What is the price of companionship?

Like many things in my life, including blogging, I have taken a hiatus on dating until recently.  After more than 18 months of trying to dip my feet in the dating pool, I just felt like I was finding all the wrong men and wasting my time.  So, I decided to take a 6-month hiatus and focus on my career, planning for law school, and trying to decrease the level of drama in my life.

That seemed to work...at least for a while.

Within the last month, my career has changed and my law school applications are coming along.  With so many great changes happening in my life, I thought maybe it was time to start dating again.  I decided to reactivate some of my online dating website accounts and have been looking for other possible dating outlets.

In just these last two weeks, I've had dozens of men contact me, mostly on one dating website, who say they are looking for someone to date, yet within the first or second conversation bring up sex.  WTH?? Really?

I know that I am no angel and definitely have been one to play around in the past, but what on earth gives these guys the idea that I want nothing but sex?  Why put yourself up on a dating website saying you are looking for someone to date and/or have a relationship with, but yet that's not what you are really looking for?  I mean if all you want is a hook-up, use Craig's List or Plenty of Fish like most people do.

I just don't get it...What is it about my profile and/or my profile pictures that is suggesting to these men that I am a sex object? I am completely baffled at their behavior.

Because of all of this craziness, I resorted to even digging into past encounters with guys I've been with over the last couple of years, and this is what I found out:

• I'm too "strong".
• Strength can bee seen as a weakness. 
• I'm too open. 
• I'm sweet, but that's overshadowed by my "strength". 

Basically, my personality is why I am having trouble finding men who want to date.  Apparently, they want strong women in the bedroom, but not as their partner.  What I am still not sure about is how men are figuring this out from a profile and maybe a couple photos....

So, after assessing what I've been told, I have come to a couple conclusions:

1. I can stay true to who I am and what I want and risk being alone for the rest of my life.
2. I can cave and pretend to be someone I'm not and maybe find a man who can see me as someone he wants to spend his life with (albeit our relationship would be based on a lie). 
3. I can move to a new part of the country or the world and hope that I can meet someone else while simultaneously throwing away my career and possibly my law school prospects (although maybe going out of state for law school could kill two birds with one stone). 
4. I can compromise my principles about what I want in a relationship and find a nice guy that  I can spend time with now and bide my time until/if someone else comes along that I think might be relationship material. 

I have no idea what the right answer is at this point anymore.  All I know is that I have basically been doing the same thing off and on for about two years, and I feel like I've made very little progress, if any.  In fact, I feel like I have slid back a bit in my dating life.

I am just tired of being lonely and not having someone to spend time with.  It would be nice to have someone to go out with, take to events, cuddle up with, and yes, spend some quality night time with.  I guess it begs the question: at what point do you compromise your principles for the sake of companionship?  And if you do compromise, what is the cost to your emotional and mental states?