Oprah online dating advice

After years alone, on the cusp of my 35th birthday, I was serious.

I'd learned that letting myself kiss the wrong guy set in motion a sort of unwitting hormonal bonding stronger than rational thinking.

I didn't kiss any of these men, reserving physical contact for the one—I might as well say it—who would eventually win my heart.

A gentle but strong man with the capacity to become as deeply devoted to me as I would be to him. I suspected it might take awhile to find him in greater Los Angeles, and I was right.

To get started, I posted an ad on an online dating site.

In my 20s, when the wrong man asked me out, I usually lied. When the soap opera actor or the triathlete didn't call—both of whom had looked deep into my eyes and proclaimed their attraction to me—I did nothing. I had, by this time, trained myself to listen closely to what my deepest instincts said in the first nanosecond of meeting a man. Johanne says he's more confident in my feelings for him, knowing I looked long and hard to find him. The parade of men who preceded him helped me know myself better.

I was either (a) busy, (b) dating someone else, or (c) moving to Siberia for a year. A few talked me into dates or, worse, relationships. It's embarrassing to admit that I was learning the very basics about personal boundaries at the age of 34. Like a suit of comfortable, lightweight body armor, my newly declared boundaries kept me safe. "Hmm...maybe," I thought when I spied him waiting across the Art Deco lobby of a seaside hotel. I never expected my man would come from a faraway continent where he was raised on a tea plantation, but he does. They repeatedly tested my ability to speak up or to stay quiet when I needed to.

⁣ ⁣ I know you reminded me Pluto’s not a planet anymore, but I would still very much like to be it — so also thanks in advance, for letting me.