The online dating brings both hope and frustration. I had to laugh. Of course it does! It's dealing with sexy older women emotions and expectations - which get so easily raised up and then dashed against the rocks when things don't quite work out as we hoped.

I'm an old hand at online dating. I have a lot of positive things to say about it, and I agree with Lava Life's dating expert Lori Miller (quoted in the article) that while it does mimic the bar scene in many ways it also allows you to know a little something more about someone before meeting up - well, that is if both of you choose to be open and honest.

The article is based on the findings of Susan Frohlick's preliminary study of 25 single women over thirty. Frohlick is an anthropology professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and she's finding out what all the rest of us online have already - people don't tell the truth about their appearance, age, etc. because they're afraid of being rejected. Women find that men lie about their age and the amount of hair on their head (so the article says, and I've heard as well) and women(to be fair here, from my own research) tend to lie about their weight. Both sexes post the most flattering and often outdated photos.



It all boils down to the fact that most of us want to be loved and accepted for who we are - very complex and full of faults - all while appealing to the best possible mate (and by that I mean the most attractive, sexy older women, socially adept, emotionally sane and available, etc. etc.) who will hopefully not have any faults and will overlook our own with grace and humor.

So does this mean I'm telling everyone to lower their standards? No, just to be honest when looking in the mirror and not misrepresent their appearance, who they are and where they're really at in life (not everyone is as available as they like to think). The sting of rejection is always worse when you play a slight of hand and gain someone's interest under false pretenses. You're always setting yourself up for miserable failure there.

And what about those who keep getting disappointed by those who misrepresent themselves? This is going to sound odd but my cure (for all of us really) is to get clear on how you want to feel. Yep. Dig deep, ponder how you want to feel in every aspect of a romantic relationship. How do you want to feel walking down the street arm in arm? Get past wanting others to envy you and really think how you want to feel on a date, hanging out on a lazy Sunday, and yes, in bed. How do you want to feel when something challenging comes up? How do you want to feel about money, how you spend your time together?

Now, think back through your various romantic relationship, crushes and missed opportunities. Whenever you can remember a moment of a feeling "just right" in a particular moment, the same as you're longing for right now, savor the memory and think "ah yes..." File that memory with that longing. Perhaps you once felt totally listened to and understood by a cute stranger on a plane. Perhaps your very first love kissed you in a way that made you feel cherished and adored, even if the technique wasn't quite there yet. This isn't an exercise to dig up the past and regret it. Nor is it to do all at once, but rather it's an ongoing process, a process to romantic clarity, a process to figure out how you want to feel in love. Forget the stereotypes and figure our yourself for yourself.

If you don't have many fond memories of your own romantic life, or almost romantic life, dig through your memory of your favorite books and movies that made you feel the way you want to feel. My favorite hero in fiction is Faramir from "Lord of the Rings." He gets a bit of a short shrift in the movies (though I adore David Wenham, the actor who played him) but in the books he is truly a hero. He is offered the ring and turns it down, knowing it will lead to his doom, and at the end, he asks the Lady Eowyn to love him (she longs for death because she has lost so much of her family and cannot have the love of Aragon) and sexy older women realizes he is the man she wanted all along.

Becoming romantically mature isn't about learning to settle for less, it's about getting clear on what's really right for you. Once you are any outlet that gets you out and about meeting new people is going to work to bring you closer to the "right" one - whether it be the bar scene or online dating.