Why online dating is bad for the ego…

Dating is never easy. Anyone that says they love dating must be lying or a masochist. Dating before there were online dating sites wasn’t fun, but I’m convinced with the onset of online dating, things are even worse.
For starters before online dating, the only way you’d know if someone was interested in you, there had to be some face to face (or at least phone to phone) interaction. Then, presuming there was mutual interest, a date would ensue. Repeat until one or both parties were bored and then there would be a conversation about ending things.


These days, with online dating, the whole face to face thing is eliminated. Thereby making the process very cold and anonomys. Online dating is a virtual dating catalogue. Flip the pages until you find an item you like. For the most part, I think men are better at accepting rejection than women are. For most of our life, we’ve been used to having to fend men off. I don’t mean in an arrogant, cocky way, but from high school on, boys are the ones that primarily show interest and us women are the decision makers of whether we’ll accept or not. Sure, some girls have defied that and instigated asking the guys out, but I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s been the guys for the majority of our lives. So with this very unused muscle of rejection, we’re introduced with online dating.


I’ve signed up with eharmony. I’ve heard and tried some other dating sites over the years, but eharmony seemed like it would weed out at least some of the flakes out there. And, besides, all those tv commercials couldn’t be wrong, could they? I should mention that the point of me signing up wasn’t to find marriage or co-habitation anytime soon, but it would be nice to have someone to hang with on some weekends and who might even humor my like of foreign movies (and I’d even be willing to watch a hockey game or two in exchange). Unlike other sites, eharmony sends you matches, you can’t randomly search or view everyone. There is apparently some loose science to it based on a very intensive questionnaire you fill in. So, a few months ago, I signed up, and I waited. And waited…


Then I discovered that there’s a little feature on eharmony called “closed”. Matches have a few options once they view you: do nothing, send you multiple choice questions or “close” you. Closing someone means that you’re not even interested in getting to know that person for whatever reason. When you close someone, there are several (reasonable) choices: they don’t have pics posted, they live too far away, the age difference is too large, you’re pursuing another relationship and other. My problem lays with other. It turns out that in just over 3 months, I’ve been “closed” nearly 500 times. On average, I’ve been sent about 5 matches a day (some a few more, quite often less). That’s right, I’ve been shut down 500 times. My little unused rejection muscle is suddenly being overworked! The best part about “other” is I have no idea what I’m doing wrong! I like to think that my pictures captured the essence of what I looked like in a variety of settings (travel, activities etc…) and my write up gave an accurate glimpse of my interests and what I’m like. Granted, I’m not the most photogenic person, but I hardly look like Cruella DeVille! I’ve been shut down by guys I wouldn’t look twice at and guys who, when I read their profile thought we had a lot in common.

I hardly have an abundance of self esteem, but I do know that I’d be considered a pretty damn good catch: I’m gainfully employed, well traveled and have a brain I like to use, but it seems like over 95% of the guys out there aren’t even interested in giving me the time of day! Well, if nothing else, at least my rejection muscle is getting exercised. Maybe a little too much, I think it’s time to give it a break…