On-line Dating – Does it really lead anywhere? – A Public Service Announcement…

What can I say?  It seemed like an interesting topic to investigate.  I have friends who have tried it with mixed luck, but all the ads say you can find the partner of your dreams.  One friend did find the man of her dreams.  One did not.

That said, I signed up for a free dating site.  I posted a couple of pictures and filled out my “profile” and sat back and waited.  I got notifications that a number of guys checked out my profile, so I looked at them, too.  Interesting mix.  I wrote to one.  Never heard back.  Then I realized that there was no point in writing to guys who just checked out my profile.  If they wrote to me, it would be one thing to respond.  If they “favorited” me, that was someone worth following up with.  Maybe…

There were a surprising (to me) number of guys (more than one…) who had interesting profiles and who had signaled an interest.  One claimed to have a Ph.D. and be retired army, living in a town I had never heard of in Texas.  So I wrote him a note asking if his town was near Houston as I go there occasionally.  He had also indicated that he enjoyed going to concerts, so my note included references to the type of music I enjoy.

“His” reply was a one-liner, with spelling and grammar mistakes.  It did not address my questions at all and it certainly did not sound either educated or military.  I ignored it and when I checked back with the site a few days later, “he” was no longer available on the site.

Then there was the guy who claimed to be Christian and was looking for a Christian wife.  His description of the qualities he valued in a woman included “submissive.”  Well, that’s not me, but I was brought up to be polite, so I answered his message saying that while I was on a spiritual path, I did not think my spiritual path was consistent with his.  He did write back indicating that we might not be as incompatible as I thought, at which point I was reminded about a guy I had heard about who went to a rest home every week for a few months to read the Bible to people there.  After he’d been going regularly for a while he said he’d have to stop coming because his car was falling apart and he’d borrowed one to come “this time” but couldn’t keep that up.  They ended up buying him a car, etc.

Then there was another guy who sounded promising.  I noticed that although his profile said he lived in the US, he had logged onto the site from Nigeria.  So I wrote asking what he was doing there, was he working and what was it like as I’ve never been to Nigeria.  His reply was something to the effect that some “girl” told him he needed to delete something and he didn’t know how to do that, so she asked for his username and password and he gave them to her!  Then he said he thought she was a scammer – “lol.”  [I hate that acronym and it seemed particularly inappropriate in this context.]  Next time “he” logged on it was from the US.  It will be interesting to see if he’s still on the site in a week or so.  I suspect not.

I’ll probably leave my profile up there for a while longer to see what else develops, but I must admit that I don’t have high hopes – not that I ever really did!