My Match.com FAIL

Once upon a time not that long ago, I joined Match.com. I was (am still?) a bit idealistic: looking for that one great guy with whom to spend the rest of my life, travel, share adventures, and Tantric sex.

Match.com was a goldmine of men. (But it’s hard to know that ahead of time with an ad like this: Match.com’s Ad FAIL by Online Dating Insider.) There are tons of guys on there: Successful, handsome, and horny.

But usually just horny.

Many are in their 40-50’s (my dating range) and LIVING AT HOME WITH MOM.

WTF?!?!

I should have gotten out then, while the getting was good. But oh no, not me, I’m idealistic (Can you say Cinderella Complex?). *sigh* I love me anyway.

Anyway, many were also marginally employed, if at all. (This was long before the current recession/depression and the astronomical rates of unemployment so they don’t get to use this excuse.)

Most men seem to lie about two three things: Their height, their weight and their age. As an ex-Private Investigator, I ran a background on everyone before meeting them. (A cautionary note to my readers: DON’T date without it! Among others, I found one guy had a long rap sheet for beating up women he’d met on the internet. That’s nice. Funny how he had seemed a bit squeamish when I mentioned I worked for a police department. Many more have very bad financial backgrounds.)

From men, I’ve heard women lie about their weight and age. Well, I’m 27 and weigh 100 pounds. IT’S TRUE! Ok, fine. Whatever. Seriously, I was super honest then. Now I only have anniversaries of my 27th birthday. See how I did that?

It didn’t take too many emails for me to realize Match.com is the world’s biggest hookup site. Many people are there just to get laid.

(But about getting laid… women don’t need to pay $19.95 per month to find some guy to shag. We could just go down to the local bar, and probably get free drinks, too. The fact that I don’t drink is the only thing holding me back from that gem of a time. *snicker*)

They operate by the “3-Date Rule”… if a gal isn’t putting out by the third date, he moves on to the next one. Men don’t get all the blame for this one. If there weren’t plenty of women willing to spread like butter and give it away to virtual strangers for a chicken dinner and a bottle of wine, there wouldn’t be a 3-date rule.

I guess if a guy lives with Mom, the hookup won’t be happening at mom’s place. Hope those of you ladies so inclined have a nice place of your own.

With a very long profile (which very few read), several equally lengthy emails and a phone call or two, I felt like I was able to weed out the worst of the lot. Sadly, that plan didn’t work as I hoped.

For your reading pleasure: The worst of several lousy Match.com experiences:

His profile: Nice picture, presentable, 42 years old, a Stanford Professor, wrote a bunch of good profilely stuff, and lived in the Los Gatos mountains – without mom. I did a preliminary background on him and the name and photo of the Stanford prof matched that of the Match.com profile. While checking his age, I noticed he had a father about 20 years older, also of the same name.

We met at a diner in Los Gatos… and here’s what I saw in front of me: A 60+ year old, nearly bald man. It wasn’t the 42 year old son – it was the 60-something father coasting on his kid’s younger age! (The older one was really a Stanford prof, and the pic was his.)

His profile picture = not recent.

I’ve got nothing against bald men. Nor dating older men. Not at all. But I have a lot against dishonest ones. I will blog about you.

Seriously balding, he had gone to great lengths to comb-over the three hairs growing from his ear over the top of his head. To keep them in place, he had used copious amounts of hairspray, which he apparently applied while wearing his tan blazer. Thus, the shoulders of the lightly-colored blazer were covered with droplets of darkly-dried hairspray.

Oh, it gets better.

His face was orange. Yes, ORANGE. He’d used a low-quality tan-in-a-bottle to enhance his pasty skin tone. Unfortunately, BLENDING was not his strong point. Dear readers, he was a rookie at the fake-bake usage.

Ladies and Gentlemen, those of you who’ve used these products (as I do) know you can’t just go putting that stuff on the first time and blindly think all will be well and tan in three hours. Hell no. If you don’t rub that shit in VERY WELL, you will have orange streaks in bad places. His orange streaks were around the creases of his nostrils, his jawline (leaving his neck white), and the entire edge of his hair line. His white neck (neglected and devoid of the magic potion) only enhanced his orange facial glow.

Too stunned to muster the courage to cancel the date then and there, I was honestly embarrassed to be seen with him and hoped no one I knew would spot me. It got only slightly worse when, while eating, he proceeded to dribble the oily salad dressing all over his tie. Nice.

My appetite = Gone.

I escaped without being spotted by anyone (Only to blog about this later?? Huh. Gotta wonder about myself sometimes.) and we never saw each other again.

That was enough of Match.com for me, I tell ya.

So, that sucked. What would any self-respecting woman do in this case? In my INFINITE wisdom, irrationally thinking a different site would be better, I joined eHarmony.

Albert Einstein said the Definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I never said I was sane, people. I’m idealistic.

Next: Internet Dating FAIL, Part 2 eHarmony