How to Meet(ic) Mr Mystic - Part 1

A year ago, April 2007, I finally let my pride and negative opinion aside and decided to join the club of the dating Websites, after a good friend of mine, who has been one of them for a few years now convinced me to at least try.

Let me set the background.

I dated a guy I met at University, from 2003 to 2006. I finally and courageously took the decision to end that relationship that was not making me happy anymore in summer 2006, I had just ended my studies and maybe willing to start fresh.

So after a 8-month single life, I decided it was time to move on and find a nice man who to share (good) moments with. I mean, single life if nice, but you can't live alone, I was beginning to miss the tenderness side (and more...) but also all the nice aspects of a relationship.

As I was not meeting new people at all, I decided to register to two dating Websites : Meetic & Match, as I didn't know how the whole thing worked and there are so many Websites like that now, I wanted to compare them and I was mostly curious than really into the process of virtual meetings.
I was very glad to see that, as a woman, I wouldn't have to pay, I'm not sure I would have let some euros for that stuff.

It was kind of funny to create my profile, harder when it came to the "describe yourself" page! I didn't want to add any picture of me first because I was still, somehow, ashamed of being on this kind of sites but understood later that, most people won't go further unless they can see how you look like, I was the first one to react like that. Aren't we, honestly, first attracted by the physical aspect of a person?! So, it took me a long time to sort "nice looking" pictures of me and then decide which ones I would add to my profile.

At the beginning, I went everyday to check my emails or the "flashes" on Meetic/"winks" on Match I had received.
Sometimes, I had some very LOL moments because, well... there are some pretty not good looking guys on this planet! Some that are really bad at introducing themselves or writing, and some not really smart. Sometimes, according to the main profile pic, you think "hey, not bad!" but then, either the other pictures won't please you at all or digging into the profile categories, you will discover that he smokes (I don't and can't bear cigarette's smoke) or is way too young for you or has a kid (not helping for a new relationship), etc.

I also spent hours using the research engine, you enter different criteria (age, location, details about hair, weight, height, status, kids, salary, occupation, hobbies, interests and more) and will pop up a range of profiles.

I was really eager to meet new people in general so I added many new MSN contacts, it was sometimes difficult to remember who was who, doing what, living where, that I had to make a little list to avoid mistakes! lol

There were some guys I was getting along with well but nothing more and with who I chatted for a few weeks without never going further.

I met 3 guys from Match.

I met the first one for a drink, we chatted, it was nice but I wasn't more interested, we kept on chatting on Internet for a while and I finally ended it up as it was going nowhere.

The second guy is some kind of story. We first met for a drink and got along pretty well, so we decided to meet again the next Sunday and spent the whole afternoon together in Saint Germain-en-Laye I didn't know at that time (West suburb of Paris), the afternoon led to diner back to Paris and he kindly drove me home whereas he was living on the other side of Paris. Nothing happened.

We met the following Tuesday, on May 1st (France Labor day) and spent the afternoon in a park. We met again, the next Saturday for a movie and ended up in a restaurant.
I was getting confused, about my feelings and his. Was he interested in a friendly way or more? And what about me? Had had four nice meetings but nothing more and my friend - the only one that knew about the dating Websites registration - was asking me about what was going on. I finally had a serious (virtual) talk with this guy and he confessed that he liked me very much but had also met another girl through friends of his and liked her too: akward!

He told me he had to make a choice, that he was not comfortable with this situation, so we met again for a movie and dinner but that wasn't like the other times, we both were even more shy. I felt like I was doing a final interview before he would take his decision, so weird. This was Saturday night. On Sunday evening, I received a text message saying something like "I'm sorry, I don't feel we can be together, I chose the other girl...". That was not a fair-play way to say this so I called him and asked for more details, his reasons were like "when we talk, there are so many blanks, we don't get along, we have nothing in common and this girl lives closer to me...". I had heard lots of crap from guys but that one was really good, that was not true at all but he had to find something to say.

I felt terribly betrayed and disappointed and was willing to end that stupid dating Websites stuff right away.

My friend adviced me to forget about him and move one, that there were many better guys out there.

I took a one-week break away from the Websites and that's when guy #3 made his appearance.

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