As I have gotten older the frequency of people suggesting online dating to me only increases. If you have ever had a conversation with me about online dating, you would have heard me preach about how I would never try it. I held and might even still hold the opinion that people who do it are desperate and there is nothing but creepy men on dating sites. Whenever, this option is suggested to me I could feel my heels dig into the ground as I strongly resist that option. NO! I am not going to do the online dating thing. That is not going to be my story. God does not need me to go online to give me a husband!
Ironically, coffee date guy from my last blog, I met online. This is how I complicate my own life. I go on this site one night while babysitting. I was waiting for the kid to go to sleep and was bored. I thought it might be fun. It was a social experiment. I went on this site in Reno and it confirmed what I believed about online dating. Now, I’m here in Washington, new territory, new men. I wanted to compare the experience. Then, I swipe right for this guy who recently ran his first half marathon, says he’s a Christian and is over 6 feet tall. We start messaging back and forth with very substantial conversation. He’s pretty cool. He admires my questions and judiciousness. He wants to meet me. I turn him down. He respects my pace and tells me that when I ready to meet to let him know. I contemplate this because it’s one thing to just message back and forth. If we stop, things can go back to normal with very little damage done. But you can’t take back meeting someone. I consider it and then choose to meet him. That’s when the coffee date happened. It was fun, not awkward (like I imagined), great conversation and a two and a half hour long date. Since then we have gone on a hike, had lunch, and seen a movie. He wanted to do something this weekend but I declined and use the weather as an excuse. He’s great and I’m thinking, judging by what he tells me and the fact that he keeps wanting to see me, that he sees a future with me. Ahh! Crap! Now I am getting too deep into this experiment. This is someone’s life. I can’t play with that. I need to tell him that he’s great but I don’t feel the same way. I did this to myself. Now I need to have this hard conversation.
Maybe it’s the fact that I met him online or maybe it’s due to the fact that I like someone else but whatever the source of my lack of feelings for him is, I just can’t keep this up. It does seem odd to me that I’m not interested when logically I think that I should be. I have discredited feelings when I think about what I want in a man. I should add another “f” to my list, feelings. How important is attraction and what level of attraction should be present when considering dating someone? Should I wait this one out a little longer in hope that feelings develop? I do not know. Why does this have to feel so complicated?
In the mean time the guy that I do like does nothing to communicate interest. There are little things that he does and if I read into them we are destined to be married. His best friend doesn’t get it either. He thinks he should talk to him and basically say, “Hey! What’s your deal? You like her. Go for it!” He was going to talk to him yesterday but like plans with coffee date guy didn’t happen due to the weather, so their conversation didn’t happen either. I’m a little disappointed. I am trying to have the right perspective. God doesn’t need his friend to talk to him in order to make something happen. Maybe that will be the tool that propels this forward. If not, that is okay.
Through these events, I have come to the conclusion that God does not need me go online to find a man but he may have a good one on a dating site. One, I would not have met otherwise. God does not need someone to call out his friend in order to for him to finally make a move. However, that may be what he needs. I believe God has a plan. What we do can be used as tools in the grand scheme or we are just fools trying to make things happen that shouldn’t. It’s hard to know what’s right. Waiting is hard. The desire to try to manipulate things is strong. For now the best thing for me to do is wait on knees and ask for wisdom.