Online Dating

as many of you know i decided to try out the whole online dating thing. just as i was skeptical of MySpace, so i was also skeptical of match.com. however, unlike with MySpace i was pleasantly surprised. now first let me say that it was not an act of desperation and lonliness, but for you to believe me i'll need to explain what has happened over this past summer.

in january of 2010... (well it started before that but jan. seems like a good place to start the story) my heart was broken pretty badly. i went thro my usual rants of "i'll never be the same" "ill hide in a hole forever" "i hate boys" "all guys are jerks" and so on...then in May before skool was over i was driving back to my job in Mesa working as a nanny and i just started sobbing and pouring my heart out to God. it was then that i finally gave the situation up to him, and not only that situation but my entire future. my whole life the only thing i have ever wanted is to be married. to have my "happily ever after." the one thing i have planned the rest of my life around has been marriage. but that night driving in the car i gave up on that dream. i let it go and told God that if it was not His will for me to get married, then i would be ok with that. it was then and there that i decided to stop worrying about and planning for marriage. for so long my parents and mentors have been telling me to figure out what God wants me to do and to focus on what i need to do... and i never really understood. i would always just think well, i NEED to get married lol. that night in the car i had a crisis of identity. who am i in Christ? and what am i to do?

this year im making that my quest to truly seek out what i am to do and how i am to use my gifts and talents and even my weaknesses to glorify God. im sure that by this point you are wondering what in the world all this has to do with online dating. well all summer long i kept myself busy and nursed my broken heart. i sought fellowship with godly people and worked my butt off lol. one night i was really bored. it had been about 8 months since i had been in a relationship and about 3 since i had really given things to God and allowed Him to start fitting the pieces back together. i decided to check out match.com on a whim. i figured it would be a bunch of campatability tests and people in their 30's who still lived at home with their parents. and wow it was soooo differant than i expected. basically all it is, is a giant chat room where you already hav things to talk about. all it does is provide oppurtunity and topics lol and most of the people on it are in their mid-late twenties.

i made a profile but didnt subscribe but when i got an email and couldnt read it curiosity got the best of me lol. so i subscribed. yes i paid for it.... lol i hav had so much fun talking to very interesting people (that seldomly actually live with their parents)that i never would have met otherwise. i already hav several friends from the experience :) and have met 2 of them in person.

the whole idea of online dating has kinda been looked at as desperate, or trying to "play God" but that seems kinda silly to me. is it desperate or playing God to walk into a singles Bible study to meet SINGLES? online dating might be not quite as safe as a singles Bible study lol and of course you have to be careful about who you talk to and who you meet, but God is still sovereign and in control of who you meet. the main thing is what is the reason to try online dating? my reason was to find friendships and meet new people, if one of them becomes more than a friend then great! but thats not my sole focus. (im not saying its bad to have that as your focus, its just not mine) even if a relationship comes of this, i am still set on my quest. still focused on doing what i need to do, what God made me to do. but who says we cant have some fun along the way? :)

My New Chapter

today is my 20th birthday. today i move from being in my "teens" to being in my "twenties" hence the reason i had to do away with the old blog title "Memoirs of a Teenage Hermit." this starts a new chapter in my life. a new beginning. i can let go of adolescence and embrace adulthood. when asked the ever popular birthday question, "so do you feel older today?" i cannot honestly say i feel older than i did yesterday, but i can say with complete honesty that i feel older than i did last year. last year seems ages ago wen i first started off to live on my own away from home. what was so scary a year ago seems fairly natural now. what terrified me a year ago i almost enjoy. isnt it interesting how this happens?

what will my new chapter hold? what new insights and experiences will i aquire within its pages? i am so much more curiously optimistic than i used to be. instead of being afraid of the unknown that is ahead and trying to plan out every detail so that there are no surprises, i find myself reveling in the not knowing. i wrap the thrill of the unexplored around me like a cozy blanket. how many adventures can i find? how many mountains can i climb?

i look at myself in the mirror and see raw potential. but potential for what?? i suppose that IS the adventure, discovering the source of passion and feeding it.

am i out of place in this world? yes :) and that makes it all the more exciting!