57 Simple Steps to Your First Online Date
1. Decision to divorce/death of a spouse
2. Nausea, crying, PTSD and Xanax
3. Loss of identity (and possibly your home, half your assets, friends, lifestyle, dreams and plans)
4. Grieve
5. Heal
6. Think about what to do next
7. Notice that a lot of time has gone by
8. Decide to search for new partner
9. Realize you’re old and wonder where the hell are you going to find a new partner
10. Check out online dating sites
11. Realize there are a million sites, browse for hours, get tired, close laptop and go to bed
12. Go on dating sites again and decide to do the free trial
13. Realize you have to put your age and you don’t want to put your age
14. Realize that you have to post a photo and write a profile, just to browse on the site
15. Search your photos and realize you’re not in any of them
16. Search your photos and realize you only have ones with your spouse
17. Search your photos and realize you only have ones from 5 years ago
18. Close laptop and go to bed
19. Try to crop spouse out of photos so you can use one of them
20. Take a selfie, decide you look awful and try another one
21. Delete both selfies and try to figure out how to get some good photos of yourself
22. Ask friends if they have any pics of you/ask friend to take pics of you
23. Feel like an idiot
24. Stare at blank screen for 20 minutes where it says “tell us about yourself”
25. Close laptop and go to bed
26. Sweat bullets trying to figure out what to say about yourself
27. Be very proud when you finally have something written
28. Realize that next you must answer questions about who you’re looking for
29. Close laptop and go to bed
30. Answer some questions about who you’re looking for and finally get access to the site
31. Realize what you wrote sounds exactly like what everyone else wrote
32. See a bunch of faces of old people you don’t think you’d like
33. Read some profiles
34. Realize 3 hours have gone by while you’re doing this
35. CL & GTB
36. Check dating site and see that there are some messages
37. Get excited
38. Read them, look at their pics and profile and get discouraged
39. Decide to write to a person who looks and sounds interesting
40. Stare at the blinking cursor for a while, trying to figure out what to write
41. Write a message, delete it, start again, write another message, send it
42. Wait for reply
43. Wait some more
44. Notice that some people have “liked” you and wonder what that means
45. Notice that the site has selected some matches for you
46. Look at those options and get discouraged
47. Check to see if the person you sent a message to has responded yet
48. Realize they are not going to respond
49. Search some more
50. Find another interesting person, write to them
51. Wait a bunch more days and write to more people
52. Finally get an answer from one and message them back
53. Plan a phone call
54. Get nervous about what to say on the phone call
55. Talk on the phone and set up a date
56. Worry that you don’t remember how to act on a date
57. Close laptop and go to bed