Online Matchmaking — Integrity or Ego Driven?

This is my site, so I want to just take a moment to rant about online dat­ing. I entered the realm of online dat­ing nearly 7 years ago. I used to blame the fact that my picker doesn’t work well, then I started to look a lit­tle deeper espe­cially when writ­ing about the behav­ior of con­sumers and how we as indi­vid­u­als respond in order to get what we want. My find­ings have made me not only cyn­i­cal but very leery when it comes to online dat­ing and matchmaking.

Why?

Indi­vid­u­als tend to cre­ate pro­files that rep­re­sent their “ideal” self or who it is that they want to be rather than their “actual” self which is who they are today. I had one per­son say to me, well isn’t that mar­ket­ing? Of course it’s mar­ket­ing, but is it real­is­tic and can they live up to their “mar­ket­ing” claims? Will their prod­uct, which is them­selves deliver?

I’ll be hon­est being 37 makes it a lit­tle more dif­fi­cult to date and find “the many” I mean “the one.” Why? Because, as I get older, so do those that I am dat­ing. Which means more bag­gage, more issues and more obsta­cles to over­come. It’s not like we just grad­u­ated col­lege and are start­ing off with a clean slate together to wan­der off and live hap­pily ever after.

I’d love to believe the suc­cess sto­ries of online match­mak­ing, and I used to think I had a few of my own — but time has proven me wrong. I’ve dated alco­holics, ser­ial cheaters, non-committers and those with psy­cho­log­i­cal and per­son­al­ity dis­or­ders. I’ve met those that claim to be some­thing they are not and those that have under­sold them­selves dras­ti­cally. I’ve had con­ver­sa­tions with some before meet­ing only to find the “chem­istry” we thought was their dis­solved when we met face-to-face.

The truth is I think there are more hor­ror sto­ries when it comes to online dat­ing than suc­cess sto­ries, and as much as I wish I could believe that the fairy­tale is only a click away the more I’m faced with the real­ity of that sim­ply not being the case.

What would fix the online dat­ing scene and match­mak­ing expe­ri­ence? Why not allow reviews of oth­ers who date indi­vid­u­als? You know like a 4-star rat­ing scale. I think it would weed out the decep­tive and those pro­ject­ing only a fan­tasy and not the truth. Of course those involved in the indus­try of online dat­ing would never allow this because then they would lose mem­bers which means los­ing rev­enue — in other words it’s quan­tity ver­sus quality.

There are so many sto­ries of stalk­ers, looney-toons and “liars” that have been encoun­tered from online match­mak­ing, if only these indi­vid­u­als could not con­tinue the decep­tion — per­haps the indus­try would change and become a more gen­uine place to meet matches. Just think about all of those who are mar­ried or in rela­tion­ships but are still surf­ing the match­mak­ing sites because it’s become an addic­tion for the ego stroke they desire.

Now, before some of you start post­ing com­ments on how I must have had my heart­bro­ken and this is sim­ply my retal­i­a­tion — I will chal­lenge you in that. I’m a girl who is will­ing to walk away when the “magic” is not there, I’m the one who will be so bluntly hon­est on the phone that I will tell you I sim­ply don’t know what it is that I want right now in my life, I will also sit across the table from some and as uncom­fort­able as it is tell them I’m just not inter­ested and I’m also a per­son who many peo­ple con­fide in when it comes to their online dat­ing experiences.

As I said, it’s tough being 37 and sin­gle. It’s hard to meet your match when your life is shaded by the past expe­ri­ences of rela­tion­ships. I have mar­ried peo­ple that look at me with the view that my life is greener — get a clue — as one friend said the grass is always greener on the oth­er­side because you don’t have to take care of it. Life is tough being sin­gle today, it’s tough being mar­ried as well but hell at least you have a partner.

As a sin­gle pro­fes­sional woman I face the empti­ness of a home every night. I face going to bed alone every night and I strug­gle with the idea that the fairy­tale sim­ply isn’t real any­more and that the chances of me grow­ing old alone increases daily. My point is where as the integrity of indi­vid­u­als gone and why can’t peo­ple just be who they are with­out decep­tion and hid­den agendas?

Tagged as: eharmony, match, matchmaking online, online dating, plentyoffish, single life