“Ten men waiting for me at the door? Send one of them home. I’m tired.” —Mae West
One of the beauties of online dating is it seems there is a never-ending supply of suitors. At least that’s my experience. And I have pretty stringent criteria for my matches. Yes, I get 10 times more guys winking and emailing who don’t come close to matching my criteria. But it seems that weekly I get a few who meet enough criteria to respond to their inquiry.
It is fun to meet new guys, although it can be time consuming, and if you let it, frustrating. Once I had 7 dates with 6 guys in 5 days. It is exhilarating to feel desirable, yet as I’ve become more experienced, I’ve become more discerning. Now I see two to four new guys a month, rather than a week.
The downside to this abundance, in addition to the time to correspond, talk on the phone and meet, is that there’s a sense that there is someone better just a mouse click away. If you are not desperate for a relationship, it is easy to reject every one, focusing on a fatal flaw. However, once in a while, when a guy seems to scratch a particular itch I’m feeling, I’ll hang out with him for a while, until one of us realizes we aren’t a good long-term match and it isn’t fair to the other to continue as if we were.
So while abundance is a positive thing, when you find someone you click with, try to stay present to his good qualities, rather than thinking “Who else is online?” When I can see that my current beau has been online within 24 hours of my being on the site, I know he doesn’t think we’re long-term either, even if neither of us says it.
So when it’s raining men, come into the shelter of one guy and dry off for a while and see how it feels. Who knows, you might just get an umbrella to fend off other potential suitors — at least for a while.
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