The Beginning

Last fall, my friend went on Match.com despite her skepticism and overall gut wrenching bad feelings about online dating. I encouraged because she was living outside of Manhattan (out of the action), the guys she were meeting in Manhattan were only after one thing (and it wasn't her brain) and she was generally discouraged about the guys she was meeting. I thought it would be a good boost in her moral, so I said, "Hey! Sign up! What do you have to lose?"

She asked me to sign up in order to see the guys she was talking to and potentially going to meet up with. Luckily, I didn't have to pay in order to look. And she went on a few dates, all pretty uneventful and no true matches. I, however, thought what an amazing experience it would be to go on all these first dates - I mean a lot of them, much more than what my friend was doing. The stories, I thought, would be endless and wonderful comedic material to bring up at happy hours or light dinners with friends. And maybe, I thought, maybe it would even be a really interesting blog. Alas! I was in a relationship and could not go on Match.com to go on all these said dates. The fact that I highly considered doing it anyway despite my relationship status should have be a warning sign.

Ten months later, I was "blindsided" when my boyfriend, who I could have sworn I was madly in love with, came over to tell me our relationship needed to end. I cried! I RAGED! And then I came to my senses. Was I really blindsided? Hadn't I hated our long distance relationship for months? And when I heard our long-distance relationship was going to quite possibly be a much longer-distance relationship because he was interviewing for a job in Florida, hadn't my first thought been if he goes, that will be the end of us no questions asked? Hadn't I known all along he wasn't committing himself to me fully and I so badly wanted to be in a deep, connected relationship? Wasn't I even dating him with one foot outside the door? I was cheating myself for months and he finally gave me the best present he had ever given me in two and a half years, my freedom back.

As I talked it over with friends and realized I was happy about getting back into the dating scene, I also shared how extremely fearful I was. A few suggested match.com. I laughed. Even though it might give me the confidence like it had to my friend, I couldn't get over the desperateness of it especially in regards to payment. I'm 25, I don't need to pay someone/thing to find me someone to go out with, at least not yet....

I joked with my friend Jess, however, about my idea of dating and blogging about it. And since this summer Eat. Pray. Love was coming out in movie theatres, we joked that my blog could be an awful parody of this novel turned movie, entitled "Point. Click. Date." And here we are!

Well, sort of. I wasn't going to really do it. It was a joke, not to be taken seriously. And I didn't want to poke fun at Elizabeth Gilbert's story which was inspiring to so many women - including my mother. But then I started to actually read Eat. Pray. Love. And I was taken aback about Elizabeth Gilbert's honesty with herself. I was impressed with her ability to leave the comforts of her life, get a divorce and discover her new divorced self through adventure. Unfortunately, I'm only 25 and the only adventure I can go on is where the MBTA will take me (and, well, Milwaukee which is my late summer vacation to visit a friend for 4 days). I don't have the luxury right now to leave everything and everyone behind and go on an epic journey to a foreign country for a month let alone a year! I started to brainstorm about other "adventures" I could go on.

As I thought about adventures, my horoscope literally told me to start a blog. It was in the stars! And who am I to mess with what is written in the stars??? Again I thought, Point. Click. Date? The rational side of me battled - CRAZY TALK! But the irrational side kept nagging: a blog, with the right idea, c'mon Katie, this COULD be an adventure.

Then last Thursday, I came home and updated my roommate on my latest love interest was totally failing at making the next move. Again, we got into talking about online dating when she told me about OKCupid - the FREE online dating site. And how she knew people who went on it and got a lot of great dates but nothing more than that. Lots of dates? Free of cost? Could Point. Click. Date really be a reality with no cost to me at all? Well, I had sign up for OKCupid right away and find out. Within 24 hours, the stories I have for you, I hope you will find as amazing as my friend Kaitlin has, who is the person who truly encouraged me to make my crazy idea into a reality.

And maybe it really is in the stars! As I read Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, I feel I have a guide with me to walk me through rediscovering one's self through a completely foreign adventure! As Gilbert navigates herself through her new found single life by eating, praying and loving, I'm going to do it through pointing, clicking and dating. And everything else just seemed to present itself. So, now, here we are.

Maybe I will learn nothing from this. Maybe I will learn a lot about who I am and how I want others to see me. Maybe I will really learn want makes me happy or what really turns me off. And maybe, just maybe, I'll find true love! But, this isn't a skeptic's adventure for nothing, so I highly doubt that I'll find much more than irony and hilarity. Which I'm okay with because if you can't laugh about how ridiculous life is then, well, what's the point?

With that said, let the adventures begin!