More on Match.com!

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More on Match.com

All right all of you who responded so quickly to my blog on Match! I couldn’t believe how many of you were so interested or so in agreement with me. The interesting thing was most of my responders were women, but, then again, I don’t know why that surprises me.

 I read somewhere that men spend a whole lot more time online on Match once they are members than women do. I wonder what they are doing all that time.  I mean hours of time! Let’s face it, ladies; we do not trawl the profiles. I know that to be true. Most of us might look a little but basically many of us wait to be contacted by someone else. Hopefully an appropriate guy. So our online time is usually limited to responses to emails or perhaps a tentative rejoinder to someone we find attractive.

I had a bad thought during exercise class this morning. Maybe men who use Match for a while get addicted to the idea of so many available women out there who may be interested in them. Maybe even if they have someone interesting in their lives they are unable to resist the call of the internet and all those unexplored women. Maybe that happens to women as well. I know life seems rosier when there is more than one man interested in you.

So are we all living in a world where making a commitment to someone even for a trial period has become impossible? I wonder. There are so many people who are living alone and are terrified of abandonment and are desperate to find someone to be with. There are people who have no money and are desperate to find someone who does. There are people who are have no friends and would like to have a social life through someone else. There are happy people and sad people , lonely people and funny people. Basically all of what one finds in everyday life.

So some of you chickens out there asked how safe using Match was. Well, my answer is you have to rely a lot on your instinct , use Google to find out what you can, try to find someone in common you know, and never give out your real name and address until you are sure the guy is legit and you have faith in him. You can tell a lot from a voice, and from spending time on the phone listening to what he says, where he’s been in his life and what he believes in

So that’s all I have to say today about Match.com. I think it’s a valid tool in today’s world. I am just back from a great trip to New Orleans where I met a couple in their 70’s who met on Match 4 years ago and are happily married. So, you see, it can happen. I guess the trick is to find someone who really wants a partner and is willing to fill out their dance card with only one name for a while to see if it becomes permanent.

Match.com

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Finding a Match on Match.com

Yes, it may seem strange to married people that many are seeking love on Match.com, but it is very true in todays’ world of high tech compatibility. There are many young people on Match which is natural, but there are many older people as well. There are people from “good families” as well as hard working people who have little extra cash. There are doctors, lawyers, socialites, nurses and teachers:  retirees as well as “still hard at work” people. I still don’t understand why married people are surprised to hear about their friends being on Match. I have been on Match and I have had success as well as disappointments yet I believe this type of dating is the way of the future.

Let’s face it, if you are single and want to find a partner it isn’t always easy. Your friends forget to keep looking for men for you and there are just so many ways to meet guys in today’s world. Match is a great way to see who is out there and it is easy to eliminate the wheat from the chaff. I have to admit, however, it presents a problem that I haven’t found an answer to and here it is.

Match informs people who check out your profile how active you have been on the site. There is a caption above each profile that states the hours, days or weeks since you have been logged on. Why is this important? Well, think about it this way. You meet a guy, see him a few times, begin to like him and when you go online to Match  you see how recently active he has been. If you really like the guy it smarts to see he has been continually trolling since you began dating. If you find he is actively online it’s  like hearing  he was seen out with another woman from a friend. He might say in response to this, “Well you went online too!” and this would be true. So what do we have here? A public disclosure of online infidelity by both parties and it happens almost instantly.

I have no idea how to solve this issue because I am guilty as accused. If someone on Match winks at me, I am curious to see what that person is like. I am curious and easily flattered to a point. I like having online admirers but it doesn’t mean I want to meet them.

Sometimes it is nice to live in a Jane Austin world where one just continues to correspond and never actually meets the other person. I think what it boils down to is the lack of absolute trust in a relationship and the difficulty of finding this in todays’ world. In past generations people met their mates through their family or friends. In today’s world many of us have lost our “tribe” and with this loss come more of a sense of aloneness. I have met a few men on Match who seem to have no lives and are almost desperate to connect with a woman who will provide them with a life. I bet a number of men have found the same thing in women.

The solution would be for each party to resign from Match once they had found a relationship that seemed worth pursuing. For some reason this seems difficult to achieve. I may be the only woman who feels this way but I do believe this. I think it is a good sign that a guy is willing to forego Match in the hope that a relationship will work. It seems to be a sign of self-esteem. I am surprised at how unwilling Match members seem to be to do this and I wonder if it has to do with the fleeting nature of internet dating? Or worse, the fleeting nature of love.