http://moxieblog.typepad.com/moxieblog/2007/10/name-greg-locat.html


The above links to a question posed by a woman who is having trouble with internet dating. While Moxie offers advice about how to be competitive and showcase herself on online dating sites, my whole take on internet dating is that it really isn't worth the effort.



I've tried online dating hoping to find a better or at least different caliber of man. And what I found was more annoyance than it was worth. Sure I was a popular girl on these sites, as one can imagine, and perhaps that was part of the problem. I would get emails from men in Japan and Turkey, but their profiles would reveal they were looking for a "casual" relationship. Many of the men who responded, I'm sure, didn't even look at my profile. One man sent me a personalized email, which I thought rather witty. When I responded, the email I got back was, "I just looked at your profile again and see that you are 4 ft 10 inches tall. I think that's too short for me. Does that make me shallow?" I couldn't believe he would even write back to say that. If he failed to respond, it would have been more polite (I would have assumed he found a more interesting girl). Of the men who were worthy of response there were still other problems. Many men lied about their appearances and submitted old photographs, and the medium of email allowed them to hide a variety of problems from agoraphobia to philandering and every issue in between. Added up, the time and effort of writing a profile and sorting through emails not to mention so many horrible or even just so so dates made it completely not worth the effort.


I've honestly found picking up men in bars to be a better way to meet men. Not just more of them, but sadly, an overall better quality of man. First off you know right away what the guy looks like. Second email and IM make it easy to hide issues that might be easily revealed with a few dates. Third having liquor on hand, well, it makes any man seem just a little bit better. Plus you can find out right away if the guy is utterly cheap (won't offer to pay for a drink) or if he can at least play the gentleman for an hour or two. (While I don't buy into a lot of old fashioned ways, I do believe that if a man offers to pay for a drink it reveals something about his character. Once a relationship is developed then I'm all about going dutch.)

I do understand that living in NY colors my opinion since in other towns and even cities, it isn't as easy to meet other people, but still I would say you are better off going to places like Meetup.com or going to large events and mingling than trying to "sell" yourself on a dating site.

Anyone out there want to share their online dating stories?

Labels: dating, online dating