Internet dating hits a dead end
TwinCities.com 06/30/2003 Part 4: Internet dating hits a dead end
Heh. This article dates from mid-2003, about a year after the last time I used an online dating service. Over 9 months on it at the time, I had ONE person show interest. We went out for a couple of months, but as soon as I mentioned the 'R'-word (Relationship) she declared she was a lesbian and vanished. I heard from her a few months later, she phoned up wanting to be 'friends', having now married a a rich German guy and bought a house in French's Forest.
Having just spent nearly $100 on joining a few dating sites a few few weeks ago (wow, they are expensive nowadays) and discovered that for about $5 a message you can expect NO replies, I typed 'internet dating is dead' into Google and the above article was the first hit.
I have a couple of theories:
1. Lie like a trooper. Especially about your height it seems. If like me you are cursed with being a male of less than 1.6m height, don't expect any matches. Ever. 90% of women want you to be 'between 5' 9" and 7' 11" ' which means you are most likely a basketballer or pace bowler.
2. The links without photos? Stooges. How can you use a dating service and expect anything without a photo? There simply cannot be that many people out there totally embarrassed by their looks. What is there to stop sites 'padding' their lists? A voluntary code of ethics? Considering they make money out of me every time I try to send a message, it would be worth their while to fake as many as possible. The maths involved is probably the same as poker-machine luring techniques, ie very well researched. It's easy enough to fake entries - it seems no-one replies to messages anyway, so how could you tell?
3. Do a search for women, then do the same search for men. About 20 links to women, about 200(!) links to men. Sorry, I thought the media said there were hordes of single women out there. Maybe they are all in the bars & pubs then. A shame I have given up alcohol, and Sydney pubs & bars have the music up so loud they make my ears bleed. I think it is a Legal(tm) requirement to stop people talking/thinking/conspiring against The Economy(tm).
4. Like the article says, include 'likes moonlight walks along the beach' - in Sydney? Right? I keep odd hours sometimes, and I do not see dizzy lovers out on moonlight walks! I mean, sure you can take it as read that I like moonlight walks along the beach - when I am in the Whitsunday Islands, or Thailand!. I thought people might be interested in more useful descriptions, such as "I like dolphins, Lego and chocolate, but not all at once." I suppose I should just join with the masses and say that I like "moonlight walks along the beach, sleeping in and a bit of a boogie on the dance floor". Truth in advertising - there is none.
Since I went to a bit of effort this time to even make sure my profiles were proof-read, this all adds up to being very depressing. I was pretty much truthful in my profiles, and now I feel I have revealed way too much - and that what I have revealed must be a huge turn-off. And I'm too short.
Self esteem? Yeah, I had some a while back...
Heh. This article dates from mid-2003, about a year after the last time I used an online dating service. Over 9 months on it at the time, I had ONE person show interest. We went out for a couple of months, but as soon as I mentioned the 'R'-word (Relationship) she declared she was a lesbian and vanished. I heard from her a few months later, she phoned up wanting to be 'friends', having now married a a rich German guy and bought a house in French's Forest.
Having just spent nearly $100 on joining a few dating sites a few few weeks ago (wow, they are expensive nowadays) and discovered that for about $5 a message you can expect NO replies, I typed 'internet dating is dead' into Google and the above article was the first hit.
I have a couple of theories:
1. Lie like a trooper. Especially about your height it seems. If like me you are cursed with being a male of less than 1.6m height, don't expect any matches. Ever. 90% of women want you to be 'between 5' 9" and 7' 11" ' which means you are most likely a basketballer or pace bowler.
2. The links without photos? Stooges. How can you use a dating service and expect anything without a photo? There simply cannot be that many people out there totally embarrassed by their looks. What is there to stop sites 'padding' their lists? A voluntary code of ethics? Considering they make money out of me every time I try to send a message, it would be worth their while to fake as many as possible. The maths involved is probably the same as poker-machine luring techniques, ie very well researched. It's easy enough to fake entries - it seems no-one replies to messages anyway, so how could you tell?
3. Do a search for women, then do the same search for men. About 20 links to women, about 200(!) links to men. Sorry, I thought the media said there were hordes of single women out there. Maybe they are all in the bars & pubs then. A shame I have given up alcohol, and Sydney pubs & bars have the music up so loud they make my ears bleed. I think it is a Legal(tm) requirement to stop people talking/thinking/conspiring against The Economy(tm).
4. Like the article says, include 'likes moonlight walks along the beach' - in Sydney? Right? I keep odd hours sometimes, and I do not see dizzy lovers out on moonlight walks! I mean, sure you can take it as read that I like moonlight walks along the beach - when I am in the Whitsunday Islands, or Thailand!. I thought people might be interested in more useful descriptions, such as "I like dolphins, Lego and chocolate, but not all at once." I suppose I should just join with the masses and say that I like "moonlight walks along the beach, sleeping in and a bit of a boogie on the dance floor". Truth in advertising - there is none.
Since I went to a bit of effort this time to even make sure my profiles were proof-read, this all adds up to being very depressing. I was pretty much truthful in my profiles, and now I feel I have revealed way too much - and that what I have revealed must be a huge turn-off. And I'm too short.
Self esteem? Yeah, I had some a while back...
posted by Corinoco at 10:37 am
3 Comments:
I'm sorry Adrian, i know its hard. But you're a wonderful person, and that's got you some friends who care very much about you, and it'll also be pretty obvious to any suitable girl who comes along.
Yes, I did burn my name into leaves, bark etc. I was never really into frying ants; we had antlions under our house, so feeding the ants to them was always much more fun.
At a very young age I started to doubt what teachers / adults told me, especially the bits about leaving glass in the bush starting bushfires. Not that it made me leave rubbish in the bush (I have *never ever* knowingly littered in my life, and I suspect probably not accidentally, unless you count silver fountain pens as litter), but I used to experiment to see if I could start a fire with a bottle. As I found out it is actually even hard to do with a decent magnifying glass without very controlled conditions. I guess it is *possible*, but it seemed much more likely to me that burning cigarette butts was more likely.
Correspondingly, when we did 'Lord of the Flies' in English, I pointed out that it was actually impossible for the boys to light a fire using the Piggy's glasses, as he was short-sighted, as I am. You absolutely cannot light anything with concave lenses - they diverge light, not focus it. Needless to say nitpicking was not seen as popular or productive; and it does firmly put me into the 'nerd' catagory.
Some comment this is; it should actually be a whole post...
No, lenses for myopia (short-sighted-ness) only straighten light. If Piggy had been long-sighted then they would have been able to use his glasses - lenses for long-sighted-ness can be used as magnifying (focusing) lenses. This is in fact the usual argument, but the text clearly states that Piggy had no distance vision. Long-sighted-ness means you have trouble reading or doing fine work.
For a really, really good (and frightening) idea of what living with myopia is like, see the film Gataca; the protagonist of which is guilty of the genetic crime of myopia (I shudder to think that we might not be far from the reality of that film). In particular the scene where he must cross a highway without wearing is contact lenses. The camera was defocessed to exactly match what someone with myopia sees - it is not the cliche 'I can't see' (blindness), but more like the world is being painted real-time by Monet (who was also myopic).
I have never cooked an egg on a paint-tin, but I have seen it done in ads so it must be true. I also know you can cook a fish on a car engine, but you must seal the foil really well unless you like carbon monoxide & petrocarbon by-products in you food.
I like your fetta-and-sesame snack - it sounds yummy.
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