Online Dating Follies – from the Male Perspective [Guest Blog by S-Ticket]

by S-Ticket

So, I guess I’m up to bat representing da boyz after tweetpeep22‘s take on dating.

My story is probably a bit different from hers, I was in a long term relationship for 8 years and took a 2 year break from dating before I finally decided to “get back in the saddle”. Its always been hard for me to meet “available” women on my own or through my friends (most of my friends, as well as their friends were no longer single) so I decided to take the big plunge into online dating… .

It’s been 2 years since that fateful decision and I’ve tried a couple of the major dating sites, Match.com and Eharmony. These two sites are dramatically different in the approach they take towards how you get to meet your “soul mate”, and I’ll go into more detail later. If I were to have a preference, it would have to be Eharmony, because even though it’s more pricey, it just seems that there are more women on the site that are serious about dating.

The Sites

Eharmony.com

Eharmony ($49.99 per month, although there are discounts for longer term memberships) claims to match you scientifically based on your answers to a fairly long survey. You have no control over who is matched with you, but you can choose to initiate communication with the matches the site selects for you. You may set your criteria for distance (in or out of state, in or out of country, they even have a match selection for Kyrgyzstan!), education, whether smoking or drinking matters to you, and other such criteria. Eharmony also offers “Free Communication Weekends” every so often where you can communicate with matches for free during the weekend (only you can’t see the other person’s picture, but you go through the “process”).

The communication process is broken down into 4 steps 1) closed questions – you ask your match 5 multiple choice questions of your choice. 2) Must Have and Can’t Haves – you choose 10 characteristics that your match must have and 10 characteristics that your match must not have. 3) Open ended questions – you get to ask 3 short answer questions of your match. Then finally 4) You get to send a message to your match and you begin open communication.

As I mentioned earlier, the matches on Eharmony just seem more open to communication than those on Match, but my guess is that, it’s because signing up for the site’s membership takes a bit of a commitment of both time and money.

Match.com

Match.com is more of what you’d expect out of a dating site… simply put, you look through your matches and then select who you want to communicate with. Membership is free, if you just want to post a profile… .but you won’t be able to communicate with your matches unless you sign up for membership. The price will run from $34.99 a month to cheaper if you sign up for a longer membership. There is no questionnaire but rather the site will ask you to describe yourself (standard stuff like height, ethnicity, body type… really what is the difference between “A few extra pounds” and “thick”?) It also asks what your interests are. Unlike Eharmony, the site doesn’t choose your matches for you… rather, it’s a free for all and you get to just go in, read profiles and choose. There is no guided communication steps, rather, you just send a match a message that you’re interested, and you wait for her response. A friend of mine called this site a “meat market” since when you’re browsing through profiles, you just see row upon row of pictures.

From my experience, Match.com seems to have a lot of women who range between 25-35. I’ve also heard a lot of complaints from my guy friends that women on Match.com don’t really respond to their attempts to communicate. I found this true as well, a lot of women didn’t respond, also a lot of the women I met through this site weren’t really sure about what they wanted (serious relationship… just dating kind of thing etc… ), so it was a bit frustrating for me.

S-Ticket’s Advice For Online Daters

• Post Pictures – While everyone would like to believe that looks don’t mean much, not posting pictures is a sure way not to get any responses in online dating. A female friend told me “not putting up pictures is kind of a sign of insecurity, and always makes me think twice about communicating with them”
• Keep your profile positive – Avoid things like putting yourself down, even if it’s in joke… another friend of mine told me that nothing turns her off more than seeing a profile in which the guy is either ranting or putting himself down.
• Don’t think you’re the only one contacting her – Both Match and Eharmony will match you with multiple people. Also according to an ABC News article, Match.com said their membership is 59% men and 41% women… so you can be pretty sure that the person you’re communicating with is probably communicating with other guys as well. Vice versa, you’ll probably be communicating with multiple women as well. Just make sure that if you meet the person, you’re up front about it, if you’re not up front… just remember Hawaii is too small a place to pull things like that. I once met a woman on Match.com, who in addition to dating me, was dating another guy… which is fine, but, she lied to the two of us saying she wasn’t seeing anyone else… eventually a mutual friend figured out we were seeing the same woman… and to make it worse… she’d text the other guy or me after going out on a date with the other person. It bred bad feelings and eventually we confronted her about it. She chose the other guy, and she is still seeing him from what I hear.
• If you’re not interested, at least let her know – Be up front, if a woman communicates with you and you’re not interested, show some respect for her and just send a short message thanking her but say that you’re not interested. For both me and a couple other guys I knew, it would be disappointing but at least you’d have some respect for a match for at least saying she wasn’t interested. But many women on the site won’t even respond to you (granted this could be because they’re not members and just signed up to “take a look around”), but it still doesn’t feel any better. So remember if you don’t like that, have some courtesy and don’t do it back to them.
• Finally, be Patient – If you don’t hear back from a woman or if you don’t have any matches, just be patient. With the number of people signing up each day you never know who you might get matched up with tomorrow. Also even if you’re not getting any responses, just keep trying. I had my fair share of rejections and no responses, but I was also able to meet a few wonderful women, who even though weren’t the “right one” have become good friends.

I decided to take a little break from dating about a month ago and cancelled my Eharmony subscription (my match.com subscription was tossed shortly after the multi-dating incident about a year ago). Dating is rough, and although looking back now, a lot of the stories seems funny now, back when it was happening, it really wasn’t and the rejections did get pretty painful. But I was able to learn a lot about myself from these experiences. Maybe I’ll do the online dating thing again later, or maybe not… but I still haven’t lost hope in finding “the one”. I guess it’s like Michael Buble says in his song… “I Just Haven’t Met You Yet”. Anyway, thanks for reading!

So now tell me…

So what’s been your experiences in dating (doesn’t have to be online)?

Any opinion about Online Dating?

Any Horror stories?

—

The Guest Blog Schedule:

• THU 03/11 – Chicken Grease – “TheGrease and TheBus”
• FRI 03/12 – kuya.d – “I’m So Over It”
• MON 03/15 – JMAW – “Something like a Phenomenon”
• TUE 03/16 – frankie – “The Curse of the Murse”
• WED 03/17 – kako mochi – “Where in Oregon is kako mochi?”
• THU 03/18 – tweetpeep22 – “Online Dating Follies – Female Perspective”
• FRI 03/19 – S-Ticket – “Online Dating Follies – Male Perspective”
• MON 03/22 – tita leerz – “The Hawaii Visitor’s Survival Guide”
• TUE 03/23 – skycastles – “Otanjoubi Omedetou Gozaimasu Kurosawa-sama!”
• WED 03/24 – hemajang – “Where in Hawaii is hemajang?”
• THU 03/25 – uncle jimmy – “Grab One, Leave One, and Get Reel…”

Advertisement

Online Dating Follies – from the Female Perspective [Guest Blog by tweetpeep22]

by tweetpeep22

Dating… Something not to worry about in high school, something to try in college, and hopefully get better at in your 20s… For me? That’s not exactly the route I took, lol. I didn’t date much at all. One bf for all of high school… and I spent a good portion of my 20s in an unhealthy relationship… So now at 30 what am I to expect in the dating scene? Well, let’s just say at this point I think I’ve kept an open mind and my open mindedness actually started a year or so ago when friends encouraged me to try online dating. I’m clueless when it comes to dating to begin with (a family member even gave me a dating for dummies book) and to jump into online dating seemed scary. My previous experiences included just meeting someone thru friends… and online dating meant meeting a complete stranger thru the computer.

So just starting a profile on this site was QUITE tedious. After getting thru the long questionnaire and getting thru all the formalities of the site, (working on your profile, multiple choice questions, and EVEN essay questions — lots to do, right?), you can finally communicate freely via email.

But regardless of all that “formality,” what really makes all the difference is meeting in person. Chemistry is an important factor in meeting someone in person. Sure, emailing is a good way to get to know someone, but what is it like to actually spend time with them? Some people say that chemistry is overrated and can be developed over time, but I also have to argue that chemistry can’t be forced either.

So over time I met a handful of matches in person. I don’t really call it a date since I feel like “date” is such a loaded word, lol. It’s more of what I like to call “meet and greets.”

Now in the spirit of open mindedness, I’ve gone on meet and greets that have turned out to be interesting… I can’t help but wonder if they’re answering the questions honestly or giving answers that they think I want to hear. And the only reason I started realizing this was that when I started getting to know the guys by either email or talking on the phone or meeting in person, they weren’t the same person they portrayed themself to be online.

One of the first matches reminded me of one of my uncles which was just weird. In emailing and in phone conversations we got along well I thought, but when we met in person I couldn’t help but think he looked like a younger version of my uncle, lol. And that’s not a jab at the guy or my uncle, but even his mannerisms and non-verbal communications were TOO similar to that of my uncle. It was uncanny and just too weird.

One match wanted to meet for coffee and then go to the gym. well now, that’s not exactly what I had in mind as something to do to get to know someone. But in the spirit of open mindedness, why not? He had his own specific regimen that he wanted to stick to so I guess to keep the conversation and getting to know you stuff going I followed him around the gym, but got bored with that and started to do my own thing. But in between he’d ask questions about what recipes I know how to cook, if I wanted to join his non-profit group, and if my friends were ugly. That question bothered me more than anything, what kind of question is that to even ask? When I didn’t answer, he pressed on, that I would have to know whether or not my friends were prettier than me or not and I just sneered at the question. Granted the way he talked mostly about his non-profit group made me feel like he was more interested in recruiting me to join it.

And another meet and greet revolved around this guy’s sleeping schedule and groceries in the fridge. He preferred to sleep early and actually be in bed by 9 pm, which required dinner to be a bit early. However, dinner was changed to just meeting up for dessert around 7:30 pm because he had leftovers in the fridge that he didn’t want to go to waste. Then I wondered why he even made plans for dinner then if he had rice he didn’t want to spoil and had to be in bed by 9 pm?

Some meet and greets never really get off the ground and just end when the emails stop. Once someone sent me what I can only believe to be a “drunk email” because not one sentence made sense. It was hilarious. Someone also addressed me as milf in an email and well that wasn’t exactly something I found appropriate.

Haven’t we ALL heard the phrase “small world” or “this rock is just too small?” Well that applies to online dating, too. With the majority of the people I was matched with there was some small world connection. hmm… I’ve been matched w/someone who I didn’t know graduated high school with me, a friend’s co-worker, a friend’s ex-in-law, or even my friend’s brother!

Oh well, it’s not to say that all my experiences had a weird twist to it. I did have some fairly good experiences, too… One felt like I was with a good friend more than anything and we hung out with a few times, but that would be as far as it went. And there were meet and greets where the fella was just not interested in me and that’s to be expected. But in all cases, it helped me learn more about myself. I learned what I liked SPECIFICALLY about a guy by trying to look at the positives in each meet and greet. It’s not as simple as finding a guy that can make me laugh. It’s definitely not as simple as the commercials make it seem.

I also learned to take the bad (disappointment) in with the good. Of course it made me realize that what I may have wanted in my 20s is not exactly what I want in my 30s. I just started my 30s… but I do feel different than my 20s. I’m more confident in where my life is going to some degree; I have a career that I find interesting and enjoy and I know I’m trying to do the best I can with my FULL TIME job as mom – that’s the most I can hope for myself right now. 🙂

In trying all this online dating, part of me wondered how I was going to explain this to my dad, lol. I’ve heard his opinion of online dating. He thinks there are crazies out there on the Internet. my dad will always be a dad and worry for me & my sibs, even in our 40s. but I guess I have learned not to judge something I never tried. So at least I can say I tried it. And hopefully convince my dad to try it, too ha ha ha…

—

The Guest Blog Schedule:

• THU 03/11 – Chicken Grease – “TheGrease and TheBus”
• FRI 03/12 – kuya.d – “I’m So Over It”
• MON 03/15 – JMAW – “Something like a Phenomenon”
• TUE 03/16 – frankie – “The Curse of the Murse”
• WED 03/17 – kako mochi – “Where in Oregon is kako mochi?”
• THU 03/18 – tweetpeep22 – “Online Dating Follies – Female Perspective”
• FRI 03/19 – S-Ticket – “Online Dating Follies – Male Perspective”
• MON 03/22 – tita leerz – “The Hawaii Visitor’s Survival Guide”
• TUE 03/23 – skycastles – “Otanjoubi Omedetou Gozaimasu Kurosawa-sama!”
• WED 03/24 – hemajang – “Where in Hawaii is hemajang?”
• THU 03/25 – uncle jimmy – “Grab One, Leave One, and Get Reel…”