I recently tried my hand at online dating again. Long story short, it didn't go well. I was in and out in a day and a half.
Deep down, I didn't want to believe a few of my friends who, months ago, in passing opined that that dating website was trash. How bad could it really be? was my internal response.
Over the last month, I had received (and, after this episode, still am receiving) a few various mild nudges to get back into dating. Money has been tight. POF.com is free, which was the draw. After all, I felt good about my ability to hold the line when I needed to, but still engage and be present and try to get to know someone.
The first night I signed up, I received a flirty message from one person that caught my interest. I messaged back. She wanted to move our conversation to text. She gave me her number and asked for mine. She was cute, but yikes. I didn't want to give her my number. Not yet. She also lived in Wyoming. I moved on.
The second night I messaged a few people, practicing beginning a conversation with low-pressure small talk (not my forte, but I'm getting better at it). There was one that caught my interest. Unlike the first, she was here in Chicago. I messaged her. She messaged me back: "snap me", followed by her Snapchat handle. Long story short, the way Snapchat works makes absolutely no sense to me. After creating my own username and eventually finding where I can look up people, I typed in her username. No luck.
I wasn't ready to give up, so I messaged a third person that caught my interest. She responded back, asking if we could move to text. This time I decided to say yes. I figured, just once. Turned out she was only interested in sex, which was very different from what she had put on her profile! I had a brief lapse in judgment, naively thinking I'll agree to meet her and somehow convince her instead to consider a real dating relationship, instead of what she wanted. All I know is, Holy Spirit saved my butt. There was a series of interruptions as we were trading messages that gave me an opportunity to slow down and look at what I was getting myself into. Enough wisdom eventually set in, and I backed out. I'm really glad it didn't work out.
The next morning, after a friend of mine shared his reaction to my overnight text to him and a couple others that I was "contemplating" shutting down my profile, I went ahead and did just that. It wasn't just because of woman #3. My experiences with all three of them simply hit dead ends, either with logistics or with my own boundaries. In retrospect, it was blazingly obvious: it may be that I'm being nudged to get back into dating, but it's sure as heck not here. So I wait.
Very brief backstory: I am addicted to obsessive thinking. In my teens and most of my twenties, I obsessed for a romantic relationship. The thought of waiting was torturous. Flash forward to the present: although I still struggle to choose to trust Jesus with many things, particularly with reconciliation, personal justice regarding wrongs others have done to me, financial provision, and vision for my life, one thing I am grateful to say is that I have complete peace in trusting Him when it comes to my prospective life partner. (That, and grieving/mourning pain and loss.)
Today, I have no problem waiting. I would like to get back into a relationship again. But, considering that I waited as long as I did before my first one, and also considering the healing and growth Jesus has taken me through prior to it, I've seen enough in my experiences with Him that I've seen Him present such wonderful opportunities. I will happily choose that over rushing and ending up with someone who would be less than His best for me. The tricky part of the challenge for me is knowing when I'm no longer called to wait and instead called to act. I haven't figured that part out yet.