"So-and-So wants to meet you"...not

On POF they have a feature called Meet Me that functions and looks a lot like 'Hot or Not'.  Members can view the profile photo of a man or woman and select Yes, No, or Maybe to whether or not they would like to meet that person.  If you choose Yes or Maybe the person in question then receives a notification that So-and-So would like to meet them.

POF tells you that if you spend some time going through and selecting people you'd like to meet it can render better matches to your profile based on your choices, so I went through a few profiles.  Not wanting to appear too interested I refrained from selecting Yes to any of them, opting instead for Maybe.  Then I heard from a couple of these guys, which is how I learned that choosing Maybe is the same as choosing Yes.

To-date there are 125 men that want to 'meet' me...yet not a single one of them have bothered to reach out to me to ask me for a coffee.  So basically it's just a low effort function that allows men an alternative way of interacting passively with women without having to muster up the stones to actually send her a message.

If So-and-So really wants to meet with me and get to know me better, he will find his balls and contact me.  I refuse to be pressured into initiating conversation with a pussy who is afraid to make the first move.

Hmm...plenty of fish, you say?

However I realize this most likely means I will spend many more Saturday nights at home with my cat.

if you don't look like your picture chances are I will be drinking heavily until you do

Ah the joys of dating in a virtual world where we can pretend to be whomever we want!

About two months ago I decided to jump back into the game and created a profile on Plenty of Fish - a site I'd never been on before.  A few of my friends had profiles on this site and were urging me to get on there and try my luck for another round.  With significant reservation, albeit a strong desire to meet someone, I relented.

Not surprisingly I've been only handling messages from men who just want to chat, but have no desire to take things offline and actually meet in person.  Of those who did want to meet, most of them were outside my race (although POF doesn't allow you to opt towards a specific nationality I'm only looking for white males) and desperate to find a mate.  Trying to keep an open mind I went for coffee with a couple of these fellows, only to have a boring and awkward meeting during which absolutely no sparks flew and I couldn't wait for it to end.

I did manage to snag a half-decent white guy for two dates, but he stopped contacting me when it looked like things were going really well.  Par for the course it seems!

Logging Off

Nine months since my last post. This is partially due to life happening and partially due to the dating scene not happening. After one year of trying my luck with online dating on Match I've pulled the plug due to a significant amount of duds and no viable candidates showing interest. My subscription has expired and I don't see the point in paying $60/month just to advertise my pathetic ongoing singleness.

One bachelor did add me to his Favourites list just before my subscription was due to expire, so I broke The Rules slightly and gave him my email address advising him I would be going offline soon, and he could message me if he was interested in meeting me, which he did. We met for a brief coffee shortly after, and he told me all about his baggage and how he just separated from his wife of 15 years last November. Buddy needs some downtime, not a rebound relationship, so I'm not expecting much from him at all. Anyhow it's been a week since that coffee and I haven't heard back from him yet, so that's that.

I thought I might try revisiting the speed dating scene, so K and I signed up for a Single in the City event at a local bistro here in Toronto. Of the 14 men I met with only two were remotely interesting...all the others could either barely speak English, or barely speak at all. There were five people interested in dating me, but of course none of them were on my shortlist.

So back to square one. Hopefully now that the warmer weather is here it will motivate the Good Ones out of hibernation and into action and it won't be another nine months before I have something new to report.

Was it something I said?

Well I'm almost at the end of Month #2 and I'm feeling as if the room has cleared since I put up my profiles on Match and Lavalife.

Though my Match profile has reached 450 views, I have not been contacted by any serious or qualified matches thus far...only new immigrants with broken English skills, mystery men with profiles that are hidden to me, and men with seemingly questionable motives.

Many online dating sites seem to claim that you need to invest in at least six months of searching before finding a good match, and I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't just a lame attempt at convincing people to commit to a longer membership, and that you actually do need to spend months online sorting out the wheat from the chaff in order to find suitable date material?

I am not having any better luck on Lavalife either, with my profile only being viewed about 100 times and no serious replies to my ad.

So it would seem that Rules Girls trying to find love online need all the patience they can muster and should be prepared to settle in for the long haul while they wait for a decent candidate to make the first move.

My name is C...and I'm a dataholic

OK so I caved and put up a profile on Lavalife too after being disappointed in the calibre and variety of matches I was getting on Match. The site is way different since the last time I was actively eDating, and I'm not sure how crazy I am about the new format. However I'm staying objective.

My only active suitor on Match is the Scientist currently in California on business. We have exchanged the maximum number of emails at this point, and I am not expecting any developments to happen as things now stand, but we shall see.

My Lava profile has been viewed 20 times already and I have one email message from someone rather interesting! He works in film and television and seems to have a pretty fascinating lifestyle. I won't be able to get back to him until Monday now as I don't log onto dating sites from Friday evening until Sunday evening. However this being a holiday weekend I plan on being busy right up until Monday.



Have a great May 2-4!

So far...so good

I registered on Match.com (a site that I have previously patronized with which I am comfortable) and enabled my profile. Almost immediately I received four 'winks', but I do not respond to those. For the uninitiated, 'winks' (or smiles, as they are sometimes called on other dating sites) are things that you receive when someone who sees your profile wants to say HI. However as it takes virtually no effort to send a wink, I do not take them seriously or respond to them. If a man is serious about wanting to get to know me, he will send me an email.

Another problem I have with winks is that more often than not they are sent by someone who is not a paid member. Many sites have it set up so that in order to communicate you must pay a membership fee. Those who pay the fee are generally much more serious than those who do not (read: "browsers'). It is important to weed out the browsers, or timewasters, so you can focus more on the serious people. An excellent example of this happened to me when I tried my luck on eHarmony a couple of years ago when I was previously eDating. I was a paid member for three months and was able to count on one hand the emails I received in that time. The site was full of 'dead profiles' and unpaid members that couldn't communicate with me because they had not paid the membership fee!

Intro: The reason for Single Files

Hello, and thank you for stopping by!

The purpose of this blog is to document my experiences in the Dating Game, as I have made the decision to put myself back on the market after over two years of (blissful) singledom. I thought that it might be fun to blog about my experiences, and informative in the event that anyone out there in cyberspace might be interested in reading about them. In addition I find that writing helps clear the mind allowing one to see things in a different light.

Truth be told I have kept journals since I was a very young girl.

I realize this is not a novel blog idea, and that it has likely been done hundreds of times before, however I plan on doing this with all seriousness, and closely following The Rules as I go. I want to prove to myself, and others, that lasting happiness in a relationship IS possible as long as you play the game correctly. Sorry folks...if I've learned anything in my forty years, it's that it is a game...as much as we all hate to admit it.

My ultimate objective is to find my ideal life partner/significant other/soul mate without having to 'settle'. I plan on taking however long it takes to make this happen using all the patience, determination and serenity I can muster.

For those of you who aren't savvy, there are 25 Rules for Online Dating...

1. Don't answer men's ads or email them first
2. Create a good screen name
3. Less is more when writing your ad
4. Post a smiling photo
5. Wait 24 hours to respond
6. Don't answer on weekends or holidays
7. Write light and breezy emails
8. Block yourself from instant messages
9. Rules for chat rooms
10. Don't volunteer your phone number first
11. If he doesn't ask you out within four emails, delete/next!
12. Screen out Mr. Wrong
13. Don't waste your time on timewasters
14. Don't force the relationship from email to phone
15. Put safety first
16. Don't ad-interrogate on dates
17. Don't have sex on dates one, two or three
18. 'Disappear' in between dates
19. Keep your ad up until you are exclusive
20. Don't get caught up in online fantasy relationships
21. Never date a married man, even online
22. Don't ruin your real-life relationship over on online flirtation
23. Don't be jealous of non-Rules Girls online
24. Journal your online dating experiences
25. Don't break or bend The Rules online - even a little bit
    
    Wish me luck!