That Internet dating thing

Everything else
61

I met my wife at a party at her house. We weren’t married at the time, but we are now. My internet dating story is about the guy that she dumped for me.

His name is Andy, and I thought the time I picked her up to go out to the bars after their first date would be the last time that I would ever see him. But no, about a year later, my friend Jesse and I are on the internet, laughing at personal ads before we go out to get drunk. The last ad we saw was this meaty-hooknosed thing, and we laughed and we laughed and then we went to The Plaza, which is a bar. The bar is empty, and standing by the jukebox is none other than the girl whose ad we were just reading. Being halfway in the bag, we immediately went up to her and told her that we saw her personal ad, and that we thought it was awesome. Then we asked her if she was on an internet blind date, because we’d never met anyone who did that before. She gradually admitted that it was her, and that was what she was there to do.

No sooner than that, but who walks in? Motherfucking Andy. I said hey, because it’s not my fault that I’m the shit, and we talk, and I tell him about the internet girl, and then he goes over and introduces himself. She was his date.

Fast forward another year, Jesse and I are at The Plaza again. It is awesome. We are wasted. I see Andy again. Now he has his arm around one of my friends from High School. Her name is Julie. Julie is a lesbian. Andy does not know this. He only knows that Julie gets an uncomfortable look on her face, shrugs off his shoulder, and runs over to me and gives me a hug. After that, she ignores Andy.

Andy, I am the architect of your shame.

Anyways, this is how I feel about online dating. It is for people who are nice, but cannot catch a romantic break to save their damn lives. A few times after that, I ran into Andy again, but it was always the same. Seeing my face means that your masturbating tonight, Andy. So you may as well take this 8x10 of me and cut out the middleman.

62

You should expect to be googled. It’s generally not stalking, especially if a woman is the one googling. It’s called saftey.

63

This!

Meet for coffee as soon as possible. Don’t waste a lot of time with emails, texting, and phone calls unless you just want to waste time with emails, texting, and phone calls. If you don’t click in person then a long e-courtship is wasted.

Match.com seems like a good site for straight dating. I have no clue about the gay thing, although I did browse the women looking for women. ;-)

Good luck!

64

Meh I’m the same way but my min expectations have just become everyone is going to check up on me as much as they can with the minimum being just googling my name.

65

My OKCupid profile will be complete after I apparently answer 5,000 more questions. I should be set for a date in just a few short months. Also, I really hate writing about myself.

66

All thanks to an insanely stupid lawsuit.

67

This is going to be shallow, but here goes…

If a girls profile doesn’t show her body, forget it (unless you’re into larger women). If she doesn’t show her face (i.e. it’s an arty shot of just her eyes or something), run.

This is entirely contradictory to my wife of course who didn’t even have a profile picture. She joined match.com exclusively to contact me. She’s aggressive like that. :)

But on the whole, the above applies. The match dates I went on where there was an arty picture in the profile instead of a real picture turned out to be large mistakes.

Meet for coffee as soon as possible. Don’t waste a lot of time with emails, texting, and phone calls unless you just want to waste time with emails, texting, and phone calls. If you don’t click in person then a long e-courtship is wasted.

Agree 1000%. Meeting quickly is key. If you don’t have that personal connection, stop wasting each others time. You’ll get through the non-starters quicker that way as well.

68

That is AWFUL. What an ass. OTOH, I suppose it’s good that your friend found out right away instead of getting her hopes up, but that is a brutally rude thing to do to anyone.

EpicBoy, what do you mean your wife joined match to meet you? Do you mean that literally? She already knew you from a afar or something? If so, wouldn’t the aggressive thing be to walk up to you and ask you out?

Those artsy shots are killer, I’m sure. I haven’t dated anyone in almost 14 years. So I’ve never experienced the radical change between internet pic and real life. Some of the horror stories in this thread make me hope I never date again!

69

I was thinking the exact same thing.

70

I guess she was browsing the site and his profile interested her, so she had to sign up to contact him. Anything else wouldn’t really make sense.

71

My wife and I met through a dating site and have been married almost 10 years. Interestingly, we weren’t matched when she first ran her profile, and Sula was complaining to a friend about the people she had been matched with.

Her friend took one look at Sula’s profile and said “That’s not what you’re looking for, let’s re-write this and be totally honest”. They did, over a bottle of red wine, and I was the first match that popped up after re-running the profile.

The moral of the story: be as frank, and specific, as you can be. ‘Walks on the beach’ and ‘someone who likes to laugh’ are so fucking generic you’ll either get the phonebook or someone else who thinks in bumper stickers.

72

From my experience OKCupid is the way to go. You won’t find nearly as many people in your area as the straight couples do, but you will find a higher % of sane men who are actually looking for a relationship.

There are plenty of gay “relationship” sites that are really just methods to hook up. Craigslist, Adam4Adam, Manhunt and all it’s variations. I’m sure there are some people on there who are really looking for something more, but for the most part it’s “Look at my 10” penis!!!" It’s sad, and I’m sure you could write a thesis on the quality of gay male psychology these days, but that’s not what you are looking for.

I’ve tried chemistry.com, and met a really good friend through it, but it starts charging ridiculous amounts. I assume match.com is the same way.

So yeah, okcupid is the best method that I’ve found to meet somewhat sane guys. I’ve only gone on a handful of dates through it, and have had one really good relationship through it, but I fully admit to being a picky snob. Plus, central Virginia is really limited in the whole gay dating thing in general. If I moved to northern VA, I would have miles of DC gays to choose from lol. I would figure the dating “scene” would be a bit stronger in Vancouver, but you would know better than I would.

Also, if you are relatively sporty or in shape at all. Check out realjock.com. It’s a legitimate sports/fitness website for gay men, but also has a matchmaking service as well. It kind of depends on the individual whether they are looking to date, hookup, or a “workout partner”, but most seem pretty honest in their profile what they are looking for. Thankfully there arn’t glaring penis shots unless you ask for it. If nothing else, it’s an awesome place to just look. This goes for the straight women as well. Hot hot man candy all around heh.

73

LOL I guess Q23 is low on his page rankings?

74

I think what Shadarr was saying was that ‘Honesty’, Everybody says they are ‘Honest’, and ‘having fun’ are amazingly cliche. Everybody is also incredibly ‘active’ and ‘outgoing’ and looking for the same. What are these people really looking for and what are they really like? The answer to me was; after exchanging a few emails, meet for a short coffee date. This weeded out the BS and you got to see if there was any real potential or chemistry.

Regarding the comments on weight; petite is the new ‘smaller than average height and not heavy’, ‘average’ is the new ‘a few extra pounds’, ‘a few extra pounds’ is the new ‘Heavy’, and ‘Heavy’ is the new ‘Honest’.

I also agree with the comment about how online dating can be brutal. A thick skin is a definite necessity.

75

Heh. Really? I had no idea.

76

No, it’s a smart thing. You want to be able to bargain from a position of strength when you go to a job interview, and knowledge is power.

77

Even that doesn’t make sense.

78

EpicBoy, what do you mean your wife joined match to meet you? Do you mean that literally? She already knew you from a afar or something? If so, wouldn’t the aggressive thing be to walk up to you and ask you out?

She was searching through match.com as a visitor and saw my profile come up. She joined the site to contact me. She didn’t know me in real life and we never met until our first date after hashing it out via email.

Even that doesn’t make sense.

Which part of that is hard to understand? What he said is exactly correct.

79

Yeah, we get it. You don’t like Warren.

80

I met my wife first at a tango ball (we both dance) where I “rescued” (her words) her from a sleazy, terrible dancer who was trying to pick her up. We had some dances, chatted, and I got her number (and even checked it, which she thought was funny). We stayed in touch but as I didn’t live in Wellington at the time nothing much happened and she ended up dating some other guy I heard (we would msn about once every few months).

When I moved to Wellington I signed on to a free dating site and ended up chatting to a few women, and what do you know, one of them was her! We still didn’t end up together for two years because she was always with blokes (rubbish blokes at that) and the timing never quite worked until a couple of years ago. Amusing.

Want a horror story? Here’s one from a few years ago: How about being on a dating site where it shows random profiles when you log in and you realise that the one you’re seeing today is for a quiet guy co-worker who describes in detail his love of big men and being dominated, spanked and abused. Eep!