Before I started online dating I was a happy person; I was optimistic, I was hopeful.  I thought that if I just put myself out there that love would find me.  To quote one of my favorite chick flicks, “every woman has the exact love life she wants.”  I believed that if I wanted it enough and tried hard enough, I would get the relationship I wanted; I would get my happily ever after.  Well, now I can officially say to Match, OK Cupid, Bumble, et al: you have broken me.  You have stolen enough of my time and, in some cases, money.  I wave the white flag of surrender.

Somewhere between the disrespectful messages (yes, I would LOVE to kick you in the balls…can I wear my skates?), and looking at the same profile for the millionth time, I’ve just decided that I have to be done.  For me this online thing isn’t working.  And I really tried.  I didn’t play games; I said exactly what I’m looking for right in the first paragraph of my profile.  I made it clear that I wanted a commitment.  If you’re only looking for a good time, you need not message me.  I never tried to hide my crazy love of all things Disney or my closeness with my family.  While some may stay away because of some of my quirkiness, I decided I didn’t want those guys anyway.  I want someone to be interested in me for me, not some fake persona I thought might attract a guy.  None of it really worked for me.  Don’t get me wrong, I met some good guys, but they all just had me spinning my wheels.

You would think that I would feel liberated when I deactivated my profiles and deleted the apps from my phone this week.  I didn’t.  I felt like I was giving up on love.  That I’m giving up on the life I always wanted with a husband and family; making cupcakes with homemade buttercream on a snow day with my kids, and that wedding I always dreamed of having at my church.  I don’t know, maybe that is not in the cards for me.  And admitting that hurts more than anything.  The truth is that I have no idea how to meet someone off line.  My friends all say they wish they had someone for me, I wish they did too, but they don’t so that’s not an option.  It seems like any of the good guys around my age are already married.  When I go out to a club, I feel old.  I thought online dating was the answer, but it really isn’t.  Sometimes it was good for a laugh, but even when I was laughing at an absurd message, there was a deeper part of me that was still disappointed that the guy messaging me was 5’5” and lived in Timbuktu instead of someone I could actually be interested in.

Pre-online dating, I don’t think I ever really believed that I would meet the right guy for me in the same way I buy my pants.  But somehow, through countless messages and winks and swiping right and double tapping, I got it into my head that this was going to work.  I know it’s worked for so many people and I really don’t know why it doesn’t work for me.  I did learn a lot from online dating; invaluable lessons, like someone’s profile is much more important than their pictures.  I have met many different types of guys through online dating; short guys, tall guys, bald guys, guys with long hair, Yankee fans, bad kissers, guys who are super serious, guys who are super laid back, guys who have nothing in life figured out, guys who still live at home.  All I’ve discovered is that I don’t really have a type.  Well, I guess that’s not true, almost all of them have been close with their family.

I think the reason I pushed myself so hard in this online dating world was because when I look back at my 20s I feel like I wasted a lot of my time.  As I’ve said before, I was the shy girl, and I honestly didn’t really date.  I wasn’t really that confident in who I was.  It took some time (and, yes, losing some weight), but now I do have that confidence.  So maybe I’m being hard on 20-something Erika.  She wasn’t in a good place to be dating anybody.  That being said, I am a stronger person now and I do like the person that I am.  I am just afraid that in another 10 years I’m going to look back and say that I wasted my 30s.

I don’t know what I’m going to do now to put myself out there.  I don’t know where single 30-somethings go to find each other.  I guess for right now I’m going to re-focus my efforts on other aspects of my life (skating season is back in full swing!).  I’m sure whatever is meant to happen will happen in due time, I’m just impatient.  I feel like I’m in a race and my friends are all close to the finish line and I’m still wandering around trying to find the starting line.