The Swarm: Feisty Red

This week on The Swarm, blogger Alice, of FeistyRed and Tales of A Delectable Redhead, tells us about the online dating scene, and why normal people should not use eHarmony.

Recently over a night of fine liquor and fine friends, girls and guys alike were bemoaning their single status. I responded via my recent upbeat positive drunken way, “no guys! Online dating is where it’s all at! So many people fall in love online!” Since I don’t have any empirical evidence to support this, I offered myself up as the guinea pig.

On May 1st, a mere 7 days before my 28th birthday, I signed up for 3 dating sites- eHarmony, Match, and OkCupid. After further consulting a girlfriend, I eventually paid for eHarmony, because eHarmony is where you go to find a relationship (or so I am told). And essentially that was what I promised my friends they would find online, we don’t need a website to find a fling, it’s called Tumblr Meetups (I kid!).

Let’s be honest, we picked the wrong person for the job. I can’t flirt. I have what I like to call “Aspergers in love”. I have been completely detached from the dating scene this past year, and I am way out of practice. Any guy who talks to me in a bar might as well be asking me for a casserole recipe. It’s been a busy year! I had to find a job! And I always say a steak dinner tastes better alone even if I have to pay for it!

The rule outs: Everyone uses Match; I don’t want to date my friends (though I do love you and some of you are looking mighty fine). A couple of bloggers have already found my Match profile and laughed at me. I tried Nerve naively five years ago when I first moved here and the guys sufficiently creeped me out enough to never touch it again! One guy got drunk on whiskey and tried to take home me and the bartender because he couldn’t remember which one of us was his date.

OkCupid is free and that’s kind of awesome, but it’s also the MySpace of dating. You can meet tons of guys instantly, chat online, or update a blog. But don’t expect your suitors to have more than an associate’s degree or to be less than overweight and balding. Because all the hot ones won’t email you back, even when you spend an hour writing something cute and witty referencing things they wrote in their profile. That shit takes work, and then all they want to do is chat via IM or not respond at all. Fuck getting a drink, they want to sit on their computers in Jersey and discuss every inane topic from the privacy of their own computer in their parents’ basement den. BeePillow, please email me back; I really love the whole “Brett” look alike thing you have going on.

My decision to join eHarmony was ill advised (stupid drunken running friends); within 2 hours of joining eHarmony, I immediately wanted my money back. On eHarmony, you can’t search for people, which for someone like me is a bonus or so I thought. I don’t have all day to spend online searching for my soul mate; I would rather meet him without any work involved, really. Because that’s just the kind of lazy jackass I am, I hate surfing the internet.

After setting up a profile, eHarmony determines suitable matches for you. These matches are chosen via the “personality” test you take and all the pimped out extras you can add on to your profile. You have to buy these extras, but if you don’t buy these extras, you look like you are trying to lie! It’s completely irrelevant that I already gave them $120 of my money, bitches want more. Rely ID’s! Professional Profile Writers! Detailed Personality Profiles! Oh my! Therefore eHarmony sends me fewer matches; they don’t want to match their people up with an incompetent liar.

The problem with eHarmony profiles is they are comprised of computer generated responses created by their team of trained specialists/psychologists. Essentially every person on the site sounds sane because they are only allowed to use the eHarmony phraseology. It’s the Cyrano de Bergerac of the digital age. Then when you finally get someone to respond after hours of pointless “start communication” button, you have to go through “guided communication” where you send responses back and forth via the eHarmony cookie cutter system. It’s a thirteen (completely exaggerated) step process to earn the opportunity to actually email someone via statements such as “My idea of adventure is long walks on the beach”. Ironically, they actually come off as belligerent because no one actually says these kinds of things. In my experience, you tend to get a little fed up at step 5.

It’s a wonder people actually meet and fall in love (Jesus loving Christians). I may not have found all the guys attractive in their photos, but their profiles sounded normal especially when they choose the ever popular “volunteering my time to causes I care about” as one of their best life skills.

What I have discovered about online is that it’s quite possibly worse than face to face. At least face to face, I can distract them with my rack and my witty conversation.

I have been rejected more times on eHarmony in one week than I have been rejected ever- I signed in for the first time in weeks to find out 20 guys had “closed” me as a match. Twenty guys I have never spoken to have already decided based on looks/my eHarmony composed profile that I suck! No they didn’t, that’s messed up. It’s hard to write a witty profile and I didn’t even write half of this one. Now I have to wait for eHarmony to find more men who might potentially suffer through a relationship with me because in the one spot I was actually allowed to write something, I mentioned that I had a personal goal to make Times Square relevant. For all they know, I am stealing photos and completely crazy. In conclusion, if you love the internet and have colossal amounts of time and money to waste, eHarmony is the way to go.

In 8 weeks, I have had only one request for a date and a whole lot of rejections based on “Other”. What I have learned from this whole experience of being an online dating failure is that I will probably die alone. And I am A-OK with that, because I live with three cats and I have DVR! Though a friend did just email me and tell me to try Chemistry.

Anyone want to take over my eHarmony- free of charge!

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