My Dating Chronicles

As an almost 29 year old, it's sad to say that I am fairly new to "dating" as we think of it. In high school and college I just dated my fellow high school and college guys. This was easy and no fuss dating, and quite frankly, it spoiled me. I was in a bubble, and there were men. I saw one I liked, picked him, and off we went into dating bliss. This usually lasted anywhere between 3 months-2 years. When that relationship expired, I would be "single" for 1-3 months, and then start again. Pick, date, repeat.

Easy as pie.

Now I am, unfortunately, no longer in the HS/college bubble, and instead find myself in the concrete jungle fighting my way through a sea of women who are also looking to date.

Fun.

Adding insult to injury, this whole dating part of my years has been nothing like I've seen on tv. None of my friends have a great friend or cute coworker that they can introduce me to [and if you do and I find out you're holding out, we're not speaking again!] and if they do know people they are either not age appropriate, or I am not attracted to them in the least. Meeting men in general in this city is HARD, at least for me. I'm still waiting for the day that I roam through a bookstore and a cute, intelligent, age appropriate man chats me up. People always tell you to get yourself out there! Ok. Sure. Let's go to a lovely rooftop bar. :: crickets :: Professional networking event? Everyone's in their cliques. Yoga? All the men there are either gay or with their girlfriend/date.

Yeah. Not working.

Due to all of this, I have :: gulp :: been on the internet dating scene for about a year now [but if you add up the time I have actually been active on a site, the total is maybe 5 months. I have A.D.D remember?]

I used to be shy about admitting this was what it has come down to but more and more people I know are doing it. I even know people that have married someone they met online [sounds like a match commercial but it's true!] And honestly, I really just don't have a better way to meet people. I work all day, refuse to go to a happy hour every day in hopes of meeting someone, and my friends don't have friends.

So online dating it is/was. I've met a few people in person and chatted with more. None of these have worked out obviously, since I'm still single, but some of the stories have been semi huh? Because of this [and boredom], I've decided to chronicle my dating experiences, and maybe throw in a lesson or two.

Disclaimer: I won't be using anyones name/job in any of these stories because I think that's not nice. Also, while practically all of these stories are about men that I *maybe* went out with twice, I will leave out the story of the one person it did but didn't work out with [who was actually the very first person I ever met off of a dating site]. Regardless of how that went down, we spent a few months dating/hanging out/whatever and I did care for him. These are wtf stories, not bashing stories. That's all. :)

With that said ... on to the stories!