Computer Love

According to those cheesy Match.com commercials they are responsible for creating over 1 million relationships, and Facebook is responsible for the demise of at least 2 million and counting. Online dating no longer has the negative stigmas it once did in its early hay days. Now if a couple says they initially met online they’re more likely to be asked for the name of the website instead of given looks of disapproval. If you’re like me – over the bar and club scene (hey my Mothers always advised me against picking up girls in clubs and bars) and your local LGBT center no longer caters to your age group (that is unless you’re over 50, nothing against that age group but lets get real here, all the programs are for 50+ crowd while the 21-49 crowd is expected to hangout at the clubs. WRONG!) then you are left with three options for dating:

(1) Hoping that hot chick at Starbucks is a Lesbian and risking potential embarrassment by asking her out only to find out she is a Straight homophobe. Unless your Gaydar is better than Superman’s I highly suggest you avoid this option.

(2) Allowing your friends to set you up on numerous (and EXTRMELY HORRIBLE) blind dates. Out of sheer desperation one may choose this option but I think it should be a last resort because of option #3

(3) Online Dating!

I like online dating because it can take some of the awkwardness out of getting to know someone on the first date. I also like it because you have access to people you would not see in your daily dealings and you know all the women are Lesbians (or Bisexual) so it takes the guess work out of it and you get to avoid a sticky Option #1 situation. Another good thing about online dating is that things go at your pace so you’re not pressured to give someone your number just so you can have contact with them like you would if you had met her at the club or in a bar. I don’t know about you, but if a woman and I have nothing in common I sure as hell don’t want her having my cell number so she can text me and ring my damn phone off the hook (Can we say IGNORE/REJECT stalker!).

The key to starting the whole online dating experience is to find the right site for you. There are tons of sites out there, not like it was back in the 90’s when there were only a few, and they range from free (either completely or just some features) to paid memberships. Although there are a ton of sites out there now there still are very few catering to the LGBT community. My suggestion is that you explore a few sites if you can without having to setup a profile, see if they have active members and if those members are people you’d like to get to know. If not, move onto the next site. As I said there are plenty of sites out there, you have to find the right one for YOU.

So you’ve got the site you want to use, now what? Setup a good profile. I cannot stress this enough as this is the very critical piece to your online dating experience – YOUR PROFILE MUST BE HONEST AND ACCURATE AND HAVE AT LEAST 2-5 RECENT, I WILL SAY THAT AGAIN RECENT, YES RECENT, NO NOT HIGH SCHOOLS BUT RECENT PHOTOS OF YOU, AGAIN YOU, JUST YOU, NOT YOUR PLANT, YOUR CAR, YOU PET, YOUR GRANDMOTHER, YOUR BEST FRIEND, YOU! A bad profile is a bad first impression and first impressions can lead to you being asked out or you being told that you’re not my type. I highly suggest typing your About Me Section wording in MS Word and then forward to a trusted friend (preferably the one with a thorough education, and some class. Just saying. But you’ll thank me later) for editing and feedback.

Here’s my experience. I’ve been doing the online dating thing off and on for three years now so I’ve learned a lot, made some cool friends, and had a relationship with a person or two but I have to admit that I prefer online dating above all else. I love being able go at my own speed without having to give out personal contact information, I love being able to decide if I want to communicate with someone who shows an interest in me without having to make up some excuse to get out of their presence. What site do I recommend? Well Match.com seems to get more complex the longer they are around (someday I’ll put up a Match.com profile, but that’s when I have the patience to navigate that damn site. I swear it’s like Facebook – everytime you turn around somethings new) but I find that Curve Personals has a large Lesbian member base and their prices are reasonable. Check them out, and thank me when you find the love of your life (I mean it, I better get honorable mention at the wedding)

A Lesson In REAL LOVE

Life is way too short, and the recent loss of one of my Mother’s has proven that (and so much more) to me. It has also brought me to another epiphany in my life – What is REAL LOVE and who the REAL LOVES OF MY LIFE really are.

My Mother’s spirit left her beautiful earthly body on Halloween night (now I won’t ever celebrate Halloween the same again). The pain, so intense yet utterly indescribable, has taught me a lot about the feeling we call love and pain too. See before now, the only pain I considered that was of this magnitude was the pain of a broken heart. My ex was the only woman I had a relationship with that I had fallen completely head over heels in love with. I had a love for my previous girlfriends, but it was nothing like the inhibition and freedom I gave of myself in that relationship with my ex.

When my ex decided to leave I went through the entire gamete of emotions – cried out sleepless nights, utter confusion, disappointment, depression, you name it I felt it. The entire thing came out of nowhere and my heart shattered. I thought I had felt the ultimate pain from love lost…that is until 10/30/2011. I was talking to my Mother’s best friend when he informed me she was back in the hospital and it wasn’t good. I got scared, my heart started to race, I got anxious, I couldn’t sit still, I was in denial (she’ll pull through, she pulled through this summer but I’ll be on a plane the day she is scheduled to come home so I can be with her)…and then came the phone call…”She has an infection and they can’t operate because she may not survive it, and there is nothing they can do other than make her comfortable. They don’t think she’ll make it through the night.”

I prayed to God, asking him to give us more time. It reminded me of the way I prayed to God asking him to save my relationship with my ex. On 10/31/2011 at 10:05 PM my Mother passed. I couldn’t breathe, I cried, I screamed, I felt helpless, lost, confused. My air supply has just been taken away from me and no matter how hard I cried I couldn’t get her back. It’s crazy how I used to think of my ex along similar lines.

Today is a little better for me. I was able to sleep, and thanks to my Mother’s best friend I was able to laugh about her and segments of her life. I had a conversation with my Mother (Deb) in which my current epiphany was born: My ex hurting me is NOTHING compared to losing one of my Mothers’. This kind of love and pain supersedes all others. No woman will EVER be able to break my heart the way losing a Mother has. And I will NEVER give any woman that much power or energy. I know what real love is, and who the real loves of my life really are – Deb & Marnie, thank you for showing me the meaning of LOVE…