The Curse of Online Dating
Boy, just when I thought used car salesmen were shifty...
Okay, I admit it...I'm pathetic. I got an offline IM several days ago from a girl, telling me to check out her profile on a dating site. Right there, I should have known this wasn't all it seemed. But since I'm chronically willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, I went along with it. Spent the twenty minutes cataloguing my life, and the additional hours anguishing over just what to write in the descriptions...want to sound interesting, but not desperate...confident, but not psycho...
I did finally find her profile on the site. According to it, she's a man...but, then again, according to the site, half the women describing themselves as 22 are, in fact, 32, and this site also has somehow managed to make it possible to be from Kansas City, MO and San Jose, CA at the same time, so I'm not sure what to think. It's a moot point, because when I emailed her(?) to ask about the discrepancy, I got no response. Somehow, I think I'm relieved.
(That makes me wonder...is the reason FTB's picture looks so familiar because it actually IS a bad picture of Ashley? Wouldn't that be embarrassing, to stumble across someone from work on one of these sites? I mean, hey...FTB's 10 years older than Ashley, and from a different town...but in light of what I just said, ya gotta wonder...)
But the experience did get me started poking around online dating sites again (yes, my social life is so incredibly non-existant that I'm willing to spend time sitting in front of my computer, hoping against hope that the perfect girl is going to email me out of the blue and put an end to the loneliness...or something like that). I tell ya...you want to talk about bait-and-switch tactics, the most sleazy car salesmen could take notes from these guys!
Okay, in all fairness, I do have to say there is, in fact, one site I found that is, truly, free. They are also not so much a dating site as a socializing site (although I did meet my last girlfriend there...well, the last girl I went out on a date with, anyway--but that's another story). The great thing is they've got all these tests that the site members have written, about nearly anything you can think of...everything from the expected, "Are we compatible?" tests to devilishly tricky and intricate trivia tests about Star Wars, Shaun of the Dead, Russian history, WWII...and personality analyses that can tell you which muppet you most resemble or whether you would have been a loyal Nazi had you grown up in Hitler's Germany. (Yeah, I've wasted a LOT of time on that site...email me if you want the name, I'm trying to avoid product placement.)
The rest of them, however, are a real treat to deal with. I don't know who thought of it first, but they've all pretty much adopted a fairly successful, but thoroughly misleading, tactic. Free profiles. I mean, after all, what good does a dating site do you if nobody registers with it? So they put out the word..."Sign up with us for free!!!" And thousands upon thousands rush to do so (and, yes, I'm part of the guilty masses). Each site seems to take some kind of devilish, sadistic pleasure in contorting the limits of your consciousness to come up with some individual variation on what is, basically, a glorified stat-sheet. They'll get you to endure hours of furious concentration, hunched over your keyboard, visions of your dream-mate(mates?) flashing before your eyes, feverishly clicking this option and then typing in side notes or clarifications. Then there's the personal little hell of "Describe Yourself and Who You're Looking For."
Now, if you're in the market for a cheap piece of ass, or you have absolutely no discretion whatsoever, this is easy. I've seen a few people go so far as to answer the "Describe" section with, "My picture's right there. You tell me." I've seen others whose description basically read, "I'm young and I've got big boobs." These same intellectual giants then turn around and answer the "Who You're Looking For" section with, "I want someone who's into the same stuff I am."
HELLO?!!! How the hell do I know what you're into, other than the barely-there lingerie in the picture? (And why is it, half the time, that the women who post pictures of themselves in lingerie are the last women in the world you want to see in lingerie?)
But, for those of us who try to be articulate and lucid, the box provided is a ridiculously small space in which to summarize, much less describe, who we are. I hope I never have to write classified ads for a living, because it takes me at least five or six tries to get the word count down to the point where their system isn't spitting my submission back up like a six-month old baby trying split-pea soup for the first time. Finally, removing all pronouns, adjectives and adverbs, and half the prepositions, I get something that describes me. It reads like poorly-translated Japanese stereo instructions, but it describes me.
AT LAST!!!! I'm now free to peruse the galleries of waiting women, free to pick and....oh. Wait a minute. Y'mean THIS part isn't free? Well, on most of 'em, the perusal is free, you just have to pay to be able to do anything more than the equivalent of Joey on Friends, saying, "How you doin'?" Winks, flirts, icebreakers, whatever you want to call 'em...I'm never sure whether to bother with one or not. I mean, what do I say if I actually decide to write an email? "I saw your picture and I want sex?" I'd prefer something more sophisticated than that to be my introduction...but first off, I'd like to know if I'm wasting my time writing...so I'll send a flirt. Except that, if I send a flirt, it says I'm a cheap bastard that isn't willing to cough up the money to write an email...oh, the dilemma...(just as a disclaimer--I have yet to get to the point of being so desperate that I've actually PAID to use one of these sites...but I don't know if I can hold out much longer...)
The topper (and, incidentally, the instigator of this rather lengthy diatribe) was one I stumbled across tonight. I really should have known better. I mean, REALLY should have known...I'm looking through profiles on a site (one I just registered for, natch!) and I see a very attractive, very wholesome looking girl, theoretically from Idaho Falls (you'll see why I say 'theoretically' in a moment, trust me.) So I take a look, and reading through her profile, she says, "You can find out more about me at *such and such a webpage*."
Hmmmm, I tell myself. Doesn't look like what you'd normally associate with somebody's homepage...but maybe it's on a business-hosted website or something like that. (Again, the benefit of the doubt...I think it was Mark Twain who said, 'No man learned anything being kicked by a mule a second time.') So I look it up.
Sonuvabitch...it's ANOTHER dating site. And, whaddaya know, they've got a 'special offer' going, free if you register now! Ah, what the hell, I figure. I've already spent a ten-hour workday, what's it going to hurt? So I sit down and start filling out their twenty-minute profile.
An hour later (in my own defense, filling out the profile was NOT the only thing I was doing during this time period), I get done. I've checked all the little boxes yes or no, according to my preferences, added side notes where encouraged to do so, and even wrote a decent little description of myself AND of who I'm looking for, that wasn't too long and actually reads like it was originally written in English. Okay, let's see what my profile looks like....
I kid you not...the screen came up, "That option is only available to paying members." Are you kidding me? I can't even look at my OWN profile? Well, what the fuck can I do on this pieceashit site, anyway? I start poking around, the profanity growing more and more intense with every 'Only available' screen that comes up, until I find one that lists what options are available at the different membership levels.
As a free member, I can chat with people online, or I can send and receive instant messages with people online. That's it. I can't even browse who's online, it's strictly luck-of-the-draw. Which, basically, leaves me stuck sitting at the computer, waiting for someone to A) look at my profile, and B) decide it's thought-provoking enough to contact me (and then I have to pray they IM me or look me up in a chat room, because I can't even read my own fucking mail!--and, yes, the expletives were in fact part of my thought-process at the time, I didn't just add them for dramatic effect.)
It took me all of two seconds to digest that tidbit of information, go through the realization process delineated above, and locate the button to access my account information. For what they wanted me to pay for a month of play on that site, I could get two good steak dinners at Applebee's. Without another moment's hesitation, I clicked on 'Cancel my Account'...only to have a confirmation box pop up. Yes, dammit, cancel my account!
The next screen was a password confirmation, and a comment box asking why you chose to cancel your account. So I told 'em. There's a lot of dating sites out there, after all, and some of them are even free. And, frankly, I'd rather have the two steak dinners.
Boy, just when I thought used car salesmen were shifty...
Okay, I admit it...I'm pathetic. I got an offline IM several days ago from a girl, telling me to check out her profile on a dating site. Right there, I should have known this wasn't all it seemed. But since I'm chronically willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, I went along with it. Spent the twenty minutes cataloguing my life, and the additional hours anguishing over just what to write in the descriptions...want to sound interesting, but not desperate...confident, but not psycho...
I did finally find her profile on the site. According to it, she's a man...but, then again, according to the site, half the women describing themselves as 22 are, in fact, 32, and this site also has somehow managed to make it possible to be from Kansas City, MO and San Jose, CA at the same time, so I'm not sure what to think. It's a moot point, because when I emailed her(?) to ask about the discrepancy, I got no response. Somehow, I think I'm relieved.
(That makes me wonder...is the reason FTB's picture looks so familiar because it actually IS a bad picture of Ashley? Wouldn't that be embarrassing, to stumble across someone from work on one of these sites? I mean, hey...FTB's 10 years older than Ashley, and from a different town...but in light of what I just said, ya gotta wonder...)
But the experience did get me started poking around online dating sites again (yes, my social life is so incredibly non-existant that I'm willing to spend time sitting in front of my computer, hoping against hope that the perfect girl is going to email me out of the blue and put an end to the loneliness...or something like that). I tell ya...you want to talk about bait-and-switch tactics, the most sleazy car salesmen could take notes from these guys!
Okay, in all fairness, I do have to say there is, in fact, one site I found that is, truly, free. They are also not so much a dating site as a socializing site (although I did meet my last girlfriend there...well, the last girl I went out on a date with, anyway--but that's another story). The great thing is they've got all these tests that the site members have written, about nearly anything you can think of...everything from the expected, "Are we compatible?" tests to devilishly tricky and intricate trivia tests about Star Wars, Shaun of the Dead, Russian history, WWII...and personality analyses that can tell you which muppet you most resemble or whether you would have been a loyal Nazi had you grown up in Hitler's Germany. (Yeah, I've wasted a LOT of time on that site...email me if you want the name, I'm trying to avoid product placement.)
The rest of them, however, are a real treat to deal with. I don't know who thought of it first, but they've all pretty much adopted a fairly successful, but thoroughly misleading, tactic. Free profiles. I mean, after all, what good does a dating site do you if nobody registers with it? So they put out the word..."Sign up with us for free!!!" And thousands upon thousands rush to do so (and, yes, I'm part of the guilty masses). Each site seems to take some kind of devilish, sadistic pleasure in contorting the limits of your consciousness to come up with some individual variation on what is, basically, a glorified stat-sheet. They'll get you to endure hours of furious concentration, hunched over your keyboard, visions of your dream-mate(mates?) flashing before your eyes, feverishly clicking this option and then typing in side notes or clarifications. Then there's the personal little hell of "Describe Yourself and Who You're Looking For."
Now, if you're in the market for a cheap piece of ass, or you have absolutely no discretion whatsoever, this is easy. I've seen a few people go so far as to answer the "Describe" section with, "My picture's right there. You tell me." I've seen others whose description basically read, "I'm young and I've got big boobs." These same intellectual giants then turn around and answer the "Who You're Looking For" section with, "I want someone who's into the same stuff I am."
HELLO?!!! How the hell do I know what you're into, other than the barely-there lingerie in the picture? (And why is it, half the time, that the women who post pictures of themselves in lingerie are the last women in the world you want to see in lingerie?)
But, for those of us who try to be articulate and lucid, the box provided is a ridiculously small space in which to summarize, much less describe, who we are. I hope I never have to write classified ads for a living, because it takes me at least five or six tries to get the word count down to the point where their system isn't spitting my submission back up like a six-month old baby trying split-pea soup for the first time. Finally, removing all pronouns, adjectives and adverbs, and half the prepositions, I get something that describes me. It reads like poorly-translated Japanese stereo instructions, but it describes me.
AT LAST!!!! I'm now free to peruse the galleries of waiting women, free to pick and....oh. Wait a minute. Y'mean THIS part isn't free? Well, on most of 'em, the perusal is free, you just have to pay to be able to do anything more than the equivalent of Joey on Friends, saying, "How you doin'?" Winks, flirts, icebreakers, whatever you want to call 'em...I'm never sure whether to bother with one or not. I mean, what do I say if I actually decide to write an email? "I saw your picture and I want sex?" I'd prefer something more sophisticated than that to be my introduction...but first off, I'd like to know if I'm wasting my time writing...so I'll send a flirt. Except that, if I send a flirt, it says I'm a cheap bastard that isn't willing to cough up the money to write an email...oh, the dilemma...(just as a disclaimer--I have yet to get to the point of being so desperate that I've actually PAID to use one of these sites...but I don't know if I can hold out much longer...)
The topper (and, incidentally, the instigator of this rather lengthy diatribe) was one I stumbled across tonight. I really should have known better. I mean, REALLY should have known...I'm looking through profiles on a site (one I just registered for, natch!) and I see a very attractive, very wholesome looking girl, theoretically from Idaho Falls (you'll see why I say 'theoretically' in a moment, trust me.) So I take a look, and reading through her profile, she says, "You can find out more about me at *such and such a webpage*."
Hmmmm, I tell myself. Doesn't look like what you'd normally associate with somebody's homepage...but maybe it's on a business-hosted website or something like that. (Again, the benefit of the doubt...I think it was Mark Twain who said, 'No man learned anything being kicked by a mule a second time.') So I look it up.
Sonuvabitch...it's ANOTHER dating site. And, whaddaya know, they've got a 'special offer' going, free if you register now! Ah, what the hell, I figure. I've already spent a ten-hour workday, what's it going to hurt? So I sit down and start filling out their twenty-minute profile.
An hour later (in my own defense, filling out the profile was NOT the only thing I was doing during this time period), I get done. I've checked all the little boxes yes or no, according to my preferences, added side notes where encouraged to do so, and even wrote a decent little description of myself AND of who I'm looking for, that wasn't too long and actually reads like it was originally written in English. Okay, let's see what my profile looks like....
I kid you not...the screen came up, "That option is only available to paying members." Are you kidding me? I can't even look at my OWN profile? Well, what the fuck can I do on this pieceashit site, anyway? I start poking around, the profanity growing more and more intense with every 'Only available' screen that comes up, until I find one that lists what options are available at the different membership levels.
As a free member, I can chat with people online, or I can send and receive instant messages with people online. That's it. I can't even browse who's online, it's strictly luck-of-the-draw. Which, basically, leaves me stuck sitting at the computer, waiting for someone to A) look at my profile, and B) decide it's thought-provoking enough to contact me (and then I have to pray they IM me or look me up in a chat room, because I can't even read my own fucking mail!--and, yes, the expletives were in fact part of my thought-process at the time, I didn't just add them for dramatic effect.)
It took me all of two seconds to digest that tidbit of information, go through the realization process delineated above, and locate the button to access my account information. For what they wanted me to pay for a month of play on that site, I could get two good steak dinners at Applebee's. Without another moment's hesitation, I clicked on 'Cancel my Account'...only to have a confirmation box pop up. Yes, dammit, cancel my account!
The next screen was a password confirmation, and a comment box asking why you chose to cancel your account. So I told 'em. There's a lot of dating sites out there, after all, and some of them are even free. And, frankly, I'd rather have the two steak dinners.
posted by Curtis at 8:25 PM
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