By the time I reached my 30's, I had grown weary from the whole dating scene. A career professional, I found myself up against several obstacles that made it challenging to find a suitable mate. The first was my hectic work schedule, which led to a dead-end office romance that resulted in heartbreak. Next were the well-meaning friends and coworkers who made it their project to find me a new love interest. Last were the social networking sites that led me to a few men over 30 who represented themselves much better in Cyberspace than they did in person! Perhaps if I had used a professional dating service, I would have saved myself a lot of time and frustration. When you're a single career professional, you tend to meet a lot of people through your job. These people may be your coworkers, individuals whom you meet on business trips or simply associates. As a 30-plus single female professional, I met several intriguing men through my job but most of them were married. Unfortunately, that didn't stop a few from hitting on me, but I was wise enough to avoid the married man scenario. I did however become involved with a single coworker 3 years my junior, who was still enjoying the bachelor's life to the fullest and nowhere near ready for a serious relationship. Although the attraction was strong between us, we simply were not on the same sheet of music and in the end I had to walk away from that situation. We would still run into each other at work and it was a very awkward feeling. Eventually, I gave in to the request of a coworker who wanted to fix me up with her doctor friend. She thought we'd be "just perfect" for each other. We arranged a weekend double date and he and I hit it off fairly well, but we lived in two separate states and he decided that a long-distance relationship wasn't worth pursuing, especially since he had access to a slew of beautiful women right there in his home state. Another disappointment! I decided to take a break from dating altogether and just "socialize" on the Internet. Any idea where this story is headed??? While entertaining myself on a few social networking sites, I began to communicate with a 30-plus divorced man who was raising his young daughter alone. We exchanged phone numbers and would talk for hours on the phone. Initially, everything seemed lovely – until we met face-to-face and began dating. I soon found out that this man was severely depressed, controlled by his needy mother (who lived nearby), and super critical of women. We actually dated for a month or two and then decided we were headed nowhere fast as a couple. So we parted ways. What I learned from these experiences was that I no longer had the patience in my 30's to deal with the kind of dating drama that I put up with in my 20's. I was not going to wait around for some guy to grow up. I was not interested in fooling around with married men. I wanted someone with whom I was compatible, who was at the same place that I was in life as far as being ready for a serious relationship. By utilizing a professional dating service, I probably could have at least narrowed the pool a bit and saved myself from the agony of going from one frustrating dating experience to another. As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20!