I keep telling myself, “Lorene, don’t worry about your A Lifetime Ahead journey — the worst has already happened, it can only get easier from here on in!” Or, “You have already used up the sucks-to-be-me quota given to you for this life so it should be easier going forward.” Apparently I was wrong, at least on the latter. My new dating venture sure is proof of that! Yes, maybe my expectations of the online dating process was a tad unrealistic…ALL RIGHT ALREADY…extremely unrealistic, but sheesh, how was I supposed to know it was going to be so physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting it should come with the warning − Enter At Your Own Risk!

Now, just to put the above warning in perspective, my analysis is based on a pretty small group of participants – 6 to be exact. The results could be deemed suspect or inconclusive, but the fact of the matter is, even with that small a sample, the words bad man or predator fit 50% of my online dating candidates. You doubt me?

First, there was Island Man. I liked him, a lot. At least what my imagination said he was like. You see he lived a gazillion miles away and we never actually met, but he was my first A Lifetime Ahead attraction and that made him appear all shiny, new and perfect. When he stopped communicating, I salvaged my pride by telling myself that was probably a good thing because I could never leave Calgary anyway.

You see, since Kalei’s body was placed in the ground at Eden Brook Memorial Gardens, I have been adamant that I would live and die near her grave. To do otherwise would feel like I was abandoning her. But thanks to Island Man, the more I thought about what I would do if my soul mate lived elsewhere and could not move to Calgary, the more I realized that thoughts of leaving her body no longer caused me grief pain. Wow! It took awhile but after 14+ years, I am no longer physically tied to my daughter’s grave. Now that is a really big grief step change. Maybe Island Man was put in front of me for this lesson and nothing else.

After Island Man came Lawyer Man. Now he is a gentle soul and carries with him an equally beautiful spirit…of course this not-the-brightest-crayon-in-the-box woman would never pick a man like that! Just kidding people! I am not that shallow or relationship masochistic! The truth of the matter is I felt he needed a bit more time to emotionally heal from his divorce. As I did not know how long that would take, or even if he would be able to do so, I graciously bowed out of any further meetings. As nice as he was, if it was going to take him years to do so, I wasn’t sure I would live that long. Don’t laugh! One has to think about those kinds of things when you start dating at my advanced age! Okay, now is the appropriate time to laugh.

Then along came Bad Man or BM #1. To be honest, I still do not know just how bad BM #1 really is. I suspect he is married and uses the anonymity of online dating to cheat on his wife. Or, he could just be a run-of-the-mill pervert (OMG, is there really such a thing? How very sad is that!).  What I do know for sure is within the space of 27 hours, we went from a meet-and-greet coffee date to “Hi Honey and will you ……” Never mind, I can’t say that kind of stuff out loud let alone put it into print!

With BM #2 I could have ended up as a guest on Dr. Phil. Fortunately, it did not take me long to figure out what kind of a bad man he is. While his profile stated he lived in Calgary, I am pretty sure he saw elephants and the East African Savannah rather than cows and the Rocky Mountains when he looked out his living room window.

BM #3 was probably the most scary as I was completely fooled by him. Suffices to say, he was a skilled and pathological predator that could have done me some serious harm if not for the ultra-sleuth efforts of my friend Sandy. She (and we are pretty sure with some help from a couple of angels) managed to unearth the man behind the mask and in doing so, exposed him for the parasitic specimen he really is. Sadly by then, disillusionment with the who process started to take hold and I felt betrayed by the life all over again.

By the time I trudged (by now, that is what it felt like) into my next (and currently last) online dating choice, I was emotionally frayed, exhausted and looking for an excuse to quit altogether. That meant Nice Man did not stand a chance. I said, “Good-bye” after two meetings. Shortly after that I shut the dating site down I thought, maybe I should just learn how to live better alone. While happy and content most of the time, I need to get better at vacationing alone. Well, there is no moss growing under this woman, I booked a long weekend in Vancouver, for one!

After checking into my hotel, I decided to take a walk along the Coal Harbor Sea Walk. It was a beautiful evening. Dusk was on it’s way but the setting sun still lit up the world around me.

After walking a while, I heard this weird kind of tinkling noise, like the sound a fountain would make. The noise seemed so out of place considering the proximity of the ocean and the power of its amazing ‘voice’ that I took note of it. When the noise got louder and louder, I eventually stopped to see if I could figure out where it was coming from. Just up ahead I spotted what I thought might be the source of that sound.

What did I see? As bold as bold could be, on a rooftop nestled between two taller buildings, was a man taking a leak into the pond below! Oh my God I said to myself; trust a man to do something that stupid! After a few more steps, and a slight tilt of my head (which let me see properly through my gosh darn new progressive sunglasses) I realized ‘he’ was actually a statue! And ya, the tinkling sound was coming from a waterfall cascading over the edge of the roof near where he stood and not his bladder!

I couldn’t help myself; I burst out laughing, followed shortly by these words, “Lorene, you are such an idiot!”

Now, in my admittedly weak defence, the sun was at an awkward angle and I had just been thinking cranky bad man thoughts and there was a tree and, well, that is enough and’s, you really just have to see for yourself…

Are you done laughing yet? No? Well you are going to have to laugh and read at the same time for I need to end this self-deprecating tale and the lessons that came out of it!

In that moment, I realized I was letting a couple of bad men apples negatively influence my thoughts about the whole dating initiative. I also understood something even more important. As much as I want to avoid new pain, I cannot live the rest of my life in a bubble, protected from all harm. I also do not want the bad men to win! They will if I give up. Somewhere deep inside me, I know there is supposed to be more than just angels gracing the halls of my home. I will just have to get better at separating the bad from the good.

While I was staring up at that statue, thinking about my lesson and having a good laugh at my own expense, a gentleman, witnessing my ‘moment’ stopped and said, “It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Without thinking, I let my inside voice outside and said, “I don’t know about that. What I do know is, for a moment I thought that was a real man taking a leak into the pond below! ”

To give this stranger credit, while he did give me a quizzical look, he did not immediately bolt off like the demons of hell were chasing him. No, very politely he replied, “Have a nice evening,” turned and walked away. Well, he might have been walking a bit faster than he was when he approached me but that still qualifies as not bolting people! Cut me some slack! As I thought about what he must think I couldn’t help it; I started laughing out loud all over again!

Thanks to my lesson I have decided to soldier on with the online dating. I would be lying if I said I was not as skittish as a long tailed cat in a room full of rockers at the prospect of coming across more bad men, but I am determined to keep my heart open to the possibility of finding my soul mate. If there are some scrapes and bruises that happen along the way, I can handle that…even if I occasionally have to pull out my handy, dandy duct tape to bandage up new heart wounds! And, if he never shows up, that is okay too.

Now whenever I get disheartened and feel like giving up on dating, I just think about Tinkling down the Wall Man and the effort does not seem so bad. To make sure it stays that way I have added a few new rules or guidelines. Be more cautious with dispensing trust, keep the whole dating thing in perspective and finally, be prepared to laugh at myself, regardless of whatever dating follies come my way. I am also thinking that going forward, I am going to keep my inside voice, well, inside a bit more often!

Too bad I decided that before I wrote this blog. I think you would have gotten a Yuk out of the fact that I chose to re-open the dating website on April 1st! It just seemed like the perfect day to re-start my search for my ‘perfect’ (just kidding) mate. Dangit! Now look what you made me do! That was supposed to be only an inside voice thought! I guess I am going to have to work on that part a bit more.