The Trials And Triumphs Of Online Dating

(More Like Just Trials) 

1. When you see your "Most Compatible Matches" for the day and it makes you lose all faith in humanity. 

                                        And love. And facial hair ever being attractive. Your pick: Stalker Lover or Serial Killer? Choices choices…

2. The heartfelt answers

                                                                                               Just makes those panties drop.

                                                                                            Then there are the short and…sweet?

I mean…I could get on board with this last one, I suppose?

3. The Classic Profile Cover Photo With a Guy Holding a Large Bass. 

You men know who you are and all the ladies know what I am talking about. I think guys forget that they are trying to attract women, not prove their hunting/fishing prowess to other men. Exhibit A: a man standing next to a truck full of dead furry animals. Yes, that is indeed a truck filled with dead. furry. animals. I am genuinely puzzled…do men think that ladies are over here being like, "Oh baby. Let me get me get a piece of that action!"

Dear men, when a lady is looking through your pictures, she subconsciously trying to see if she can see herself in the life you are showing her. So when we see a picture of you standing proudly in some sort of garage with dead animals…our instincts are telling us what they told those poor animals: run.

4. When you keep getting matched with all the cute boys. Maybe? 

                                                                                                         Who knows.

                                                                                             It's all just so mysterious….

5. When They Tell You What You Already Knew

   Yes, sad human being. You will indeed be alone forever.

                                                                                 

Snowball Effect

As I turned on my computer today I realized that it had been a while since I had been on Pinterest. (Because Pinterest is totally lame these days.)

So I logged on to Pinterest and the first thing I saw was a picture of a hamburger that someone recently pinned.

I clicked on picture of said burger because, well, it's a picture of a delicious hamburger. Of course I am going to click on it.

But do you know who eats hamburgers? People do, that's who.

Consequently, clicking on the picture of a hamburger then led to pictures of people eating hamburgers.

But since eating a hamburger is the quintessential family gathering food of choice, I was then led to pictures of families eating hamburgers together.

Then it happened. I innocently enough clicked on a picture of a dad putting ketchup on his child's hamburger.

Then boom.

My screen is filled with pictures of fathers playing with their children and holding their babies. Oh my god the babies.

So. Many. Babies.

So many dads holding their babies. Picture after picture of fathers playing with their kids and spending time with their daughters and fishing with their sons.

So many sweet moments.

And then my ovaries exploded.

Seriously. I don't know what it is. Maybe it is part of being a girl. Maybe it is my age. Maybe it is just me. (It's not just me. It's not just me, right??) But I can scroll through picture after picture of babies for a solid 40 minutes. That's a really long time. But they're just so damn adorable. It's more than that, though. It's the fact that I now find joy in shopping for tupperware. Like, all things dishes and tupperware related just excites the hell out of me. I don't know if it's normal to find joy in buying plastic containers. But I do.

As I was thinking about this today, I realized that maybe it's about what the tupperware represents.

Because you see, when I look at tupperware, I don't see square plastic containers. I see organization and order. I visualize where these containers would be stored in the kitchen of my adorable future house. Then I think about what I would be putting in the containers. And obviously that would be the food I would be buying and cooking for my family. Oh, did you say family? Well let me just take that thought and run an emotional marathon with it. Family…ok, so that would be my husband and two kids. The kids would be about six and three years old at this point. Boy and girl, obviously. And I would put their lunches for school in the smaller square tupperware…. Wait, kids going to school? Packing lunches? Doing mom-ish type things? Having my life feel like it has some sort of purpose and rhythm and order and…oh…order.

That is what I am longing for.

Order is what I am longing for during this season of life where everything seems to be up in the air. When nothing is set in stone. When it is still just me trying to figure out what the heck I am doing or supposed to be doing and when I'm not sure what my role in life is right now. When I don't know if I am being productive enough in my day-to-day life or living with enough purpose. When I can't visualize what the next ten years (heck, the next ten days) might look like because when I look into the future and it is all…just very blank.

Tupperware represents the idea of a future that I am hoping for. It represents having something known, something concrete and solid. It represents having someone that you're navigating the unknowns of life with. It represents the hope of having little kids with sticky fingers and lunch boxes that have to be bleached for the 20th time because it has a funny smell (again) because the tupperware container leaked or just because there has never been a lunch box that didn't have a funky smell.

So when I see tupperware, I see life. I see a future. And I think that maybe if I buy that container…maybe I'll get that life too.

They Make It Sound So Easy

Have you tried to open a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner recently? You know, the ones with those awful ridged caps that you are supposed to push down on (with the strength of Goliath, I might add) while simultaneously turning to the left, in order to open? Yeah, those suckers are impossible to open--almost as difficult as those new uber-flimsy water bottles with that plastic cap that is 1/16 of a centimeter tall that you are somehow expected to be able to grab onto to twist open….gosh I hate those stupid water bottles. Well anyways, a few months ago I found myself contemplating ending things with an incredibly sweet guy I was dating. I was frustrated with myself because I was wondering for the thousandth time if I might have unrealistic expectations of what I want in a guy. I was wondering if I push too hard. Wondering if I don't know what I really want and really need and wondering if I am just making mistake after mistake after mistake.

So there I was, cleaning my bathroom before this guy arrived at my house (because obviously I clean my house from top to bottom before I have company over and then apologize profusely for how "messy" it is so that people walk away thinking, "Wow, that is what she calls messy? It's so clean!") Anyways. As I was attempting to open a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner, I was thinking about the situation with the man I was currently going out with, as well as the handful of guys I have made attempts at dating in the past. I was frustrated with myself for always putting so much pressure on them to be this person that I want to be in a relationship with and frustrated that I push people to be someone that they are maybe not made to be. I was frustrated that people disappoint me, frustrated that I am so easily disappoint-able when I am so flawed myself, and frustrated for not being able to open the damn toilet bowl cleaner bottle already! Because for goodness sakes how difficult it is to open a bottle of cleaner?! Ugh. After several more attempts at perfecting the "push and screw" technique (and still failing to open the bottle) I gave it up for a moment. And through my tears of frustration, I looked down to see that my hands were now torn, blistered, and bleeding. Ok, not really. But they were pretty red. And I really was on the verge of tears. It was at this point that it hit me…. Oh. My. Gosh. I am doing the same thing in my relationships with guys as I am doing with this toilet bowl cleaner bottle. I am trying push and push and turn and apply as much pressure as humanly possible… and it is not working. Maybe, I thought to myself, maybe I need to stop applying so much damn pressure. Maybe lack of pressure isn't the issue. Maybe the problem is that I am pushing too hard.

I know.
Mind. Blown.

So, after this epiphany, I changed my approach. I gently cradled the toilet bowl cleaner bottle in my arms. I spoke lovingly to it as I gently pushed down on the bright blue "push and screw to the left" cap. And low and behold…it did not open. I was just like, Whatever. Screw this. But then, in a final act of desperation, I leveraged my entire body weight onto the bottle and pushed down really really really hard as I turned the cap. And it opened.

So, apparently the lesson is not that I am applying too much pressure…but in fact that I need to to apply more?

I'm kidding. I don't really think there was a lesson. I think it was just a really difficult bottle of toilet bowl cleaner to open. That being said, I do think that I could be applying too much pressure on certain people in potential relationships. Or, I might also be trying to date people who just aren't right for me and who I am not right for. I don't really know. But I guess the only way to find out is to try applying some pressure. And if that doesn't work, maybe I'll try a different approach and be a bit more gentle. If that still doesn't work, then I will probably take a moment to say a few choice words and then try something else. Eventually, if I'm really committed to having whatever it is I'm trying to have…be it a clean toilet or a relationship…I'll figure it out. Hopefully.

The real moral of this story is just that I have no idea about anything and I am just going to keep trying different things because like I said…I have no idea if I am doing this all the right way or wrong way or if there even is a right and wrong way. But one thing I do know is that I probably should not apply the "push and screw" concept to a potential relationship.