Social Anxiety and Online Dating

My mother signed me up for an online dating site. She filled in the profile, uploaded a picture (that unfortunately looks nothing like me at this current weight) and started messaging people she thought would make good dates/boyfriends/husbands/fathers of my children. She also asked me to promise to start working on my life, to get outside of work and losing myself in pet projects to try.  Not to try anything specific, just to try.  And it's hard. It's hard to put a facsimile of  yourself together to project to a world of men who have access to any kind of woman they want on the internet. It's hard to not slip into comfy sweats after walking the dog and do anything but lay on the couch catching up on my favorite television shows while Kevin lays on my lap. I've gone through a lot in the past three years.  I've overcome anorexia.  I've fluctuated between scary skinny and (according to Nutrisystem) obese. I've built things up and torn things down. And I'm scared that who I am won't appeal to who they are. I'm scared that the comedian will come out and I'll put up the number of walls that are standard when I'm getting to know someone new.  I'm scared, period.


I have rescheduled a date with a handsome sommelier 2 times, making up some excuse about needing to prepare for my improv show, or telling him that something came up at work. HE'S CUTE AND KNOWS ALL ABOUT WINE.  NO BRAINER.  But I'm afraid to sit across from someone and feel the judgment that I'm not skinny enough, or that I'm not as pretty as my photo. I'd hate for them to think to themselves, "Man, she was so witty on her online profile. What happened?" Because when I get nervous, I joke and I laugh.  And act weird. I wear my strangest accomplishments on my sleeve so that this person knows who I am and they can deal with it or not.  Most of the time, they can't or won't.  They don't.  Ironically, I just got a message from someone that read, "HEY, is your improv troupe The Rejects? My friends and I just came to your show." See, Mom? Maybe being a psycho workaholic can be trying to have a life. Boom.  Though my brain immediately said, "He's seen you in person and knows this photo is a lie."

That little voice in my brain is now telling me to type out another excuse to the poor sommelier who just wants to have a glass of wine in a hotel bar. It's cajoling me to slip into those sweatpants and just go to sleep instead of trying. That little voice is getting louder as other voices are chiming in with "What are you going to wear so he can't see your gut?" "How are you going to do your hair so he doesn't see that scar on your neck?"  "How much makeup can you slather on so he can't see the pimples on your face from stress?" "How are you ever, ever going to find love when you don't even love yourself?"

That last one is the worst and the most important question I've asked myself in a while.  Why can't I love myself, skinny or chubby? Why do I focus on the negatives when it comes to self worth and not the positives?  Why can't my life be like a romantic comedy, where the perfect guy falls into my lap, we date, we break up because of some major difference, then get back together cause really, was that difference so bad?  Because with my luck, the perfect guy will but he'll type "your pretty" instead of "you're pretty" and it'll be over before it's begun.

There's an irony here as my co-worker's radio was playing "What's Love Got to Do With It?" and transitioned into "Love is a Battlefield."Stupid radio.