The current online dating site just isn’t doing it for me. While it’s providing hours of endless entertainment, these hours are few and far between, interspersed with weeks of hair-pulling depression and anger at my plight.
So, I took the time to join Match.com, touted as the largest online dating site, with the best matching system available.
I’m impressed. Not only do they have a large number of personals, they have a highly in-depth system for determining compatibility, including an almost half-hour long personality “quiz” (more like full-fledged mid-term exam), and a physical attraction “quiz” (the final exam).
In theory, the results from these tests provide a reasonable matching structure, coupled with your other criteria, that allow them to tailor the results to find you the perfect match.
Or, that’s the concept. When your “perfect” match doesn’t exist, at least on match.com, you’re boned.
Attempting to match by mutual physical attraction in my area has proved futile, as has personality matching. So, apparently, in Oklahoma, there’s nobody quite like me who would quite like me.
I’ve signed up (for the free service, I’m not a paying member… yet), completed the profile, uploaded my pictures, taken my tests, and done everything I can to try and attract that proverbial “One” we all keep hearing about. Now, I suppose, it’s time to sit back and wait, and watch as the messages come in from all of the adoring non-existent ladies who find me attractive, compatible, and interesting in the persona-sense.
I’ve grown more and more concerned over the last several months. This will be my fourth online dating service in the last year, and so far, no joy in all solutions. I’ve met one person that I was matched up with online, and, well, we know how that ended up.
Interestingly enough, I’m beginning to see the same profiles on every service I’ve been on. Not just in terms of the style or personalities, but it would appear that some people have done what I’m doing: Jumping from service to service to find the one that sucks the least.
The problem is one of compatibility, ultimately. When you put my list of requirements together, my “Must-Haves” and “Can’t-Stands”, or whatever you want to call it, it’s rather an impressive list. Things I already know I need to make a relationship work, coupled together with physical attraction, emotional “meshing”, and mental compatibility, make for one hefty list.
Add to that the fact that others are going to have similar length lists, and the problem is doubled. Now, it’s not just me looking for someone that I will be compatible with, I also have to concern myself with who wants what I have to offer. It’s one of the features of Match.com to search for “Mutual Attraction”, in other words, taking boths lists into account. The difficulty is that it narrows the field considerably. I know it’s designed to keep you from wasting time with others who won’t match with you, but it really can be disheartening to combine and collate the lists of requirements into one, pure search, hoping that your individual answers match up with someone else’s desires, and then be told that nobody in your area is on Match.com that coincides with your requirements, or you with theirs.
I honestly don’t know what my other options are. I’ve been on four online dating services this year, and I doubt I’ll do a fifth anytime soon. If there’s no luck to be had at Match.com, I’ll probably give up online dating for a while. I think my problem might be one of geography, so perhaps my option is expanding my search to places completely out of my current reach, or possibly moving to a larger city (something I’ve considered for a while, if I could find a job of course).
So, unless you know any single Asian, African American, Hispanic, Caucasian, or mixed-race women, moderately attractive, between the ages of 23-30 who enjoy playing video games, RPG’s, artistic activities, discussing philosophy and law, working with computers, techno and classical music, are intelligent, emotionally mature, politically moderate to liberal, completing college (if not already done), with a stable job, minor or nonexistent mental instabilities, and looking for someone likewise for along-term relationship, I guess I’ll stick with Match.com for a while, to see if they’re on this service.
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