Don’t Believe the Hype on Match.Com

It’s time for another fabulous blog hop put together by the tireless Deborah Nam-Krane! If you haven’t already, please check out Morgan’s entry yesterday. Our theme this time around is….

Reality vs. the Hype!

Nowhere is this more true than in the world of online dating. Before I got divorced, I wrote about books, movies, pop culture. Then life threw me a curve and suddenly I’m back out there. Since I met my ex-husband in 1989, a lot changed in the dating world while I was busy doing other things. In college, I met my boyfriends at parties, in the dorm, in classes, through friends. Even when I was married, I had some FOMO when I looked at my single friends’ profiles and watched them evaluate the available men in town. There seemed to be so many attractive guys on those sites. Surely I’d find Mr. Right right away!

Then I found myself on several of these sites – Match, OKCupid, Plenty of Fish – and learned first hand… Don’t believe the hype!

For instance:

The hype: He’s 50 years old.
The reality: He’s 64… he “accidentally” inputted the wrong date and Match won’t let you change it. (This last part is true. But there are so many of this type of accident that it’s obviously not an accident.)

The hype: He lives for the water, always out on his boat.
The reality: A friend let him borrow his boat once. But he’s planning on buying one for himself someday! (I really don’t want a boater but a lot of women around here are)

The hype: He’s a cyclist/paddle boarder/runner
The reality: He did all those things before hip and knee injuries. Now he hangs out on the couch all day.

The hype: What great pictures!
The reality: Too bad they’re 10 years old.

The hype: He never smokes.
The reality: Because his mouth is full of chewing tobacco.

The hype: He has three great kids but his life doesn’t revolve around them.
The reality: That’s because none of his baby mama’s will let him have anything to do with them.

The hype: After a fulfilling career, he has a part-time job at a golf course to keep busy and because he loves the sport.
The reality: After he retired in lieu of getting fired, he went through all his money and this gig was all he could get. Good thing he likes it because he’ll be working there till he dies.

The hype: He’s a cultured guy who likes theatre, literary fiction, and classical music.
The reality: Hockey and NASCAR!

The hype: He’ll take care of your pet like it’s his own.
The reality: Calling the SPCA when you leave the house for longer than a half hour.

The hype: He’s Mr. Fixer Upper and wants to help you with your home repairs.
The reality: He doesn’t fix up his own place either!

The hype: Jami is going on these crazy online dates and writing blog posts so you don’t have to!
The reality: Jami met a great guy on Match.com and is no longer on any of the sites! She’ll probably need to find something else to blog about!

Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for Caroline’s entry!

Match Who?

It was our 5th date in less than two weeks since we’d met on Match. A whirlwind, even though I said I didn’t want to get too involved too soon. We were walking on the beach just before sunset, holding hands. A more romantic setting could not be imagined.

Suddenly he stopped, turned to me, and said in a very serious voice, “I have to ask you a question.”

My stomach plummeted to my knees. I really liked him; he was everything I was looking for, and most importantly, there were no red flags. Still, I was serious about not wanting to get too involved too soon. I’d made that mistake before. What was he going to ask? What should I say?

I nodded.

“What’s your last name?”

Ahh, the logistics of the Match meet-up. I wasn’t hiding anything. I told him. I even told him how to spell it.
But I didn’t mention that on Match, I’d deliberately spelled my first name wrong… and he’d been spelling it wrong ever since.
If things work out, he’ll learn soon enough!

On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog

I met him on Match. He was cute, and local, and my age, and a liberal. I “liked” him. He messaged me back. We went out a few times; I was starting to like him, even though he said he didn’t like to talk because he was a “doer.” I didn’t call him on how insulting that was.

Then he emailed me an invitation. His email address contained a year that, if it was his birth year, made him nine years older than he’d claimed to be on Match. When I casually asked him about it, hoping that the year was a sports milestone or something else that would keep him my age, he brushed the comment away. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been meaning to tell you about that.”

It seems that most men dating online do not know how to correctly enter in their birth years. In their profile, they bashfully explain that they are actually 10 years older, or 15, but they had made a mistake and Match wouldn’t let them change it. Some are honest enough to admit they deliberately lie because the women they had been attracting were too old. Others wait until the first message or meeting.

I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me. After all, he didn’t seem his age, and I probably would have hit the like button anyway.

Probably.

But when he called me the next day to “let me off the hook,” he blamed me. I had made him feel uncomfortable. I suppose because I called him out for lying.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why people lie about facts on their profile that are so easily uncovered. Do they really think that once they reveal they’re ten years older, or only separated instead of divorced, or twice married instead of just once, that the object of their affection will look past the lie because they’re already so attached?

Maybe they will. Maybe I expect too much. Maybe I should pretend to be five years younger (of course that would mean lying about my son’s age, too), a marathon runner, an experienced boater.

Nah.

I’d rather be alone as myself than with another person as a lie.