He was a little bit awkward. Wasn’t crazy about him, but he didn’t drive me nuts either. We kind of tried to meet up again, but I got really busy with school about to start and moving my little sister to Utah. We never connected again – and I’m ok with that.

I opened an Okcupid account, a Plenty of Fish account, a free trial on Match, and then later I also downloaded Tinder

Turtle cheesecake – this one was an interesting one (and most recent). He messaged me on POF on a Sunday night, and by Monday he had asked for my number and to get a drink after work. This was right after I had decided to give up for a while, but I figured why the heck not? We talked for over 2 hours over burgers and beers. He came on pretty strong – texting me really sweet things, always complimenting me. Of course, I bought into it all and fell pretty hard. By the next Monday I had received a “good morning sweetie” text from him and then it was silent. I was pretty confused – this guy went from being all cutesy-texting-flattery 3 or 4 times a day to barely responding to my messages. When I finally called him out on it, he had admitted that he tends to move things pretty quickly and was scared if I found out about the “skeletons in the closet” (his words, not mine) that I wouldn’t want to be friends either. And that was all he wanted right now – to be just friends. Needless to say, I was incredibly confused and felt like I got slapped in the face.

There you have it! In case you lost count, that’s 15 first dates – in less than a year. Yikes. But like my mom says, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your Prince Charming. I guess for now, I’ll just keep kissing…

I was constantly updating my mother about the different guys – they said what?

I’ll let you in on a little secret – I was 23 years old and had never gone on a date. I was really good at being the 3rd wheel. Or 5th wheel. I was actually the 11th wheel once. But “Claire” and “boyfriend” were never used in the same sentence. To be honest, I never felt pretty enough to date – who would be interested in me if I wasn’t interested in me? But with my new body and newfound self confidence, I decided it was time for something new.

So last fall, I decided to try online dating. And in true Claire style, I didn’t just do 1 site. Online dating sometimes gets a bad rap, but I figured that I was decently normal so there had to be some other decently normal people out there…right? I was partially right. I met some good ones, don’t get me wrong. But I also met some real doozies.

! She thought I should start a blog. She thought people would love to hear about the dating escapades of a 24 year old living with her parents in the middle of nowhere.

I’m not so sure. But I’m willing to give it a shot. And if not, it’s a great way to document this for my future kids. Because that’s what I tell myself after each experience:

So I decided to write down all of the dates I’ve been on so far. I’ve changed their names to names of desserts. https://brightwomen.net/es/mujeres-danesas/ Because desserts are so much more fun to think about. And I present them to you as: