"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.

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.

Bending The Rules?

At the end of last week I made a decision to make it known to some of my candidates on Match that I was interested. This goes against The Rules and my better judgement, but you see I had no choice.

Doing this involved clicking the YES button underneath the question Are You Interested? for the profile of one of my Daily 5 matches. Up until now I had been clicking MAYBE, as I didn't want to seem too eager; however I am wondering if that has kept me off the radar of these gentlemen, as when you click YES you will show up under the They're Interested link on their profile. This would make a woman, who might have seemed unattainable otherwise, more approachable to a guy.

I am hoping it will prompt them to reach out to me, as I need to make sure that I am connecting with five people each month in order to keep to the regulations of the six-month guarantee. The guarantee states that if I don't find 'someone special' within the first six months I get the next six months for free. However since initiating contact is strictly forbidden in The Rules, I won't be able to keep to the guarantee restrictions if I don't have more people contacting me.

So today I grabbed a hot cup of chai tea and settled in front of the computer to see if there were any lobsters in my trap. No such luck.

Will Ms C have to bend The Rules to find love? Stay tuned to find out!

Too busy...no really, I am

One of the primary concepts within The Rules is to not be too available. This is why we don't accept a Saturday night date after Wednesday. Saturday night being the most important night of the week, it only stands to reason that a Rules Girl is going to have most of her Saturday nights booked up well in advance.

Tonight I received a message from one of my Match contacts that I thought had dropped off the face of the planet as he simply stopped contacting me. His email today said that he was sorry to have not responded to my last email, but that he had been out of town, and would I have time to meet with him sometime over the weekend?

Of course I can't as I already have plans...and I didn't even have to lie about it!

Have no car...will not date

My Match profile has now been viewed almost 200 times, and no new potentials to show for it.

Today I let the science professor go, as he doesn't have the means to travel to see me and I'm at the point where I had to admit I wasn't all that interested in him anyway. One of The Rules states to admit when you need to cut bait, because it's not fair to lead someone on if you really aren't that into him. I feel good about the decision.

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!