Single senior is now a reluctant dater

Dear Amy: I am just coming out of an eight-year relationship with a man I met through an internet dating site.

Back then, all of my friends (and therapist) were aggressively urging me toward internet dating. I said I would try it for a month. Before the month was up, I met “Don.”

Although the “plus” of this experience was meeting Don, I felt the rest of it was awful.

I met a number of “single” men who were married. I met a number of “50 and 60” year olds who were actually in their 70s or 80s.

I found the majority of the men were weird and had issues — and all of them expected sex on the first or second date. I didn’t find it enjoyable in the least.

Now that I am single again, everyone is urging me once again to go back on the internet. I cannot bring myself to go back on a dating site. But I do not want to be single for the rest of my life.

Amy, how do I handle my insistent friends? Am I the weird one by not embracing internet dating? — Reluctant internet Dater

Dear Reluctant: Let’s review: You participated in an internet matching site. Before you’d even emerged from the standard introductory onemonth free trial, you had managed to meet “Don,” and embarked on an eight-year relationship with him.

Yes, you also interacted with many men who were not acceptable to you. But the internet’s unbeatable asset is in the great and wide database offered to people who are looking for a match. It also requires that you more or less embrace the process, even if you don’t particularly enjoy it.

If you can’t handle “insistent friends” with a simple “thanks, but no thanks,” then you are definitely not equipped to dive back into the internet matching pool, anyway.

Readers can send email to askamy@amydickinson.com or letters to “Ask Amy” P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY, 13068.