Internet dating lies again

  Ok so every few months I’m sold on the virtues of internet dating. It’s the classic single girl guilt trip even though I think men are on it for totally different reasons. Men are looking for sex and women are looking for love which is why it has a high failure rate. Yes occasionally you may get a man who falls in love but chances are these are few and far between. It’s usually by accident. Why? It’s all about the stats.

The numbers don’t add up

There are laws of statistics and science that I don’t really remember from A level maths but it pertains to the permutations one can get. The number of possibilities. Internet dating is sold as giving you more chances of getting you what you want but I would argue that it gives you less because there are just too many permutations out there. In reality as long as the person is over 5’6, black and lives within 10 miles we can be matched. IF I start adding in other restrictions such as education, income, children, smoking, age and whether or not he’s ever just sought sex on the site I get less than 5 matches most of which are mixed ethnicity / other. So you see, it doesn’t necessarily work.

Everybody hurts and lies

The other issue as we have established is that both sides lie. Men lie about their intent and their physical attributes. Women like about their physical attributes and their intents. Beware the selfie without so much as a shoulder or a chest. Chances are they are much bigger than you think. And when she tells you she’s not looking for marriage well, I would check her pinterest account.

And everyone has a sob story. The woman that left them 20 years ago and they’re still bitter, the baby father drama, the 4 year engagement then he married someone else after 4 months. But do they put that out there? No. Because they don’t want anyone to know how much of a mess they are. But then you go on a date and all they can talk about is that ex or their dating disasters (guilty). If they’re smart they save the sob story for date 2 or 3 thus lulling you into a false sense of normality.

The interview

Internet dating gives you the right to interview someone. You are first trying to figure out how much of a lie their profile is. You then want to decipher the things the profile doesn’t tell you. Like is he angry all the time, is he cheap ( those that put ‘just drinks’ may seem cheap but may just be time cautious), does he actually only want to fuck and is pretending to want more? Beware that being told certain things on a profile gives most people a license to ask questions. And if he talks about political issues straight off the bat then chances are he’s too serious and can only manage big picture discussions. He’s no use. Even if he’s your politics tutor.

It’s the same old song

Internet dating is the same old thing. You put your details into the profile, maybe do a chemistry analysis which tells the world that you’re not that family oriented because you didn’t answer a question on pets properly and Boom! You’re in. You feel like some sort of weird hacker being allowed into a world of other hackers trying to break the dating code. It lasts 3-6 months because that’s how long you signed up for to get the 30% discount then you forget about it until a major season comes along or a wedding and you realise that you’re dateless again. So you sign up and Boom! You’re back in the same room. Sameish profile, same photos, same self-deprecation. Is this a life? No

And hence I’m giving it up forever. I already spend way too much time online on facebook. Why now must I spend hours trolling through fake profiles of men who aren’t who they say they are? If there needs to be any verification process it’s that he’s single and that he’s actively wanting what his profile says he wants but no, the only verification is that he is who he says he is physically.

Then again, this could be like me and dieting.

©Chelsea Black 2014