Internet dating. WTF? is wrong with you people?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Trying out a new internet dating site. Speeddate DOOOOT COOOOM!

Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. Throw the devil in there too. What an epic disaster and time waster.

Okay, now keep in mind my account doesn’t even have a picture of me in it. And its rather vague. Half the comments are silly jokes and every comment has a silly joke in it somewhere. I don’t list my job, income, and that I am inclined to not want to procreate with anyone. I don’t list my 5 Phds :slight_smile: My preferences for my dates body style are petite, slim, atheletic/toned, and average. My interest aren’t even particularly detailed or exciting/interesting. I listed myself as average looking. There are no deep philosophical musing exposing my great intellect. I don’t even hint that I’m looking for my soul mate.

Now on this site you input your zip code. So, the site knows where you live.

They have a search function. And its not complicated in the least. You can specify how many miles away max you want for a search match.

When you do a search, a list pops up with your pic, your town, your introductory sentence statement you made up and the option to click on your profile, email you, offer a speed date, or “wink” at you.

Now, when somebody bothers to click on your profile, the website notifies that someone did. Then you get a chance at a “speed date”.

So, for the love of God, why are all the following things happening?

I’m lucky if the lady is closer than 200 miles. Its usually more like 300, 400 is fairly common, 500 happens a fair bit, and hell sometimes its well over a thousand.

How the fuck is this gonna work? I don’t sound rich. You sure as hell don’t. Neither one of us has a private jet. Hell, we might not even be able to afford the gas for our KIAs. What fucking mileage number are you putting in the search function?

You’re looking for your soul mate and want to have a dozens of his babies. The exact opposite of what I want.

You’re a 22 year old looking for a sugar daddy. I’m not looking to rob the grave or be someone’s sugar daddy even if I could.

You’re looking for a deep thinker. Someone in deep touch with his emotions. Does that sound like me? I mean I might be, but you sure as hell can’t tell from my profile.

You’re looking for a prince in shining armor to save you and put you on a pedestal. Make me a sammich bitch.

Your looking for a man of adventure. Do I sound like James Bond?

You like plays and art museums and the big city. I said I like to go camping.

You said music is your life. I said I hardly ever listen to it.

I don’t even have a pic. Are you secretly hoping I look like George Clooney or something?

I said I am not interested overweight people. Not to be rude, but it looks like you might even weigh 3 times what I do and you’re a foot shorter.

And on and on…

Maybe I sound like a man of mystery. Perhap’s the worlds most interesting man going incognito is your theory?

Hoping that “opposites attract” thing works better the more opposite and the more things that are opposite?

My theory is I live about in the middle of a 100 mile wide disk. That’s filled with reasonably smart women because none of them are contacting me. That is surrounded by a ring that starts at 50 miles and extends out to at least a 500 mile radius that is filled with some of the dumbest most desperate women on the planet.

Holy crap.

Now, to be fair, it might be the site that’s doing some of these match ups. Did Ed Zotti sell the Dope’s Zombie Hamster’s to this site to power their search engine? Not sure exactly how it works. But some of these women are interested in touching base and or contributing to the total stupidity.

And, of course, since the site is new to me it might be my stupidity contributing to the problem somewhere.

2

You DO realize that lots of dating sites are full of spammers?

If I were to take these dating sites seriously, I might as well be George freak’n Clooney.

3

I actually got a spammer story but it will have to wait till later. And it even involves…dramatic pause…wait for the surprise…you’ll never believe it…texting NIGERIA.

Spammers sure. But why are Spammers using profiles that make Rosanne Bar’s TV character look like the catch of the century in every way?

4

Okay. Some of this disaster was my bad settings wise. However, I’ve really locked some down and site is still nearly randomly making dates. I am not impressed with their selection process. And there are still the women responding where about the only serious match is you female, me Tarzan or something.

Oh and apparently The Nigerian Scam Corporation has opened an office in Ghana.

5

i read something about this once, I think on Wired. Essentially the spammers are throwing out ads in huge volumes, in many different forms. They track which forms are the most successful in attracting responses–and that’s the only thing they care about. The number of errors or stupidity level of the ad don’t matter; if a stupid, error-filled ad pulls in more responses than a smart one, they go with the stupid ad.

This results in ads that target the most gullible sectors of society. The errors make potential marks feel superior to the advertiser, and the marks let down their guard. And get fleeced.

I assume something similar applies to date ads…

6

Ironically, for a change both the Nigerian one and the Ghana one were extremely well done.

The only thing they did wrong was ask for certain information way too soon and in way to a direct matter. But the profiles themselves actually read well. They probably hired some sleazy American to make then read well.

But if many of these matches are scammers that appeal to the masses I have no idea what the masses are looking for.

I fixed some of my filters. They still don’t work. I THINK what happens is if I say say “slender only” women and a woman says “any body type is okay”, even if she ain’t close to slender they still match us up :smack:

Something about the filters ain’t working.

7

Although I’m far from an authority on the matter, I understand that there are a lot of other dating-site fish in the sea. Maybe if this SpeedDate place is so shitty, and not giving you any local results, you’d be better off just moving on?

8

What, no thanks for me alerting you and everyone else that its shitty? And it does take awhile for you to realize how shitty something is.

Sad thing, is in theory the internet speed date thing is a great idea I think. But their site sucks. Between their crappy implementation and the stupid users (me sorta being one I’ll admit) its a disaster.

Also, much of what I complained about goes on at other sites.

Basically people thinking somebody that ain’t remotely a match might be interested.

Yeah, I think I’ll stay there till hell freezes over and never move on (because that never ever occurred to me). On the plus side besides the storm of shit I actually did make an internet friend or two.

9

So, are you doing searches of your own, or did you just list your own parameters and see who comes looking for you? If the latter, then you might be falling prey to people who aren’t as choosy as you are, combined with a lousy program… just because you said only people within X distance might not exclude you from someone else’s search if they said X*5; in other words, if they’re willing to travel, they might still get your listing. Likewise, you’re probably only able to list positives, i.e., I like to camp, rather than exclusions, i.e., no art museums. So, if somebody’s looking for camping & art museums, they’ve got a match, if the program sucks badly enough.

If you do searches of your own, do you find yourself getting linked up with people who have no bearing on what you thought you were searching for?

10

Holy crap is right, billfish678!

You, a male human carbon-based unit, tried out a new on-line dating site – and you got EIGHT responses (however off-base) from female human carbon-based units? (And that’s just the ones you mentioned in your OP. Were there others too?) Given all that’s known about how dating sites work, that alone is impressive!

All’s you have to do, for those 500-mile romances, is invite them over to visit you, for a date in your town. If they’re that [del]desperate[/del] interested, let them work out the transportation details. Think of it this way: Only a few may actually follow up and show up – but those who do will already be invested, and so will have incentive to make it work.

(And why is it a problem that some of them are shorter than you?)

ETA: Oh, and I prefer to swear by Peter, Paul, and Mary. :slight_smile:

11

I’ll try to get back to the other comments later, but this is just too funny not to share right now.

Check my cell phone history this morning (Sunday), because I was out doing stuff yesterday without monitoring my phone and might have missed something. Got a few Saturday and Saturday evening calls from people I know. But there are these two mysterious calls at like 2:30 am and 3:00 am. Then one again at 11 am. Man, that number vaguely rings a bell, but those hours are pretty weird.

Now, I am recently single and there are some single women that on occasion have had to call me or I have had to call them for totally non dating reasons. And I know they like me. Just don’t know if they like me like me so to speak. But they do know I am back on the market (a flea market I suppose but work with me here).

OMG. Have I finally reached another adult milestone? The first late night / drunk booty call? Which woman was it? There are some I’d be quite happy to do the booty call with. And even a more serious relationship with for that matter.

Now I am really curious. And a bit excited. Try digging up old phone lists. No luck. Thinking hard. No luck. I ponder for a couple of hours. Damn, don’t wanna call and go “who’s this?” Might not go over well. Or it could be that crazy women that likes me I wouldn’t want to touch with a 10 foot pole. At the very least I like to know which women it was so I can think of what to say, things to say, get in the right frame of mind, and ease the nervousness a bit first.

So, no luck with coming up with an answer. Then the stark sad reality hits. Maybe its a relative that rarely calls from that phone or I rarely call them at that phone?

Call a close relative. Does this number sound familiar? Sure, its your new home phone number.

Geezus and damnit. I booty called myself. Though given my sexual history that sounds about right.

BTW I recently moved.

And the calls I made were from a few weeks ago when I was having cell phone issue. I noticed the day but not the date.

12

Cradle. You’re not looking to rob the cradle. Anyone looking to rob the grave would be odd indeed and in no way a potential hookup.

13

How about posting them, after removing any email addresses or whatever? Almost sure to be funny, and may be educational.

14

I think the point of a speed date site is that most users just click on all the pictures they like, and then if you click back, they might look at your profile to start narrowing down the candidates.

15

Some more random WTF are these people thinking moments.

One ladies pic. And the only pic of her. You can see she is very pretty. Except something is covering about half her face in the photo. WTF is that thing? I look and look and look and ponder. Finally it dawns on me. Its one of those giant smoked turkey legs you can get at the grocery stores these days. WTF? Two Faces’s sister perhaps?

Another pic. And again, the only one. Geezus lady, that one the scariest ones I’ve seen so far. Not so much that you aren’t a super model, but dayum, you look so pissed off you’d make Bill Bixby piss his stretch pants. And your intro of “I’m a fun loving care free easy going person” just tops it off.

Third one. Yes I appreciate your honesty and I think you should tell people about your problems and issues sometime somewhere. But common, sell yourself at least a little first. “I am bi-polar and…” probably isn’t the first words a person should see on a dating site, especially if you don’t even have a pic.

Fourth one. Lady, its nice you DID put a pic up. But it looks like it was taken with night vision googles by the Ghost Hunters.

16

At least you know you’re compatible!

17

But I hate myself. :slight_smile:

And I always feel so dirty afterwards…