Online Dating Insider Links for Friday, December 5, 2008

I joined eharmony and Match in April of this year. This has been a bewildering experience that is becoming increasingly more baffling. (I will tell you I’m a reasonable, well-educated pretty woman, a grandmother with a good heart and a sophisticated, well-traveled background — somewht naive now but open-minded with what I like to think of is good will for all). I joined eharmony for one year and have had two dialogues with two men, though I willingly sent out the first set of questions to most of the men with whom eharmony thought I’d be a match — ( I had put down that I was a christian and at first I was sent men who were, I thought, rigid and fundamentalist, right-wing in their politics, (I am a liberal) and unacceptable but I went along. I have come to believe that the highly touted screening and matching process of eharmony is the fiction of a hyper-thyroid ad executive, and in reality and practice nonexistant.

Match is a different ballgame with much more information upfront and easy access to each member without the formal, sterile process of eharmony (which in truth obfuscates more than helps).

I’ve had no success. After numerous unanswered and polite queries to prospective Match suitors, I re-wrote my profile (was I too formal? too reticent? not ‘fun’ sounding enough?) I got turn-downs from men forty miles away (”physical distance too great”), a date with a man whom I didn’t find suitable, a rich player, a Vegas-type who turned out to be NOT INTERESTED in me….sigh. It would be easy to dismiss it all as men being from Detroit and women from Paris, but I don’t think it’s that simple: Online dating services play into a core loneliness with people, by advertising that shows prince charming or the girl-of-my-dreams and the most longed-for and ‘found’ true loves. I think we all truly forget they are capitalist ventures, designed to make money and to that end they’ve been a spectacular success. I haven’t lost faith in love or men or possibilities, but I’m convinced that the chance of meeting Mr. Right within the parameters of online dating are slim to none, despite the ads.