Dating update

A while back, I joined in one of the Internet's most painful trends: online dating. I tried two services -- Match.com and eHarmony.

Match.com is straightforward: Look at pictures, read about someone & decide whether to send an e-mail that the other person won't respond to (because they decided not to pay for the service). eHarmony purports to have a "scientific approach": They make you suffer through a long personality test & then match you with people who never respond (because they decided not to pay for the service).

For the three months I was a paying member of these illustrious services, I met two people worth dating. One petered out after a few dates because he did not know when to shut up. You see, guys, no matter how brilliant and all-knowing you may be, the woman you are with might -- just might -- know more than you about one tiny, itsy-bitsy small subject. If you refuse to acknowledge this, you are effectively kissing off your chance of a goodnight kiss. Or a handshake. It's called "respect." I'm pretty sure that word is still in the dictionary, but maybe I'm old-school.

The second petered out before we even met because, well, because he knew my ex. Go figure. My ex lives in New York. What are the odds that an engineer living in Houston metro, would know people I knew when I was married and living in upstate NY? Small world. I'm not sure what it says about my ability to avoid making the same mistakes over & over.

I still have my Match.com account, although I no longer pay for it, so I have 'hidden' myself so men don't fall hopelessly in lust only to be disappointed when they get no response (because you can only respond if you pay, and most "men" would not be worth $20 to exchange the two or three e-mails typically required to determine they are actually pigs). But Match.com still e-mails me once a week with "my matches."

Yesterday, for the first time, they matched me with someone from work. Someone totally, absolutely, impossibly wrong. In fairness, Match.com said he was only a 74% match. But still.

On a recent (May!) business trip, which I meant to blog, I dragged along a professional photographer to shoot a zillion pictures of my colleagues working in the field. It was a fun trip, and I still mean to write about it one of these days. But the relevant thing here is that the photographer, who is kind of cute and very fun, is also single and pointed out a FREE online dating site: Plenty Of Fish. So I signed up -- what the heck, right?

The thing about a free online dating site is that it's free. So there are all kinds of morons on there, including (I think -- I hope) 13-year-olds posing as 45-year-olds. If these men really are 45, there are a lot of reasons why they are divorced/separated/single. Example from a recent chat:

Man: Hi my name is Xxxxx.
Me: My brother's name is Xxxxx. You're not him are you? Because that would be really embarrassing.
Man: Ha no im not ur brother but r u feelin naughty?
Me:

(sigh) I mean, it's not even *video* chatting for heaven's sake.

Anyway, in two months of Fishing, I haven't caught anything worth keeping -- but hey, it's *free.* And I haven't given up yet.

Dating & the Internet

I've started dating again, and by 'again,' I mean for the first time in forever. I was married for 10 years, and even when the ex & I were dating, we lived 3-ish hours apart, so calling it 'dating' is a bit of a stretch. (Had we 'dated' each other while we were married, we might have managed to stay together, but that's another story.) After the marriage fell apart, I met a Martian on the Internet, and he was (is) sweet but on a different continent with no eagerness to relocate. Again, not much 'dating' going on there, although we had some fun 'virtual dates' and some great vacations.

Now I've signed up at an Internet matching service that attempts to pair you off with nearby 'like-minded' people of the opposite sex, for purposes of 'dating,' however one might define that word.

I have been underwhelmed thus far. We can start with the 300-pound guys who list themselves as 'average build.' Or the men who post photos of their younger selves, or some male model they found on the Internet. I'd be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt about having 'nice personalities' if they did not blatantly lie just to get attention. I am told that women do the same thing, and it flummoxes me. I don't see the point in 'attracting' someone who might very well run away as soon as he sees the rather average-looking, no-makeup, no-nonsense 40-something gal who gets out of the Mini Cooper at the designated date-meeting spot.

Responses from this Internet dating service fall into a few categories that seem to reflect the general state of the singles universe:

-- Illiterate morons, sex fiends and potential axe murderers: "hey bab u luk gud u want 2 hook up b4 da game im in woodlands 2 call my cell netime xxx-xxx-xxxx" [Seriously, this e-mail message arrived a couple of hours before the Super Bowl, supposedly from a 47-year-old professional man.]

-- Non-US citizens seeking green cards and financial scamulation: "Hello, you seem like a smart and beautiful American woman with compassion to those less fortunate than you. I am a well-educated Nigerian man who...." [I'm told that the guys get the same from Russian women.]

-- Guys who have trouble maintaining communication past the first e-mail. [Typically, the first e-mail indicates he has read something about me, usually asking for details about something in my Profile. I respond and ask 1-2 questions about him. He answers the questions and hits the send key. No lines of conversation remain open, so I guess we're done. Intentional? I don't think so. If the guy is a spectacularly good match otherwise, I might try to keep the conversation open myself, but so far it has not seemed to be worth the trouble.]

-- Guys who are fun to talk to, literate, clever, funny, nice, etc.

I have shared lots of e-mails, a few phone calls and two dates with a guy from category 4. Last night, I mentioned that I blog, and he said, "You aren't blogging about me, are you?" He was, at once, saying, "I value my privacy" but also asking, "If you did, would you say nice things?" So I'm not blogging about him, but he is nice.

I'm happy to be flexible about the definition of "date." So far, as you might expect, the largest component of it seems to be talking/listening. Last night we went to a pool hall & just never got around to embarrassing ourselves by actually shooting pool. We blabbed & enjoyed watching some kids ("kid' = anyone younger than us) playing 8-ball. The kids were talented & I have not been near a pool table in 20+ years, so I had little incentive to pick up a stick. Plus, one kid was so talented he could smoke + shoot + talk on his cell phone, which prompted several fun lines of conversation.

The concept of 'dating' also opens the possibility of dating more than one person at a time. I understand that a gal can have guy friends & guy dates, but I don't grok how you can juggle more than one guy date without one of them moving quickly into the 'friend' category. This is currently an academic question, but I welcome insights on the topic.

I look forward to seeing how this Internet matching is going to work. Meanwhile, Mom suggested trying a different matching service that one of her friends used to meet her current spouse. These services are not cheap, and this second one is less cheap than the first. I balk at the idea of paying for cable TV, an always-on entertainment channel. These services want $30-ish/month to introduce me to axe murderers, sex fiends and illiterate morons, with the dubiously entertaining e-mails coming at someone else's leisure. I'm not sure it's worth it, but.... I have had two nice dates that I would not have had otherwise.

I'd love to hear other people's experiences with these services & the 'value calculation' for continuing to subscribe. If you haven't found enough value in the first month, do they get enough new members to make it worth trying a second month?