Initially, I got on myspace.com because I thought it
would be good for my art and writing. Whoa, was I
wrong. This may be the merlot talking but soon enough I was addicted and logging on every night and talking to men I didn’t know. Most are nice, it turns out I have a good fan club going on but there are turds in the punchbowl  (aren’t there always?).  It turned from business to online dating. And I found out, online dating wasn’t for me.

The whole impersonality of the technology age just
capped off a perfect week of the most dramatic
bullsh%$ of my entire life. Bootie calls, players and
just plain sleezoids were the dating e-mail du jour.
One man was nice enough to go out with me and he was cool, turned out we knew each other from mutual acquaintances. Another was okay, but not my style. The last....omg. Oh my God.

We had the most fascinating conversations on e-mail.

Friends first, then it sort of developed.

He called me once, we spoke for an hour. I gotta tell you, I am smitten. Still. Yeah, I know, I am such a girl. Then I told him something personal, which he seemed to think I was keeping a secret from him. So dramatic! Discussing this with a friend that has a great jerk radar, she is of the opinion that he is wanting me to chase him, so he can figure out (consciously or unconsciously) if I am weak and easy prey.

I can’t argue with that. My soon to be ex was an
expert at manipulation and I fell for it for many
years.  It gave me great introspection into my own
attraction to men like him. Since I told him my
personal business, he sent me an e-mail and a text message, but he won’t actually speak to me. In a moment of weakness, I sent a text to him. Then I
called, (stop laughing), and he refused to speak with me because, according to his text he was scared of getting hurt.

Is this some euphemism for are you a weak asshole and how far can I manipulate you? How far will I go to make you like me? I don’t honestly know. I want to say that no, that’s not it. There was something there. I’m a salesperson, trained to know this shit. I want to know more, bite my tongue and see what happens. But, also being a persistent person I want to know everything; I still have to learn the value of patience. However,  I realized another great point: I made this person too important to my happiness. You know what I mean? I spent my day obsessing about
if he was going to call, if  he was going to e-mail
and that’s when I broke down and texted him first. I
gotta admit my being in a PMS state didn’t help. My ex knows this about me and used (still tries, ass!) it against me on many occasions. What does this say about my radar of men?  Talking to my friend, we made a list. Don’t laugh because for us, the similarities are staggeringly strange because her ex had the same name, birthday and a whole slew of other stuff:

The List of Men To NOT DATE:
1. Men Named Matt.
2. Aquarians.
3. Delivery Drivers.
4. Shipping Guys.
5. Men who are great in the sack, but lacking in the
job department.
6. If he totally doesn’t worship you, dump him.
7. That subtle manipulation: poor me. Dump his ass immediately. If you need an older male figure with a gun to push the point, I know of three.
8. if your gut instinct is that he isn’t that into you, he isn’t. Let it go.

Men are dumb. Yes, girls you will have to lead the
way, no matter what they say, we are powerful and to let them think otherwise is pure genius on our parts.

I am including our male children in this. I am faced
everyday with that prospect and am learning everyday what I can do to raise my men to be GOOD men. I got so caught up in my online bull that I was forgetting that my three little ones were counting on me to be ‘there’. Yes, I got lost in thought, caught in my own head trips about what these ‘friends’ were thinking about me. I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have to them, the real men in my life. Learning and experience open the doorways... I only hope that I can always walk through them with an open heart and
mind to pass it on to them.