Finding Love Online

On this national day of love (at least
here in the U.S.) where we’re enticed to buy all things heart-like, red,
and chocolate, I began thinking about how long it took me to find true
love.  The first time around, when I thought I’d found it forever
with a man I met at a dance club, I was 24 and had just started my first
professional job out of graduate school. A scant 2 years later I was
married and had absolutely no realistic idea of what marriage was
supposed to be about.

Suffice to say, 10 years later, when my life
looked nothing like I’d planned and I was extraordinarily miserable, I severed
that relationship, moved halfway across the country, and began again.

It took me another 2 years to mourn the loss of
that marriage and find my dating feet.  Since I then resided on the
backside of nowhere, online dating was my savior.  My friends and family
all thought I was weird (the jury’s still out on that one <g>) and desperate
(hell, yes!), but to me it made absolute sense.  I ran a virtual business 
– why not try virtual matchmaking??

So I entered the dark and scary world of
finding love online.  I was surprised that the same skill I had developed
in sizing up clients virtually in terms of if we were a good fit served me well
in determining the losers from the freaks from the nerds from the scary guys. 
Unlike my business intuition, I often ignored my love intuition and gave someone
a chance when I knew I shouldn’t.  However, I now have some great stories
to tell….and I can laugh about them instead of cringe..LOL

In
2005 when I moved back to Texas, I decided to give dating a try again (after
swearing off of it for more than a year) and cruised the local online personals
site.  I sent out 10 or so emails to men whose profiles intrigued me and
heard back from a few but nothing interesting developed.  I got busy with
life and actually had forgotten about those emails when, about 3 weeks later, I
got a very interesting email from a guy who could actually write a complex
sentence and spell all the words correctly (trust me, in SE Texas, that’s a
rarity <g>).

I intially had no idea why he was writing me,
but assumed it was in response to one of the emails I sent out previously. 
So, I had to log back into my account to look him up by user name, as I had no
recollection of him. <g>  I found his profile and got a good chuckle
because his profile had almost nothing in it — I just dropped him a line
because I thought he was cute rather than based on what he had to say in his
profile — something I normally never did.

Fast forward to 1.5 years later and we’re
celebrating our 2nd Valentine’s Day as a couple, the first as an engaged couple,
and I couldn’t be happier.

So, if you’re looking for love, give online
dating a shot.  It took me 5 long years and I certainly kissed alot of
toads in the process, but true love found me just when it was supposed to. 
Isn’t it funny how life works that way??