Hopeful 7 Hopeless 3
So many times over the past few days, the phrase "It's crazy!" or something similar has been running through my mind. Online dating is a rather strange experience. It made me think of the theme song for the television show Monk: It's a Jungle Out There. I find this really describes the feeling very well and I decided to put it as my facebook status.
I have just been trying to keep up with the messages that people have been sending me. It is going much better now that I have developed some strategies, which I discussed in my Getting the Hang of It post. Since I have been so inundated, though, I have not had a chance to do my own browsing and send messages to guys I think are interesting. I have a good 40 matches based on the Plenty of Fish 73 question Personality Relationship Chemistry Predictor Test I took the day I created my profile. My e-mails tell me that I apparently even get new matches every few days, which I suppose come from newcomers to the site. I had taken some time on the first day to browse through some of my matches and there was one in particular I had thought to message because he was a writer for a living, something I really admire. The first day, though, I was just observing and not sending any messages. After that, I was simply swamped with my own messages and never got around to creating my own. I am irked by this, because I am an independent lady. I do not like to wait around passively for life to happen or to be "rescued". I like to take an active role in my own destiny, which includes keeping an eye out for a potential partner. This site is not allowing me to do that at the moment and it is frustrating!
The other thing I have discovered in the last couple of days by checking my e-mails is that there are a couple of functions I have not yet explored on Plenty of Fish. I have been receiving e-mails about people who "would like to meet me". There is a section on the site called "Meet you", where a random picture pops up and you can click the button "Meet XPerson". I never had any particular use for it and Étienne had said that he never used it himself. He would simply find it flattering if someone had liked him based on his picture. It would seem that there are a few people who have done that for me. I was also shocked to find out that there is a Favourites section and that 16 people have added me to their favourites list! I am reportedly more popular than I thought. This is uncomfortable. This potentially means that some people could be offended if there is no feedback. I have not messaged these people who "want to meet me" or have favourited me. I have not favourited them in return. I wonder what that says or if it even matters. I simply don't know what to do about it, so I am doing nothing at present. Meantime, I hope I am not offending anyone! At least you are all on equal footing: I haven't clicked these buttons for anyone!
I have had moments in this process where I experienced full rejection. I rejected the experience and wanted desperately to stop it. I thought it was just too crazy and I could not possibly do it. I thought about potentially dating people that I am corresponding with and I had strong feelings of not wanting to date anyone and shut my account. I have this kind of reaction sometimes when I am having a hard time or when I am trying something new. So I know not to listen to these feelings. The fact remains, though, that I don't feel great until the moment passes. I think it must be an anxiety based reaction. So far I have truly been doing the easy part: having little conversations with these guys and learning about their interests. Doing that is pretty safe, but it can't go on forever. At some point, there will be dates and that is where things get scarier. So I expect this "rejecting the experience" feeling will resurface. As you can guess, I got most of these feelings on Thursday.
Meantime, I am still convinced that this is all a little nuts and that Plenty of Fish is more like a jungle than an ocean...
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