Dating Outside the Online

I consider myself a pioneer of sorts in the online dating world. When I was 14 years old I had my first online boyfriend. He lived in Utah, I lived in Ohio, we met once and that was for his senior prom. This also adds to my case that my mom is partially crazy since she had no issues with her daughter talking to a stranger who happened to be a 17 year old Mormon out in Utah. Add that one to the counseling file later in life as well.

I just always found it much easier to date people online, or at least find someone to date online. Part of this mentality in the beginning was my rampant insecurity of myself. I figured well I can just dazzle someone with my charismatic and endearing personality and then maybe that will compensate for my own self esteem and body issues when I met them in person. As the years progressed though I began to take better care of my body and became more confident in myself, however maybe some of those same insecurities are at bay and I'm in constant denial of the reason why I still brave through the drama of online dating.

Regardless, my new twenty-something reasoning for dating online...prescreening. Online dating is like having caller ID sometimes. You can see who's trying to talk to you, get a little information on them, see if they're cute, their education, job, etc. and if you aren't interested...you walk away. Or if they aren't interested in you...no harm, no foul.

However, one of my friends asked me this about what I considered to be my fabulous prescreening process. "Kassandra, don't you think that your 'prescreening' has made you into a window shopper, where you see all these 'ok' men, yet you never want to purchase one or get into a relationship with one of them, you just want to gaze at them and move onto the next window."

What an amazing analogy. Have I really become one of those women that are never satisfied because they keep looking for greener pastures on the other side? Part of me doesn't want to admit it, but maybe I have. I think a lot of times women have mental checklists about what type of man they expect to end up with. I'll raise my hand on that one. I can even think of online dating sites where I've actually listed that checklist as to not cause any confusion with the men approaching me.

Oftentimes I thought this was my way of circumventing unwanted attention from men I don't think I'll have any interest in. But what if I'm really just setting myself up for excluding that one man who may surprise me? Humbling thought to my pompous personality.

So how does a window shopper become a loyal customer? Where do I sign up for preferred membership with money saving coupons that will keep me coming back for more? I mean DSW has me hooked, why can't a man get me?

I would blame it on my internal ADD that I pretend doesn't occur in my head. I swear my mind is never on one track. For instance I'm writing this and also thinking in the back of mind about the cookies I was supposed to bake today. See...the train just jumped the track. But besides that, maybe I'm just like every other insecure woman in this world. I'm terrified of putting myself completely out there again.

Everyone has their own love baggage. Some can compartmentalize it into a nice neat carry-on bag, and others of us require an extra $150 at the ticket gate to check our mental bags over the required weight limit. Many say that time is the healer of all wounds, but sometimes I feel that finding love again may be my healer. Maybe the key to avoiding the continuous window shopping syndrome is to just open the damn door of the store and walk in...