done deal

my dating profile is up on one of the lds dating sites. i feel slightly nauseous. i am really trying to get to why this is making me so nervous. is it like a dance-afraid no one will ask the tall, non- blonde? is it because the last time i had a profile listed, i met and fell in love with mr ex man and we all know how that turned out?
even the pictures that i loved so much seem kind of icky to me. like somehow i morphed into an unattractive beast.
is it just me? am i being silly? do men go through this anxiety?
i am sure i will calm down. its just the initial step back into the abyss.
i hate feeling this way. kind of foriegn-i am ok in just about any other social situation. more than ok, but this is just DIFFICULT.

should i?

i have been toying with the idea(for months really)of signing back up for ldsmingle or planet or whatever is out there at this point. a few weeks ago i had my best friend take some pictures of me and they turned out great. i was really happy with them, which is unusual because i usually hate pictures of myself.
so i have the pictures, but now i am wondering what to put in my profile. the profiles are generally pretty boring. i have spiced mine up a little in the past, but i want a fresh approach. any ideas? i really dont want to be a used car salesperson touting all my attributes despite the high mileage. i dont want to be too disaffected or aloof either. i am neither of those things, but apparently i can come off that way.
i would seriously appreciate any input you might have-even if its along the lines of "whatever you do dont do THIS(fill in the blank). thanks :)

the mr great white north story

i know i tend to ramble, but i will attempt to make this as concise as possible. some of it i may have covered before, but since i have yet to properly tag and categorize my posts, i dont feel like digging through a years worth of content to find out. lazy. i ramble and i am lazy. no wonder i am not married off!
anyway-i met mr great white north on ldsmingle a few weeks before i met mr ex man(a detail that is significant a little later on). we im'd for a week or two before he asked for my phone number. he was nice and i had a lot of fun im'ing, so i gave it to him right away. the chemistry translated to actual conversation and we started talking about him coming to visit me.
about this time i had decided to delete my profile from mingle. not because i thought mr great white north was THE ONE, but i was just done with that scene. its exhausting, really. the day i logged in to cancel my subscription, mr ex man sent me a "flirt". we flirted back and forth, but he wasnt sending me an email or initiating an im conversation, so i just blew it off. like i said, i was fed up and even the possibility of a cute guy who was 6'4 with broad shoulders was not much of an enticement.
i am already beyond rambling and my attempt at being concise is wasted, so i will spare you all the details that got me to fall in love with mr ex man. maybe another post.
i see i am falling in love with mr ex man and i decide to tell mr great white north that i want to focus on that relationship. he was super cool and asked if we could be friends. i am normally against that, but thought it would be a good thing with him. we had little or no contact after that and i went on with the mr ex man saga.
i think guys must have some sort of radar that alerts them when you break up and are vulnerable because mr great white north called me within a few weeks of my break up.
we talked, we laughed, he asked if he could come see me. we started making plans and then he disappeared. that routine repeated itself two more times over 2 years.
why did i tolerate that, you might ask. it just wasnt that big of a deal. it was annoying, but i really wasnt invested.
HOWEVER- when he called this this time i made it clear that his previous shenanigans would no longer be tolerated. he was understanding and explained a little about why it had happened previously. reasons, but no real excuses. we were talking almost every day. the plans for him to come visit were really gelling, but then he started bailing on me. three times in less than 24 hours he dropped out of conversations asking if he could call me back, but never did.
there is more, nothing earth shattering, but indicative to the fact that he was either unprepared or unwilling to enter into the kind of relationship i am looking for. when i very diplomatically(really, i was)told him how i felt about what he was doing he replied "i think for now we should just be friends". WHATEVER! so what? basic expectations send you crying like a little baby?
there are many things about his life right now that i know would make any relationship difficult, but my thing is this: you are an adult, you know what is going on-dont make promises you cant keep! big or small, it doesnt matter. dont expect a woman you claim to be interested in to put up with your crap. accept you arent ready and dont entertain relationships until you are.

so......

i didnt go to the dance. there are a couple of pretty good reasons why, like it was at a church that would take me an hour to get there and the fact that i hated the band that was playing the gig. all things i could have overcome, but decided to bail. still procrastinating posting a profile on ldsmingle or planet. sigh. sometimes i wonder if the issue is mine and the situation would change with an attitude adjustment OR i sometimes consider that i am ABSOLUTELY, 100% RIGHT to stay away from all that stuff. i am racking my brain for any real success story showing that a relationship between two "faithful" lds was forged at a dance or on the internet. i need some examples to build my faith(not really faith, then is it?). anyone KNOW of any couple who is happily married that met at a dance or on the internet? lets hear it!

why i keep him around

i have written about mr jack mormon here and there from the start of this blog. i dont have the time or energy to dig those posts out of my archives and i certainly dont expect you to, so i will give you a quick re-cap.

i met mr jack mormon via a lds dating site 2 years ago. after some witty banter via im and email, he asked me out. it was a nice date. no ones world was rocked, but it was a good enough time that i made the mental note that if he asked me out again i would probably go. he never did. i didnt hear from him until he friended me on facebook a year later. some more im and emailing. then another nice date. in no way was this a love connection , just a nice time. to some, "nice" may imply boring, but that wasnt the case. we had fun. interesting conversation, lots of laughs, and a certain ease being with each other. the conversations werent just surface or shallow. we talked about our common experience with divorce and his issues being a single dad. despite his apathy towards the church, he claimed a testimony of the atonement. he had learned some tough life lessons and was a better man for it. i liked a lot of the things he said and his point of view on several subjects.

the date- then- disappear cycle continued, but a short time ago something shifted. i dont know if i was ovulating when we went out and that caused some sort of chemical reaction on my part or i was just responding to him,but something beyond our previous experiences clicked. the date lasted about 8 hours, but the time flew. there was never a lapse in conversation and we laughed a lot. i know many people list sense of humor as one of the most important things they look for in someone, but i mean it when i say, i need someone who i can laugh with, who cracks me up, and finds me amusing as well.

i know i have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating; this thing between mr jack mormon and me is not love. i dont think it would ever grow into love for a myriad of reasons, but i like him. we enjoy each others company. our actual dates are few and far between, so the bulk of our contact is email, text, and im. he has never put an inappropriate move on me, rather his argument is an intellectual one, making a case against the validity of the loc. the thing is, he knows i dont buy his argument. not even a little bit. i keep him around because the attention is fun and harmless in the sense that no one is going to walk away with a broken heart. experience tells me that his attention span is short and he will disappear soon. surprisingly enough, thats ok with me.

snuggle

mr jack mormon asked me to snuggle after our last date. knowing his disdain for religious inspired celibacy, i thought it best to define terms. was "snuggle" code for sex or maybe even heavy petting? so i asked. nope. he said snuggle meant snuggle. now the weird(or maybe just stupid) thing was he gave me this invite via email AFTER he took me home. he lives about an hour away, so its not like he could just come back over. we went back and forth via email, him asking me clarifying questions and i guess some of my answers surprised him. like i was willing to french kiss. he really started asking questions about what was off limits and was shocked that areas above the belt(his words)were as off limits as below the belt. disappointed might be a better word. he claims that EVERY girl he has met on ldsmingle fools around. except me. arent i just a killjoy? why does he keep asking me out? does he think i am kidding? playing hard to get? when i asked him why he asked me to snuggle he said he was testing my boundaries. i swear, this guy is 41 freaking years old! isnt that the kind of stuff you do in junior high? is it too much to ask that you either accept what i am telling you or just move on to someone else?