Lessons Learned in Online Dating

I keep being told I need to stop with the online/app dating, but in actuality I've only been on 1 1/2 dates thus far since December. Since I was on winter break from school, I've been doing two things with my life: 1. Looking for another job and 2. Trying online/app dating. I'm ready for the typical 9-5 job for now while I'm in school to save some money because retail isn't cutting it. I was also curious about the whole online dating thing because I: a. I wanted to see what would happen and if there were any decent men out there and b. I do miss having a guy friend/boyfriend. 

Despite that DATE FROM HELL EXPERIENCE I had back in December, I was still optimist about the online dating thing. However, I'm learning quickly that there's too many weirdos to count on these sites. Now before you ask yourself, "how many sites is this woman on?", I'm only on OkCupid.com. I was on Hot or Not, but it got boring very quickly, which was my main reason for getting on the site to begin with...I was bored!!! I would say definitely don't do these sites from my experience thus far only because there seems to not be much success. Hot or Not is definitely for just hookups..haven't heard any successful relationships from there. OkCupid is ok, but I haven't met anyone on there that I would definitely see myself dating in the long term. Guy friends are what I see myself looking for on that site now believe it or not. I may see a cute guy, but when he says something like Skype me or give me your number, I end the conversation. I've been one to send a photo or two (no face shown OF COURSE), but other than that I'm not interested. That's for when I'm bored and need some attention time. I admit, I like attention, WHO DOESN'T?!? I became a little bit of an attention whore when I first started doing that a long time ago. 

PROFILE INFORMATION: When it comes to talking about oneself on a dating site, you can either give no information, a little or a NOVEL! I started with a novel about who I was, what my goals were, and who I was interested in talking to. The more "non-potentials" I saw messaging me, the more I modified my profile. For one thing, people don't read your profile but will ask you the same thing that's on your profile. I had one guy say "what do you like to do for fun?" Dumbass I told him, read the profile and you'd know. What a joker this fool was! I turned my profile into a DON'T MESSAGE ME WITH A DUMBASS QUESTION THAT IS CLEARLY ON THE PROFILE! I find it very interesting that when you place information on these sites, people will message you. I mean that's the point right to message people and see if something will happen. 

There's a part on the profile that ask you to fill in "Message me if..." This is what I decided to put:
Are you looking to hook up or a relationship? Are you really interested in getting to know me? **Where's the traditional men that court women and take the time to get to know them? Not their insides****REMEMBER, I may message you, but may not be interested romantically. I may be interested in being friends and not your girlfriend.**

At the end of the day, I don't want my time to be wasted nor do I want to waste anyone else time. I decided to go on a date with someone I'd been talking to for a couple weeks now. I normally don't date guys younger than me, but I started to like him a bit, so I was interested in going out. This wasn't the outing I was expecting, but if we happen to go out again, he insured it would be different. I'm not a high maintenance by any means, but when it comes to dating there's some things you should always do. Who knows what my dating adventures will lead to this year. Maybe I'll continue to be single because being with me is the best relationship I've had thus far. Once the semester starts up again, school will be my boyfriend. Graduating this semester is going to be the wedding, and I'm MOST DEFINITELY LOOKING FORWARD TO IT!!!