#46: Online dating
Sure some girls on dating websites would like to meet you online…it’s just that some of them would like you to shell out $19.95 to see them.
The Dateable Dork uses a term for online dating which is probably the perfect and most fitting description I’ve ever heard it called - “dumpster diving.” I’m not high on online dating for many reasons, and the following story is one reason why.
Ever since I had graduated college, I had been completely removed from any social environment that contained large amount of attractive women. I was too chicken-shit to go into the clubs nor did I even belong there at the time. I looked more likely to be to be found at a LAN party instead of a dance party. So online dating looked like a very good idea for me.
I think I did both Match.com and Yahoo! Personals. I wrote up a profile and tried taking pictures of myself at the best possible angle. Unfortunately there is not much you can do to make a near 300lbs guy with long hair look good at ANY angle. As such, I wasn’t having much luck at first.
Eventually I contacted a girl in her early twenties who had a photo of her smiling and sitting in a field and she told all about herself and what she liked to do. I wrote her a loooooong letter all about myself and how I’m not a guy who “plays games,” typical wussbag banter, blah blah. She wrote back and had some friendly banter along with being a little flirtatious. She gave me her personal email address to reply to and I sent another message. Splendid.
A while later I got another response that said something to the effect that she needed to weed guys out and that I would need to go to her site to get her phone number. Um…what? Her site contained very revealing modeling photos of herself which didn’t look “quite” like the same girl on the dating profile. There was an area on the site where you could sign up for a paid account to see more photos of her…and that’s where her “phone number” apparently was. Now I was a pretty big idiot at the time, but I wasn’t THAT stupid.
I wrote her back and called her out on what she was doing and how it was terrible that she was leading guys on like this. A day or two later, I got a response back…the SAME EXACT response as her second email. It was an auto-generator.
About two months later, I unexpectedly got a new email from her apologizing for what she had done, admitting that she was broke and needed the money. She said that I was nice and would like to see me, all I had to do was visit a new site where she kept her personal information. Give me a break…she was trying the same stunt again. Her email went straight into the trash.
This online dating thing wasn’t starting out so well.
Honey Says:
May 20th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I don’t know if you can blame actual people trying to date online for the actions of a scam artist…who may or may not have even been a girl (just got the photos somewhere and set up the spambot). Fortunately for the ladies, we don’t really want to see random pics of guys so this doesn’t happen as much
The Virgin Says:
May 20th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Honey: Who blamed people dating online?
The above situation aside, I still have a ton of problems with it. Even if some people have luck with it (some people win the lottery too), it’s a waste of time for $20-30 a month for what is an online slot machine. So much is judged and lost (personality, demeanor) by a photo that it becomes just a random game of luck. Not to mention there are an abundance of horror stories of “misrepresentation.”
I won’t say that I’ll never give it another try, but I’m not shelling out any money to do so…it’s a poor bet
The Dateable Dork Says:
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Yeah, apparently there are a lot of “fake” profiles that guys have to watch out for… not so much the other way around.
You know how I feel about online dating, so I won’t reiterate… but it can certainly be a decent option if you don’t take it all too seriously. Oh, and thanks for the link! : )