Dating 101

By Camille Hill

When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.

~William James

I flunked Dating 101 a long time ago. Yet there I was, age sixty-seven, considering entering the online dating field.

By happenstance, the day I decided to look at the online dating sites was the very day there was a free weekend on one of the more popular sites. That meant I could go online to look, to see if there were indeed men living in my area in the age bracket I thought was reasonable. I found a plethora of men looking for love. Excited, I began to fill in the questionnaires on two different sites. I wasn't sure I wanted to go live at the moment but at least I could consider their questions, form my answers and then when I was really ready, it would be easy to proceed.

As I filled in the questionnaire on one site I came to a series of questions about my ideal partner that also had a box to check off marked "deal breakers." I considered my options and decided that a deal breaker for me would be any man who was shorter than I was. I checked off that box. The question about weight was a bit of a puzzle but finally I decided that their definition of "heavyset" probably meant very overweight and I knew that was not something I was attracted to, so I checked off that box too. The deal breaker box concerning smoking was a no brainer — I had no desire to be with anyone who smoked — so I checked that box. The deal breaker box concerning drinking was also checked as I did not imbibe alcohol and had no desire to be with someone who drank regularly. A few more selections and I was done with that part of the questionnaire. I decided to stop at that point and logged off. I had not completed the questionnaire but thought I would do so another day.

The following morning, when I logged on to the site there was a message telling me that my profile had been accepted and was now online and live. Heart palpitations would not be an exaggeration as I raced to the site to look — and yes, there I was. No pictures, an uncompleted profile and worst of all, all the deal breaker boxes that I had so carefully checked off were there — as what I required. Yes! I wanted to meet men who were very heavy, shorter than me, who drank regularly, and smoked! Yikes. I couldn't figure out how it was that I was now online when I had not approved that. For a few minutes I couldn't figure out how to get my profile down, but I finally found a section of the site that allowed me to hide my profile. Whew!

I then turned my attention to the other e-mails I had received only to discover I had received about thirty hits from interested men who sent me their detailed information about their heights, smoking, drinking lives, as well as pictures showing a variety of midsection girths. The humour of it all hit and I started to laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Was this a sign? Was I meant to explore online dating? Should I just give up and remain single? Was a lasting love beyond my ability in this lifetime? What did it all mean? These questions and more flitted through my mind even while I was laughing at myself.

A day or two later I went back in to edit my profile. This time I deleted the deal breaker boxes and simply put down that I was looking for a man to be my companion, my love, and the most necessary ingredients were being spiritual and having an open heart. I think my online dating mishap was a lesson that I needed to stop focusing on the deal breakers and, instead, focus on the positives.

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