After coming to the realization Middle Eastern was not dating material, I began my search for a boyfriend once again. I thought I’d give him a second chance, and he proved to me he wasn’t worthy of that.

I went back to my matchmaker once again – Grindr. I was a little addicted. I found myself spending hours out of my day on the app. I was searching with great fervor. When I woke in the morning, the first thing I did was reach for my phone and fire up Grindr. The next thing I did was grab my tablet and fire up Grindr on that. It was even better on my tablet. The pictures were bigger, I could multitask with my phone, etc. I fully realized how much time I was spending searching for a man. I saw how much of my day was stolen from me. It was like a second job.

On a few occasions, I would strike up a conversation with a guy I thought worthy of my time. One such man lived nearby in Jersey City. We started chatting on Grindr, and I did what I always do. I asked him for his number so I could take things out of the Grindr app and start a conversation over text. I always asked for a picture from the start so I could keep the guys straight in my phone contact list. I kid you not when I tell you I have around 100 contacts from Grindr, Adam4adam.com, ManHunt and OKCupid. I had a system in place as well. Everyone’s name began with where I met them. I was cataloging these guys in theory. Some I never spoke to on the phone, let alone met them in person, but they were saved no less.

After getting this guy’s number, We texted about chatting on the phone some night. He picked up the phone and called me. This earned him a lot of brownie points in my book.

We started with the superficial things – Where we lived. He told me all about his building. I was quite familiar with it. I’d run past it on many occasions. This morphed into a discussion about where we grew up. He was fascinated to learn I grew up out in the country on a farm. Through texting, I’d already learned he was from Canada. I told him how surprised I was he didn’t have a Canadian accent. It popped up a few times, but quite infrequently for someone who grew up there.

I quickly learned he certainly fit the Canadian nice guy stereotype. Everything he said was sweet and polite.

I learned he was slightly older than me. This wasn’t an issue for either of us. I had always liked slightly older men, but I am always leery that older men aren’t thrilled with dating a younger man. I’m quite mature for my age, so I hope my personality can make up for the age gap.

We chatted about our jobs, and I learned he worked in the travel industry. He jetted around the country and internationally quite frequently. He even mentioned the possibility of taking someone like me with him on said trips. I wasn’t getting ahead of myself, but I did enjoy the idea of traveling with my boyfriend to far off locations. He detailed many of the perks, which I really enjoyed, but I didn’t want to let that cloud my perception of him. On the flip side, I told him one of my most embarrassing secrets. I told him I’d never left the country with the exception of Windsor Canada from Detroit. He told me it wasn’t a big deal, and he would help me remedy that issue.

Somehow we got on to the topic of dating and being single and previous lovers. He wasn’t very forthcoming with the information of his major heartbreak, but all it took was one question for him to tell me the overarching story. It seemed it was a sensitive subject, but he was willing to tell me the story. He was dating a man for seven years. This was before he was traveling for work. He was scheduled to go away for work, and at the last-minute, his trip was cancelled. He came home to their shared residence to find his boyfriend in their bed with another man. I expressed my grave sympathy. After seven years with someone he must have been crushed. My heart broke for him. He told me he simply told his boyfriend he needed to move out and that was the end of them.

I tried to lighten the mood and asked him what he likes to drink. Ironically, our lists shared a lot of the same drinks. It was uncanny how similar our pallets are. I learned he too is a fan of Malbec. We discussed how it would need to be present on our first date. I was happy we were on the topic of meeting for a date. He seemed like a great guy. Maybe he was the ship I was searching for in the storm.

I asked him what he was looking for, and he described his ideal situation. Amazingly, our perfect pictures lined up quite impressively. I was really excited to meet him. I only had one picture, and he appeared to be an attractive man. I was more excited to meet him to see how strong the chemistry would be. It was already pretty strong considering we spoke on the phone for two hours.

Only time would tell, and we made tentative plans to grab a drink or dinner in the near future.