Online Dating. How it ruined me and what I'm doing to fix it.

Disclaimer: I logged into my old dating apps to see what would happen in the hours prior to writing this  for research. I am not currently using these sites or any like them

One Sunday evening we are sitting on our couch reflecting on the events of the weekend and think “ Man I wish I had a person (man or woman) to spend my time with” We think to ourselves how can I fix that? Then a lightbulb goes off. Online Dating of course. I can set it up right now (instant gratification), I will put up my very best photos and say extremely clever things in my tell-all bio. Then we wait.

The messages, winks, flirts, meet me’s come flooding in as new blood is floating in the online dating pool. Then it happens…. We open the messages. Horror.

Let me list a few common starter messages I have received today in the last 10 hours:

1. “Hi”- This seems normal enough, however after one click on jwprofessional’s profile I see he wants no commitment, drinks everyday, and intends to have sex on every first date he ever goes on.
2. “Hello there gorgeous”- I must state that this is my least favorite of all messages guys can send.  But he thinks he is flattering me, but again I click.  HEWmorris11 lives in San Angelo and does not do religion.
3. “Why is reading hard? I like books lol”- Well, reading is hard (which is my intro headline) because Mr atxpitbull when I click on your profile your pictures display half naked women, you want a casual relationship and are again non religious meaning you did not read anything I wrote.
4. Scary Clown photo….. I did not even open this one
5. “Hi Sexy”- 2d_boi1 then sends me an offer for sex
6. “You we’re conversing. How are you beautiful?”. Bgdaddycul ironically used we’re instead of were in response to my fill in the blank question regarding “conversing vs conversating” (by the way it is really bothering me that the computer did not even try to autocorrect than nonword)

Now add in the other 9 messages I received and you will still get a total of zero that read my profile.  Please see below for my profile:

___________________________________________________________________________

Primary: I might not always use punctuation in the right spot, however if you are saying " u' instead of you, " r" instead of are or do not know the answer to the fill in the blank.. we won't work... "I was having a conversation with this person so I was ......."

If "conversating" is your answer...... DON'T MESSAGE ME!°

I'm a 35 yr old woman with amazing kiddos, I know everyone says that...but seriously, they are great.

I am a Christian woman looking for a Christian man. If you hate/ or are apathetic to church, God, the Bible, think Christians are feeble minded sheep followers, all you are doing by messaging me is wasting both of our precious time.

I am crazy sarcastic and I am looking for someone who gets that, who enjoys that, who banters with me.

I am dating with purpose, this means that I am not frivolously dating. I stay so busy so this site is a way to get to know people I would never meet in my day to day life. However, you will not entice me by being "mysterious me. I have absolutely no desire to "tie anyone down" or get them to commit.

I am a positive person, I love laughing .. I need it like I need air. If you are a person who does not laugh, I'm sorry, that is sad for you, but please do not bring me down.

I have only a few vices.. Diet Dr Pepper and Cigarettes. I drink on occasion but it is maybe 2-3 times a month. I do not do drugs, I'm not 420 friendly. I will not date anyone who is any type of recovery program because honestly... If you are in the programs you should not be dating.

I know, I know this sounds like a lot of negatives, it’s just that I think everyone's time is super important and I want to be respectful of it.

I'm not a gym rat..but I do go to the gym. I love good food and will not stop eating it. I got some curves which I'm happy with.

So if you are a Godly man looking to get to know someone who loves God, respects themselves and others, loves to laugh, does not carry a bottle of liquor in your trunk, honest,loyal, sarcastic and knows she is far from perfect. Send me a message and we will see where it goes.

________________________________________________________________________________

As you can see nobody that has messaged me in that short span of 4am- 10am actually read anything I said. They saw my photo read a line or two then send me a message.

But where it gets good is as one person said “it is a numbers game”, which is so true. You will get 1 out of 50 that make you think “maybe”. You click on their profile and they seem normal and meet most of the same values (notice how I said most...more on that later) and you message them back, what can it hurt? You send a few messages back and forth and it either dies out or 1 in 50 of those 1 in 50  make it to exchanging numbers, you do that then make the obligatory phone call after a longggg string of texts “getting to know each other” and if the call goes well you meet up in person. Which still has the potential of going horribly wrong.

But….Correct me if I am wrong. You just put a ton of work into meeting this 1 in 50 followed by 1 in 50 of that. You can’t just give up because of one tiny difference in opinion or one strangely shaped mole that makes you want to drive them to the dermatologist right then can you? No, you need to give it another shot and you do! But 2..3...6..dates later you have just wasted so much time of your life trying to make something work that was never meant to.

Then what? Well we generally do one of two things. We either quit dating all together or we start the crazy cycle all over again. I can not count the number of times I have read on someone's profile “Well I’m back” or “I am trying this again”. It is killing the idea of awesome, get to know you, romantic , fall in love dating. It is a filtered shopping spree with a 72 hour no money down return policy

Don’t get me wrong, I am aware of people who met their spouse or SO online but I really feel they are the exception not the rule is this multibillion dollar scheme to get us away from actually getting to know each other and date in real life.

I guarantee God will not be taking credit for this revolution in technology.  

So that might not tell you how it ruined me so let me be more clear with a few examples:

1. I wasted my time talking to guys I would never have talked to in “real life”  because they did not meet my values. That 1 in 50 of 1 in 50. I started thinking “hey 7 out of 10 aint bad”. Let’s take Ric for instance. He believed in God but not in churches (this happened far too often), he loved my kids but did not talk to his own, he used me as his confidant but did not really have his own circle of friends. What was I thinking? Well I was thinking he got most of the things I wanted and I already put in so much work…..WRONG!

2. I lost the art of real conversation. My in person conversations were limited and my text conversations contained information and feelings that needed to be expressed in person….For this example we will call him Bob: I recently after giving up online dating a year ago decided it was appropriate to express something in text that was clearly an in person conversation. I am not dumb just stunted apparently. My dating life for so long was via writing. WRONG!

3. I accepted that my pictures or witty banter were my value. Example: Almost everyday I still sometimes do this, in potential relationships, friendships, and work.  I assume if I can not slip off one liners as quick as a cheetah chasing his dinner or have perfect hair/makeup I’ll lose people’s attention.  WRONG!

I never thought it would all turn out like this. That night on my couch it sounded like a great idea, but every bad idea sounds good at sometime right?

Well I am all about solutions so let me tell you what am I doing about it?

First of all, I gave up online dating. It may work for a few (very very few compared to the billions of singles in the world) but not me.

I need to unlearn all those ways it ruined me.

My very first step will be to never have an important conversation in text for the rest of my life.

My second step is to pray to God that I uphold the convictions he gave me and that I do not settle for less than the virtues I hold important.

And my last step is to maintain a group of people wiser than me to hold me accountable if I start doing any of these things again.

Dating is scary and it is even scarier being alone sometimes but dating all the wrong people does not help anyone in their loneliness it just adds up regrets and wasted time.

What is your Luck with online dating? I would be interested to hear if I’m just a nut.