The Horror of Online Dating...The HORROR!
Posted: December 19th, 2010, 12:59 pm
[I was writing this as a reply to the thread below regarding "why men should not online date", but it ended up being really long so I figured I'd start a new thread...It goes without saying that I agree completely with the other thread, but would like to expand on some of these ideas]
Online dating in America is a night terror from which you can never awake...
I have participated in this sick industry longer than I care to reveal, but am happy to say I no longer go near it. Please heed my words, I beg of you, for I have had first hand experience with this engine of destruction and I have learned a lot through my trials and tribulations.
I cannot be completely sure of this, as I have no close friends who have really tried the online dating game, but I believe that I was more "successful" (if you can call it that) than 90% of men in regards to actually securing real-life dates from online dating interactions. I say this based on reading I've done about men who were NEVER able to turn email conversations into face to face meetings -- it seems to be the norm rather than the exception. I do not account for my "success" with a shred of arrogance -- I simply believe I participated long enough in the game to learn how to play it pretty well, and that is nothing to brag about...in fact, I feel slightly ashamed that I spent so much time involved with it at all. I would also like to make clear that I have never tried any type of international online dating...all of my experience has been with U.S. dating sites and only in some of the bigger West Coast cities.
Here is my breakdown of this terrible device called 'Online Dating':
Online dating is actually a microcosm of the bigger dating picture in America, but, if you can believe it, actually magnifies the evil by 10 fold.
Without a doubt, I can tell you that men outnumber women by at LEAST 3 to 1, and that's being generous. If you take a look at a major dating website like match.com in a big city, you'll find approximately 30 to 40 pages of profiles (18 profiles per page) for the ladies, and something like 80 to 90 pages of profiles for men! That is insane, and inherently WRONG.
I hate to say it, but men on these sites propagate the problem. Here you have women with too many men to choose from, allowing them to make unreasonable and illogical demands, and the men on these sites do not have enough pride to ignore them. They reinforce this behavior by rabidly pursuing these women with email after email, no matter how sick, twisted, entitled, demented, or rude they might be.
The result of this is an inflation of ego for the women. They now feel that they can behave in whatever disgusting manner they choose, and they will still be inundated with emails from hundreds of desperate men. It does not matter if they are of below average, average, or good looks, the women WILL get a LOT of attention just by being on the site.
Most men on these websites are flat out ignored. Whatever time they put into writing a considerate and charming email is invariably a waste, because these women have so many emails flooding in that they have their pick of the litter and the odds are not good that your specific email will catch her eye. As a man gets accustomed to this, he will inevitably realize that in order to get a response, he will need to have a very original and tantalizing email to stand out from the crowd. This results in additional time spent on the writing of these correspondences, more care going into them, more thought, more blood sweat and tears, but more often than not this won't elicit any better success.
Other men who might be "granted a conversation with the Queen" will most likely exchange a few awkward emails with a woman and THEN be ignored. These email interactions will likely involve the men being witty, considerate, polite, and inquisitive, while the women are curt, difficult, uninterested and uninteresting.
If you think that this behavior will change once an in person meeting takes place, you are wrong. I have met numerous women who were just as dull in person as they were through the computer screen. Many of them had no conversational skills, and many of them had no notion of politeness or consideration in regards to behavior on the date, OR in regards to the actual setting up of the date etc. Some women do not understand that a conversation is a verbal back and forth, and not a one sided monologue where one talks about oneself.
The lack of straightforward, no nonsense communication is also blindingly apparent. The games played throughout online dating interactions are mind-numbing. For me, I appreciate people who don't beat around the bush, don't keep you waiting, and are forthright...this is not limited to the dating realm, either...in my opinion, it is better when everyone behaves with these qualities in everyday interactions, business, work etc. When you are in the online labyrinth, these qualities are completely absent. Women will keep you waiting as long as they see fit. After all, why should they show interest by being direct or honest? It would be a much better idea to play hard to get, right?
Minorities...forget about it! If you are not familiar with dating websites, there is a function whereby you list what ethnicity you would like your potential date to be. Without fail, 80% of women on these sites list white/caucasian in this spot. I myself am half Japanese and half Turkish (an odd combination, I know), and my appearance is sort of ambiguous as I could pass for a lot of different things. I went through periods where I would try to contact women regardless of what they listed for this criteria, but I soon learned that a women that was so closed-minded was not worth pursuing. After seeing so many profiles of this nature, it begins to wear on your soul, and I'm sure many men of ethnicity have had their confidence shattered by being cut out of the running before anyone even gave them a chance.
Height...talk about unreasonable demands. There is the widespread notion that a man should be taller than the woman he's with. This has been understood for quite sometime, and although it is illogical, most people have come to accept it. I ask you to go to an online dating website, look at some female profiles and take note of the height criteria they ask for in their potential dates. Somehow, being as tall or an inch or two taller than a woman is NO LONGER GOOD ENOUGH! Time and time again, I see profiles of women who are 5'3'', 5'4'', and demand that the man they are with be 6 feet or above. I guarantee you the majority of profiles are like this, go see for yourself!
Many guys turn to online dating due to a lack of success at meeting people in the real world. This may be due to your circumstances, eg: having a solitary job, your location, eg: living in the middle of nowhere, or due to your personality, eg: being introverted and naturally shy. I would assume that women go online for similar reasons, but that would only be an assumption. I do believe that some women, and probably men as well, go online for a quick ego-boost or some entertainment -- this of course works out much better for the women and not so much for the men due to all of the factors I've listed already.
It seems an exciting thing at first. All of a sudden, hundreds of women are available for you to meet that you would never have a chance to meet in any other way. Its a fantastic idea at its roots, but just doesn't really fit the bill when actually put into practice. This is due, of course, to the warped social climate of Western Culture. The sense of entitlement instilled in women through the media and popular culture has made them impossible to deal with, face to face or computer to computer.
I would like to suggest that online dating is not simply a pain in the ass...it is actually a vicious machine that is worsening the pathology that we already see every which way we turn. The majority of women who experience online dating come away from it with the feeling that they can walk on water. They are already packing a delusional mindset, one that makes them believe that they deserve the world on a silver platter and that no man is good enough for them. The realm of online dating only serves to make this mindset more potent. It is like higher education for princesses. It is a graduate degree in entitlement.
Pain radiates through my core when I see how many men are on these sites with no sense of how they are furthering this problem. Yes, we've been made desperate and lonely through years of being ignored and put down, but is the possibility of sex and romance so powerful that you cannot resist giving your time, energy, and attention to delusional, sick women who do not deserve ANY of it? How many times will you let women walk all over you? How many times will you let a woman treat you like dirt while demanding EVERYTHING from you and more? If a woman's profile makes your stomach turn, why do you still send her sweet emails? Is a pretty face that hard to say 'no' to?
Don't get me wrong, I understand how powerful the draw can be. It is driven into all of us from a young age, that sex and romance and relationships are necessary for a fulfilling life...this might be true, but only if those relationships are healthy, balanced ones. In this society we find ourselves in today, relationships like that are as rare as a white whale, and I certainly doubt that any relationship birthed from such a diseased embryo as that of Online Dating will be a healthy one.
Online dating in America is a night terror from which you can never awake...
I have participated in this sick industry longer than I care to reveal, but am happy to say I no longer go near it. Please heed my words, I beg of you, for I have had first hand experience with this engine of destruction and I have learned a lot through my trials and tribulations.
I cannot be completely sure of this, as I have no close friends who have really tried the online dating game, but I believe that I was more "successful" (if you can call it that) than 90% of men in regards to actually securing real-life dates from online dating interactions. I say this based on reading I've done about men who were NEVER able to turn email conversations into face to face meetings -- it seems to be the norm rather than the exception. I do not account for my "success" with a shred of arrogance -- I simply believe I participated long enough in the game to learn how to play it pretty well, and that is nothing to brag about...in fact, I feel slightly ashamed that I spent so much time involved with it at all. I would also like to make clear that I have never tried any type of international online dating...all of my experience has been with U.S. dating sites and only in some of the bigger West Coast cities.
Here is my breakdown of this terrible device called 'Online Dating':
Online dating is actually a microcosm of the bigger dating picture in America, but, if you can believe it, actually magnifies the evil by 10 fold.
Without a doubt, I can tell you that men outnumber women by at LEAST 3 to 1, and that's being generous. If you take a look at a major dating website like match.com in a big city, you'll find approximately 30 to 40 pages of profiles (18 profiles per page) for the ladies, and something like 80 to 90 pages of profiles for men! That is insane, and inherently WRONG.
I hate to say it, but men on these sites propagate the problem. Here you have women with too many men to choose from, allowing them to make unreasonable and illogical demands, and the men on these sites do not have enough pride to ignore them. They reinforce this behavior by rabidly pursuing these women with email after email, no matter how sick, twisted, entitled, demented, or rude they might be.
The result of this is an inflation of ego for the women. They now feel that they can behave in whatever disgusting manner they choose, and they will still be inundated with emails from hundreds of desperate men. It does not matter if they are of below average, average, or good looks, the women WILL get a LOT of attention just by being on the site.
Most men on these websites are flat out ignored. Whatever time they put into writing a considerate and charming email is invariably a waste, because these women have so many emails flooding in that they have their pick of the litter and the odds are not good that your specific email will catch her eye. As a man gets accustomed to this, he will inevitably realize that in order to get a response, he will need to have a very original and tantalizing email to stand out from the crowd. This results in additional time spent on the writing of these correspondences, more care going into them, more thought, more blood sweat and tears, but more often than not this won't elicit any better success.
Other men who might be "granted a conversation with the Queen" will most likely exchange a few awkward emails with a woman and THEN be ignored. These email interactions will likely involve the men being witty, considerate, polite, and inquisitive, while the women are curt, difficult, uninterested and uninteresting.
If you think that this behavior will change once an in person meeting takes place, you are wrong. I have met numerous women who were just as dull in person as they were through the computer screen. Many of them had no conversational skills, and many of them had no notion of politeness or consideration in regards to behavior on the date, OR in regards to the actual setting up of the date etc. Some women do not understand that a conversation is a verbal back and forth, and not a one sided monologue where one talks about oneself.
The lack of straightforward, no nonsense communication is also blindingly apparent. The games played throughout online dating interactions are mind-numbing. For me, I appreciate people who don't beat around the bush, don't keep you waiting, and are forthright...this is not limited to the dating realm, either...in my opinion, it is better when everyone behaves with these qualities in everyday interactions, business, work etc. When you are in the online labyrinth, these qualities are completely absent. Women will keep you waiting as long as they see fit. After all, why should they show interest by being direct or honest? It would be a much better idea to play hard to get, right?
Minorities...forget about it! If you are not familiar with dating websites, there is a function whereby you list what ethnicity you would like your potential date to be. Without fail, 80% of women on these sites list white/caucasian in this spot. I myself am half Japanese and half Turkish (an odd combination, I know), and my appearance is sort of ambiguous as I could pass for a lot of different things. I went through periods where I would try to contact women regardless of what they listed for this criteria, but I soon learned that a women that was so closed-minded was not worth pursuing. After seeing so many profiles of this nature, it begins to wear on your soul, and I'm sure many men of ethnicity have had their confidence shattered by being cut out of the running before anyone even gave them a chance.
Height...talk about unreasonable demands. There is the widespread notion that a man should be taller than the woman he's with. This has been understood for quite sometime, and although it is illogical, most people have come to accept it. I ask you to go to an online dating website, look at some female profiles and take note of the height criteria they ask for in their potential dates. Somehow, being as tall or an inch or two taller than a woman is NO LONGER GOOD ENOUGH! Time and time again, I see profiles of women who are 5'3'', 5'4'', and demand that the man they are with be 6 feet or above. I guarantee you the majority of profiles are like this, go see for yourself!
Many guys turn to online dating due to a lack of success at meeting people in the real world. This may be due to your circumstances, eg: having a solitary job, your location, eg: living in the middle of nowhere, or due to your personality, eg: being introverted and naturally shy. I would assume that women go online for similar reasons, but that would only be an assumption. I do believe that some women, and probably men as well, go online for a quick ego-boost or some entertainment -- this of course works out much better for the women and not so much for the men due to all of the factors I've listed already.
It seems an exciting thing at first. All of a sudden, hundreds of women are available for you to meet that you would never have a chance to meet in any other way. Its a fantastic idea at its roots, but just doesn't really fit the bill when actually put into practice. This is due, of course, to the warped social climate of Western Culture. The sense of entitlement instilled in women through the media and popular culture has made them impossible to deal with, face to face or computer to computer.
I would like to suggest that online dating is not simply a pain in the ass...it is actually a vicious machine that is worsening the pathology that we already see every which way we turn. The majority of women who experience online dating come away from it with the feeling that they can walk on water. They are already packing a delusional mindset, one that makes them believe that they deserve the world on a silver platter and that no man is good enough for them. The realm of online dating only serves to make this mindset more potent. It is like higher education for princesses. It is a graduate degree in entitlement.
Pain radiates through my core when I see how many men are on these sites with no sense of how they are furthering this problem. Yes, we've been made desperate and lonely through years of being ignored and put down, but is the possibility of sex and romance so powerful that you cannot resist giving your time, energy, and attention to delusional, sick women who do not deserve ANY of it? How many times will you let women walk all over you? How many times will you let a woman treat you like dirt while demanding EVERYTHING from you and more? If a woman's profile makes your stomach turn, why do you still send her sweet emails? Is a pretty face that hard to say 'no' to?
Don't get me wrong, I understand how powerful the draw can be. It is driven into all of us from a young age, that sex and romance and relationships are necessary for a fulfilling life...this might be true, but only if those relationships are healthy, balanced ones. In this society we find ourselves in today, relationships like that are as rare as a white whale, and I certainly doubt that any relationship birthed from such a diseased embryo as that of Online Dating will be a healthy one.