My life just took a 180.

"This will be, an ever lasting love!" the song rings in your head, the ads are everywhere, everyone says its fantastic. I know three people who are married from their participation. So, I plunk down $30 to try a month of this virtual virtuoso of matchmaking.

After all, Polk County's dating pool is pretty much a cracked, leaking structure according to my boss' secretary and "Sugar, you better get to work before you get any older. You're pretty now, but youth is waning. I know you deserve something sparkly--but the boys are scared of you, so you better work on tracking one down. And you are going to have to leave your comfort zone to do it."

Sure it stings, but she's right. Hence the humiliation of filling out an online profile, selecting just the right pictures and spilling your guts out in 1400 characters or less.

I anxiously await my matches. Visions of an adorable man that was kissed by the dating angels, absolutely perfect for me waft across my mind's eye. Finally! I'll find my soul mate!

The next day I am paired with 7 bachelors, half-way across the country. The next day, the same. The next, two are from Tampa. And so on it goes.

This morning, I have new matches and one is very interested in starting the e-mating dance. I check out the profile, I'm a visual thinker, so naturally I go for the pictures first. He looks a little older, but I can't quite tell, so I zoom in.

I ZOOM in.

I ZOOM IN...

Heart plunges.

Down,

down,

down.

Plunk.

The dating gods are punishing me for the Nissan incident!

Yes, that is a Shriner hat--the telling Fez with long gold tassel we all know from years of parade watching. He proudly displays a big curved sword and red vest.

"Leslie! Shake out of it!! He's a good man!! They raise millions for children!!"

I didn't think I was vain, but I am!! Images of being picked up for a date in a tiny race car, zipping the wrong way though traffic skid to a halt in my nervous brain. Flash forward: I'm sitting side-saddle on a teeny motor-bike, with my skirt dragging the ground. My job to honk the giant clown horn as we circle other cars at the stop lights! Cut to: I'm playing Chinese Fire Drill on Cypress Gardens Blvd; Bernice from Pompano Beach and I switch places, she gets on Herb's Chopper adorned like an Arabian horse, while I squeeze into Melvin's tiny yellow race car. I hold a Fez full of bubble gum and throw it to the homeless as I'm driven down Central Avenue in Winter Haven. Is this my dating destiny?

It is official. There is not Leslie-style man in a 50 mile radius. Am I only attractive to men who eat with the 4 O'Clock dinner crowd and those who stay up till 4am playing X-Box.

This year was supposed to be about balance, yet I am holding on for dear life as I swing through these two extremes!!