A few days ago, a guy friend of mine was telling me that one of his lady friends had signed up for Match.com. He said she this guy was talking to her on the phone and she got so creeped out because he was too weird for her, but she was still a believer. This morning, I asked him if she had any luck and he said she had two dates this weekend, so at least she was meeting new people.
This brought back a couple of bad flashbacks of when I signed up for Match.com many, many years ago during a short break up with Officer Friendly. One guy sounded great on paper, well, except for his very nasty kind of attitude that everyone else was a jerk and he wasn’t, and some serious attitude problems toward women. He also made it clear on his profile that he only wanted to date women with graduate degrees, which is probably how my profile sadly came to his attention. Rather then just ignore the message he sent me, I decided to tell him I was no longer on the market to spare him hurt feelings after he messaged me. Silly me for doing this. He sent me a vitriolic and long tirade filled with accusations and conjecture about me, of whom he knew nothing about. This was clearly projection, and I’d say this guy had some scary issues. Well gosh, golly, THAT explained his negative profile when it came to his views on women.
How did I end up signing up for this? One of my friends was on Match and she wanted me to see a guy’s profile and thought it would be fun if I would go “shopping” with her online. After my weird train experience, I decided to end my short lived Match connection. What was the train experience? I was on my way to Pilsen with a friend of mine. We’re sitting together chatting, when this guy across the aisle does the body bob. He leans forward or backward, trying to see around the person sitting next to him who was blocking his view while he gawked and gaped. I never knew a human being could contort their body in such impressive ways to see around someone else. Too bad he wasn’t auditioning for Spider Man. Of course my first response was to check that nothing was showing that shouldn’t be (I was fine), and that I didn’t have, say, a big cheese head on top of my head, or that I forgot to wear clothes. If I was alone it would have been creepy, but since I was with a friend, well, it was still creepy but less so. When I returned home, I immediately took down my photo and closed the account. I prefer to take my chances meeting someone face to face, first, and of course, not a body bobber.
Also at this friend’s urging, I had tried E-Harmony. I was and am still impressed with their very detailed questionnaire. I was disheartened to get contacted by men who looked like what my grandfathers would have looked like, if they were still alive. I also wanted someone who lived in Chicago, not the far suburbs (we’re not talking Evanston folks, but more like 2 hours on the Metra). I tightened up the qualifications to make them more age appropriate for me, and closer, like in the City of Chicago, versus just on the other side of Ohio. I thought, surely in a huge city like Chicago there should be plenty of options. E-Harmony gave me their sad response, something to the effect of, ‘sorry we have no one that would be a good match for you.’ Wow, who knew?
Okay, so maybe my deal breaker of alcohol consumption is a problem, but I’d rather be up front about it. My friend actually accepts “social drinkers,” but then gets upset when they turn out to actually drink. I guess that’s the difference that increased her dating pool.
So how did my friend’s Match.com ventures go? She left them and went to OkCupid. She’s had better luck there, been on several dates, found a few lovers and is now back to square one, that being “single and looking.” Like my friend’s friend, she has met a lot of new people though, none of whom are still in her life.
As for me, when the time comes to look for another Mr. Novio, I’ll probably meet him when and where I least expect to. Isn’t that how it often happens?
