before meeting him. I’d come straight from a late work meeting, and I was starving. We talked for two hours, and he ended up paying for my non-happy-hour-priced drink and appetizer. When I’d asked if he were hungry, he’d told me that he’d already eaten. He seemed magnanimous about picking up the check – for a date that he’d initiated – but made it clear the next one would be on me.

There’s not going to be a next one. Even though he walked me back to the parking garage, holding my hand, gave me a peck on the lips and exchanged phone numbers with me, I haven’t heard from him. Maybe there’s a rule that the woman always initiates contact after the first meeting, but if there is one, I haven’t heard it. In any case, I’m relieved. I really don’t want to go out with him again, but I also don’t want to blow him off to his face. Much easier to pretend there will be another meeting while not actually setting one up. He’s cute, but he lives all the way in Clearwater. I spend too much time in my car as it is; driving to people’s houses all over Pinellas County as part of my in-house sales job. A guy has to be amazing for me to look for love outside to St. Pete.

I’ve been dating for less than a year; have had two relationships since the divorce. At first, I was eager to meet new men and enjoyed surfing the sites. I went out with my first “boyfriend” three times before I felt a spark of attraction, so I thought I owed it to myself to give decent guys more than one chance.

Then I met a guy to whom I felt an immediate attraction, and then spent months trying to make a relationship work when we had nothing else in common.

Now, even though I’m looking for my next relationship, I’m looking for reasons not to date. They include:

Lives too far away

Votes Republican

Too much younger than me (granted, I don’t run into this too often)

Too much older than me

Look like they’re older than me

Didn’t graduate college

Never married

Married too often

Didn’t have kids

Has too many kids

Not physically active

Too physically active

Doesn’t like TV

Watches too much TV

Talks too much

Doesn’t talk enough.

So you can see, this might be a problem.

Maybe the problem is me.

Unveiling "Dating in Paradise!"

I began this blog in the summer of 2012, right after my husband and I moved to Florida. At the time, I called it “my year on vacation;” we had rented the house for a year, and I honestly didn’t believe we’d be staying much longer than that. I left boxes unpacked. I viewed my new friendships as temporary. I thought a return to Maryland – the D.C. suburbs, with serious jobs and serious people – would happen in 2013.

Instead, we bought a house on St. Pete Beach; our son moved in with us for a year while he attended the local community college, and we became Floridians. I got my real estate license and doubled down on my writing. I was no longer on vacation; I renamed my blog “Writer in Paradise” and focused my posts mainly on writerly concerns. (It wasn’t until much later that I learned about the local writers’ conference, “Writers in Paradise.” I didn’t mean to steal its name!)

Last year, I had another huge upheaval in my life. My husband of nearly 28 years decided he didn’t want to be married anymore, and six weeks later we were divorced. Tom and I had met when I was 21, right out of college. Although I had dated a bit while I was in school, those days were long behind me. While divorce is sad and change is hard, it’s also catapulted me into a completely different life. I’m still writing, still pursuing my dream of being traditionally published. I’ve taken an additional sales job in addition to real estate to make sure I’m getting out of the house on a regular basis.

And I’m dating. Not meeting men through mutual friends, or work, or hobbies. I’m going on dates with men I’m meeting through dating apps. I tried OKCupid for a while; Bumble never really worked for me. I’m not looking for casual hook-ups, so I never logged into Tinder. Hinge got me a lot of men my son’s age, which was too creepy for words. So for now, I’ve settled on Match and Plenty of Fish. I’m paying for my Match account; I’m not upgrading with POF.

It’s an adventure. Too much of an adventure to keep to myself. So I’m refocusing my blog to share those stories. While I’m still a writer in paradise, my blog will be centered around dating in paradise. Ride shotgun on my adventure as I peruse the profiles of men holding giant fish and sitting astride motorcycles. Roll your eyes as I’m dumped by a guy who’d rather be with a Scientologist. Sympathize with me as I get pleading emails from 70-year-old men who live 70 miles away.

Florida Man is on Match, and his tattoos have their own photos.

Dating after 50 in Florida is not for the faint of heart. Or for those who don’t have a sense of humor. Or a Lyft account.

Join me!

I Get Knocked Down…

A few weeks ago, in my writers group, I shared some of the “pass” emails that my agent had gotten from editors who’d read my thriller, which I like to describe as “The Stepford Wives in the Villages.” (an upscale Florida retirement community known for conservative Republicanism and high levels of STDs)

To sum, these emails gushed over the concept and the plot, but all the editors had failed to connect with the voice. I explained that probably meant that while they liked the story, they just didn’t like how I told it. They didn’t like me as a writer.

How do you get past that? I was asked. How do you keep trying, keep writing, after rejections like that?

The answer is, I don’t know. For some reason, I just do.

This has been the worst year of my life so far. And even as I write that, I recognize how lucky I am. Other people’s “worst year” entails losing children, losing their health, losing their homes. I have all of these. (And I remain aware that I could still lose any or all of them.) Still, compared to where I was a year ago, there’s a lot of pain. Last year at this time, I had two books on submission with several imprints of the big five publishers, and I had high hopes for both of them. My husband had just started a new job, which resulted in a huge payout from the company he left. We were planning big vacations; I was researching MFA programs; life was fabulous.

And then I came home one afternoon and he had moved out. A few weeks later, rejections started rolling in from those publishers. I abandoned my MFA plans, put my house on the market, bought a small home for myself, put my next novel aside and worked on finding a “real job.” (His words.)

As writers, we are often told we need to develop a thick skin in order to handle criticism and rejections. What I learned from developing that thick skin is that it’s handy in situations that have nothing to do with publishing. Thick skin is necessary when your husband of 28 years tells you he wants to divorce you as quickly as possible because “women don’t date separated men.” Thick skin is also handy when that new job has people yelling at you because you committed the sin of showing up for an appointment they made. When the first guy you date after your divorce dumps you to return to his Scientologist ex-girlfriend, it’s that writing-developed thick skin that lets you turn the experience into a funny anecdote rather than an excuse to stop dating.

I guess this thick skin is why I keep writing. Or maybe it’s a thick head. I finished my first novel in 1992. I spent more years than I like to remember writing and trying unsuccessfully to sell screenplays. I won a few minor awards; even signed with an agent who apparently spent more time reading the Daily Racing Form than scripts. In 2012, with many of my online screenwriting friends producing and making their own movies, I decided it would be easier to self-publish a novel than to make a movie from one of my scripts. And perhaps that thinking doomed my chances of traditional publishing, since I’ve self-published two novels since then.

Still, my goal remains to be traditionally published, and it seems more out of reach than ever at this point. Is it the thick head that’s refusing to let me hear a message from the universe that I’m not a good- enough writer for the Big 5? When these thoughts threaten to overwhelm me, I’m reminded of a story that one of my workshop leaders likes to tell. He had taught a famous writer as an undergrad, and he’s often asked whether that writer was the most talented person he’d taught. His answer is no; the most talented person had bad luck and then just gave up.

We all know what luck is, but what constitutes talent? I often hear the saying that success is hard work plus luck, but where does talent fit into that equation? Most of us think of talent as being given by God or nature. My son played a lot of baseball growing up; in that sport there’s a saying: “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” My son worked very hard but he wasn’t talented enough, and there were enough talented players that did work hard that he was unable to progress. (And while the talented ones who didn’t work hard got farther in the short run, in the long run they are worse off than he is now.)

When my son stopped succeeded and started struggling in baseball, it was so painful that I had to “unfollow” other baseball parents whose sons were still progressing in the sport. Likewise, now when I go on Facebook and I see friends celebrating long-term marriages or publishing contracts, I can’t help asking why them and not me. What’s wrong with me, my voice, my stories that I’m not worth publishing or holding onto? Is this something I can fix? Or maybe there’s nothing wrong at all; I just haven’t found the right publisher or person.

Or maybe I just use too many semi-colons.

I may not ever get that publishing contract. I might not ever be in a long-term relationship again. But I can rewrite my personal definition of success.

Right now it’s: “I never gave up.”