Online Dating SOS: Extreme Measures

I received an email last week from a woman who felt a sense of vindication for her actions with online dating, after she read my book.  It gave me a sense of pride that I was able to touch her in a healing way and yet a sense of sadness that someone else was caught in the www web...to her demise.

Like so many of us, she met the gentleman on a dating website and proceeded to form, what she thought was a relationship...or at least what she hoped would be one day.  She openly admitted that most of the dates included him at her home for drinks and a dance in the sheets.  She often times had reservations over his "busy" status and would ask him about his intentions, but he lied just good enough to make her doubt her own intuition.  Feeling as though she might be missing something, she made a fake profile and sent him a flirt, to which he responded.  Although disgusted with her new findings, she played the game for three days until she couldn't take it anymore and sent him a picture of the "real deal"...her picture on the fake profile.  Needless to say, he was apologetic, just long enough to form some spin and spat back at her how horrible SHE was for her trickery.

Some more time passed and with her skepticism in tow she trudged through with a relationship, deep down she knew didn't exist.  It was then that she accidentally received an email that was intended for his significant other...his wife!  As if the marriage mis-information wasn't enough, she found out she was pregnant.  Unsurprisingly, his only concern was that his family didn't find out.

It wasn't long before this Ms. found herself in the back of an ambulance for a burst ectopic pregnancy.  With 4 liters of blood in her belly, impending surgery to remove her fallopian tube and to save her life, she held on to the belief that maybe he really cared.  Unfortunately, his only concern remained concealing his adultery.

After two months off work and a whole lot of healing, she contacted him.  The only thing he had to say for himself, was that he was grateful nobody came to the door throughout this ordeal.  Let's just say, the optimism and hopefulness in her heart was smashed beyond recognition...along with her ability to trust.

I spoke with her via email for a bit, when she said to me "I realize this scenario is a bit extreme as far as online dating goes."  But the truth is, it isn't extreme at all, the circumstances from the online dating, ie. the ectopic pregnancy might have been extreme, but not the deceit.

All too often, we are willing to forgo our misgivings and intuition to see our fairy-tales come to fruition, but our intuition is often times right on target.  One of the biggest mistakes people tend to make is to allow themselves to become what wasn't the intention in the beginning, ie. a sex partner and the like, all with the hopes of a happy ending; and that means ignoring said intuition sometimes.

The moral of the story is simple...trust yourself.  The minute you reject the red flags, you are relinquishing your control and are bound to be disappointed in the end.  You're doing yourself a huge disservice that could possibly have disastrous consequences.  If you aren't in a place where you're content with being alone, you aren't ready to be with someone else.  And if you're dismissing the the red flags, you're not content.

I'm happy to report that this Ms. is well on the road to healing and that although it will be a bit before she signs back in, she's forgiven herself and accepted her denial, seeing it as the lesson that it was, rather than the mistake that we often times label it.  After reading "I Could Write a Book," she sent this less than gentle man an email detailing her disappointment so she could turn the page and realize that it was okay to close this chapter in HER book.

For this Ms. I say...here's to a NEW read...hang in there!

Sincerely,