The story begins...

So, since my sister has made it her quest to find me a man, I have decided to change the focus of my blog.  Now that it is out there that I am single and looking—I may as well have some fun and let everyone know the trials I go through to have a dating life.  You can read my stats on my sister’s blog, as well as see what prompted me to do this.  I have decided that my family is slowly giving up on me, so I must get out there and do something about it.
 
First, a little history about my dating life.  To put it bluntly, it sucks.  It seems that I missed my window in college to find a man, so now I must wonder around aimlessly, hoping that a good one will fall into my path. 
 
The college years:  During this time I dated lots of guys, but two were somewhat serious.  The first serious one, Todd, lasted about seven months, and ended when I broke up with him.  Our goals were not the same, he was focused on money, I was focused on happiness, money or not, so it just didn’t work out.  The other, Brian, was the guy that started my downward spiral in the dating world.
 
Brian was all you wanted in a guy—smart (or so he made you think that at first), funny, good-looking, and determined to make something of himself in this world.  We dated for almost two years before I had just finally had enough and ended things.  At the beginning of our relationship, he would write poems for me and do the little things that mattered.  We talked a lot about the future, even named our kids.  One day, only a few months into the relationship, we even went to look at engagement rings.  The day ended with me flying out of the jewelry store, completely freaked out.  But, that is another story.  What it should have shown me though was that this was not the guy I should be with.  But, I persevered, determined to make this relationship work.  We talked about the ring fiasco, decided it was just too early in our relationship for such a big step, and moved on.  Before you know it, our first anniversary is upon us.  I thought that everything was going great and couldn’t believe that I had finally made it to the one year mark with someone, and we were still happy.  Little did I know that on our anniversary, he was making plans with his ex-girlfriend to meet up for a secret little rendezvous while I was at work.  I found out about this about a month or so later.   For some stupid reason, I stuck with him, him denying ever making plans with her.   And she wasn’t the only one; I later found out—he was also seeing another girl that I worked with.   After I found out about the second girl, I decided I had had enough, and broke up with him.   That is when the “fun” started.  He decided that I wasn’t allowed to leave him, so he started stalking me.  At first, I thought it was pretty innocent, but then it progressed to him calling my male friends with threats, warning them to stay away from me.  Then he started standing on my balcony, watching in my bedroom window at night, to see if I was alone.  And not only did he follow me, when he would lose track of me, he would follow my roommates (two of which were male), certain that I had started seeing one of them.  Things were said, threats were made, and it all ended with him leaving the state.
 
Needless to say, this left me a little leery of men for a while.  So, my last year of college, when I should have been out finding my soul mate, I spent most of my time either alone, or hanging out at a friend's house. 
 
Then graduation came and that was the end of easy dating.  I have moved on since Brian, and no longer fear dating in the least, but now finding a decent date is tough.  While you are in college, you have a plethora of men, a different one for every day if you feel like it.  Once you get out in the real world, things are completely different. 
 
For one thing, in my job I don’t meet a lot of eligible bachelors.  In fact, I work from home, so I don’t even have any outside contact most days.  So, the question is, where does a girl like me go to meet men?  I have tried the bar scene, and it is so sickening.  The guys I have met that way are all out for one night stands, never to be seen again.  So, I have given up on that.  How about blind dates set up by your friends?  Been there, done that, still no luck.  It doesn’t help that all but a couple of my friends are married, meaning that they have now moved into the married stage of life, where all of their friends are couples.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends dearly, but when you move into the married stage, you don’t have a large pool of friends that are single to set other single friends up with.  Then there is the internet.  I have gone to a couple of sites, still without any luck.  I actually did meet one guy in person and will tell you all about that in another post.
 
So, I figure this post is plenty long enough and that if anyone is still reading, they are wishing I would just shut up.  I am going to do just that.  Check back and I will be posting many, many disastrous stories of my dating life, past and present.  That is, present, if I ever manage to get another date.  Well, better yet, a second date.  You will better understand that in the posts to come.