gal – The Single Gal in a One-Horse Town

I live in a small suburban area, also known as a suburbanite or “’burb”. These areas are all over America, in the outskirts typically of major metropolitan areas. People commute for about an hour to work with their daily morning cup of Joe in the cup holder as they listen to traffic news on the radio. At the end of the day , they drive an hour back home to their spouses, kids, and their pet golden retriever.

When you’re single like me, and live in such an area, let’s just say you have to watch your back in the grocery or bookstore before approaching an attractive 30-something year old single woman sitting by herself reading a book or looking at melons in the produce section of the supermarket. Chances are, her husband or long time significant other will be a couple isles down, and you’d probably want to save yourself the trouble of approaching a woman who has been spoken for since she was I her early 20’s, after all this homemaker probably married the high school prom king. At the most, at least wait around or linger (not obviously) to see if a man comes into her presence at the coffee table to join her along with a couple of children to boot.

Now, I’m not here to talk about the ideal nuclear family or those lovely “white-picket fence” scenarios that some of us single people sometimes dream about. I am here to talk about small town online dating.

You could say, prior to the internet and online dating and online dating matchmaking services which was almost a decade ago, single people in these small towns who perhaps missed the boat when it came to the opportunity to marry their high school sweethearts or perhaps were too young to know what love is, went on with their lives, while their friends married their high school girlfriends or boyfriends, why? Because probably there were no other options in a low populated area.

But with the internet, those of us flying solo would think that we could actually FIND those other singles that are in a “cell” portion of the county that we could actually say, “Wow, I finally found someone that falls in my category!” In my case, single never married and no kids. But NOW I am discovering that when I do a search for people in my area, let’s say about a 20 mile radius, 5 profiles come up…wow…look at all the single women!

In order for me to find single women, even online, I would have to go out and top off my gas tank, print out a map of the meeting location from Yahoo Maps or Map quest, battle traffic on the interstate and stop and go traffic in the downtown area just to meet a stranger from the internet who might or might not be who they claim to be, or perhaps risk a no-show.

I am still willing to do that on occasion, however, it does get tiresome, and it would be nice to meet an actual available single lady that only take a quick 5 or 10 minutes to hop in the car and meet.

Now, the meat and potatoes. When I’m online, going through the “20-mile” radius search…low and behold I see a NEW face. Is she single? Yes! Never been married? Yes! No kids? Yes! Has her teeth intact? Yes! Educated? Yes! She even had the same interests, attitude, and values as well, we even the shared the same hobbies! How exciting!

Imagine, someone that falls within a similar category as I do! What are the odds in this one horse town. Then I read her introductory sentence, “Hello, I am single and new to the area, from the big city and discovered there are little or no single people in the area, so I figured I’d give this a try.” Some people don’t have to say it, but she expressed it because she was probably thinking the same thing I was thinking. “Man, where are all the SINGLE people?!”

So I sent her an email, thinking that she would respond, but I did not get a response, I waited for about a week, then decided to send her a follow-up email, she did respond with a “No thanks, but you’re not my type”. I’m not her type? How is this possible? I read her profile, noticed she took on the same traits and interests that I had, so how can that warrant “You’re not my type?”

I’ve come to the conclusion with my photo displayed that I was not the man she was looking for, and that the interpretation for “You’re not my type” is “I’m just not attracted to you.” Now, she’s new to the area….I have to give her that much, and perhaps she needs time to realize that she just MIGHT have to reconsider her standards, she just left a big city full of good looking men with a lot of money to more of a blue-collar area, and basically the good looking, wealthy men are all married or taken.

A person like this needs, who is single and new to the area needs to realize that she’s probably not going to find what she is looking for. My online dating advice would be to either.

1. Settle on some average Joe

2. Relocate and reside in a march larger city where there are “beautiful people” to be had.

It seems though, that we live in a society where people have been blind sided by the media into thinking they should date only good looking people with high paying pay checks.

To draw a comparison, that’s like being on a deserted island where they only man that crash landed on the island with you, is the only man alive, and perhaps not the greatest looking man in the world, and refusing to date him because he does not meet your standards.

Wake up, and time to smell the coffee, because it’s not so bad to reconsider your standards to a more realistic level.w

Gals