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.

Your pet dragon makes me nervous ...

Graphic thanks to Webweaver

I have come to the conclusion that women take online dating much more seriously than men do. Just an observation and, of course, solely my opinion (although I do hope other women agree with me in part) but it just feels like the guys are treating the initial phase of online dating (the searching of the database of potential matches) as a "warm up practice." Let me tell you a few things that shaped that opinion after about 6 months of online dating on three different dating sites:

1) Photos -- About 1/3 of the men in my "matched specifically for me" section don't have photos. So guys let me ask you this? If someone tried to sell you a car for $25,000 and gave you a glowing, fabulous description of it but when asked if you could see a photo of it were told, "oh, I am not good with technology so I can't give you a photo, you just have to trust me." Would you buy it? Yeah, we aren't buying the fact that you don't know how to take photos of yourself either. Three problems come from this: 1) You really aren't smart enough to figure out how to take and download a photo of yourself; 2) You can't afford a phone with a camera; or 3) You don't care enough to go to the trouble of posting a photo. Either one of these three reasons is enough for me to say "no thank you" to you.
2) Skipping vital info -- Why would you skip the question about pets? Giving me the "I'll tell you later" answer only makes us women nervous. Are you afraid to tell me you have a baby dragon?! Trust me, if you have a snake or some other exotic pet you think we would be scared off by, let us decide before we invest time with you. I don't care how hot you are if you have a 5-foot long king cobra (I'm talking about the reptile, get your mind out of the gutter), I'm not dating you. Same goes for occupation and income. I'm not going to be a sugar mama no matter how gorgeous and wonderful you are.
3) Text talk -- If I am your good friend and we are finalizing where to meet for drinks after work, I might use terms like OMG, SMH, LOL, IMHO, 1337. But you are not going to make a good first impression with a mature, sophisticated woman by using acronyms and text talk in your initial correspondence. I am not your friend at this point, I am your potential date or mate. Show some decorum dude! I told a guy this once and he told me I was too-old fashioned. Yes, I am old fashioned ... I like doors held for me, chairs pulled out for me, men to act gentlemanly. So, I guess I want an old fashioned man too. If I wanted to date a boy who uses text talk, I would be a cougar and go for those 20 years younger. So you are probably wondering what the problem is with a 45-55 year old man using text talk? Apparently they don't know their age and I ain't got time to teach it to them! I've already reared one man child, I'm not rearing another one.

Of course there are the exceptions and this blog is not directed at them but for the majority, the above applies. It just seems that the majority of the men think that the photos and profile they post are a "warm up" and that the first impression is really the in-person date. Sweetie, you were on stage the first second your profile popped up in the system. There is no warm up, no practicing, no dress rehearsals!

There is no perfect formula ...

I talk to some of my female friends who have used online dating sites before and each has their own little system for meeting and getting to know men online. One uses this formula in this exact order (and God help the guy who doesn't follow the proper order of things):

1. He "likes" me
2. I "like" him
3. He "winks" and me
4. I "wink" at him
5. He messages me
6. I reply 
7. He has to ask me to meet in person first

Of course I have other friends who say they don't have time for all that mess so they e-mail a guy they think looks good immediately skipping all that hullabaloo liking and winking and waiting. And to all the guys who like or wink that they don't like? They ignore them.

I'm kind of in the middle of those two. If I like the way a guy looks, I like (since I'm not a big fan of the wink) or smile at him. To me, a wink is similar to an innuendo for intimacy and I don't know you that well yet :-)

I always answer an e-mail even if its to say I am not interested. I mean, the guy went out on a limb to message me and didn't bother with the wink or like, he deserves a response for his gutsy-ness. I don't always e-mail a man I'm interested in first without "liking" something about his photos or profile but when I do, you know his profile or photos were pretty darned good!

Bottom line is (I'm saying this to the guys), we gals all have a different way to show our interest (or disinterest). We don't always wink back or "like" you back or respond to your message immediately. Some ladies don't respond at all if they are not interested and some will respond with a polite "no thank you". But here are a few rules of thumb to remember (good use for men and women):

• If a person has been "online" within the past 24 hours and has not responded to your wink, like, smile or message that you sent 3 days ago, they are probably not interested. It's not shampoo, do not rinse and repeat (i.e. send another wink, like, smile, e-mail). It's simple, they don't like you so they are ignoring you., just prentend like you are ignoring them back.
•  If a person e-mails you without doing all the winking, smiling, liking, etc. first or in a particular order, it doesn't mean they are "ignoring the rules" and should be written off altogether. It probably means they just don't want to fiddle with the small stuff.  You should take it as a compliment that they find you so intriguing that they want to get to know you immediately.
• Silence is not always golden. Respond to a message even if its to let them down easy. Just think of how you would feel if you were in a crowded room and you spoke to someone and they ignored you. Same, same.
• If someone ignores you or responds with a "no thank you" or "I don't' think we are compatible" or any other form of rejection (yes, its rejection, you will get rejected, deal with it), drop it an move on. As my sister says (jokingly of course but some truth to it), there are plenty of other fish in the toilet. No, they won't change their minds, no they are not joking with you, no they won't meet you and realize they couldn't live another day without you. Constantly sending smiles, winks, likes and messages will make you look clingy and needy and if they didn't like you enough before, they certainly won't like you now.