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Online Dating:
A Happygrrls experiment...
Prologue
THE SITES
In the olden days, meeting someone and going steady was an easy ordeal. You met at the soda shoppe one sunny afternoon, and after an ice cream float he pinned you and asked you to the formal, and that was that. Then, times changed, and so did the social scene. Pick up joints became bars and clubs, and women's magazines told you to put on make up when going to the grocery store because you might meet a nice young man and you wouldn't want to look hideous, would you?Enter the Internet, and the world of looking for love would be changed forever. Or would it? Would there still be the games, the anticipation, the awkwardness? Could a single girl really find her soul mate on her computer screen?
I was very skeptical when a friend told me to try online dating. I didn't like the impersonality of the whole ordeal, or the fact that the Internet can lie. But I decided to heed her advice and see if I could hit the dating jackpot. Armed with a computer, Internet access, and some badly written profiles, I set out to look for The One.
June 4
My first profile is submitted to www.date.com. I decide to use "Euphoria" as a screen name, and begin filling out the application, which is surprisingly short. Under relationship expectations, I'm torn - my options include pen pal, casual relationship, serious relationship, and serious & looking for marriage. I finally decide on casual, because it can be a pain to keep a pen pal, what with the emerging e-mail technology and all. They ask me the distance I'm willing to travel, which is great and all, if I could get a breakdown of how far away 250 miles really is. They also ask other personal information, such as ethnic background, height, weight, religious affiliations, penchants for smoking, etc. I'm not sure what would happen if I leave them blank; I decide to fill everything out in case I get an error message and have to start all over again. For hair colour, they don't have naturally black but now some funky shade of blonde/brown, so I settle for black. When the registration is done, I browse my account, which includes a mailbox, interest list, block list, and message alerts.My second account is created at www.spark.com, where my screen name becomes "Crystal." While this site offers a No Response option, the application is a little lengthier. They cover the basics, such as type of relationship sought (dating, romance or intimate - but this time I can check as many as I like, and I check all three), level of education, background, build, hair colour, drinking, smoking, children (if I have any, if I want any), etc. They also have a section where I can choose my preferences for the other person. I leave this blank. Under hobbies, my options include dogs, cats, and investing. For crying out loud, they forgot "staring at the wall." I check neither of these, and lie a little about liking camping. Well, it's not like it's going to come up, is it? Perks of the site include a division of dating, romance, and intimate communities, a mailbox, a messenger system (much like MSN), and a percentage match for each profile (meaning that a 100% match yields all the qualities you were looking for). They also offer a Premium Membership at $14.95 U.S. per month, which highlights your profile in searches, puts your e-mail at priority level, and sends your profile to prospective matches. There's also something about buying credits but I can't figure out what they're for, mostly because I didn't bother to read the information. When I check my profile, I notice that they write "No response" where you've left the fields blank. Dammit. Now it sounds like I have something to hide.
I browse Spark for a while, and find that many pictures are blurry or have very poor lighting. Also, some people have decided to post up essays on existentialism. Click on a Torontonian's profile to find that he has used the word "nice" (as in, "looking for someone nice, a nice person to spend time with, just someone who's down-to-earth and nice") forty times. I. Get. It. Log off and call it a day.
June 5
Make an account at www.lavalife.com. My username here is Kismet26, which took me a couple of tries to procure. Cannot rest easily knowing that there's someone out there with just "Kismet," and that she's secretly laughing at me behind my back. Hmm.Perks of Lavalife accounts include a mailbox, advice column, and saved searches. There's also a section where you can check off what you like to do on dates, how friends describe you, and what you like to talk about. Unfortunately, you can only pick three. Spend the most time on the what I like to talk about section, as I don't want to come across as too boring, too superficial, too pretentious, or too bubble-gum brained. Under the section marked how friends would describe me, I see the option of "cat person." See, I would definitely be a cat person if I owned any cats. Under hobbies, I lie and check off camping. I've never been camping, but want to seem like a well-rounded person. Besides, how often would it come up?
A friend also sends me some profiles she saw on the site. Check these out and save them. One of them has a little mustache that is visible but pencil-thin. Do not bookmark him.
My computer crashes later on in the day and I weep.
June 8
My computer is back, with a new hard drive but the same soul. I check my e-mail and see that I have been tapped by another user in my Date account (actually, these e-mail alerts are very handy!). Log in and find out it has actually been three. Yay yay yay!Hmm. In my account, each person is listed by Handle, Country, State/Province, City, and Age. Can see right off the bat that two of them won't work, as they are over thirty, and I don't really fancy older people. Maybe I mistakenly put in the wrong year of birth and my age is calculated at forty. Either way, don't want to think that a fifty-three year old man would really want to date a twenty-three year old, even for a casual relationship. Another man is from Whitby and forty-four, and his picture features him fishing. The third bachelor is twenty-nine and lives in Toronto. His profile seems good. He includes his income, and I read somewhere that women most likely respond to ads with a man's profession or income included. Ha! Well, that's not me. Am not impressed.
Am going crazy at this point. At Spark, I have fourteen message in my Inbox. This is more e-mail than I receive from my friends in two weeks. Browse them really quickly. Ugh. One man states in his profile that he is "longgggg, good in bed, like it more than three times a day, like it with more than one lady at a time." Another man says, "looking for someone to make friendship [sic] with, and/or have sex with her." Can't say much for his grammar, but at least he's honest. One of the profiles catches my interest, as it is well written and down-to-earth. Another e-mail touches my heart because he says my profile made him smile. And really, what's life without a little smile? But what's with the posing-on-a-car shot? Vow to sift through these later, and weed out the horn dogs from the genuine guys. Not that I'd know the difference sometimes.
Log into Lavalife. The home page is a little confusing to navigate. See a little smiley icon with a five next to it. What does that mean? Click on it to see some profiles. Who are these people? Are they interested? Are they profiled for some reason? I don't get it. Everyone is over thirty, with the exception of a twenty-nine year old professor who likes to wear a bandanna around his neck. Maybe he's in some kind of French gang?
Try to open an account at Yahoo! Personals. The process is long, trying, and too much for me right now. Decide to finish my profile later, if at all.
So far: profiles up for less than a week, no picture yet, really badly written ads.
June 9
Open an account at www.matchopolis.com as Desire0426. My names keep getting cheesier and cheesier. Very kinky site - they ask you whether you are single or in a couple, and what type of lifestyle/sexual style you lead (conventional, bit adventurous, quite adventurous, or prefer not to say). Under miscellaneous activities, options include exotic pets, social activism, and spiritual explorations. Become confused and angry about why these are called "miscellaneous," and why again they left out "staring at the wall." Only 12 interests are allowed, so I make sure to check off a little bit in each section so I look well rounded and not at all crazy.After creating my account, I do a quick search for people in my area. The search criteria is limited to location and whether they are logged in, updated, new, or with picture. There's nothing about age, interests, or anything else of the sort. When I enter a search for updated accounts from Toronto, there are no search results. This site is going to be slim pickings.
June 10
Updated my profiles and submitted pictures. Some sites require 24 hours for their customer service people to okay the pictures. Luckily, I haven't had a chance to develop my porn shots, so everything's okay.Log into Lavalife to find 45 smiley faces and five e-mails. One of the smiley faces comes from a person I had saved on my hot list (yay!). On Date.com, find 30 people who are interested, but only one e-mail. At Spark, receive nine new e-mails. (I should point out that at this site, e-mails can just be automatic responses alerting you that someone is interested. Also, if you do not purchase credits, you can't send a reply. It's a sham if you ask me.) Someone I had sent an automatic e-mail to replied with his own automatic response. Apparently he will be purchasing credits and I should sit tight. Ha! I won't be holding my breath. Also receive an e-greeting from the man that said my profile made him smile. A bit creepy, coming from someone I hardly know. At Matchopolis, have 19 new "encounters" (does it have to sound so dirty?) and one e-mail. Oh, my bad. I was trash-talking Matchopolis' search options earlier, but alas, you can search by many types of criteria.
After a quick perusal, I can see that it will take a while to read all the profiles. I decide to narrow down the list starting by location, age, and star sign. The last part is a joke. Sort of.
Whoa. One of Lavalife's features is a Backstage, which is essentially a private photo album. You can grant other people permission to see your pictures. Hmm. One man is literally doing the money shot, what with all the shirtless sprawling on the carpeted floor. Start wondering whether he got someone to take the picture, and if so, why they agreed.
June 12
Getting a little overwhelmed with my accounts (keep in mind, there are four in total so far). At Lavalife, over 100 smiles have been sent to me. Over at Spark, Date and Matchopolis, the "interested" list is a little different. Unlike Lavalife, they don't show the person's profile, just their username. This means that I have to click on each link to view the person's profile.Spend the better part of work (shhh, don't tell my boss) on Lavalife, narrowing down the smile list. If someone does not live in Toronto, they're gone. If they are over thirty, they're gone. If their username involves an adjective describing their member, they're gone. Oh, someone is a Maple Leafs fan. Oops, they're gone.
Even though the response has been good at Lavalife, half the people on my hotlist have not returned my smile. I seem to be at a standstill with the other ones, as I have returned their smile and have not heard from them. Should I send them an e-mail? Should I wait for their reply? Too nerve-wracking for something so casual. I need to sleep.
June 14
Quickly check my Lavalife account. My computer does not support the chat screen at the top of the screen, so I can't see the instant messages sent to me. Fortunately, the site saves messages up to three days old. Someone literally asked me how big my breasts were. Am very glad that I couldn't see the message at the time, as I would have told the pervert off. Anyway, it's called a Wonder Bra, buddy.Enough with the half naked pictures. I just don't get it. It's just plain creepy to actually own these pictures of yourself (with the exception of pictures on the beach, body building contests, etc.).
[ Christine narrows the list down. Part II of the article. ]