Online dating worked out well for me,
but my wife wasn’t as lucky.”
Comment posted on website Jezebel
This week I’m going to write to you about something of which I know nothing (as per usual, you say!). Like Seinfeld, this will be a blog post about … NOTHING.
Let’s face it … I’m from a pre-internet era where we had no electronics and little money and did things honestly when it came to dating.
We got barely-see-straight drunk on tablesfull of 25 cent draft beer and tried to pick up pretty girls in Irish pubs and flaky bars … FACE-TO-FACE.
Of course when you’re blotto drunk, the beer goggles make every girl look hot. I’m not sure that beer goggles work the other way around for girls looking at guys.
Sadly, I don’t recall ever getting luckier (or come to think of it, lucky at all!) as the night’s drinking progressed. Mind you, it’s hard to tell face down over a cold, porcelain toilet bowl. That sort of sums up my lack-of-success stories on the dating front.
Nowadays, past that stage, I just snoop in on others’ lives and smile and frown and identify when the shoe fits the life experiences I’ve had.
Last week, a co-worker Linda came into my office fuming, an angry sneer on her lip and cellphone waving madly in the air.
Linda’s a pretty, young, single Mom who wants someone special to come home to at night. Someone to share her stories with. Someone to share a meal with her and her young son.
The last few years since she’s been on her own, she’s tried her fortunes with online dating, but has only had hugs from frustration and anger.
At coffee break one week, she brightly tells us a story about a guy she’s “met” on Plenty of Fish – her raised expectations and hopes reflect like shiny new pennies in her eyes and her smile.
Everyone online sounds like a winner … at first.
It’s like catalogue shopping and everything looks so new and lustrous and “I’ve gotta have one of those” great. And when you first meet the person, the shimmer is still bright for the first few minutes until you realize…
A week or two later the same coffee table talk turns into a “BITCH-fest” about the A**-hole who let her down or turned out to be a creeper.
We all want to love and be loved and it truly sucks when the goalposts shift back and forth so that you just can’t kick the ball into the net and celebrate. It’s frustrating and it’s lonely. It’s like anger and sadness kissed you on the cheek.
Linda says, “This guy was so nice online for the first while and then last night he messages me saying he wants me to tell him when I’m going to bed … what’s with that? Later, he leaves me a voicemail message, “Goodnight Sweetie” …Creeper!”
Without any further delay, let me tell you why you might want to run screaming in the other direction from Internet dating sites. If I was internet dating, these are some things that would have me biting my fingernails.
Realistically, I know most single persons (and many encumbered ones too… apparently 51% of all online dating people are in a relationship already) will still continue searching for love online.
Our human suitcases are overfilled with hope and longing … the fear of loneliness and lovelessness are greater than our concerns about child rapers and father stabbers. But still I’ll cautiously remind you of what awaits, lurking in the internet ether:
8 Reasons Why Internet Dating Sucks …
1. It’s dangerous…if you’re getting responses from: ILuvUrTaTas, pussylover69, MightyDong69, GoinDown… there might be an early warning built in here.
There have been studies indicating that one out of 10 sex offenders use online dating to meet other people. Also, about 3% of online dating men are psychopaths.
More danger? Some people are gaseous wonders. Who wants to spend their life with a chronic odor maker? … that is dangerous!
2. The “best” products are snapped up in the first 5 minutes.
The photo is the first impression you get with internet dating. The pretty sweethearts and the manly hunks are prey to be devoured … quickly.
Once the sale is announced, nobody wants to be left purchasing the crumbs left in the remainder bin. Unless you’re online 24/7, it’s leftovers for you, my friend.
Most internet dating match-ups end like this … NOT!
3. It avoids face-to-face contact …. all of those telltale signs of dishonesty like avoidance of eye-contact are impossible to interpret over a computer screen so you have no way of knowing whether the other person is truthful or not.
Our bright or grubby personalities are far more obvious when we converse face-to-face.
You can spend a lot of time establishing rapport with your “future one-and-only”, only to meet and discover a rat within 30 seconds. That’s a lot of time wasted.
4. It raises expectations … when you do find that one random person that does fit all of your supposed “must-haves” you get your hopes up so far that you are devastated when a real person shows up, at some point, with their own set of flaws and baggage.
5. It’s like obituaries, people post pics of themselves taken in the one best moment ever, 15 years earlier, no zits, no side profile shots of witch-like noses, no hint of a 60 lb. weight gain in the interim.
6. It exposes semi-literacy … online writing (eg. e-mails) makes us realize how few people can actually spell correctly or write a grammatically correct sentence.
Even the smartest people these days have trouble writing properly, and you may exclude fantastic potentials, just because they’re semi-literate. This cuts both ways though. It’s nice to be able to screen for those who say they have a law degree but spell their career choice as “Loyr“.
7. It’s way too rational… falling in love isn’t logical.
Love, like the lab I work in, is based on chemistry. It’s not based on height or earning capacity. Love is all about feelings and emotions. Dating site profiles deal with personal information. You’re choosing and rejecting potential mates by making rational decisions, whereas in real life, we choose partners by our emotional responses and establishing compatible neuroses.
8. The hot looking stud who came across so well in the messages and texts is a narcissistic twerp in person.
Conversely, the plain-Jane looker turns out to have a sparkling, bright personality that makes her 10x more beautiful than the photo portrayed. Beauty in a person is far more than the perfect symmetry of their face, or the chiselled cut of the jaw line.
I told you that there would be 8 reasons to avoid internet dating, but I always like to give you more for your money, so here’s an added BONUS.
Another colleague of mine, Carina, offered this next thought from her experiences.
9. The Cupboard Doors Are Always Open … even after you’ve established meaningful contact with a hopeful prospective partner, you’re able to see if they’re continuing to search online for “better” meat.
It hurts to feel you’ve exposed a part of yourself to someone who responds with tenderness only to see them continuing the passionate pursuit with others online.
Who wants to know that someone who has made their heart flutter in romantic expectation is still hoping to catch a slightly better fish.
…………………..
There you have it … everything I know about nothing.
I don’t know anything about internet dating and truthfully, even when I was dating, I knew little about the best way to meet and seduce young ladies.
I was the cowardly dating lion and only asked someone out whom I had known, worked or studied with for months.
If I wasn’t 99% sure that I would get a positive YES to my request, or if by chance the young Miss was on the verge of herself asking me out of patient frustration, I wasn’t going to risk my ego.
So, it may be that what I’ve told you hasn’t quelled your burning need to meet that notable, unique someone from the comfort of your desktop.
I understand.
Life is about arithmetic. When you meeting someone new, you add to your sum and have greater value. And if you don’t have greater value as a pair, then you subtract that someone to get back to where you started.
But real value is created when that someone new becomes a multiplication to your sum, making each of you far more than just a simple addition.
Well, I’m gonna add even more value for you below. I’ve done your homework for you … you’re welcome!
Here are 10 actual sites that – tongue-in-cheek – just might satisfy the hunger you have for that very special, SPECIFIC someone. These sites remind me oh so clearly that there truly is someone out there for everyone.
Maybe I’ll even recommend these to my exasperated co-worker Linda just as a reminder that she should take a deep breath and remember there are “Plenty of Fish” waiting to be kissed and not just fried.
Man On The Fringe 