It took me 2.5 years of riding the free online dating roller coaster to realize that it’s time to get off, that maybe I shouldn’t have been on it for so long. Somehow this roller coaster has mostly been downs, without a lot of inclines. Somehow this roller coaster was never-ending; I didn’t once step off it. It slowed down to pick up passengers and to let them off quickly thereafter, but in 2.5 years I personally never disembarked. Instead, that stomach-in-your-throat, scream-‘til-it-hurts feeling prevailed. Until January 26. This is the day I decided to take a real break from free online dating sites and apps. The more I’ve analyzed this decision, the more I’ve realized that I made the absolute right choice. Never again shall a free dating app be brought up in my phone’s App Store.

Nearly every single man I’ve met online and I were misaligned. Not because we were incompatible (because sometimes we were), but because we were inherently very different people wanting very different things. I am an old soul, an old-fashioned girl who wants to get married and have a family. I’ve wanted it from the time I was 20. There’s no need to mess about and date many men, I just want one. The guys I meet online are not the same. They’re okay with modern dating, defined, I’ve recently discovered, to mean dating multiple people at the same time; to let our roller coasters run concurrently for a brief moment in time while 2 or 4 or 8 other girls’ coasters tag along. That isn’t me. And it never will be.

And while it took me a while to get off the tracks, I’m glad I am finally free of the twists and turns. I do so with a little trepidation that maybe I’m making a big mistake and my one true love is in fact waiting for me on Tinder because where else could I find him?! Though probably not because a man who wants to date three girls at the same time, isn’t the man for me.