Thursday, June 18, 2009

Match.com Article

I saw this article yesterday and just had to comment, considering I have mucho experience with online dating (and I'm obviously not ashamed to admit it.)

So there's a guy who signs up for Match. He peruses the goods and notices after a while that women aren't replying to him or sending any "winks" or emails. He now decides to sue Match.com for misrepresenting themselves. He says that profiles are outdated, that they leave people's profiles up there to make it look like there's more of a pool than there really is.

Sure, there are profiles that are old - either they have accounts that auto-renew (grrrr) and the people never bother to notice that they're being pilfered out of $30/month or they still show up because they never set their status to "non-searchable." In any event, just sort by "Newest First" and you'll never have this issue. If people aren't communicating with you, there may be a few issues...

1. Your profile sucks. If you come right out and tell people that you're looking for a friend "to do fun stuff with," chicks who are looking to date will skip over you. If you say that you just want to have fun and aren't looking for anything serious, chicks read "player" and move on. If you have misspellings/typos it makes it look like you don't care. If you write the mandatory 1200 characters or whatever, again, it makes you look like you don't care. If you come across as a mama's boy, chicks will move on. If your photos are too far away or terrible, chicks will move on. A chick is as much of a visual being as you are, so make it count. As much as people say that you can't judge someone based on their profile - yes. you. can. That's ALL someone sees before they make contact with you! It's their first impression of you - just like in "real" life. Every time you do something with someone new, you're making a first impression. Make sure it's a good one.

2. You come off as a stalker. If you contact someone and they don't write back, you're allowed ONE more point of contact and that's all. For whatever reason, they didn't write back to you and you need to respect that. They could be on vacation, off Match, dating someone else, don't like your profile for one of the many reasons listed above, slammed at work, busy in their social lives, or any other reason. Most importantly, it's most likely not about you. Move along.

3. You think you're entitled to matches. No one deserves matches just because they paid $30. They deserve matches when they WORK at getting them. Match.com, eHarmony, Yahoo Personals - they all take a TON of work. Check emails. Wink at people. Arrange dates. Follow up. It's a. lot. of work. Again, like "real" life, dating takes work. It shouldn't be overly difficult to meet up with strangers, but it does take some effort. It takes effort to be selective and look for people who truly match you. If you don't like someone for whatever reason, other people may not like you for their reasons. It goes both ways. And the entitlement issue, don't even get me started.

All in all, my experience in online dating was....um...interesting...and not all bad. Obviously, I haven't found the love of my life that way and I don't think I will. Online dating gave me confidence that bad boyfriends had whittled away, and gave me a plethora of hilarious stories.

My last thought...it's dating. Don't take it (or yourself) so seriously.

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