by Victoria Tiegert

Created on: April 10, 2008

Four years ago, I went through the unfortunate, though all too common, experience of an ugly divorce. It wasn't because I wanted to, but because I found out that I had been married to someone I didn't really know everything about. What I didn't know would kill our marriage once I was duly enlightened.

The problem was that I had loved being married. At least, I had loved the lie I had been married to. I waited for about six months, an appropriate enough grieving time, and decided that it was time to get back out in the real world again and let go of the "woe is me" era I was falling into.

Where to start? I wasn't into the bar/nightclub scene, or the office romance idea, or the whole idea of going into public actively trying to meet the man of my dreams. Even if I was into any of those things, I had already proven to myself time and again that in a room of a thousand men, I would pick out the one weirdo, take him home, and make him mine. It's amazing but true, I had a real knack for it.

My parents came over one day and jokingly remarked that I would probably have better luck with men if I just went online, took a personality profiling test, and let the computer pick out a stranger for me. That got me thinking...

I thought about it and the idea started to sound more plausible as day after lonely day passed. Finally, I decided to give it a try. I took the plunge, logged in, paid my $29.95, and took all the tests.

When the results were in, I looked them over to see the list of qualities that my "perfect" mate would have and the qualities that I had to offer in return. I thought it was way off, crazy, and definitely wrong (especially the parts about me!) but still had enough curiosity to stay online and see the profiles of those they sent my way.

I looked over quite a few and initiated contact with one or two. I found out quickly that being a woman, I received a lot more contact than that which I initiated. A few casual emails and I was on my way.

It only took a couple of weeks of written correspondence before I was on my first date, a disaster, but not one to give up too easily, I pressed forward in my quest. The next date led to a relationship that lasted for a few months, but eventually I realized that as great as this guy was, I still hadn't found quite what I was looking for. Another bad dating experience followed, nothing major, just a man that turned out to be looking for something quite different than I was.

And then, BAM! there he was, just what I was looking

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