Survival Skillz

I've learned many different things while dating that are key to survival and/or expedite the process.

Here they are - in no particular order, all experiences from online dating.

Practical assumptions/learnings:

1) Your date will always be heavier and/or older than any of their photos on the online dating site.

2) The same goes for height, usually they are shorter than they say in their profile.

3) Be prepared to pay for your own drink/lunch/dinner/coffee/app.

4) You will be asked to text naked photos to your prospective date (75% of the time).

5) If the guy does not ask you at least one question about yourself during the date, kick them to the curb.

6) If you're late 30's or early 40's be ready to receive messages from guys age 22-30, they want to brag to their friends they dated a cougar, among other things.

7) *Never* have more than one glass of wine while out on a date. Trust me on this one.

8) Read their online dating profile VERY carefully (even if some of it is made up), you could miss some big deal breakers and go on a date and the entire time be thinking, "crap, what a waste of time". For example, "I only smoke when I drink" will translate to chain smoker.

9)Always ask the guy to text you before the date. #10 explains why.

10) Always do a background check before your first or second date or if you get a bad vibe about the guy. You can do this by paying for a reverse phone number look up. It's about $12-$15.  Get it here:
https://www.intelius.com/reverse-phone-lookup.html

It gives you name, mailing address and email address, so you can internet stalk them and find them on facebook or twitter or google+ or whatevs.

11) The reason for #10 is that some people think it's cool to make up a name and occupation for different reasons.  I've had this happen twice.

12) Another thing I just remembered is that I've seen a lot of people list their age as younger than they are, sometimes they explain that they are older in their profile, and sometimes they just don't tell you. This is mostly because of the search parameters of the dating site. Most people will search for 35-45, so the guys who are 48 are out of luck. Hence their desire to lower their age, to get more views.

Hope this is enlightening.

Couple of notes:
I'm not the best writer, I know how to write a good English paper on Paradise Lost and a marketing plan, but this is my first time writing a blog. Writer and editor friends - I appreciate your patience. :)

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE post your experiences too, if you feel comfortable. I love to hear if other people have had the same sort of things happen to them.

xoxo

Single & Ready to Mangle

So here I am.

Single, 40 years old, divorced, trying to navigate the wild west of dating. Trust me, being single and ready to mingle is not all it's cracked up to be.

I hear a lot of this kind of thing from my friends (most of them who are in relationships): "Dating must be awesome!", "Just go out there and have fun!", "You're so lucky!", "Don't worry, you'll meet someone once you stop looking", "You could go out to dinner EVERY NIGHT and have it paid for!".

Seriously. WTF people?

Dating can be fun, awkward, sad, ridiculous, surprising and many, many other things. For those of you who have dated in your adult lives, you can probably relate.

I'm going to chronicle some of my experiences in this blog.  I can't guarantee you'll laugh or you'll cry, but that's ok, since I've done those for you already. 

I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do this, it might be about specific people or it could be about experiences. I'll just see how it goes.

Also: I know it's going to be hard not to judge me, my decisions or my actions, so go ahead, I won't take it personally and I'll understand. :-)

PS: There will also be some sweeping generalizations regarding men, so please don't take offense. I know that some of you do not belong in the generalized category.