Detailed psychological analysis from a former criminal prosecutor is incredibly ironic.
As are the comments about catfishing. There is a former criminal prosecutor for Maryland who used old pictures and pictures of her younger niece in some of her online dating profiles.
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Why Match Doesn’t Work: Enjoy!
Sun Oct 7, 2012 8:51 AM
Like many of you out there, I tried online dating as an alternative to spending every weekend alone. I learned a lot, and feel you might as well, too. Having gone out on at least 100 dates ( I actually refer to them as meet n greets) in my brief sojourn on Match (3 months for 53 bucks, such a deal), having been viewed over 7,000 times, received thousands of winks & too many emails to remember, I feel fully qualified as an expert on The World Of Match. Way too qualified.
There are a lot of issues with the entire concept that make it difficult for a meaningful connection to take place. One problem is that when you are young, there is the opportunity to actually meet people in the real world at parties, bars & through friends. You can tell right away in person whether the “other” has that elusive element of chemical attraction that makes you want more.
The mutual friends are also able to give you background details about the person’s reputation, stability, past relationships, etc. None of that comes through on Match. The photos are from 2006 (yes, actually saw some with date stamps that old) and 30 lbs ago. Although, they always state friends say they look much younger than their chronological age. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, not what your pals tell you to make you feel better about your paunch. What I make of your looks is my call, not yours.
The age issue was also an area of rampant lying. “For search purposes”, I often came across profiles where the party admitted in the body of the self description that they were substantially older than the stated age. To me, leading with a lie is an immediate red flag as well as a complete turn off. (Aside, despite the depressing request that many men posted that they were only interested in women much younger than themselves, I was expected to be absolutely thrilled that said age limit didn’t apply to me as I had such a “winning smile”.
Translation: wow, you are so good looking, it would be amazing if I could show you off to my friends. The status issue also leads to misrepresentation. Match requires people to indicate if their status is married, single, separated or divorced. (As a side note, they perform no background checks of any kind, so you can count on a lot of profiles filled with false information.) They do not have a box where an individual in the divorced category is required to state how many times have you been divorced; because that is highly relevant, but would lead to a significant drop in paying customers who answer truthfully. There is a big difference to me between 1 divorce and 2, 3, 4. Match should require people to state the number of divorces. I don’t want to be wife #4, because once the body count gets high enough: the problem lies not in the stars.
Many of the long single or never married types that I saw are that way for good reason. They have set up a life they are comfortable with 10 years after the last time they lived with a woman; they really are not interested in making the real world effort, adjustment & sacrifice that a live in lover requires at this juncture. No matter what the profile states about “wanting to share the adventure”, they want to maintain their status quo while getting laid at their convenience. They should be finding that sort of action on Craigslist, not Match.
The posting of pics also leads to a strange brew. I saw a lot of profiles which had what is known in the modelling industry as “headshots”, professional photos & it seemed unlikely to me that a civil engineer would be dressed in Armani. The first time it happened, I actually figured out who the person was in the misappropriated the photo, located the original on the Internet & sent it to the civil engineer asking if by some chance the dreamy looking Italian futbol star was his identical twin?
Incredibly, he wrote back & insisted that the photo was of him. Well, there are some nuts you cannot crack.
I went out on a date with a nice man who owns a horse farm in Carroll County; his profile is very clear that he is looking for a woman who is into a horsey life style, doesn’t mind getting dirty, dogs abound the property, etc. This was a total mismatch from the start. He wanted to see me because I am beautiful, my photos turn him on. Blinded by the light, he suppressed my emails informing him that I hate horses, Carroll County, farms, don’t want another dog ever, it didn’t matter to him. He wanted to run his fingers through my hair & continue a projected cyberbased fantasy that he could magically transform me into someone I am not, which isn’t possible. Even if I felt some kind of irresistible desire, I don’t want to live on a horse farm. Period. I don’t even know why went on that date.
In my age group, as opposed to say, those in their twenties, a lot of collateral damage as well as direct hits have taken place. I am not as flexible as I was when I was young; I have a greater sense of what I need & while I never suffered fools gladly, I cannot tolerate them at all anymore. Match itself adds to the weirdness, their “matching” system is truly demented. No, I don’t think I have anything in common with someone because “like you, he is a middle child & does not smoke”.
Despite mentioning in my profile that I cannot stand anything pertaining to Fox News, ditto heads, etc, I received a Match “selected just for you” where the person listed as their favorite thing: Fox News & Bill O’ Reilly. That is just ridiculous. What kind of special selection process comes up with this madness? I would rather stick a pencil through my eyes than watch Fox News, Bill O’ Reilly, Sean Hannity, et al. (No offense to anyone reading this who does enjoy those shows, we just wouldn’t be a good “match”.)
Another thing I noticed is that search results will yield people last active “over 3 weeks “. I now realize that means they are gone. It makes it seem like there is more out there than actually exists. Also the experienced Match daters are profile hiders who write out of the blue when someone catches their eye, which kind of adds to the difficulty. I got a VIP mail from someone who has a hidden
profile. How am I supposed to evaluate my interest in a profile I cannot see?
Oh, that is another scary thing I discovered, a lot of the men had been on Match for years, so they had all sorts of strategies to outwit (as opposed to romance) their dream date. As an example, if you respond to their email, it will appear as unread as long as they utilize the “free mobile app” when viewing their messages. This would confuse me quite a bit when I would get emails from men who according to Match, had not read my response. Headgames are not my idea of fun, either.
I started to refer to Match as The Island of Misfit Boys Who Cannot Spell or Proofread, Have Traveled Extensively & Have Posted Way Too Many Photos To Prove It. Apparently, after you get divorced, all therapists, life coaches as well as travel agents suggest that the best therapy is to get out there and travel. A lot. The first guy I really liked had posted 24 photos of all the places he had visited, when I told him I was now dating pretty much his clone, except this guy had 30 photos up of all the places he had experienced exotic journeys; Date #1 said he was going to put up more. The best ones were the guys who had actually captioned the pictures “Big Ben”, “Eiffel Tower”, “The Taj Mahal”, as if I was too stupid to recognize the most famous destinations on Earth.
The overuse of cliches & total lack of creativity in the written essay section was also disappointing. Some of the profiles stated flat out that they had no interest in filling out a form describing themselves. Well then, I have no interest in dating someone who I know nothing about, writing the form essay wasn’t the how I imagined I would be wasting my writing skills someday, but I still did it. Why bother signing up if you aren’t willing to say anything? I also had difficulty interpreting the photos that were personal as opposed to the travel catalogues. What can I make of a man wearing sunglasses hiding his eyes, while covering his head with a baseball cap? To amuse myself , I would respond with the query, are you either married & afraid your wife will recognize you or are you in The Witness Protection Program so it is important that no one know what you look like?
It is a strange place to visit, The World of Match, but I cannot say I would recommend it unless you are able to pry out of your mystery date their full name including middle initial, because the Maryland Judiciary Case Information site will permit you to discover if they are actually divorced as well as their criminal record, if any. My last date sums it up perfectly, it was so last minute-I didn’t have time to run the background check. He was very nice, attractive, the age stated was accurate (I checked his age by asking to see his driver’s license)-that is how bad things had gotten, & I looked forward to seeing him again until I got home & ran his name through the Judiciary Search.
It turned out that there was kind of a problem he had failed to mention in his profile as well as during the date. He had recently been convicted of four felony narcotics violations & was due to be sentenced in the next 9 days. The next time we talked I told him I was kind of caught off guard by this news, & that someone who was not going to be free to date in the near future should most likely not be advertising for dates on Match; although I wished him well in his journey which would not include me. Amazingly, he did only get sentenced to house arrest for 9 months, so he can’t really go out on dates, but is still active on Match.
I am a very polite person, so I answered every single email. I did get so bored with the cliches, I wrote up a list & sometimes just attached it to my personal note explaining I didn’t think we should date, but thank you for thinking of me. Here it is, with my actual replies. Enjoy:
1. I’m a real person / I’m looking for a real person.
Commentary: No luck here, I am not real, just erotic figment of your imagination.
2. hopeless romantic
Commentary: You have got the first part right, hopeless.
3. not perfect person, but perfect for me
Commentary: Best of luck in your future endeavors
4. comfortable in my/your own skin
Commentary: It is the thought of your skin that makes me uncomfortable.
5. love to laugh
Commentary: Sorry, am only interested in special someone who hates to laugh.
6. love life
Commentary: Life is a magazine, not sure if it is still in circulation.
7. jeans to black tie/gown in 20 minutes
Commentary: Why bother with clothes at all, I don’t.
8. I have been told I look younger than my actual age.
Commentary: due to the way you act?
9. Last thing read, “your profile” or back of “cereal box”.
Commentary: not creative or even mildly amusing as it appears in 1,000s of profiles.
Am reserving special place in hell for those who still watch Seinfeld reruns, make Seinfeld references, or actually mention that the truly misogynist show “2 & a Half Men” is their favorite.
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