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by Debbie Ricks
The Internet and I have a lot in common. We both have the tendency to attract undesirable people without meaning to. So the idea of me finding a date on the Internet is outrageous. Besides, it is no better than answering a personal ad. Granted, this modern day personal ad is more interactive, but I still find it impersonal, desperate and risky. I believe love should be found organically, not forced by hooking up with someone who answered a questionnaire the same way I did.
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Internet dating is risky because you don’t know what you’re getting into. I imagine myself being dragged out of somewhere and becoming a 48 Hours Murder Mystery. People will say, “that dumb girl. I can’t believe she went off with some stranger she met on the Internet.” Maybe coming up missing and dead is far-fetched, but it will be just my luck to meet the guy who says he is a handsome, six-two, Taye Diggs type when he is really a five-four Flava Flave type.
My aura seems to be a magnet for crazies. They always fit into one of four categories: the stalker, the foreigner who is looking for a mother to take care of his kids, the guy who thinks he has the right and the old guy, usually fifty or better. Once I was telling my ex-roommate that I could never date anyone I met over the Internet. She remarked, “you meet crazy people face-to-face, might as well do it over the Internet.” I have to admit she had a point.
I can understand the illusion of power one gets when scrolling through a database of potential suitors – this one is too short, this one is not quite cute enough, this one looks like a dork, not the right occupation. It saves the nuisance of turning down someone to their face. It also keeps the undesirables away.
Pretending to take my destiny in my own hands, I decided to check out a few sites. Yahoo Personals, eHarmony, Perfect Match and Great Expectations are premier sites for the serious dater. What sets these sites apart is that they employ psychologists that design scientific matching criteria. The matching process is much more involved and much more serious.
I decided to try eHarmony. They claim to be the foremost dating site with their twenty-nine dimensions of compatibility. The first step to any dating service is to fill out the questionnaire. At eHaromy this took about forty minutes. It was a long, tedious process. Many of the questions were repetitive. After finishing the compatibility quiz, I received my homepage. Right away I began to receive local matches. Many of them seemed pretty close to what I was looking for. There was only one problem. I couldn’t see their faces. I am slightly shallow, so I would never date anyone site unseen.
It turns out many dating sites that claim to be free are not free (including eHarmony and singlespot.com). I didn’t join for the same reason I didn’t join a sorority in college: I couldn’t afford to buy friends. The sites allow you to do certain introductory service. You can post a picture and view matches, and potentials can view you and are notified you are a match, but you can’t communicate with anyone. This is where free turns into fee. To find out if a site is truly free or not, scroll down and click on terms and conditions or the disclaimer link. If they mention a refund policy, then the site is not free. At eHarmony this information was in the frequently asked questions section. eHarmony subscriptions come in one, three, six and twelve month plans. The more months you buy, the cheaper it is. A one-month plan is $59.95, twelve months is $20.95 a month. With the exception of the 12-month, plan they bill you in one installment. If you buy a three-month plan, they bill you $110.85.
I ventured outside the realm of the premier dating sites and stumbled upon okcupid.com. This site is truly free, I checked before I signed up. I took their main compatibility test, which was twenty-five questions, and found some of the questions odd and disturbing. “How often do you brush your teeth?” “How often do you bathe?” “If your match is married, is that okay?” The question that disturbed me the most was: “If the person you are dating has a fantasy about bestiality, how would you react? Make their fantasy come true, ignore it, or react negatively?”
This is a social networking site. They have a lot of interactive stuff you can do. You can IM, chat, journal, stalk people (creepy sounding, but a fun way to let people know you looked at their profile) and take more tests. The more tests you take the more matches you receive. I posted a profile to see what would happen. None of them were cute, so I moved on.
I came across singlesstop.com. It seemed to be a bit seedier than previous sites. I had crossed over to the wrong side of the tracks. It claimed to be free but wasn’t. There were several ads for other sites through which I learned that Internet dating can get very specific. Are you a single parent? For you there is singleparentlove.com. Looking for a plus size mate? Check out BBWpersonalsplus.com. Got a case of jungle fever? For you there is Americanmatch.com. These sites seemed legitimate.
To find love from a Filipino or Russian woman, there were more adult sites. These sites are for those looking to fulfill some lustful fantasy or have a sexy tryst. In fact, there are sites just for meeting people to have sex. These sites have little-to-no screening process. You are absolutely on your own.
After singlestop.com I grew bored. I would rather meet my crazies face-to-face and for free. I would also like to leave finding love up to fate. That way if it goes wrong, I can blame fate and not myself. I would never discourage anyone from finding love (or sex) by any means necessary. Just remember, on the Internet anything goes. If people will lie to your face, what makes you think they won’t lie on the Internet? Also, is answering a questionnaire really a screening process? However, if you insist on finding love online, check out recordsaccess.com and do a background check on that prospective catch, because undesirables tend to have the Internet mastered. After all, many of them have been forced to spend a good deal of their time there. Good luck.
Article Published in the 2-14-08 Issue of EU Jacksonville
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