Adventures in internet dating, or why I will probably die alone...

Well, the reason I hadn't posted much is because I had met a woman online and thought it might go somewhere. And the reason I'm posting again is because it didn't.

I hate being single, and I've been it my whole life. Almost 29 years of going to sleep alone, waking up alone, eating dinner alone, taking trips alone, spending Valentine's Day and New Years Day and all those other days that couples spend together by myself. I've never shared a kiss, I've never even really had anything that could be called a real date.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I'll admit, I've got plenty of faults - a little bit of a belly (which used to be a lot more, until I dropped about 90 pounds a couple years ago) and a bad back that gives me a bit of a stooped posture. You know how some guys are described as tall, dark, and handsome? I'm short, pale, and homely. I suck at conversation, I don't have any cool hobbies like skydiving or playing in a band, and I'm socially awkward.

Still, I'm also gainfully employed, have a Master's degree, am in decent financial shape, have my own house, no criminal record, am disease-free, the owner of cute but psychotic cat, and think I'm generally a decent person. You think somewhere there might be a woman willing to spend more than an hour with me for some reason other than the fact that her computer is broken, but no.

I hate being single. Every minute of every day is a reminder of it, and a reminder of what a failure I am. I go to work and listen to coworkers talk about their wives, their girlfriends, the chick they picked up at the bar last night. I go to the gym and watch couples that look like they stepped out of an Under Armor ad work out together while the TV's play "Everybody Loves Raymond" and movies like "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton" or "The Wedding Singer" - movies where the nice guy gets the hot girl, often by doing things that would probably get a restraining order in real life. I log into FaceBook and see that everyone I went to high school and college with is married with kids - not just the cool kids who never had trouble finding a date, but also the ones who weren't much better than me at finding someone.

I've been using various online dating sites for the last few years with no success. I'll contact women, usually never to hear back. Sometimes we'll exchange a few emails, but it's usually been kind of forced, talking to women where it was clear that we were both reaching to find something in common.

So when I got an email from a girl I had contacted months earlier, I didn't expect much. But we kept exchanging emails, one or two a day for over a week, and I finally emailed her my number. We talked for almost 3 hours the first time, until the battery on my iPhone was almost dead. We continued to talk, pretty much daily for over a week, usually for an hour or so. We had a lot in common - jobs in education, similar politics and religion, similar parent/home environments, and a bunch of other stuff. I thought that maybe I had finally found someone - maybe the reason I was single for so long was just waiting for her.

We finally met in person last week - I figured we would grab coffee at a diner, nothing fancy, just a chance to see who we were. I thought it went OK - I mean, it only lasted about 45 minutes, but it seemed OK. She looked a little different than I expected, but was cute. I asked her if she wanted to do something that weekend, and she said yes.

She has a part-time job with odd hours, so I texted her on Saturday night about giving me a call if she wasn't at work. She didn't text me back until several hours later saying that she was going to bed because she was running a race the next morning, but would call me afterwords. Didn't hear from her until much later the next day - another text, saying she'd crashed after the race and was headed to a birthday party. I told her I'd be around if she wanted to call me afterwords. She texted back OK - and that was the last I've heard from her. I waited a few days, to not seem to desperate, and left her a voicemail. Never heard back, which means she definitely isn't interested.

I keep trying to figure out what I did wrong - should I have picked a better place? Said something different? Did I look at her too much? Not enough? Or am I just so hideously ugly/socially awkward that any woman meeting me wants to run the other way?

It's taken me almost 29 years to get to the point of a woman even meeting me in person. At this rate, I'll be 58 before I find another woman willing to date me. I think it's safe to say that I'm always going to be single, that all my v-days and New Years and trips and nights will be spent alone. I wish I knew what was wrong with me so I could fix it, but I suspect whatever it is is not fixable.