Online Dating

Well I must admit I am now doing the 3 day trial subscription on Match.com along with my 3 month subscription to eHarmony.com. I am also moonlighting on OkCupid but I do not take that site at all serious.

I did eHarmony back in the early fall for a couple of months and communicated with a couple of men but did not meet any of them in person. I only signed back up because they had a promotion going on and well my dating life had pretty much dried up.

I am going to attempt to get the most of my 3 day Match.com trial, already spending a couple of hours shifting through profiles in day one.

Unfortunately, as with eHarmony, I am not finding many men that are worth conversing with. I do not think I am picky (impossible considering the last two men I was involved with). I do think that because of my last relationship, I have now set my standards a bit higher and there is just a lack of men in my area that fit even my basic criteria.

I am not opposed to traveling if it means finding a quality man. So I am casting my net further than usual. Crossing my fingers. Wish me luck.

"W" No not Bush, but he claimed to be a gardener.

I met him through the Whoshere application on my iPhone. Whoshere is a program which allows you to create a brief profile and be linked to everyone else with an Apple iPhone or iTouch who also has the application. The application allows you to view pictures, instant message and trade pictures. I had downloaded the application a couple weeks prior and used it when I was bored and wanted to chat with someone. Typically I ignore guys who have topless pictures - I find them crude for some reason - but “W” was cute, even if he looked young.

We got to chatting and it turned out we had a lot in common. He was 30, separated from his wife/high school sweetheart for 14 months, has two boys. Owned his own landscaping business that he claims is very successful and seemed to be overall a good guy, from what I could discern via phone and texts. That night we talked on the phone until 3:00am and it was a great conversation. The next week we shared text messages and phone calls and even set a date for him to visit. The following week the phone calls waned a bit but we still communicated daily via texts.

The big day comes, Friday, the day he was supposed to visit. He seemed so excited and I was also very excited but tried my best to hide my excitement. I was burned pretty bad in my last relationship, so I am very wary of giving too much too quick and I was being cautious with “W” for that reason and because of course, this was only the second week and I really did not know him. I sent him a text around 2pm, asking we are still on and he says he is “working on it” and “please don’t be mad”, it is a 2.5 hour drive. I hear nothing from him so around 6pm I send him another text, he doesn’t reply until 8pm. He is apologizing, claiming he has a flat and is waiting for his dad to help because he did not have a spare – he is still at home. I suggest we reschedule and he says yes, that he “can’t wait to meet me” and that he is “sooo pissed”. I jokingly reply back that he should get the tire and come tonight. We often joked back and forth, so he should have known I was kidding. He didn’t respond.

I haven’t heard from him since. I have sent a couple texts and left him one message on his home machine. It is now Monday, and I still have heard nothing from him since Friday night. No texts, no phone calls and he has not been on the Whoshere application (which conveniently tells you when someone has last logged).

I am at a loss. I was really interested in “W”. I am not sure what happened. Who knows, maybe he reconciled with his wife or met someone else? I guess it is better to know he is a flake now than to find out later, when I really like him and have committed a significant amount of time.

What happened to common courtesy? Pick up the phone or shoot me a text and just say “sorry I am not interested, have a good life”. I get the whole "he is just not that into you", but why can't men just say that? I have flat out told guys that I was not into them. I did it in a tactful manner and we have remained platonic friends and/or just peacefully parted ways. Why can't men do the same?

Single Mother Multitasking Maven

If you had asked me when I was 18 years old where I saw myself in five years or in ten years, my answer would have went something like . . . At age 23 I would have seen myself starting my second semester of at one of the top fifteen law schools, preferable in New York City. By age 28, in 10 years, I would have seen myself in my third year of practice, as the newest up and coming litigation and/or mergers and acquisitions corporate attorney. I would see myself living life in the fast lane, doing my seventy hours a week as any typical associate attorney at a big law firm. I have seen myself attached to an equally fabulous tall, dark and handsome associate attorney, maybe cohabitating, with a dog, in swanky loft.

Never would I have responded to that question with a five year plan that included potty training a four year old and chasing after a diapered almost three year old. Married to my high school bad-boy boyfriend, with his gorgeous smile, deep blue eyes, he working as a dispatcher and I a fulltime student at a second tier law school (third tier depending on the ranking) in Buffalo New York.

But priorities change, life changes, when you find yourself pregnant at nineteen and again at twenty. After two babies I decided that it might be a good idea to marry the father of my children, I mean why not, we were already doing everything married couples do. I was a mother, a housewife, a student. Not only was I learning politics and law, I was also learning what it took to be a mother and wife. I would soon learn that I had all the makings of a wonderful mom, but was no longer cut out to be a wife. And eight months after the end of my first post-separation relationship, I wonder if I am cut out to be anyone’s significant other.

I did get the degrees. My schooling was the one slice of my pre-babies/marriage identity that I had left and I clung to it for dear life, even as my marriage was dissolving around me. Three degrees in 8 years all by the age of 26, I graduate cum laude with a BA in Political Science and then went directly on to earn my Juris Doctor and MBA.

I have done pretty well in my 28 eight years, soon approaching 29 years; I am starting to fear 30. And in the midst of single motherhood madness, when my seven year old is on her second mini meltdown since I picked them up from their after school program, my almost nine year old is telling me, once again, how I am ruining her life because I will not let her spend endless hours on Habbo.com, and dinner is burning on the stove, I often forget . . .

My daughters are and will always be my greatest accomplishment. They are exquisitely intelligent, kind-hearted, cooperative, well-behaved (for everyone but me), and amazingly well adjusted considering their sometimes maladjusted mother.

These are the ramblings of a single mother multitasking maven. Enjoy!