Dating sites like match.com have proliferated over the last few years and have entered the mainstream of life. So much so that people, upon observing the dearth of eligible men in my life, often ask me why I don’t use them.
It is true. There is a dearth. Since Ian died over six years ago I have dated no one. I have had a coffee with a couple of guys but you could hardly call them dates. It took less than five seconds for me to decide I wanted out, and I suspect they felt the same, and from there on we just went through the motions so as not to offend.
One guy I know, a linear left-brainer, is quite insistent that it makes logical sense to speed date. Based on statistics on the page, he is convinced I am much more likely to find a compatible man by appraising, and in return being appraised, in a matter of minutes.
But soul, love and destiny don’t fit easily on anyone’s page, or checklist. That is the point of it all. There is an irrational, indescribable, almost fated feel to the relationships we are destined to have, and anything less feels like an empty shell that we merely inhabit to avoid being alone.
And isn’t that why people use dating sites, because they are too afraid to be alone?
An older-than-her-years 24 year old young woman recently told me, she sees these sites as a way for people to find a quick fix for some lack or inadequacy in themselves and they are searching for that special someone to make them feel special, because they can’t feel it for themselves. They want someone who will make them feel smart, funny, beautiful, worthy, sexy, desirable (if not just to make a night pass) because for them, it’s only true when someone else says it.
Trouble is, just like after a while one cookie/beer/coffee/cigarette can’t satisfy our appetite and we start to need two, three, and more. That one person soon loses their shine and the insidious feelings of lack/inadequacy creep back again. And then on top of that, it is possible that we create a whole new set of karmic entanglements which we must eventually disentangle and balance.
Besides, ‘compatible’ doesn’t nearly do it. That is living life way too small for me!
I’m not looking for someone who can make me feel better about myself. I’ve learned to do that on my own. These last six years have been a crash course in self-knowledge, and thus, appreciation. It is an irreversible journey to self/Self that changes one forever.
I’m also not looking for someone to help me fit into others’ social boxes, even though sometimes it would be great to be one of the many couples in my life. But this brief moment of feeling excluded is just not enough to go through the suffering and angst of being in a mismatch.
If true love exists at all, it must exist within us first. No matter our relationship status, we carry that love with us and we find we are always “in” love. It needs no love object outside of ourselves.
But, if we happen to be in a relationship then it becomes a magnificent, soul-affirming, soul-feeding emanation, extension and enhancement of the healthy and whole love that already exists within us.
Now that’s a match made in heaven.
