datingIt has been almost a year since I gave up online dating. It was, by far, one of the smartest things I’ve done. In my opinion, online dating sites simply set us up for disappointment at an accelerated rate. The chances of meeting your soulmate online is slim. The chances of meeting that person without damaging your self confidence by exposing yourself to all the wrong people is near impossible.

From my experience, my online profile somehow became an invitation for men to say the most inappropriate things to me. Why is this ok? Even if I quickly deleted, blocked or ignored each one of these, seeing how many there were affected how I felt about men in general.

Weeding through profile after profile, they began to blend together. Maybe I would strike up conversations with a few people. Maybe I would exchange numbers. Maybe it turned into an “in real life” date. A profile and some text messages gives you no idea what someone will be like in person. I’ve been on several first dates that I thought were going to be great because of common interests or simply because they weren’t jerks. But in person, there just wasn’t any chemistry.

All of the failed conversations and failed first dates started to make me lose hope that there is someone out there. Then I realized I wasting all of my time searching for “the one” instead of living my life. That’s when I decided enough was enough. I deleted all of the dating apps and decided to spend my spare time doing what I love.

That’s how I’m going to meet “the one.” Out there in the real world doing the things I love. I’m done trying to force it to happen. It will happen when it happens. I still get lonely sometimes but there is no way I’m going to go back to online dating. When I’m feeling lonely I spend time with friends, do something for myself, etc.