Day 11: Dr. Phil Wants to Help ME?
November 28th, 2005Match.com stats:
Total profile views: 884 ( 44 since yesterday) New emails: 2 (”falafel” count: 4/16, sent email: 1) New winks: 3 Optimism level: Gotta spread the eggs to several baskets
For some reason the page views dropped significantly today. It can’t be because of the new narrative because they’d have to open my profile to read it. Maybe people are tired of seeing my stupid mug in their searches. Or maybe I need to stop hiding my profile while I browse others because I seem to have a tough time remembering to turn it back on.
I received a response from “Homer” today and he included “falafel” (yay). He said I don’t look familiar to him, which I expected as it was a long time ago we met and my crush on him was from afar. Here’s the last section of his letter:
Are you looking for a playmate, a tennis partner, a longtime companion?
I got divorced two years ago and have been on and off these sites over the last few months.
I really don’t have the time, or the resolve, quite frankly, to invest in a relationship.
Sad but true.
Glad to hear you’re enjoying your new gig.
Tell me more
The fact that he has to ask what I’m looking for emphasizes Match’s stupidity in not including this question on the profiles. I might write to them about it. Normally, I would interpret his relationship statement to mean, “Not interested, don’t write me again.” But then he wrote, “Tell me more.” Taken together, I gather he might want to meet me, though I shouldn’t expect much. So I won’t. He’s out of town for a couple weeks so nothing’s happening with him anytime soon anyway. Maybe I’ll shoot off a couple emails to other guys tonight.
I do need to hustle a bit, given my bad timing in starting this process. I figure I’ve only got about two or three weeks to get something going with someone before the online dating scene goes on hiatus for the holidays. Then once the new season begins after new year’s, there’s only about a month before I expect everybody to break for that awkward pre-Valentine’s Day stage.
EMAIL #1: This is certainly the most interesting (and unusual) email I’ve received thus far. At first I was a bit taken back by the picture- it was a woman. I wasn’t sure if it was a lesbian thing or a stop-viewing-my-man’s-profile thing. It turns out she works for Match.com public relations. She wrote:
I’m working with producers from the Dr. Phil show on a segment about internet dating.
I am looking for three Match.com members who are interested in sharing their internet dating questions with Dr. Phil on Friday, December 2 for a segment of the show (Questions could include which photos to use, what to say in your headline, what to say in a first email, etc.). Individuals who participate in the Friday taping would also get to attend the filming of the show on December 15.
Wow! What an incredible opportunity. I would get to travel all the way to downtown Hollywood and they would pay me nothing to be humiliated on national television!
Uh, no thanks.
I’m tempted to write her back to find out if she sent the email to everybody in the LA area or just a select few. I hope she sent it to everybody because I’d hate to think she chose me because she thought my profile could use a lot of help from Dr. Phil. Moved to folder: Should I? Six months from now I’ll probably be begging for his help.
EMAIL #2: There’s nothing really wrong with this profile. The guy looks pretty hot in his picture (though his main picture is obviously several years older than his other ones). The fact that he says he’s 33, looking for women aged 25-43 makes me wonder if he’s lying about his age. There’s nothing wrong with the fact that he’s open to women 10 years his senior, it’s just a bit unusual. I certainly wouldn’t reject a guy based on my uninformed guess that he’s fudging his age. But I will reject a guy when the bulk of his narrative consists of: … its ok to pursue the home, car, kids etc. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing those things, but the white picket fence just isn’t what I want. Moved to folder: Not looking to be June Cleaver.
I must compliment on the style of narration of your blog. My primary interest was in understanding “how to blog” and your tyst with Online dating seemed catchy enough.
I come from a community which has a paradoxical culture towards dating(though the landscape is changing fast) and your algorithmic approach sounds intriguing. Would be interesting understand how you plan to isolate the genuine folks from those as you say maybe looking for a quickie or the wolf in sheep clothers.
I hope to cath your blog again..
you know that i have been following your journey. something just wasn’t quite clicking inside my head… until now.
fifa, it just came to me that i have never (really) worried about my age, when it comes to attracting women. is it because i am a dude?
to what extent do you really think that your prospects of finding the right person is related to your age and your looks? when you described yourself as one who “was hot” to “is hot for her age,” is this what women think? is this how women think of their viability as partners to men? do you really feel the pressure of time?
puzzled…
was just thinking, when homer says he doesn’t have the time for relationships, but is in fact on-line, are his rather cool words really a way to protect his feelings, to not become hurt?
Hi there,
as a guy who’s been trying the online dating thing recently it’s very interesting to get a womans perspective, so thanks.
as a critique of your blog though, why is each day on a separate page? makes it quite hard to read in order ie the 1st page doesn’t link to the second page etc, and the links on the right hand side are barely visible.
good luck with your hunt though, look forward to reading about the first date.
Tim
First of all, thanks for the thought-provoking questions. Maybe with enough help, I can do this right and actually meet Mr. Right!
“Parsifal”- I figure the guys looking for one-night-stands are at bars, not online, so I don’t think that’s really an issue. In fact, that’s one of the major reasons the online scene appeals to me: most people are looking for relationships. I’m sure there are plenty of people on Match looking to scan some lonelyhearts, but I’m not too concerned about that happening to me. As you may have picked up, I notice ALL the little details- good and bad. My “creepdar” is remarkably good, which has resulted in lots of short-term relationships in the past, but which has also helped me to avoid a lot of the “man problems” many of my friends have encountered.
“tick tock”- I don’t mean this in my usual persnickety way, but if women’s age concerns perplexes you, you don’t know women. Tick tock is right. I certainly think I’m a more viable partner than I would have been 10 years ago, but most men don’t necessarily see me that way. A lot of men are deemed more attractive as they get older- even through their 40’s. But how often do you hear somebody say that a woman looks better at 45 than she did at 25? Not often, if ever. While I don’t think that being attractive is the only way to meet the right person, I do know that in an online situation, it’s at least as important to men in selecting a match as it is to women (probably even more so).
“Dr. Fill” (heh heh- nice name)- I definitely agree his statement about relationships could be a rejection defense. Given that he went through a divorce a couple years ago, it’s a tip to me to play things very cool should we ever go out.
“Anonymous Jim”- I originally had all the posts on one page, but my posts are pretty long and some include photos so it became a rather large page to load. I do think having the pages link to each other in order is a good idea but I’m not sure if I can do that with the Blogger format. I’ll look into it. At the very least, I’ll see about making the previous post links larger.