2015 Dating Year in Review

Welcome to my 2015 Dating Year in Review. My regular year was great, filled with so many awesome things, like speaking at Women’s Conference, another successful charity garage sale, new roommates and many new friendships, a new Church calling, a new niece, a new sister-in-law, fun hikes and trips (Kansas City, New Orleans, Montana, Canada), going to my sister’s musicals, getting articles published, hunting, matchmaking, learning that I can run 13+ miles, two mission reunions, lots of “aunt”ing, family history, mentoring, getting the cops called on a house party, Pool of Music, and lots of other crazy fun.

My Dating Year, however, was unfortunately a lot longer than a calendar year. If you weren’t aware, dating slows time down. Normal text messages that would take 2 seconds to respond to take 2 days. A one hour date takes a week to process. And so on.

I could have just posted this picture to represent my year in dating, but that would have been too easy.

I shall introduce my year in Quarters, like in the business world. Mostly so I sound classy and smart, but also mostly because this year I totally quit my whole “write in my journal every day” goal… or even every week, and let’s face it, not even every month goal. So I actually don’t remember every date I went on.

You know, I used to keep a list of all the dates I went on, which was categorized with all my other important life documents. I can’t find it right now. I guess dating went down on the “important” things to remember last year. It’s probably filed in my “Jokes” folder.

My biggest concern with my year in review is that I’m actually friends with most of the guys I went on dates with this year. Shocker! Granted, it was mostly so I could get them all to sign up for my set-up service. But many of them read my blog, so I haves to be verys carefuls about hows I writes thingses. Or do I?

Quarter 1 (January-March)

It was a bleak mid-winter and I was still on Tinder (it sounds like a drug, doesn’t it? Or a beginning of a horror story? It’s kind of both). A few young chaps asked me out. Unbeknownst to them, I had been out several times over the course of about 5 months with a guy who lived long-distance. Like across-the-country long-distance. The guy was interesting to me. I imagined I was interesting to him since he liked taking me out every time he was in town (which was not really all that frequent).

I wasn’t terribly interested in these Tinder guys. I told the Tinder guys I was interested in figuring out things with long-distance boy. Which meant I ended up dating none of them.

Quarter 2 (April-June)

Long-distance boy took me out for the last time and then totally ghosted me. Never to be heard from again (which is what ghosting means, for those of you not in the dating world). I didn’t cry. He had been a very nice excuse for not having to go on dates I wasn’t interested in. But seriously, ghosting? Why is that even a thing????

[To read more about ghosting, check out these articles: “Why Are We All Ghosting Each Other When the Alternative Is So Simple?“, “Ghosting: When to Do it and When to Text Back“, “The Five Stages of Ghosting Grief“…you get the point].

I recovered and went on a few dates with a few more fine young chaps.

I also went out on one of the craziest dates of my entire life. A random set-up by my aunt. Cowboy man turned out to be a friend’s brother. He also lives long-distance, but not quite so far, and was going to be in town-ish. Meaning he was coming to take care of his cattle. (By take care of, I don’t mean kill. They were branding, immunizing, and castrating the calves.)

He gave me three options. Option 1 was to help with branding the cattle in the morning. Option 2 was horseback riding in the afternoon. Option 3 was dinner in the late evening. I’m all for a horseback ride and all, but ANYONE can do that on a date (ok, I’ve actually never done that on a date), but who in the world has branded cattle on a date? I didn’t know anyone. So I chose Option 1. A little known secret about me is I really love baby cows, so how could I turn it down?

The actual cows.

I jumped in with all the family and friends and helped with the event. Cowboy man roped like a boss, and I learned how to immunize and chalk the calves. I even taught another newbie how to do it because I’m practically a pro now. It rained/snowed/slushed on us the entire time so I was wet and frozen clear through, but we warmed up with a nice cup of cocoa at the local McDonald’s after. Priceless. We never went out again, not for lack of cowboy man trying, but for lack of me wanting to go out with anyone at all, which leads me to…

Quarter 3 (July-September)

We shall call Quarter 3 the Dearth in Dating. The dearth was totally on my part. As mentioned, Quarter 2 had actually had a few solidly good dates, but then…life happened. In another post, I spoke more specifically about this, but Quarter 3 I was in the red emotionally and struggling hard core, trying to figure out what the heck I was doing with my life. It wasn’t a good time to introduce the anxiety of dating.

It didn’t particularly help that I had just started my set-up service. As I began to peruse profiles to set people up, I was dismayed at several profiles from the male-folk who mentioned they didn’t want any girls with emotional problems. First of all, I don’t know how I would know that from the profile information the girls gave me. And second of all, we are all emotional beings with emotional problems, and I didn’t quite get it. So third of all, I just wanted to punch those guys in the face for being insensitive.

And then fourth of all, I got really down about it, and realized I may not be date-able material if I struggle sometimes. But then, fifth of all, I started going to counseling and understanding a little bit of how I am in relationships (all relationships, not just romantic ones), and not only found some ways to communicate better, but also discovered that I’m actually normal. Normal meaning that surrrriously, we all struggle. And the guys who don’t want emotional problems probably have an avoidant attachment style and may need a dose of reality. Because they have “emotional problems” too.

The nice thing about me (there is at least one nice thing), is I tried hard not to ghost any guys during this time. I told them I was struggling and needed a break from dating and/or that I wasn’t interested in them, instead of just not responding. It takes guts to tell guys you’re not interested in them. And I wouldn’t say I do it gracefully, but who said that was a requirement?

In Quarter 3, I also gained a stronger desire to find a guy who’s in favor of the “in sickness and in health” idea. I intend to partner up and tackle whatever comes our way, no matter what it is. Based off my observations, life’s not a piece of cake being married and having kids. I’ll stand by his side in the hard times, so I need him to stand by mine.

Quarter 4 (October-December)

I spoke in my YSA stake conference about family history. So many people loved my talk. Lots of gals said I surely would be getting lots of dates after such a great talk. But in my talk I’d mentioned some of my struggles. Sure as heck-fire, you don’t get dates off of that. But you do get a lot of guys who need help with their family history. More people for my set-up service (bwhahhahahah).

To add insult to injury, Facebook reminded me of an ex-boyfriend’s birthday. I got a reminder some weeks later about how long we’d been friends, too. I hadn’t even looked at his profile in ages, and we had chatted online only a handful of times in the past 4 years. Darn algorithm.

But I made a goal to get back into online dating. I had a whole scheme where I would have my nieces and nephew help me create my online profile. And then they would choose which matches I should say “Yes” to. And the grandest idea of all is they would go on the first date with me and give a running commentary, reality-TV show style, during the date. We even recorded them creating my profile and swiping for me. It consisted of chanting as we swiped, “NO! NO! NO! NO! Wait…maybe? Does he drink? Then NO! Wait…he looks nice? He likes God? Ok, YES!” and massive cheering, “YOU MAAAAATCHED!!!”

Someday when I get bored I’ll edit the video and post it for y’all.

Alas, the whole plan was not to be. But I did get back online.

Tinder

I burned out of Tinder really quickly. When you swipe through 200 people without even one that you’d even settle just a little bit to at least go on a date with, you know it’s bad news bears. But my nieces and nephews did write a nice little profile for me. A profile which is now dead and deleted.

 

Coffee Meets Bagel

I hope downloading this app isn’t against the Word of Wisdom… This new app gives you one choice a day, but it tries to give you a choice based off your preferences. I get well-educated Christians. But not too many matches. I did get an interesting match. But then it turned out he lives on the other side of the country. And I’d met him through mutual friends before. And he had insulted my intelligence when I had met him (btw, guys, girls DO know a lot about business, especially those girls who have MBAs). I do know how to forgive, and I actually thought it was a wee bit funny (maybe a Gilbert Blythe and Anne Shirley story? Or Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett?), but then again, I wasn’t too heartbroken when he ghosted me. But the rest of my experience has been about like this:

LDSPlanet

I got on LDSPlanet for a hot second and bought a three month subscription so that I couldn’t wuss out of it. Within a few hours, I had inappropriate ads showing up on the side of my screen. I don’t patronize the company represented in the ads, and so I knew it was targeted advertising, not cookies following me around from sites I’d visited. I was surprised an LDS-based site would allow such ads. If the women’s side was targeted with inappropriate ads, what were the men seeing?

I ended my subscription and wrote to LDSPlanet three times asking for my subscription to be refunded. I only received auto-replies. Major disappointment for the suggestive ads, major disappointment in their customer service. Not trying them again.

LDS MatchUp

I also got on LDS MatchUp for a short while. The interface is less than desirable and they could use a real UX designer. I guess I shouldn’t expect as much from free dating platforms. That ended quickly. Or did it? I should check to make sure I deleted my profile.

Bumble

Here’s a new premise for an app. You swipe the same as most of the others. But if you match, the girls have to message first, and they have to do it within 24 Hours. What I found is what I expected. The guys don’t ever respond. I should take back “ever”. One guy did. But why get on the app if you don’t intend to respond? It floors me. Regardless, this is the message I get just about every night.

I ended my year by going to a family ward and a mid-singles ward, just to see what my life will bring me in this next “transition” year as I age out of the YSA scene. I may as well have been handed a program that said “Looks like you’re out of people” there as well. #hopedieseternal #imjoking #okbutitsalittletrue

In all, it wasn’t such a terrible year in dating, which is somewhat unfortunate, as I didn’t have as much fodder for blogging. What WILL I blog about if I ever get married anyway?

[Editor’s Note: I have not given up. I will not surrender! I am not (very) bitter! Carry on!]