Online dating: Save yourself the trouble
In a time before my “Single lady looking for older gentleman” crusade on the Internets, I’ve met several men who suddenly ‘fell in love’ with me offline. I remember this one Japanese guy who was already married and with a child, and who also happened to be one of my English students. Out of the blue, he decided he liked me — enough to ask me to “have a discreet affair” and meet up every now and then in his “penthouse suite”. Mind you, at that time, I was still engaged to my ex. I went “WFT!?” and promptly (but politely) told this ‘gentleman’ to get up and get the hell away from me.
He wasn’t the first Japanese to hit on me, and sadly not the last, either. Apparently, he couldn’t take “no” for an answer, seeing as over the course of the next few months, he kept texting me - once every few days at first, then gradually rarer until he thankfully gave up altogether. Above all, I felt sorry for his daughter. Poor kid.
After my over-the-phone break-up half a year ago, I decided to take the proverbial leap of faith and give online dating a go. I signed up with Craigslist — fast, free and, according to most people, guaranteed to give “results”. I made a post.
If you’re thinking that you can find your soul mate on a singles website, I have three words for you: Drop. It. Now. Trust me; it will save you a lot of time, money and mid-term to permanent brain damage. Good gripes, how I wish I could turn back time and un-post that bloody post.
On the first day, nothing extraordinary happened. I got one, maybe two replies, both textbook profiles (”Single, X of age, Y height, working for Z company”) with a standard “Let’s hook up and see where that goes” to go. On the second day, I had nothing. From the third day until my post expired, I got somewhere around fifty more replies. Fifty. Yep!
You’d think that from a crowd of at least fifty strapping young (or not so young) gentlemen, I could’ve had my pick and secured my happily ever after in a heartbeat. Think again.
Half the e-mails I got were about as ‘interesting’ as a Statistics class on a Friday afternoon. Several were generic copy/paste profiles. One of them was addressed “Dear Charlotte”. Most were Japanese men in their thirties, looking for a fling and nothing else. Several were the opposite — going on and on about how they’re looking for the “love of their lives”. Some random peep show representative asked if I was interesting in making some “quick cash discreetly”.
I really should stop here. But the best part is yet to come.
In my ad, I gave a few generic guidelines to what I’m looking for. Nothing too pretentious, mind you — all I asked for was a single guy who likes books, bikes, videogames, and long walks in the park. Some of the guys who wrote back were either married or in a committed relationship. I set my filters so that whatever e-mails had the words “cheat”, “married” or similar would go straight to the bin. One particularly awkward message got through. I took a screenshot for the lulz (cropped to fit).
If there’s any higher power out there, I would very much love to know HOW the FUCK did I get from “Single lady looking for long-term relationship” to “Let’s get hammered and have a kinky threesome afterward.”
Anyway. Long story short, I replied to a few e-mails and I decided to meet some of the guys offline. I went on exactly four dates with four different gentlemen. The first one started off quite promisingly before he decided to cut all communication for some unknown reason. The second turned out to be a major letdown after he claimed he’d “left his wallet at home” and made me pay for dinner and drinks. (It wasn’t cheap, either). The third had seen two divorces and had four kids from four different mothers. (At least he was honest). The fourth was a salaryman who worked the usual nine to midnight shift — too busy for a relationship, it seemed.
Either I’m very unlucky (doubt it) or online dating really, really sucks. Sure, I’ve tried the occasional “singles chat room” and met some fairly… interesting characters there, but I’d very much rather get to see (or hear) the real deal. Going from “OMG I’m single, you’re single too, OMG OMG OMG!” with sky-rocket expectations is starting it on the wrong foot. I’m of a more… traditional school of thought: hear, see, think (can’t stress this enough!), and then decide where you want to take it from there.
The bottom line is, I’ve had it with Japanese men and their shenanigans, and I am most definitely through with garbage sites like JapanCupid, Singles Japan, Craigslist, eHarmony and the like.
Now, to find myself some real lovin’.**
…Erm, nevermind. I think I’ll play some World of Warcraft first.
* Read: “You. Me. Sex. NAO!”
** ’s if.
November 1st, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Hah! I’m glad I never gave that a try. Though the results would have been a lot different, since I’m pretty sure no married dude would want to get in a threesome with me and his wife XD , the final conclusion would have been the same — better go old-school about it and just do what I usually do: go about not giving a flying nuclear negasonic shit and just wait for something great to actually happen.
It did actually work that way, though the result got people questioning my sanity (and that of course is not to be questioned as it does not exist at all). But enough said on that.
If you’re looking for a long-term thing with a rather interesting and intelligent strapping young lad (musical pun, youtube it) I’d say just go to a concert, have a stiff drink and have fun. Some dude enjoying the same stuff might just show up and “\m/ OMFG this band is great” might turn into conversation. Conversation might turn into interesting conversation. Interesting conversation might turn into a mutual wish to meet again. And from there it might just turn into something greater and it might be crazier for the brain than a trip on acid, pot and mushrooms combined (it might also be less likely to kill you than said recipe).
My point is this: if you’re looking for a good long-term relationship then don’t. Really. I tried that and it didn’t work, because I just seemed to be looking in all the wrong places (that’s pretty much everywhere I went). These things are impossible to predict, so just be sure to go with the flow when they happen.
Also, it seems a lot of young women are concerned about being seen as just some sort of walking p***y that’s constantly craving for nothing more than some c**k. From what you wrote here I can, sadly, see why. Even I can give the impression that I see them like that at times and I’m constantly trying to shake that off (I wouldn’t be writing this while waiting to board the 5AM train if it was true BTW). I’m not a feminist by any degree but I’d like to see that changed. And I’d like to see more young women managing to prove they’re not sluts and they’re not just pieces of living meat to be toyed with. Sadly, I might pass hundreds of pretty pieces of meat every day without knowing…
To sum things up a little (sorry, I didn’t have the time to write a short comment so I wrote a long one) I was serious about not looking for anything. Everytime I got involved in something serious it was like the Universe farted a bunch of random numbers and decided to shit some kind of unexplainable situation right on my head. Good shit though.
P.S.: “…Erm, nevermind. I think I’ll play some World of Warcraft first.” — Epic Win!
November 8th, 2009 at 10:14 am
There’s no need to censor yourself here
If you wanna say “pussy” and “cock”, go for it.
You make a few interesting points here… First off, after my good-for-nothing ex ran off with a Swedish chick (I see karma happening here…) and the subsequent online dating phail I all but gave up the whole “long-term relationship” shit. I’m confident that someone will show up whenever, and things will eventually work out. If not, tough break; it’s not like I’m craving to become somebody’s trophy / maid anytime soon.
I think hardcore feminists are just as dumb as “OMG gimmie cawk NAO!” slut wannabes. I remember hearing about a feminist movement somewhere that demanded men to pee sitting down because it was sexist. I laughed so hard beer came out of my nose.
Here in Japan, women are more like porcelain dolls that you can bathe and dress-up and fuck senseless, and most of them can’t even imagine that there are other ways of going about life. I laugh when other girls ask me why I dress and act like a dude. This one time I actually told a girl that I used to be a dude, and she bought it o.O;;