My Sucky Online Dating Experience
I don't know many people who haven't tried it. Most of us who are insanely busy, don't have time to date, but really kinda want to meet someone, has scanned over various online dating websites to see what kind of people are out there that could be the one for them/us.
When I was 23, my girlfriends and I would hop on one online dating service in particular to see who would be on the site that was from our town, but it was mostly so we could make fun of them. (“So and so is on there, OMG!”) I know…it's terrible and I feel pretty bad about it now, but we were young and stupid, even though we thought we knew it all. (This was before Facebook and definitely before we saw any type of relationship status tied to our personal pages.) The thing is, I'm not sure why we did that. She was married and frankly, I was tired of seeing the same jerks in the bars trying to get laid. So I decided it kinda made sense to do this. After all, how am I going to meet someone when I work all the time?
So, I put up a profile sans a photo. I didn't want anyone to see me, and I certainly didn't want anyone to recognize who I was. I also didn't want someone to want to date me because of my looks. (Which is incredibly hypocritical given that I can't date someone I'm not physically attracted to.) However, that was my deal.
So, I put this profile up and started checking out the guys. I had one date. One date. That's it. I was so put off by the fact that this dude looked nothing like the dozen or so photos he had up on his profile. I didn't even recognize him in the restaurant. I remember we had sushi. And part of me is super grateful one of my friends showed up "randomly" and got me out of dessert. (Always have a back-up plan.) If you're worried about your date lying about information in their online profile, check out a previous post, How Much Can Little White Lies Hurt, for more information on ways to tell.
So, my big issue…if you're going to put up a profile photo / avatar or whatever you want to call it, have it represent who you are and what you really do. Be you. I'm tired of people putting up fronts because of their insecurities. And if you don't like who you are, perhaps you should be trying to work on yourself before getting into some superficial relationship. I don't know. How many times have you met someone who wasn't anything like what you believed them to be?
Lindsay Manfredi