Baby you can drive my car ...

This is where I usually sit in my car -- the driver's seat.

Rant of the week. What is it about men taking selfies of themselves in the car and using that photo as their main profile picture? I get about 10-12 daily matches on my dating websites and at least half of the profile photos are of men in cars. I've come to the conclusion that men who show these photos do so for one of 5 reasons:

1. They just want to show me they are responsible enough to drive (doesn't mean they are good drivers just that they are smart enough to get a license) a motor vehicle
2. They want everyone to know they can afford a vehicle (or maybe they just borrowed their friend's car)
3. They work out of their cars and this is the most realistic photo of their life
4. They can't be bothered to step out of their car and get a creative shot in front of a nicer background
5. They love their (insert expensive car brand here) so much that they want you to be impressed by it

Whatever the reason guys, here's a tip. We ladies don't mind if you have a car selfie but for the love of God don't make it your main profile picture. And for the record, taking a selfie of yourself in your car (in the same clothes) at 4 different angles isn't what we want to see either! 

I'm not Demi or Catherine ...

There is a reason it's been three weeks since I posted a blog ... nothing NEW has happened.

If you've read any of my posts you'd know that I have a certain set of criteria I am looking for in a date -- specifically the following: college educated, well-employed male between the ages of 39-49 within a certain income bracket. I'm not as picky when it comes to ethnicity, religion, astrological sign or political view.

For weeks I've been getting winks and e-mails from 25 and 60 year olds. While I admire Demi Moore and Catherine Zeta-Jones for dating (and marrying) guys half their age or twice their age, I am not of the same mindset. Look, I have a rule about the age of my soulmate: he has to be old enough to be my baby daddy (my child is 18 so you need to be at least 36) and young enough to where when we go out, people don't think you are my dad.

This has been the circumstance for weeks so I didn't want to bore you with story after story of me letting guys down easy who were out of my age range. I will be narrowing my age range in my profile to see if I can attract more of the age I desire (no disrespect to Demi or Catherine of course).

You get what you pay for ...

$$$$$$$

If you read my other blog posts, you know that people can see when you look at their profile. But there is a way to avoid them knowing. Of course, you have to pay for that privacy privilege. Oh no, that $200+ a year subscription you pay for when you sign onto a dating site is just the basics to get you in the door. My momma always said, "you get what you pay for" and "nothing in this life is free."

I know there are free dating sites out there but would you really trust them to produce quality people? Maybe, but I'm looking for my soulmate and he better not be stingy with money! I mean, think about it. If I meet a guy who is too cheap to spend a few hundred bucks a year to meet me, how cheap is he going to be on a first date?

Anyway, back to the online dating site add-ons (or up-selling as they call it in the marketing world). I don't' see why you need these if you are genuinely out there searching. There are plenty of options to choose from depending on the site you use:


Privacy -- If you don't want them to see when you have looked at them. Seriously. what are we, elementary school children? So what if they see that I viewed their profile, isn't that the point of online dating? Are you in the witness protection program or running from the law so you don't want me to see you? Well, then I don' t want you anyway, you aren't that special and all women are not stalkers.
Top of the search -- If a guy is "searching" for Ms. Right then why do I need this? Isn't he searching enough to scroll down the "matches" for 5-10 people to find me? Do I have to be right in his face upon turning on his phone and logging into his account for him to find me? He probably isn't very good at the game hide-n-seek either!
Read receipt -- Don't rush me dude, I will read that e-mail when I get to it. I don't need to pay some service fee to see when a guy opens my e-mail to him. If he never responds, that's a pretty good indication he isn't interested, huh?
Secure call -- If I have never met a guy, why do I want to have my first conversation with him over some covert phone line? This isn't the cold war and we aren't spies with burner phones.
Identification authentication -- Oh please, a really good catfisher could hack this feature with a little persistence and a fake ID. I am who I say I am and that's all I worry about.
Profile writing service -- Honestly, if a guy can't write his own profile, I don't want him. Take the time write about yourself and check your grammar -- its not that hard!

Brought to you by the letter F ...

This week's blog is brought to you by the letter F. What words can you think of that start with the letter F?

Friend, Find, Fabulous, Fanatic, Future, Fun, Fiscal, Frost, Fear,

F*#@!

My favorite F word is "freak." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, freaks are all around us. I just learned that I have to be much more careful about who I look at on my online dating site. Not sure why I didn't know this before but apparently, when you peruse a person's profile that person sees that you looked at it. They get a little notice in their account that says "MissABC" looked at your profile at (time, date). Whoa, hold the fone (yes, I intentionally misspelled it, it's F day remember?)!  They can see me and when I looked at them? Yes, they can and when many of these people see that someone else looked at their profile, they automatically think "ahh, someone wants me so I need to inundate them with a hundred winks, e-mails and like all of their profile photos to show them I want them too."

Well, isn't that presumptuous? Just because I look at your profile does not mean I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I've gotten some doozies from guys who I just peeked at their profile for fun (sometimes they have a photo of a dog as their profile photo and or maybe they have a sunset photo and the curiosity just gets the better of me) or sometimes their photo is really nice and I want to read the rest of their story. It does NOT mean I want to marry them tomorrow. Here is the tip of the week guys (and gals too): if a someone looks at your profile ONCE and goes days without a wink, another profile view, an e-mail or a "like" then they aren't interested. There is no need to contact them with a diatribe of worthless dribble to try and win thier love. Just chalk it up to they were curious but not that interested, shrug it off and move on before we use the word of the day on you:

FREAK

Flicking a booger and running ...

I like it when a guy starts a conversation with me. It makes me feel like I warranted special attention for him to seek me out and talk to me.

 

Conversations starter examples:

• Hello. I like your photos. My name is Joe. What is yours?
• Hi, I know a great place that makes the perfect daiquiri. Want to go? Joe
• Hey, I'm Joe, and your profile was really funny. 

However, I do not like it when guys waste my time by sending me an e-mail with one word as if to "poke" me -- I call it flicking a booger and running (kind of like a little boy would do in kindergarten if he really liked a girl, he would be mean to her). Here are examples:

• Hey
• Wow
• Awesome
• s'up?
• Hi
• Hello
• Hot!
• Chat?

 

Do not poke me! If you want to start a conversation with me in a way that will make me want to communicate with you and possibly go out with you, you have to put some effort into it. One word pokes are lazy and indicative of how you will be in the rest of the relationship (i.e. LAZY!). That flick-a-one-word-e-mail trick might work with other women but it doesn't work for the intelligent ones like me. When you send me those stupid one word pokes I instantly put you in the "too lazy to bother with" folder and discard your profile. My good friend and online dating confidant (we'll just call her Goldilocks because she has fabulous long golden hair like a Barbie doll) actually kept the above screenshots of her lazy guys trying to start a conversation. Yes, Goldilocks and I showed them to our girlfriends. Yes, Goldilocks and I laughed at them. And, yes, Goldilocks and I deleted you. If you can't take the time to come up with something genuine and original to show me you are truly interested in starting a conversation with me, then I don't even give you the time of day to respond. So, advice of the day, lazy guys, go put on your big boy trousers, load the dictionary/thesaurus app onto your mobile phone and try making a coherent sentence in e-mail format before trying to start conversation with intelligent women on the dating website.

Save the crazy for date #2 ...

I love a guy who is honest and forthright. On the flip side, I also like keeping some skeletons in your closet for the sake of being mysterious. But there is a fine line between being honest and being a freak! And sometimes in the online dating world, you get the crazy right out of the starting gate, which is probably not a bad thing -- that way you can block the crazies before the stalking begins. Some of the doozies told to me BEFORE the second date (paraphrased of course):

• I'm on some seriously good meds.
• I am manic depressive, bi-polar. What is your disease?*
• So, you like BJ's? I need them. A lot. 
• I am really into hard porn.
• I drink excessively, like every night.
• You have the cutest [insert designer name] shoes in that photo. What size do you wear?
• You are fat but I still want to #$*% you. 
• I can't do a date Thursday because I have a full-body waxing but I can do Tuesday. 
• I don't believe in going to the dentist/doctor.
• I never wear sandals because I have severe athletes foot. It's really gross, want to see?

WTH! Why in the world would you think it is alright to mention these things before or during a first date? You have got to be a special kind of crazy to mention stuff like this before you put a ring on it.  So, weekly advice guys and gals -- save the crazy talk for date #2. Show all your good qualities and your good side first.

* Editor's note: I have nothing against dating a guy who is under medical supervision for an illness. This guy was actually kind of cool and I'm sure he was using his diagnosis as a lighthearted icebreaker. Unfortunately, I'm was not at a time in my life where I could be the sane one for both of us and he was really nice about accepting my response (yes, we are still friends).

I hate football ...

It's been a rather slow week this week what with the lead up to #SuperBowl50 yesterday. So, instead of watching  men in tight pants run around the field, I decided to evaluate myself in tight pants (i.e. re-read my online dating profile -- you know, just to see if I needed to spruce it up a bit). To my delight, I liked my profile just as much now as I did when I started it about 5 months ago. Here are a few of my favorite things about my profile:

Honesty: I don't like sports. I'm not going to lie and tell guys I do just to get them to look at my profile. I don't care about it and if that scares men off, then they aren't the kind of men I want in my life anyway. I like fashion and I like shopping. I will not hide that info for fear of guys not wanting to go shopping with me. Like I say in my profile, I don't care if you go hang out with the boys and watch/play sports, just don't make me go with you and I won't make you go shopping with me. Deal?

Humor: I use this very sparingly because people have different types of humor and oftentimes funny things said are lost in the verbiage of the text. For really good humor you have to see the person, their facial expressions. People who try to be funny and then end with smiley faces or "lol" need to save the humor for in-person.

Fact: Yes, I said my exact height and body type. I am not and have not been a size 2 for a long time so why would I tell anyone I'm "slim" or athletic and toned? I say I am "average" because according to the Center for Disease Control the average woman in the US is 5.4 and 166 pounds. I'm taller and weigh less so I'm average. I like knowing there is "proof" to my average-ness, thanks CDC.