RECONSIDERING

Incoming emails from online dating sites are rare. At least for me they are. That’s pretty much why I canceled my subscriptions. If I do happen to get an email, I can’t view who sent it or view the message because I have to be a member. There *is* a little trick to figure out who sent it. You can look at the ‘who’s viewed you’ box. This is a good work-around because if I think the person is interesting, I can always re-subscribe and view the message.

Well it’s been like eight months since I’ve subscribed. I finally got an email over the holidays. The woman’s profile was interesting, and she was attractive. I pondered whether or not to subscribe again. I guess being bored out of my mind over the holidays made the decision easy for me. So I signed up for a month.

I opened up the email and it was very sweet. She said she’d found my blog and was enjoying what she read thus far. She said she liked writers because she was one, too. “Wow, how perfect is that,” I asked myself? I replied back to her and off we went, into the wild blue online dating yonder.

We probably exchanged a good four or five emails during the holidays. It seemed like we were both comfortable enough to arrange a first meeting. In one of her emails, she asked me about privacy. She wondered how I could be so open with my life and how was I so willing to put myself out there. She wondered because she was an extremely private person.

The reasons I gave her are all too familiar to you guys now. Venting, dealing, coping, therapy, garden state-of-mind, etc. I assured her that if we went out, I wouldn’t write anything about her without her permission. I asked her what her New Year’s plans were not that I was going to ask her out. We all know first dates on New Year’s Eve are a bad combination, right?

I didn’t hear back from her so I wrote her an email saying Happy New Year, blah, blah, and I also asked her what she thought of my privacy answer. I got the answer later that day. She said she admired how I could be so open and honest and believed me when I said I wouldn’t write about her. It was signed “Good Luck.”

Well, that was the end of that. A typical online dead-end. But it got me thinking. Have I been *too* open and honest? I have always made it a point for people I meet to have them read my blog to understand who I am and what I stand for. If they don’t like the blog then they’re probably not gonna like me and it saves the trouble of meeting and all that. But is this really true?

I suppose if the first post you read about me was 28 months, or if you read how imperfect I am, you might get the wrong idea about me. Maybe you conclude I’m some sort of player or a mental basket case or too needy? It’s certainly conceivable if you happen to read just the right post. Maybe this blog is too much too soon, you know what I mean? I know one of you out there agrees with me because you already told me so. What about the rest of you? Should I reconsider and keep the blog to myself until I get to know a person better and vise versa? IF I ever get another email, it might be time for a change.