”So let’s not kid ourselves. We’re just two lonely people. We’re so desperate for quality human interaction that we’ll even employ a machine to help us find it.”
No, you are right.
We don’t know each other. We may never know each other. That’s fine; I don’t care.
But it would appear as though we’re both lonely and dissatisfied with the current state of our lives. We both feel like something is missing.
And look at that–things in common already!
I saw the flattering profile picture you posted. You really do look great in that one. You think so too, obviously. You chose it over all of your other pictures to greet me, a total stranger. I just read the things you wrote in the box used to illustrate your personality. Oh my, you sure are clever. You’re just a pun factory. So what’s a gorgeous, fun-loving, free-spirited, Oscar Wilde-ian/Robin Williamsish catch like you doing up for grabs on the internetz?
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In the last hour, you’ve probably scrolled past 14 people whom you can barely tell apart.
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Doesn’t really matter. Just like it doesn’t matter what you write in the box.
And it doesn’t matter what I wrote in the box, either.
More often than not, people using this website are only portraying themselves to be whatever they think their ideal mate would fantasize about. They’re only saying whatever they think their ideal mate would like to hear. They’ll say something along the lines of: “Oh, I will tell you like it is! I’m motivated! I’m honest! I’m real! I’m loyal! I’m one of a kind!”
But in the last hour, you’ve probably scrolled past 14 people whom you can barely tell apart.
So let’s not kid ourselves. We’re just two lonely people. We’re so desperate for quality human interaction that we’ll even employ a machine to help us find it.
You just want someone to tell you that you complete them. You want someone to kiss you in the rain and love you forever.
You may want it enough to part with some cash for a premium membership, in hopes of speeding up the process.
So let’s not waste time with this. That’s what these sites are for: bypassing the bullshit on your way to finding “The One.” You’re just doing the same thing I’m doing. Scrolling through other heartbroken and desperate people’s pictures, wondering what’s so awful about them. Or rationalizing why you wouldn’t match up with them. Or speculating as to why someone would’ve gotten tired of having sex with them. Or thinking about how seemingly perfect they are, and wondering why they won’t respond to any of your advances. It’s just like the worst parts of high school all over again, but in little HTML boxes.
Endless repeat. They’re not good enough for you. Or you’re not good enough for them.
But you still keep reading those little personality boxes under the best-looking profile pictures. You’re still smirking at their attempts to be funny or clever.
I am, too.
I think we have a lot more in common than you’d like to admit.
Photo–Flickr/Cathy1489
About Ryan Bjorklund
HA! Ain’t that the truth!!! As long as you don’t take all of it too seriously, it could be fun… but I am a clever, witty, motivated, one of a kind individual so of course I would NEVER be on anything like Okcupid.com…. I stick with Zoosk!
Nice essay Ryan! Very clever. I recently moved to a new area, and decided to try an online dating service that had a free trial membership, even though I swore I would never go there again after being deceived, disappointed, and humiliated in previous attempts. I fill out all the fields (as cleverly, but honestly as possible) and submit. Bingo, there are 14 matches. I scroll through the women, and notice that they all had one thing in common. None of them had logged on to their account in the last 3 months. Given that some of the women had joined the service in 2006, I am guessing that it had been several YEARS since most of them had logged on. Well, I said screw that, since spending money would obviously be a waste of time. Then my in-box started to collect e-mails from attractive women who were younger than I specified, and from outside my geographical area by around thousands of miles away. The e-mails were very vague and had nothing to do with the information I had posted on my profile. Obviously the service was salting the mine with a few choice nuggets to get me to spend some money. I wrote a series of e-mails to there tech department, basically telling them to stop, and that what they were doing was kind of evil. I received a series of form letter e-mails in return, all telling me that they were sending my information to a higher level, and all were “signed” by a four letter man’s name, like Mark, Troy, and Greg. There were no phone numbers or other contact information. I don’t know if any of my e-mails actually reached a real human being, or even a flesh and blood one, but the e-mails from the lovely and delightful Spam eventually stopped. When ever I see a post on this site recommending that a lonely guy try one of these services, it makes my blood curdle.
Certainly. Such scams become apparent as soon as you notice uncommon spikes in activity. I got an email recently telling me that many female users normally rated me with 4/5 or 5/5 “stars”.
But the message did not indicate to me who thought this about me. It seemed strange due to the fact that women usually won’t contact me without provocation.
Its an interesting site. I’ll likely go to the local events they host. But I won’t pay for a premium membership.
I have had no real luck in finding someone through online dating. What I write is not what people are looking for. It is an endless repeat of not being good enough. Gah!
Arranged marriages should come back in style.
The thing is, most of the couples I know now met on dating sites. For my more normal yuppie friends, match.com totally worked for them, 2 marriages out of that. For the weirdo ones, okcupid has led to one marriage and 4 couples in my social circles. And I met my current best friend on OKC. So despite the fact that I make fun of it all the time, OKC is like facebook now, if you’re single and you don’t have it, you might as well not have a phone.
I met my husband online. I feel you can filter out the losers online with a bit of practice. You want to reveal just enough about yourself to attract someone compatible to yourself and i think picking the right dating site for yourself is another key component. I used thetopdatingsitesonline.com they rate the best dating sites online based on member reviews. They also offer free trials when you click on their links, well i got a free trial anyway so presume it works for everyone. Definitely worth a go!
I was having a really hard time running away from street criminals until I bought some running shoes at http://www.nike.com
My golf game was the worst until I logged onto http://www.carlsgolfland.com and got some Callaway drivers for those intimidating par 5′s.
It had been weeks since I last ate, so I finally gave in to all the rage and ordered online at
http://www.papajohns.com
Perfect matches can be found on the internet.