Long gone are the days of organic meetings or serendipitous encounters at a café or restaurant. The past decade or possibly longer has been shopping for a potential mate via online dating sites, which seems to work very well for many, but not for all. Not for me.
I have a number of friends and colleagues who have met their current partner or spouse through a particular online dating site, Plenty of Fish or POF (which I affectionately refer to as Plenty of Freaks based purely on my experiences); this free online dating site has matched up copious amounts of couples which have resulted in long lasting healthy relationships. Because POF is free, it is your biggest bang for your “buck”, but remember nothing is ever truly free. You are likely to date a few duds before you hit a stud, and on the upside I have made a few friends through POF. It is a bit like shopping at a second hand store which has the clothes in large surly bins, you are sorting through a variety of previously used items and it is rare to find an item which is not too badly damaged. The no cost for me is the best part about it, it is user friendly, allows you to block other members easily (grateful for this feature) and has a high number of users, but quantity does not equate to quality. BUT with that being said, there are a few decent guys with good souls on there, absolutely, I suspect they just don’t happen to dig me, or perhaps I am one of the “freaks” who swims in the POF pond.
Online dating is exhausting; you sort through a series of pictures and profiles, and because it is so disconnected whereas personality does not always translate so well in writing, it is easy to pass someone by, yet there is always the “false bill of goods” in which a profiler seems to have it all, and then come to find out there are a number of slight exaggerations to be discovered.
Then the pictures, some profiles I just cannot read due to the posted pictures. For example, the guy who posts the shirtless picture in his bathroom mirror flexing an arm muscle with a toilet in the background, yet your eye is distracted by the blue water, or the body wash by Dove, must have sensitive skin… Seriously guys, do you think women want to see this type of selfie? Possibly, some women do, but I don’t, and many of my fellow single ladies I have surveyed find this type of snap to be laughable, we do not want to see your naked torso nor your toilet. I would prefer not to see any topless photos, or a selfie of a guy looking smug, it just screams narcissism and self absorption.
It is also a major turn off when a guy mentions that he wants a girl who takes care of herself as he works out at the gym four times a week and eats a healthy diet. Well, duh, really???? I thought most guys would like a girl who is a couch potato and eats a liter of ice cream and box of Oreo cookies every night, and exercise is going for a stroll in the mall to the food court. We all want someone who has some self dignity and pride in their health/appearances, isn’t that a given?
My experience on POF has been for the most part… not so great, possibly because I am in a small province and in a tiny city, and yes, lots of quantity, but very little quality. I am not asking for an Adonis, in fact I don’t even like muscles, all I want is an ordinary nice guy who has some direction in his life. I cannot handle the shallowness which thrives on these sites, and the poorly written profiles including an epic amount of spelling and grammatical errors. I have tried POF a few times now, as I know so many people who have had success, and perhaps I am the issue. I can own that, maybe what I am looking for is the issue, or maybe what I attract is the issue. I will say POF has been very entertaining, but awful.
I welcome suggestions on how to meet someone organically, as I miss the days of being randomly approached.
You Know Jacques! 