To recap, I have blogged the last two posts about finding something to do with my single life outside of just raising my girls when I have them and working my normal job. It led to some options I am exploring but I haven’t found anything to speak of just yet. So while we wait, I thought I would touch on a topic that I think everyone thinks about when someone becomes single again: getting un-single or otherwise known as "dating."
Let me just say right up front that unless someone just falls into my lap (almost literally), I am not searching for the next Mrs. Beddingfield or even the next Significant Other. I really, really, really don’t think I’m ready for that nor do I really even want it. I just ended an almost 9 year marriage that I thought wasn’t going to end, so I think I have a significant amount of baggage that I still need to get through before I want to start something new. And while I could hide it, I also don’t think it’s fair to my daughters to try to meet someone new right now (that was explored in The Next in Line, albeit mainly from the MMC’s side but the same reasons apply to me as well).
Does that mean I can’t just date-date? You know, a dinner here, a movie there? No, it doesn’t, but where those dates come from are limited right now. As stated, I don’t have an office to go to for dating opportunities and I thought about knocking door to door in the neighborhood, but I think that’s prohibited by the HOA by-laws where I live. Once I get rolling on one or more of the options listed in the previous post (Single White Male: Part 2), there is basically only one option for me right now. Yes, you guessed it: Online dating.
I’m not sure how widely accepted online dating is these days. Before I was married, it was just kind of coming into its own and there was a bit of a stigma about it. Kind of a last resort or desperation move to turn to it. Now I think it’s probably more mainstream depending on which site you use. For the record, I am not a paying member on any site. I have registered on a few but that was mainly to see what was out there and unfortunately, you are not allowed to browse unless you have a profile so that you, in turn, can be browsed as well.
I started with a base profile, no pictures or anything substantial in the “About Me” part unless I was forced to. Some sites make you go through what seemed like a hundred questions just to start a search. I think if I become more serious about this, I will go back and take longer at answering some of the questions. I assume these questions are meant to pair you up with someone who has similar answers. So perhaps quickly indicating that I strongly agree with kitten beheading may not get me many matches (I don’t agree with that, by the way…unless the kitten was involved in a double homicide, of course).
Most of these sites send you almost daily emails letting you know of the matches they came up with and on the sites where I put very little information, I can only imagine the matching algorithm used is “breathing” and “within 50 miles.” Other sites will send you notifications from other members that they want to meet you or “really liked your profile.” Again, I haven’t paid for any of these sites and my profile has almost no information on it, so what are they looking at? I’m crossing these sites off as fake or scams. Sure there may be some legitimate women on the site but I think most are probably web-cam girls or phish schemes to get you to go to a different site. I actually had one complain about how “buggy” the site was and wanted me to contact her on a different site. So transparent but I’m sure there are plenty of people who fall for that stuff.
There were times when I thought I needed to get out there RIGHT NOW and start dating. So I would start scouring these sites for potential dates. The problem was that after looking at a dozen or so, I eventually lost that feeling. Not because there wern’t many prospects out there…no, wait, it was exactly because there weren’t many prospects out there. Unless I expanded my search to include Philadelphia (two hours away), I probably found one semi-interesting profile out of twenty. There may have been others but I think a lot of people need to learn a few things about putting a profile out on a dating site. I think the most important thing you can include in your profile is a picture. I’m sorry but if I’m doing the online dating thing, I want to know what the person looks like up front. Is that shallow? I don’t know…maybe, but let’s face it, I’m 47 and I don’t have time to start up an email conversation that may lead to a face to face date without knowing what the person looks like. The last thing I need is to work up my courage to actually set up the date only to find out the person I’m meeting looks like Honey Boo Boo’s mother (here’s a pic. Doesn’t she look like Kevin from The Office dressed in drag?). Anyway, have a picture but here are some more suggestions:
- Include more than one picture - I would like to see a couple pictures instead of just one. To begin with, the one picture could have been taken over 3 or 4 years ago and people can change quite a bit during that time. Or maybe the one picture posted was so good because the lighting or the positioning was just right. That one really great picture could be exposed (pun intended) as a fluke by having others next to it.
A side note on female pictures, by the way: A trend I have noticed not only on dating sites but also on Facebook and other social media sites, is the female picture taken whilst said female is in her car. You clearly see the back seat and seat belt. What is with this? Do women look at themselves in the rearview mirror when they get in the car and I think, “Man, I look hot! Let’s capture this moment.” It’s almost as common as the picture taken in front of the bathroom mirror where the camera (or usually phone) is in full view. This may be okay on Facebook but on a dating site, don’t you want to put your best foot forward and have a decent picture? Speaking of a decent picture… - SMILE! - Seriously, I cannot count the number of pictures I’ve seen where the woman is frowning in the one picture she has posted. She looks sad or mad or bored or generally disinterested in the whole thing. Nothing gets my emotions a flutter more than seeing what appears to be a disgruntled DMV employee looking back at me online. And going back to the whole notion of putting up multiple pictures, if you are only going to put one up, is the one where you are sitting at the kitchen table in a dirty t-shirt, smoking a cigarette and looking like you just woke up from a ten day bender the one you want to use to lure other men? If I thought it was legal, I would post some of these pictures here just so you could see them. It’s really amazing.
- Try to be the only one in the picture – Again, you’d think this would be obvious. Listen, random lady I happened to click to, I don’t know who you are and if the one picture or even multiple pictures includes you and three other girlfriends on vacation or at a bar, I don’t know who I’m looking at. Sure I could cross analyze the information in your description with the photo and put together a CSI like investigation to best determine which one is you but really, I don’t have that kind of time. Okay, so I have that kind of time but I don’t really have the desire. I’ll just move along to the next profile. If you think this is bad, there is a worse one…
- Try to be IN the picture – Yes, there are people who have taken the time to post a picture and some have multiple pictures, but those pictures are of their dog or their garden or some scenic spot they visited while on vacation back in 2008 but none of these pictures includes that person’s face. I’m not dating your dog …although if you look like Honey Boo Boo’s mom, I may consider it… so why include a picture of your dog? If it’s you and your dog, that’s different…I should be able to ascertain which one is you but seeing just your dog isn’t going to cut it.
Just some tips I thought I would pass along.
Online dating is an option but it’s not going to be my first option. I’m not saying it’s a desperation move or anything like that. I have talked to a lot of people who have used these sites and are perfectly happy with the results. They say you have to keep an open mind and be prepared for disappointment but isn’t that dating in general? I do like the reference to the first date as being the first “interview” which really, it is. The other great thing about that is the first meeting would be something like coffee or lunch…nothing too expensive. I mean, would you go to a movie or lay out big bucks on a fancy dinner only to find out the person is a neo-Nazi and conveniently forgot to list that under "Interests?" I don’t think so.
In some ways, it may be easier to do online dating than real dating. At least both parties know what they are getting into from the start and if nothing is there on the first date (or interview) then you say, “Thank you very much but you are not what I am looking for right now. Best of luck on your future endeavors” and move on. The other party should understand completely. In “real” dating, there’s the time to build up to that first date and it’s a real date, not an interview. One assumes the interview process for a “real date” is the time spent when you got to know the person and worked up to asking them out. With online dating, working up to asking them out is mainly scrolling with the mouse and sending an email or two.
I will probably explore the world of online dating later if nothing pans out from my “options” but I will first have to put some money on the site I think is best and then figure out the propers methods for having that first “interview.”
For now, however, I need to go purge my internet cache of that picture of Honey Boo Boo’s mom. It just gives me the creeps knowing it’s out there.
