Friday, March 19, 2010

Online Dreadful Dating

I am an active member on a ladies forum. Thousands of women share their experiences there. It seems there is a lot of frustration with online dating and the quality of men we find landing in our inboxes. Below is an excerpt from a lady there that sums our frustrations up well. Just wanted to share.



Yes...I can imagine a guy taking his Match.com picture. He takes 20 different pictures. Then out of those 20 pictures, not to mention all the other pictures he has had taken of him in his 30 years of existence, he chooses the one that is the most out of focus, with the camera up his nostrils, with the color totally off, where you can still see his arm in the picture, with him scowling like a serial rapist, to be his main photo to attract women with online.

Seriously....how can SO MANY MEN be SO CLUELESS? Can't they tell what a decent picture of them is versus a not so decent picture? I would never put a picture up on Match.com that I would be afraid to frame and put on my dresser. So why do guys, in what is supposed to be an ADVERTISEMENT for themselves to potentially find the love of their life, or at the very least someone to have sex with, pick the most horrid, unflattering pictures to represent themselves with?

Or there's 5 pictures of them in a group, where you can't even tell which guy is which. Or there's pictures with their ex-girlfriend, where they've clearly tried to crop her out...but missed her shoulder or her arm. Or there's 10 pictures of sunsets and beaches, not to mention their car or bicycle, and pet dog, but not a SINGLE PICTURE of their face!

And so many profiles are three sentences long and say absolutely nothing about themselves or what they want. "I'm a laid-back, fun-loving, nice guy who is fun to be around. Looking for an adventurous, attractive girl, who is fun to hang out with and likes doing cool stuff." Really? I think the guy might be, like 18, who wrote it, and then I look at the age and he's 38. Really? At the age of 38, this is all you have to say about yourself?

And guys complain that girls don't write to them and they have to do all the work...

Ugh!!!

I will get off my soapbox now.

I've signed up as a Member of Match.com, not a subscriber yet, so I can peruse a little bit and build up my favorites before paying for the subscription. I have probably looked at 200 profiles. Of the 200, I only found 2 that I liked, that looked like they were written by someone with half a brain. I have about 6 others on there that are okay, maybe possibilities. That's it. Nearly all the rest of the profiles and pictures looked like they were posted by someone with a severe mental handicap.

It is immensely frustrating, as I have expanded my search range to include from 28 to 43 (I am 29), and up to 30 miles away (which is an ETERNITY away in Los Angeles), and I have so few options, on the world's largest dating site.

Whew. But, I have to remember...back when I was online dating last year...the best guys I met were all from Match. Didn't have the right chemistry with them, but at least they were nice, smelled okay, could put a sentence together, and could spell. A couple of them were really funny. So I'm trying to focus on the mostly positive experience I had with Match in the past rather than the fear and frustration I am feeling right now!!

As a recently married woman told me once: "You're not looking for 100 or 50 or 10 great guys. You're only looking for ONE. Focus on that. You can find ONE great guy." Easier said than done, but I'm not giving up!