MY ONLINE DATING JOURNEY (2022 EDITION, Part II)

For 2022, I decided to shake things up a bit. I’ve spent much of my adulthood being single and much of that time wondering if life might be better with a partner by my side. Splitting the heating bill, if nothing else, has a certain allure. Generally speaking, I’m okay now with being alone. Still, there’s this annoying inner voice that sometimes pipes up, saying, “Even though your heating bill is pretty low, would falling in love be such a bad thing?” Okay, inner voice, just to shut you up—there are probably meds for that—I decided to consider new dating sites where Mr. Right may have been waiting for me all this time. As I previously blogged, I looked into joining Silver Singles, a site for people over fifty. (Maybe I can put off buying that Porsche to woo some sweet thing who’s twenty-four.)

 

Here’s an update on my Silver Singles adventures: 

 

Okay, so I went ahead and bought a membership after three weeks of having some sort of basic membership that presumably didn’t allow me to do anything. I didn’t actually check into it. I didn’t feel like my dating life was going to suddenly, um…exist. 

 

I got daily messages from the site. The people who manage the Silver Singles site are very excitable. They love exclamation marks!

 

Visitor alert! Find out whose interest you sparked

            There love alerts, too. 

Your partner suggestions – make your first move!

There’s a rocket ship emoji between “move” and their preferred punctuation. Ooh! Are they trying to match me with a rocket scientist? That would justify the exclamation mark.

Your new match: meet Happy69 from Victoria!

This is a match? Why would I want to meet a guy over fifty who still chooses 69 as his “random” number? He probably snorts when a bartender asks him if he wants nuts. Or a cocktail. I just can’t.

Take a glimpse at your new partner suggestions! 

No rocket this time. The emoji face has hearts where the eyes are supposed to be. I find that a little creepy…and anatomically incorrect.

Your search for a partner is in your hands!

Awkward. Are they saying masturbating is my only hope or am I supposed to get my palm read? (Happy69 from Victoria would think this is a riot.)

Start your love story today!

This time the little icon is a black heart. That doesn’t bode well, does it? Or is Joan Jett into me?

Your new match: meet Tiberio from Mississauga!

Tiberio lives 4,355 kilometers away from me. I see potential!

Russell seems to be interested in your profile!

Creepy heart eyes again. And what’s with “seems”? I think I could get clearer info from that palm reader.

Frank uploaded a photo!

Well, this is big. Yay, Frank! Master of the selfie. My interest is piqued. After three weeks on this site, Frank’s photo uploading is big enough news to warrant a notification, with an exclamation mark, no less. 

I clicked. Frank, who’s 54 and lives in Burlington, Ontario—4,325 kilometers away from me—has no visible photo. Instead, I’m supposed to click where it says, “Ask for photo.” Methinks Frank is a little too shy or just a tease. Not going there. But, I might suggest to Silver Singles that they try to connect Tiberio from Mississauga with Frank from Burlington. They live 39 kilometers apart. I’m no rocket scientist, but I think that’s a more reasonable match suggestion. 

Silly me, trying to factor reason into a quest for love. This is why I have to pay for a membership on a dating site.

 

Oh, Silver Singles, you’ve got me. Well played. I’ve got six months of exclamatory alerts to look forward to.

  

 

  

FISHING FOR GHOSTS

It’s happened again. I got a message from the dating site Plenty of Fish yesterday: “Ray123 likes you!” I cringe every time I get one of these notifications. I have enough familiarity with dating sites to know that most matches are mismatches. Inevitably, I won’t like the person who likes me. In turn, if I press the little heart beside BrainyStud’s profile to indicate I like him, it’s a sure bet I’ve created an unwanted wrinkle in his morning. It’s a maxim of human nature that we want what we can’t have. 

 

Usually, I wait until I have a few likes before I log in and brace to read the profiles. (I know, I know…“bracing” doesn’t sound like the right state of mind. It’s a reflex now, an online dating tic.) Sometimes, sadly, it’s the photos that tell me there won’t be a coffee date in the works. I hate that. It makes me feel dismissive and shallow. But just like BrainyStud may not like my red hair, I’m not drawn to the guy with pronounced chipmunk cheeks or the guy who’s a dead ringer for a ’60s hippie. It’s intentional. His profile name includes the word hippie. I might dig someone’s groovy tie-dye, like the one modeled in his profile pic, but not a closetful. 

 

I even pass on the guy who wears a baseball cap in every single photo. If you’re bald, own it. I love a good head of hair, but baldness can be sexy too. I don’t want to date a guy who wears a hat to Chipotle, to the fancy Indian restaurant I love, to the opera, to bed. (Although the damn cap might be my opt-out card for the opera. “If you’re going to wear that stupid hat, I’m not going.” Ha! Figaro yourself.) 

 

It’s possible I’m too hasty, but these profiles are first impressions, presumably created after some thought and some browsing of one’s selfies. Maybe the guy with the collection of John Deere hats is the one that got away. I make bad decisions with football pools and stocks, too. 

 

I’ve gotten to saying “sorry” out loud when I come across a like or a message from a guy who’s just not my type. I know how hard it is to put yourself out there and face rejection, even if it comes from pressing a silly button.

 

Sometimes I’m on the fence until I read what, if anything, the guy has written in the profile. When it’s a shell of a profile, I pass. If a guy can’t put in a little effort, why should I bother? Moreover, as I’ve noted many times before, I struggle to get past poor grammar and spelling in a profile. For anyone who’s challenged in that regard, for god’s sake, get a friend to proofread your writing or pay attention to the colored lines that appear under intrested and serfer. (You have no idea how hard it is for me to intentionally mistype something and move on. Three deep breaths and counting backwards from ten don’t help at all. Side note: How passionate is someone about surfing when he can’t spell it? If I think Dostoevsky is the world’s greatest novelist but always stumble with writing his name, I’d probably mention Stephen King or, even easier, H.G. Wells instead.) 

 

There are times when it’s just clear we won’t hit it off. I’m not going to waste time with a hunter who loves monster truck shows. Same for the guy who is passionate about Voltaire and loves extended oboe solos. They say there’s someone for everyone. Best wishes and all that.

 

This will be a quick browse today. I’m skipping over hippies, hunters and ball cap models. My mission: find Ray123 who apparently likes me in that low key, button-pressing-in-lieu-of-sending-a-message kind of way. 

 

Logged in and bracing, I click the search button to update the standard search for my area with a reasonable age range, my age roughly in the middle. Scroll, scroll. Can’t find a Ray123. Profiles are listed based on most recent log-ins. If he “liked” me yesterday, his profile should show up early in the search. Scroll, scroll. It comes to a point where I’m in ancient territory, people whose profiles are in the same order as always, having not logged in presumably for months. 

 

There is no Ray123.

 

If I were a paying member of Plenty of Fish, I think I could just type in the profile name and Ray123 would pop up. I don’t know how that would make a material difference. There are three possibilities, none of which are match-worthy: (1) Ray lives in my area but is outside my age range (i.e., younger than 40 and older than 70 (I’m 57)); (2) Ray may are may not be in my age range but lives in Bolivia, Bermuda, Bulgaria or Botswana…or some other faraway place that doesn’t begin with B and end in A (so many possibilities); (3) Ray opted to delete his account upon realizing he accidentally “liked” my profile and couldn’t undo it (Sorry about that, Ray.); or (4) Ray123 never ever existed. Maybe the dating site wanted me to keep my account by offering a shred of hope. Maybe the site wanted to goad me into switching to a paid membership to try to uncover, at last, the enigmatic Ray123. 

 

Silly me. A reputable dating site would not stoop to such tactics, right? They’re primarily interested in my finding my forever partner. If they make a little money through ads and the odd paid membership, well, that’s just good karma coming back for caring so earnestly about my love life.

 

I suppose I should just let it be. Somewhere out there—sing it Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville—Ray123 likes me. I’ll always have that. Nothing about monster trucks or oboes shall shatter an unblemished like.

 

Thank you, Ray123. I might have liked you, too.