Episode 4: No wonder people despise Online Dating

August 12, 2012

I love—no make that hate—the articles online dating sites offer in hopes that they will help their subscribers find a mate. I can’t decide which I think is more ridiculous: the content of the articles or the mistaken belief that these snippets provide a service. Spellbinding bestsellers like, “Pickup Lines for the Coffee Shop”, “When They Won’t Cut Ties to their Ex-Loves”, or today’s favorite “Twelve Ways to Know You’re Not His Girlfriend”. Oh, yeah. Check it out:

The article opens with, “You’ve been dating for weeks, maybe months. In your mind you’re his girlfriend….but you have a sneaking suspicion…” And then they give you their mindbomb list of items to check off:

You’ve never met his friends or family. (check!)
You’re not his date to major events. (check!)
If you haven’t had the talk, you’re probably not his girlfriend. (check!)
He never calls on the weekend. (check!)
You’ve never seen his place. (check!)
You are introduced as “my friend” or just by name. (check!)
Last minute changes throw him for a loop. (check!)
You’re restricted to non-prime time date nights. (check!)
Talk of the future makes him squirm. (check!)
He runs hot and cold. (check!)
You get the late night, “Hey are you home? Can I come over?” call. (check!)

I’ve got one for you. How about “In your mind, you’re his girlfriend, but are you in your mind…or out of your mind?”

If you’ve been dating for weeks, let alone months, and you don’t know if you’re his girlfriend, you’re in the wrong relationship. It’s not that you’re off the path, you don’t even know where the path is.

It’s not your fault, really. Our parents didn’t teach us how to find love everlasting. There’s no manual to describe what you need to do. You must find the secret formula on your own… Mono a mono. Quid pro quo. Caveat emptor. And so dating websites write articles that focus on pick-up lines and dating, when the focus should be connection and relationship. In order to identify a match like Judy, we need to understand how to find connection. We need to know what characteristics create gravity. We need a list of items that automatically lead to a point where there is a ‘knowing’, instead of a lingering, amorphous question.

If “Twelve Ways..” is the best a dating site can do, is it any wonder that subscribers have a hate-love-hate relationship with online dating?

Click here for Episode 5: The Fatal Flaw