Dating and Trepidation

So I met someone online. We talked for a while and he asked me out. I said yes.

Did you ever notice that when you say that you met someone online, people look at you like you must secretly have elephant man's disease and therefore can't get a man any other way?

Well they might be looking at me that way because I had/have an unhealthy habit of going online, finding people to go out with and then ignoring every other dang thing in my life in the search for 'the one'.

I'm not sure that I've completely shed that habit, but there is a different feel to the whole dating thing. I don't feel desperate like I used to. My sponsor said, however, that when we're first in recovery and we try to attempt doing something for the first time while in recovery, we have a tendency to go back to our old habits, at least at first. And she said that our shame often tells us that we better latch onto whatever we can get when it comes to relationships, and she's fairly sure that there is at least some of that going on here.

I think there is a good chance that she's right. Ok, a good chance? How about, she's right? While I don't feel desperate to find someone right now, and I find the idea of a full-blown relationship to be something that I look at with trepidation, I am in fact starting to date three months before my year is up. I did in fact seek this.

Hmmm, how about some _really_ raw honesty? I did what a lot of lonely folks do late at night when the kid's asleep and they feel listless…I sought out the comfort and thrill of that lovely invention…the Chat Room. Flirt all you want. Be effervescent! Most people are in another state, so you almost never need fear that that fun, flirty, phantom persona will ever impinge on your space. And sure enough, you sit there long enough, someone's bound to message you. Most of the time, that someone is looking for something you don't want to give, but occasionally, you might get someone in your state who's not just looking for _that_. And that's how this guy came across me.

And, oh, the people who are just dying to show their bits off to anyone who's willing to look. That's troublingly amazing to me.

I think it'll be fun to go out on a date with someone. It'll be fun to meet someone new. It will be fun to test the waters. See what's out there. But after I go out with this guy, I don't know if there will be date number two. He seems nice, but there's something that's not tripping my trigger…like that he's asking me what my views on marriage (do I want to get married? Etc. etc.) are or how many kids I want. And kinda going on about how he's got his master's degree now and he plans to get another job, probably in Kansas City and is ruthlessly ambitious, bent on having wife, kids, house, dog, and phD by age 50 (or did he say 40)?

For the first time, I don't have an answer as to how many kids I want. I don't know if I want to be married again. Were I to get married again, I don't know what kind of ceremony I'd want. Don't you decide those things when you actually are in that place in your life? Don't you decide that with your partner?

Well, I don't know. God it would suck if I ended up wasting a Saturday evening on someone who can't open their mouth to save their life in person. Or whom I found repulsive in person.

Ok, why am I doing this again? LOL