I talked to a new guy online the other day. Apparently I am not the only one who has bad online dating experiences. After a guy asked me about my luck with dating, I told him I had met some real "winners." This was his reply:
"I bet I can top most of yours. The girl was 23 years old with no job, no car, had no money or ability to pay for anything. She began talking about her 'friend' who was in jail for threatening to kill his ex and his 3 yr old daughter if he didn't receive full custody of his little girl. Crazy shit... Not to mention the girl I met was the one that got him put in jail with her testimony. But then she let her dog pee on the carpet floor & didn't clean it up. She made a move & kissed me no more than 1 hr after meeting me. Come to find out later in her bathroom that the reason why she was such a terrible kisser was because there was a denture box. She divulges to me later that she had an enamel erosion issue & had the entire top row of her teeth. To top it all off she said the day b4 we met she took a pregnancy test & it was positive. Said she was late by 2 months, but that the dude that likely was the one that got her preggers said he was infertile. That was one of the worst most screwed up couple of hours of my life. Like I said, date from Hell"
I did not ever meet this guy. He has enough issues to work out.
Dating Philosophy
So here is the idea about online dating. You pick one out based on a couple pictures and a little bio. It is the ultimate example of human superficial-ness. The user searches for matches who are attractive, but not too attractive that you don’t have a chance. It is also an ultimate test of self-confidence. You can tell what kind of confidence a person has by whom they think they have the right to message and possibly date in the future. Someone who has extremely high self-confidence will blow off anyone who looks any less than a red carpet model. It seems only obvious from that reasoning that the eDater with low confidence will be too intimidated by attractive or slightly successful profiles.
If for some reason they pass the first “attractive- yet not too douch-baggary” test you scan the words for signs of serial killer tendencies, and send a message. Now not every eDater is the same. There are always exceptions to the rules. You often have the creepy guys who send out mass messages to every female seeking male on the site without a mustache. (Sometimes they even send messages to those depending on how desperate.)
Here is my problem:
When on a date with someone you meet online eDaters don’t hear what the other person is ACTUALLY saying. They obviously want it to go well. They wouldn’t be searching hopelessly through wifi waves for a soul mate if they had the time or social skills to wait around to sort through guys themselves. By looking for a significant other online it proves that you are either looking for sex or looking for “the one.” Everyone wants to think that the next one is going to be “the one.” We wouldn’t do it knowing that the next one is going to be a waste of time or will take your heart and rip it out leaving you a little less trusting towards the next. We wouldn’t bother (and would probably not let it happen in the first place), which leads me to my point. Every eDater goes into the date with at least a glimmer of a hope that this is the person you have been looking for their entire life.
So this is why we see our date in a far better light than they really are. We WANT them to be the great person they might be. This is how I know that in order for me to see these eDater guys as ridiculous, bad dates they must have been just that… bad. I have to admit that the stories I have taken away are something that have added to my life experience.
So what happens when you take out that factor? What happens when you don’t go in it for sex or marriage? You don’t go into it trying to dress up and impress? What happens when you eDate as many people as possible to learn about the opposite sex? What would you see once the bull shit curtain was pulled away? No one to try to impress, no false hopes or rose-colored glasses?
*names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent
Sunday, July 3, 2011
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