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The cold hard truth is when you're dating in your 30's and 40's you've been through some nastiness. I'm willing to bet that if we sat around and shared our war stories, we'd be hard pressed to 'one up' each other...truth, fact of life, nature of the beast, whatever...more than likely we've been burned, we've been hurt, someone along the way has betrayed our trust, stomped on our heart. Sometimes it's not huge. Maybe we weren't that attached or at that particular moment in time, we could deal more easily...other times it's devastating...we find it harder to recover...ah and then, harder to trust again, harder to jump back in and try it again. Or maybe it builds up. Once you can deal with, twice you're a little hesitant, the third time, then the fourth, and so on. After awhile you start second guessing every word, every seemingly unimportant detail, every innocent comment. Worse, you start second guessing yourself. Maybe you start to believe it's you; it's something you're doing or saying wrong, there's something wrong with you...not with the idiots that stomped on your heart or broke your trust.

And then, how does that impact our interactions with new people we meet? In my case, its made me extremely gun shy. Not to actually meet people. I don't have a problem there at all. It's getting there that I struggle so much with. I used to be happy to trade contact information and jump right into chatting on instant messenger. Now, not so much. It used to be if I started chatting with someone on IM and it went wrong I just shrugged my shoulders and moved on. Then I got frustrated and then irritated, and then just plain tired of being seen as an opportunity for cyber sex or whatever. After awhile, if someone offered their IM contact information and then asked for mine, I simply ignored the request and faded away. Then I started giving my information but explaining that I don't spend much time on messenger. Lately I'm trying to be more honest with my discomfort. I've responded to several requests for contact info with honesty. I even tried Nike's approach; just do it. This was prompted by a request from someone I really really wanted to get to know and at first, it was awesome. I was glad I bit the bullet. Some incredible conversations both on IM and on the phone. I even managed a couple of dates and then boom!. The bottom fell out. Turns out he's "just not that into me." Okay, jump back on the horse and try again. My daughter tells me I'm nuts when I express concern after

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