Dr. Phil time and other moments of enlightenment...

Lately I have gotten a few emails, letters, calls, IMs, and even a text message with one of two questions; 1 - Did you make the rowing team? 2 - what's going on with the Match.com stuff?!?! Apparently everyone is a bit more interested in my love life than I am.

Oh wait…light bulb….hmmm….I realize that might be the root of my issues…oh well, I am not writing a self analysis blog today, so Dr. Phil can just hold his horses…

I figured I owed you all a little (long overdue) update, though!!

The easier (and shorter) of the 2 is the rowing situation. YES! I did make the first round of cuts!! I am a rower now!! Go figure, the little girl from land-locked Grove City, PA is now a rower on the Thames! There is a little catch, though. While I did make the first round of cuts - Yeah me!! - so did a lot of others… Basically, they had so many people that came out for the beginners session, they haven't really had us out on the water that much since they only take 8 or 16 out per session.

Here in lies the rub, though…all these slacker people that missed one or two of the first three sessions - which were required thank you very much - have started to show up now and the people running the sessions are letting them!!

Granted, the more rational, socially acceptable part of me thinks 'that’s nice…let all of them get a chance to experience the joy of rowing.'

Then there is the other part of me…we'll call her not so open minded tiffany…thinks 'what the heck?!!?' Where is the justice!! I was there all three sessions - even cancelled a date (we'll get into that later) in order to be at one of them!! And what do I get!? - bumped from time on the water because these people apparently have no sense of commitment to the Sons of the Thames Beginners Rowing Group!?!? What's next? Are we going to just pull random people off the street and see if they want to do a little rowing? I mean really, if you are going to have a rule, then you ought to stick to it.

Please, no snickering by any of you here. I know that I have made it…shall we say a hobby...to bend as many rules as I can, but this one, maybe because it falls to my benefit, is one that I feel a bit passionate about sticking to!

Yeah…not so open minded tiffany is not allowed out into public all the time…lets put her back….but she does have a point.

Anywho, that’s the rowing update…I made this round, but there might be more…oh and I am up for the challenge!!

Now…drum roll, please…..the dating update…

Let me just apologize right off the bat here since the update is really a bit anticlimactic…

As Caesar once said, Veni, Vidi, Vici…I came, I saw, I conquered….and now I have removed my profile from Match.com (though I think maybe old Julius never had online dating in mind, his philosophy still applies)

Here's the stats:

My profile was online for 37 days and I had…

201 hits on my profile (50% of which were in the first 2 weeks)
19 winks
10 emails
5 winks sent back for 6 that I initiated
3 responses to the 5 emails I initiated
6 phone calls
4 coffee dates & 3 free cups of coffee (yeah…you do the math, but I'll give you a hint...it doesn't equal second date for someone…)
1 dinner date
2 second dates
0 third dates

Stats on the matches...or non-matches depending upon how you look at it:

4 solicitors (lawyers)
2 financial analysts (one of which only responded to me because he liked that I was American as was he and he was tired of only meeting English women…um, what did you expect?!?! His analytic abilities must not go past the finance realm)
2 doctors
1 mortgage analyst
1 musician (guess who didn't buy me a cup of coffee…maybe I needed to sing for it?)
1 stockbroker
1 book editor
1 Scotland Yard detective (yeah - how cool is that! I just met him since I was - we weren't even a good match on paper let alone in reality, but I can now say I've been out with a Scotland Yard Detective!!)
1 teacher
1 system developer
1 comic book artist (he was a weird one - he had all these comic references in his email, I didn't even understand what he was talking about…I didn't email back)
1 waiter (granted, in his home country, he was a physicist…but you're in the UK now, not Lithuania)

5 still lived with their parents (one of the doctors, the musician (surprise), the book editor (he said his mum was elderly, though) and the comic book artist (surprise surprise)
3 were atheist
1 was Buddhist
7 were divorced…and 2 were pretty vocal about their ex's short comings…perfect 'get to know you' conversation

9 had kids from previous relationships…totalling 14 kids Youngest match - 23 (no my profile did not state ' I like 'em young', It said I was looking for some one between 29 and 40 - apparently the young ones can't follow direction)
Oldest match - 52 (see above…maybe he needs stronger glasses)
Furthest match - Seattle, Washington…ummm…you're cut since you are so bad with logistics…
1 said that my American accent was 'sexy'…thanks for the compliment….but when uttered by the lips of a 23 year old…with a lisp…not so sexy.

Basically, as experiences go, it was fun and interesting and I got to meet some interesting (and some sad) characters. I got a free dinner and some free coffee and a few compliments that are always good for the ego (regardless of the motivation).

But the thing that I realized…I don't really feel the need to have to have somebody. I'm fine just the way I am. I like my life, I have great friends and a lot of things going for me here in London. So if it happens, it happens, but I don't feel the need (or have the time) to force it to happen.

I have a few friends that have gotten married recently and one that is involved in long term relationships and the thing that they have all said to me, in one form or another, at one point is this, 'I feel like I was just this half of a person until I met X, then I became whole'. The thing is, though. I don't feel like I am half a person. I don't feel like I need to have someone complete me. I think I'm a pretty well-rounded, complete person already.

I won't lie, though, if someone came along that added their complete self to the picture, that would be nice, but I don't want/need anyone to complete me and I sure don't want the burden of being the completion of someone else!

So there you have it…match was fun, but I didn't meet Mr. Right For Me and that’s totally fine. Besides, I'm in love with someone else anyway…me….the me that I am becoming here in London. I like my new life and I like the changes I'm seeing in myself everyday. I want to take time to get to know this new me…we like to row together and we like to walk home from work and enjoy the gardens, we like to find new cafés and she seems to be bringing me out of a rut I was settling into in the US. I think I owe it to myself…and Mr. Right For Me when he shows up on the scene…to learn this whole new version of me that I'm becoming…she is complete, but just a bit of a mystery to me right now.

Oh man...I guess Dr. Phil did slip into this a bit.....