Do They Have an "Exclusive" Relationship?

(NOTE: Jim's blog is now devoted to answering relationship questions submitted by readers. Please send any questions you may have to jim@attorneyatlove.com).

DEAR JIM: I'm 36 and have been single for about a year, after a marriage that lasted six years. I don't have any kids. Not long after my divorce, I joined the Plenty of Fish dating site, and quickly met a guy I really clicked with. He lives about fifty miles away, but we talk every day and we spend most weekends together. After we had been dating a couple of months, I discontinued my membership with Plenty of Fish, but I recently found out that he's still very much an active member. (Even if you're not a member, you can search the site and find out when someone was last logged in. Every time I checked him out, it said, "Online Today"). When I asked him about it, he first got offended that I was cyber-stalking him, and then after he calmed down he said there are a couple of women on the site he still enjoys corresponding with, even though he's never met them and has no intention of meeting them. My friends think he's lying. I want to believe him but I don't really know what's considered normal behavior on dating sites. Also, was I wrong to search the site to see if he was still active on it? ("Brandi" from South Carolina)

DEAR BRANDI: I'll answer your second question first: I don't think you were wrong to check out your boyfriend's membership status. Given that your relationship is still relatively new and that you only see him on weekends, you did what a lot of people in your position would do. Until you know someone well enough to trust him instinctively, it never hurts to verify the situation. However, if you're obsessively checking his status every day, you're only going to make yourself a nervous wreck, and you'll soon cross the line and become a real stalker.

As to whether his continued presence on the site is an innocent one, there's no easy way of knowing with 100% certainty. He could be corresponding with someone a thousand miles away about their mutual interest in foreign films, or he could be lining up weeknight dates with women from his home town. I would think, though, that if his relationships with the women he mentioned are purely Platonic, he doesn't need to correspond with those women through the dating site. They could simply give each other their "real" e-mail addresses, and he could discontinue his membership and still keep up the friendship. So, I guess I'm a little skeptical of his story, even though I do believe in the possibility of men-women friendships.

I think the bigger issue here is that you seem to want a committed and exclusive relationship with someone so soon after your divorce. Maybe it would be better for everyone if you scaled back your expectations for a while and tried to meet a variety of people---or even put the dating process itself on the back burner and get to know yourself better and be comfortable with being single again. You don't necessarily have to terminate your current relationship, but maybe a bit of breathing room might be good for both of you.

Good luck, Brandi, and please let me know what happens.