“I don’t normally do this but…”

I hate to see that on an online dating profile or for someone I’ve met through one of these sites to say that. It annoys the hell out of me. As if trying to meet someone is an embarrassing thing. We all want a companion. Who cares how you find one as long as its legal.

Several years ago while walking around a festival with a guy I met this way, someone asked us how we met. I replied, “online.” My fella was furious that 1. I answered the question and 2. that I actually said online. It’s not like I said we met on e-Harmony, which by the way, we did. I didn’t see telling the truth as a big deal. People like to hear a good love story and that involves knowing where people met.  My fella’s reaction was a sign of things to come obviously. After all, what story would we tell our grandkids about how we met? Were we gonna lie to them? *sarcasm*

Look, I’m a lady who works all day in a cube doing Internet work. I don’t meet new people at my job. My company rarely hires single men and certainly not in my age range. Not that I want to date at work anyway. I never meet anyone working in the 6-story building with 7 floors of condos. The only places I meet new people are at industry conferences and meetups. The social events I attend never have single men (not exaggerating here). And don’t even look for a black guy at them. If they’re there, they’re married and usually not to a black women. Even while eating out or just going about my daily errands I don’t meet many people. So online dating to me was a convenience in a world where it’s just damn hard to meet other eligible singles. I didn’t like being insulted by men who felt like it was a crime to meet someone this way.

So guys that are online dating, try not to make a lady feel as though meeting her this way is a big ole embarrassment–like anyone doing online dating is a loser. We’re all busy, times have changed. Families aren’t fixing us up. Church, like most places, is filled with more single women than men and making new acquaintances once you’re past the age of bars, booze and babes is simple hard. No shame in taking control of your life and doing whatever it takes to find the love of your life.

As for me, I gave up on online dating; I gave up on dating entirely. Haven’t had one in about three years. Time will tell if I ever decide to try again.