Dating in New Jersey

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned while being here in the Garden State, it’s this:  there are handsome men EVERYWHERE.  My first encounter was documented on a local mother’s internet board, MomsLikeMe.com, on October 26, 2009:

Last week, I went looking for a Vietnamese restaurant I found online… located in Florham Park.  I knew I had probably passed by the place, but couldn’t quite figure out where it was.  In a little shopette where I was, I saw a cop car and drove over to him… hoping to get some sort of direction.

You ladies never told me that you had the hottest cops in the US!

And… of course… I had no makeup on that day and two rugrats in tow.  LOL!!

I think I will be spending a lot of time in Florham.

Within the hour, I had several responses to my post:

“Wait until you see the NJ:  Firemen, UPS Guys, Lawn Maintenance Guys, and my all time favorite guys — the Poland Spring guys!   Hot, Hot, Hot! “

“Welcome to NJ…yet another one of our VERY closely guarded secrets =)  See, we don’t tell everyone else in the country about this kind of stuff – we’re selfish and keep it hidden!!  Let the rest of the place make fun of us!! We don’t care – we’ve got too much fun to have.”

“I have two words for you … State Troopers. Enough said.”

“I’m cracking up at this post. We do have some hotties here. Don’t tell anyone outside NJ, though.” (Oops, didn’t listen to that one.)

So, I’ve decided during the past week or so that I would start to put myself “out there” and peruse the local fare online. A friend of mine recommended OkCupid, so I posted a profile and privately messaged several men I found interesting, good looking, etc. Some had kids, but most did not — no rhyme or reason to why I picked one type over the other, it just ended up that way.

One response I received was brutally honest.  He said something to the effect of: “Hi, thanks for the message, but I’m not looking to date someone right now that has kids.”  Well, then, kind sir… I suggest you change your profile to read “Doesn’t want children” or even the very vague “–” when answering the “Children” portion of your details.  I don’t think he was understanding the point… maybe I’m slightly insane.  (I’ve been called worse by better, man.)

In starting this preliminary search, I found that I am more ready to move on from my last relationship than I thought I was.  Sure, the pain is still there, and now MY wall is up, but I’ve realized that I can be anyone I want to be here.  I don’t have anyone telling me I can or can’t do something, and women and men actually WANT to get to know me.

All in all, it’s been interesting so far; the two men that I’ve talked at length with are definitely average guys just trying to make ends meet like the rest of us.  There’s one in particular that I’d really like to meet eventually, but I’m just going to take it super-slow for now and see what happens.

Are you someone who has had success with online dating?  Or, have you found the quality of men (especially on free dating sites) to be less than desirable?