Wonder Woman and The Online Dating Debacle

I love Wonder Woman in all her cheesy glory. Blue and white star hot pants and charming gold arm bands. A mix of pure strength, femininity and utter ridiculousness. If Wonder Woman really were cheese she's not going to be a soft creamy brie or even a dry chunk of asiago. No, Wonder Woman is a good old Kraft single. She's an individual. She stands alone in the pack of muscled spandex-clad superheroes and she's entirely wrapped in plastic. Plus, just like a Kraft single Wonder Woman shall last forever.

So, I've officially been divorced now for nine months and technically separated for about three wonderful years so I think that I'm officially over the rebound mind games and I'm ready to get real about this thing people like to call dating. My first attempt was “church”, I know blasphemous to use God in such a way, but hey, people do it all the time and I figured it couldn't hurt to sneak a little prayer into my search for love.

Church was not a good choice for me, since I'm a people pleaser ( I know I'm working on that) and I was immediately accosted upon entering the building by a group of “sweet little old ladies” who in turn talked me into joining practically every church function in existence. I looked into the faces of these women with their coiffed white hair and lipstick and of course I said yes. The worst of the bunch was the choir. Actually, joining a church choir has always been a small dream of mine. I imagined fabulous rocking Sister Act like performances and “fun”. The truth was it was grueling. Three hour practice sessions once a week, and this was after a ten hour work day. Five hours worth of services on Sunday, exhausting to say the least. Then those “sweet little old ladies” ended up not being very sweet or nice. They treated every performance like we were singing for the Queen of England and between the hoity toity attitudes and shrill once first soprano voices were the nasty biting remarks about everyone and everything. These were the new generation of old biddy, and of course there were no men to behold, unless you counted the 85 year old bass in the back row or the only other member under the age of 75, a 16 year old tenor who looked like he was having just as much fun as I was.

Thus began the quest of online dating. The first thing I needed to do was choose a user name. Easy you might think but actually a daunting experience. I wanted to send the right message. Sexkitten37 just seemed too overt and very un-me while chubbysinglemomof11yearold seemed well, only too true and entirely un-alluring. Therefore, I went with wonder_woman_me – strong, yet sweet, and a tad dorky – perfect.

Choosing my profile pic was thankfully easy since I'm unbelievably photogenic and always take a candid glorious photograph....NOT. Sorry, yes another problem. I chose an upshot of full cleavage taken in a bar. The only bar I had been in in the last six months, which might be another reason I am online dating. Let's just say it was a hit and not in the way I had wanted.

Online, truck drivers love me! The scary kind, the kind you hear about passing their STDs from state to state. Guys with user names like bigrig10incher and ridemehard69. Then there are the sad pathetic guys that you just feel bad for. The men who take there profile pics while wearing a towel naked in their bathroom mirror or spitting chew outside their travel trailer that they live in with their six kids and their mom.

I soon began to understand the problem and changed my picture to the more demure almost school marmish pic that I use for my business website. This picture is professionally taken, but it looks like what it's supposed to look like: preschool teacher extraordinaire seeks love. The new picture brought along an entirely different batch of men. Solid looking men, fellow divorcees, older, wiser, and definitely less despicable...or so I thought.