Introductions

I thought it would be good to know a little bit about those of us who have signed up for this madness and what brought us here. If anyone else is up to it, give us a few sentences about who you are and what you're hoping for.

So, here's my story -
I'm a 32-year-old journalist working for a health care union. I've lived in the city for 10 years, which seems amazing to me. In that time, I've had 5 jobs, earned 1 graduate degree, lived in 4 boroughs, and had just a handful of relationships. The longest was 2 + years, and we lived together. Since then, I've had a one-month whirlwhind romance with a guy who said he loved me on the 2nd date and turned out to be a sociopath, an on-and-off thing for three years (which is sort of on at the moment), dozens of awkward and bad first dates, and, unexplainably, a number of second dates following those bad first dates... I'm working on raising my standards.

For my first few years in the city, it was hard to date because I worked 11 or 12 hour days and often worked weekends. I also have a pretty strong ideology, and that means that sometimes a person's politics can be a dealbreaker. I once broke up with a guy after a big debate over welfare and public schools.

When my first boyfriend and I broke up and he moved to Texas, we were still friends, and he was lonely. I suggested he join some meetup groups and even try online dating. He did, and it worked for him, so I figured I might as well try too.

The majority of the people I've dated are people I met through online dating sites. Two were from Friendster (remember Friendster?) A couple were from speed-dating, and a couple others were guys my friends set me up with. The sketchiest way I ever met someone was on the 6 train, on my way to my sister's New Year's Eve party in East Harlem. That guy was bad news, but I'll save the story for another day.

I've been (mostly) single for the past 6 months, and I'm hoping this 365 dates experiment will give me a little push to jump back into the dating pool. I'm interested in new ways to meet people, and maybe new ways to screen people too. It's always easier to see red flags in other people's relationships than your own, so maybe my co-bloggers will have some wisdom to share so I can stop repeating the same mistakes!

So that's my quick overview of my dating life. I have not been applying myself this week, so no dates scheduled yet, but hopefully next time I blog here I'll be reporting back from some kind of dating adventure.