The Zen of Dating: Success Comes In Many Forms

I’m taking a beginning pottery class.

I sat at the wheel that first Saturday morning, certain that I was going to be a savant. I then proceeded to create a laughably tiny, off-center bowl that will probably hold paper clips on my desk the rest of my life. I should have scrapped it, but I had an emotional attachment to my first piece. That, and I couldn’t resist the idea of future clients asking if a child made it for me.

Picture Love: Your Dating Profile Shot Says a Ga-billion Words

Saturday afternoon I found myself riffling through a client’s tee shirts, helping him select the next look for his photo shoot in my apartment. He’s an objectively handsome man with a ton of personality, blue eyes and an athlete’s build. And did I mention he has a great job that he loves? And he loves his mother? He’s your basic catch.

Love Me For Who I Really Am: Being Honest in Your Online Dating Profile

Let’s talk about profiles and honesty.

When I first tried online dating, I was legally separated. Getting adjusted to life on my own and feeling more confident about the idea of dating, I accepted a dinner date with a young man who stabbed his steak with malice as he told me about his brother’s wedding plans.

He cut furiously into his filet: “And, I mean, I can’t believe that my brother and his fiancé are even consiiiidering getting married in Las Vegas, of all places,” he exhaled in utter disbelief. And disgust. He was getting his khakis in a bunch.

Don't Cut Him Short: Learning What You Really Want in Your Potential Online Match

Let's talk about the day I figured out the difference between what I really wanted and what I was told I wanted. Allow me to explain.

I was told that I wanted to be with a tall man.

My mother never said it, but the media was pretty clear. Handsome men, real men, desirable men, were tall. My father was 5’10”. My high school boyfriend was 5’10”. Not terribly tall, I’ve since discovered, but on the cusp of tall-enough-to-be-masculine.

So naturally, when I went online and was faced with the question of height parameters, I chose 5’10” to 7”4.” Because apparently in my mind, men couldn’t be too tall…only too short.

How Online Dating Taught Me To Be Myself

The other night my husband took me back to the barstool where we met almost two and a half years ago.

My online dating skills were a little rusty at the time, having taken a nearly year-long hiatus to date the “old-fashioned” way in Los Angeles. I thought I was pretty successful, but I managed to get blindsided and have my heart mangled two days before I moved back to New York. It was snowing at the platform at JFK where, wearing my ridiculously inappropriate LA “winter” coat, I hailed a cab. I shivered as I looked at the NYC skyline through the back window of the car, terrified of what I had to look forward to. It was January in New York. I was returning to my old life. And it was snowing. My sunny months learning to surf in LA felt like I’d closed my eyes and dreamed them. I blinked, and I was back in the cab, the lights of the Empire State Building looming ahead of me.