I Met My Husband on Craigslist

Whether you're young or old, if you've been around the dating scene for even a wee bit of time, odds are you've either already tried or are tempted to try online dating services. There's a bunch out there. Match.com, eHarmony, Yahoo! Personals...the list goes on and on. Here's a brief story of my adventures and misadventures with online dating sites and what I learned from the whole glorious mess.

I'd been a single mom for about six years or so when two significant things happened which propelled me from my get up/workout/work/collapse-in-exhaustion world to the online dating scene: A friend of mine gave me my first home computer and I began to realize that my daughter was getting older and I could no longer make her my world.

Oh, I didn't jump into the whole online romance thing right away. I first took stock of myself: My daughter was no longer a baby and didn't require mommy hovering over her every move; I was (relatively) young still and (relatively) nice looking and had a (relatively) good personality; and, since my world at the time consisted of my lone workout routine and working 1 mile from home for a company that was 98% female, it was highly, highly doubtful I'd "bump into" any eligible bachelors any time soon. It's hard to meet eligible bachelors when you aerobicize in the spare bedroom at 5 AM then put in a 10 hour shift at work.

One of the things I immediately discovered upon receiving my computer was instant messaging. I somehow re-met a childhood friend from nearly 25 years before and we become immediate best friends. Well, we IM'd all about the pros and cons of online dating, what sites to try, what information to divulge, etc. It was she who encouraged me to try free sites first. Actually, it was an obvious starting point for me because, as a single mom, I was perennially strapped for cash.

So my first stop was Yahoo! Personals. It was fast and easy and quite passive - sort of like putting your name on a waiting list. You simply list your profile, describe yourself briefly as well as describe briefly who you'd like to meet and post your profile. Just a few quick minutes and boom! I was officially "out there," looking for a nice, decent, employed man with quality values who was dying to meet a middle-aged, short, flat-chested Hispanic female with a prominent nose, a mouthy streak, split ends, perennial money problems and a pre-teen daughter.

Unlike a bunch of people out there, and contrary to my best friend's advice, I did not embellish my profile. I took great pains not to deceive and maybe even exaggerated the downside of being me. Hey, I was not in a game-playing mood and wanted to keep the bull*$!& to a bare minimum. On my end of things at least. And whether it's the desperateness of my fellow man or a previously undisclosed shortage of short, mouthy Mexican ladies, I did get responses. Boy oh boy! Did I get responses!

Were most of my online dating responses crap? Yes and no. If you gather any decent size group of men who are looking for women, whether it's for a long-term relationship or a hook up, you're going to get responses. And as with any group of strangers you meet who want, for whatever reason, to impress you, you're going run into a lot of wishful thinking, quite a bit of exaggeration and a big fat portion of out-and-out lies. The good thing about online dating/online searching is that it's essentially anonymous. You can peruse the responses you receive in your bathrobe and curlers at 3 AM if you want and no one's the wiser. You only divulge the personal information you want divulged and you can even fudge a bit on it. You can save your responses and review them again and again in an attempt to weed out any losers and/or serial killers. It's actually a lot like that old game show, "Let's Make a Deal," with you, the contestant, possibly tossing aside a perfectly decent prize to see what's behind Door No. 2. The irony of it all is that you yourself could be the perfectly decent prize that's tossed aside as well.

I won't go into the gory details of my first, last and only Yahoo! Personals-generated romance. Let's just say this: The details are painful and even educated, highly successful men can lie convincingly to your face and turn out to be perverts. Does this mean Yahoo! Personals is tainted? Of course not. Just be warned that you should be ever vigilant and on high alert for deception. Even if you're a seasoned vet of the online dating scene.

After a couple of months of licking my wounds while simultaneously kicking myself in my own keister, I tried placing an ad on my local Craigslist. My 43^rd birthday was approaching, and frankly, I was sick and tired of screwing around with online dating and wasting my time. Actually, I think I may have put that exact wording in my ad!

Anyway, as usual, there were a ton of responses. You should really give Craigslist a try. Slap your ad up, leave for a couple of hours, then come back and check. You will be amazed at the number of replies you get. Seriously. You just can't beat Craigslist for "selling" anything, whether it's your car, your textbooks or yourself.

Anyway, there I was, tired, disgusted and soon to be 43 years old. I waded through the usual lousy responses, weeding out automatically any that cyber-shouted at me in all capital letters or those which contained Too! Many! Exclamation! Points! - two of my pet peeves. I stumbled upon one reply, out of probably 75 or so, that displayed a decent command of the English language, a good sense of humor and didn't sound like a serial killer. One reply. And I responded.

I met this joker about two weeks after I replied. Just for pizza and a rented movie. One week later he gave me a Christmas present. I'd been in communication with this man for a total of three weeks, had just met him one week previously and here he was, giving me a gold bracelet for Christmas. And no, that's not why he's still around. It would seem that, after 43 years, two failed marriages and too many romantic misadventures and tragedies to count, the Good Lord above decided to cut me some slack and sent me a keeper. There really was a decent man looking for a middle-aged, short, flat-chested Hispanic female with a prominent nose, a mouthy streak, split ends, perennial money problems and a pre-teen daughter. We were married four years ago last August.

There's something about free online dating sites I'd like to note here. I used both Yahoo! Personals as well as Craigslist.org for my online dating. Both are free and allowed me to "dip my toes in the water," so to speak, without any financial commitment to their dating services. Plus, both allowed me to quickly and easily delete my profile or ad if I had a sudden change of heart.

The thing I want to share is this: There are just as many together, successful men who use free online dating sites as there are at paid sites. During my brief involvement with free online dating I met and became involved with a senior project engineer for Boeing as well as a high level executive at a major utility company and a trainer/consultant for a major car manufacturer. My best friend, after becoming a widow unexpectedly, used eHarmony's paid online dating service and found the man of her dreams, also highly successful, but the relationship has failed. My point is this: Success or failure in online dating has nothing to do with the online dating service you use. There are diamonds out there among the snakes just as there are in real life. My "diamond" snores at night and breaks into song at the most annoying times but I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world. Somehow this man looked at me and saw something I can't seem to see myself and said, "Yes, I will take on this woman. And her personal problems. And her teenager. And her dysfunctional family."

These types of men, loving men of good values and integrity, really do exist and they really are out there. Be careful, be cautious and keep your eyes wide open. But don't be afraid to look. You might find your diamond on Craigslist too.