I'm thinking out loud and venting a little. Feel free to respond if you think it might be helpful to me.

I decided to not date for a year. I feel mostly empowered about this. But there are some problems. 1.) I get lonely at night, romantically, and find myself wanting to go back on sites like OkCupid. 2.) Then I remember how ****** I felt on those sites, and back away. 3.) I have been learning about myself romantically by reading books on relationships, but I think its too much. I'm reading things that make me feel badly and disempowered around men, and I'm not even dating. There's a book about men by this woman named Barbara De Angelis, that...just reading the preview in amazon made me feel like ****. I don't know how to "un-see" and "un-read" what I read. It just made me feel terribly about myself and like I "know nothing about men." and that they are some kind of species I will always mess up around. I never felt like this before in the past.

Maybe I should meet men who make me feel good to hang around. There are guys like that. I'm not attracted to them physically though usually. Regardless, I think its important to spend time with people who are good people, and kind.

Honestly, I think OkCupid truly sucks. The same guys are on there all the time, its just weird and I don't feel happy there. I think I need to do something else to remedy my loneliness at night. The only reason I do OkCupid and not Match or Eharmony, is that I don't have the money, and I'm still feeling weird about not working and being on a dating site (I seriously just think "**** that ********" about the second concern, but it is an insecurity).

I am going to talk to my therapist about this. I don't know if it would be good to date online right now. I am very sensitive about rejection and the whole disappointment thing. I think its a good idea to 1.) stop reading negative stuff that says its "Helping." 2.) find a way to empower myself 3.) talk to my therapist 4.) find a way to combat my loneliness at night without going back on OkCupid.

<3 Thanks for listening.