...but damn I wish I was!

I refuse to admit that OkCupid deserves praise for introducing us though. If I had been using the site for non-research purposes I would have dismissed Mr. Rogers based on his checking off of the religious beliefs box as "Christianity and somewhat serious about it".  Not that there's anything wrong with having religious beliefs! But if you make a point of noting it on your profile, usually it's because you're a crackpot zealot. But being that Mr. Rogers had everything else going in his favor - and good god, the pickings were slim - I thought I'd go with it and hope he wasn't, you know, a nut.

As it happens, after hanging out with Mr. Rogers for the better part of the afternoon yesterday, I'm pretty sure he's not a nut. And I'd also tell him to get new pictures except then everyone else would figure out how adorable he really is and well, even though I live way up here on the other side of the border I'd just as soon not help other women to date him. Um, yet.  (You know how on POF women on a guy's favorites list can leave a note about how great he is, telling you to totally give him a chance? Right. There's a reason he's being thrown back into the sea. If they actually cared they'd shut up. Or blog about him under a different name.)

Anyways, Mr. Rogers is also very frustrated with online dating. While I've found OkCupid to be at least less freaky than other sites, Mr. Rogers says he finds that women tend to put up only one pic - usually a headshot - as a trick to avoid showing what they really look like. And then either avoid ever meeting in person - or when they do, look nothing like he expected. And not in a good way. He also tried out Match and said he came away after three months without a single date. (I've also found Match to be a wasteland for trying to connect with people - but then, now that I think about it I only had one pic up...) He countered my stories of creepy guy pics in basements and laundry rooms with emails from women who clearly looked like crack addicts. Fun times all this profile and pic dating!

I did say you'd get an loV-blog but as it turns out, it's a neighborly day in this beautywood and I'm signing off until the New Year!

Happy 2010!

What - did you think I'd given up? Never! Haven't you heard that the
ratio of (eligible awesome) men to women in Vancouver is 1/8? May not
be a proven ratio, but I'm starting to believe it - although I don't
think it's just Vancouver. I think it's men 30-40. Anyways - I have a
date with a seemingly eligible friendly elementary school teacher from
OkCupid  - from a suburb of Seattle - and I'll be damned if he's the
first teacher I've come across on a dating site. So across the border
I go to meet MR. ROGERS! (Tomorrow at noon - you'll have to hang on a
day for the re-cap, but yes, a new lov-blog you'll get!)

argh...Perfect Match canceled today (not his fault since I had to cancel at the last minute yesterday) but he can't reschedule until next week. I need to step it up with the date-scheduling or I'll be halfway through the month with only two dates under my belt! Problem I'm finding is that the guys on Match are really hard to pin down to an actual in-person date: I've been emailing with a few - some have even been oddly rude - why respond if you're not going to be nice?? Chemistry is still an absolute mystery as to how to connect beyond the guided steps and am now wondering whether these profiles are active members considering there's SO little movement. Haven't communicated with a single member directly yet.

Truly Madly isn't local enough (I have a rather eager suitor in the UK - don't care how cute he is, I'm not flying to the UK to date a stranger!), and I haven't seen any movement on Plenty of Tweeps...but to be fair I didn't approach anyone because I thought the law of averages (like on POF) had to work out that at least ONE guy would say hi. Although it seemed to be mostly tech guys, so maybe law of averages didn't apply. Oh who knows. Screw it. Time to be aggressive! Which unfortunately means dropping more money on memberships so I don't have to wait around like a wilting flower to get some random guy's email...eventually.

You know - this is a very different online dating landscape. Used to be that as a girl - you could join a site and know that you'd never need to pay because the guys well,  would. And there would be generally interesting guys somewhere in the midst of the haystack. SOMEWHERE. And once these haystack men made contact, you could then email back without having to pay yourself. I can't quite figure out why, but this is no longer the case. Partially it's the change in how memberships are set up - but partially it's how men are using the sites. Or maybe who. I'm not really sure I understand who the men are - but apparently they vastly outnumber the women by hundreds of thousands. Okay, I'm making that number up. I have no idea.

Anyways - I'm on it! Even if I have to set 5 dates a day, I'll do it! Just, you know, don't expect me to keep them straight. Or to not whine about it.

p.s. This doesn't count, but I have "yay it's friday" drinks with Russian Roulette on Friday. He said he's "warming up to the idea of "Russian Roulette Episode 2: French Connection". Ha! I think I forgot to mention he's French. That's not like "Episode 2: Guys who like Role Playing" - get your minds out of the gutter! Anyways, he knows that hanging out with me before the end of 30 Sites means anything is fair game for the blog - but then, he knows where to come back to read about it and technically has every right to blow my cover if I trash him. So fair game both ways.  woo!

Einstein was very helpful in shedding light on how EHarmony's matching system actually works. Basically, he told me to stop pussyfooting around what I want. I thought the whole point of grinding my teeth through the psychological profiling was so they'd find people who matched me based on those characteristics. Apparently not. Einstein said he wasn't even sure what any of that ended up being used for: the system really only takes what you ask for into consideration in the section where you specify what you'd like in a partner. Which is the part where I usually go...well, as long as he's over 6 feet I'm good. And ignore the rest. Except that it seems that within EHarmony's system, anything checked off at a level less than “utmost importance” will make the system disregard.  So based on the fact that I pretty much have no choices listed for what I want in a partner - including height (I think I chose "would be nice") - EHarmony is, indeed, sending me every single guy in Vancouver. Fantastic.

Can we all please take a moment here and think about what this means? Maybe this won't feel like quite the pie in the face that it is until until you've filled out 10 of these profiles (yes, 10 - new sites!) in less than a week - and, more to the point, paid (for almost all of) them - but EHarmony and Chemistry in particular, are promising lonely singles a chance at happiness based on having access to a highly touted psychological matching system which in the end plays little or no part in how the companies execute the process itself. Which they don't explain in the slightest. But why would they, right? This is an industry built on the misery of others - and their level of success is measured on keeping you just unhappy enough that you'll keep paying, keep thinking that love will be right around the corner if you just hang on. Because they know what they're doing. They have the system. It's still all Shamwow though, right? With classier editing and a better timeslot.

It's vaguely worth noting here that I have absolutely no first-hand knowledge of the ACTUAL inner workings of the algorithms EHarmony and Chemistry match by. Just my first-hand annoyance. And Einstein's theory of relative ignorance. Ha Ha.

New dates!

Thursday: Perfect Match! Ha! Match thinks this guy is 86% perfect for me - and so did Chemistry, except he says he's never even subscribed. ooo the intrigue!

Sunday: Lawyer from POF...well, they're only 15 min. dates - I can be curious for round 2! Did I tell you about the lonely firefighter yet? I met a lonely firefighter. Um, somewhere. I forget.

Site Re-Cap:

CLOSED PROFILES

Lavalife - uuuugh (see previous entries). Also not a peep other than the "we'll get back to you in 24 hours!" auto-response. stellar.

Plenty of Fish - received 26 emails from guys I'd never want to talk to. Mostly felt creepy. The guys I contacted myself turned out much better obviously, clearly if you're willing to sift through the huge, huge haystack it's fine for what it is....(Russian Roulette got back in touch to apologize for how our coffee ended and I think we're going to hang out when this whole thing is over...so that I don't have to write about him again!) but not excited to contact others and just generally feel uncomfortable having my photo and profile up - even under a different name. Clicking on the guys who have viewed my profile was not fun either.

NEW -

Nerve.com - dating site is actually through fastcupid.com. Same as usual although very few in Vancouver and it wouldn't let me switch to Seattle once my profile was up.

Yahoo Personals - large dating population in Vancouver. Was surprised to find out this is a paid site - had understood it was free. Is technically free to sign up and make profile searchable - not sure how long I can coast along as free if I want to get in touch with others though. Will leave it until profile is approved in 24 hours in any case. They have a nice feature that I haven't seen else where: you can choose to withhold your profile as private and only display to people you contact - also make a big deal about registering with a first name instead of a "username".

Singlesnet.com - Same old but quick and painless sign up. Another one of these US sites that I think I'll need to switch my location to Seattle for...but I'll give it a couple days (there was a big "lots of Canadian singles!" ad on the front page but when I signed up the quick matches were all in the US and...Chilliwack. yay.)

Eager, friendly non-creepy men with smart profiles, sweet pics and a sense of humor? Can it be? We shall see! Philosopher is tonight (there's something a little odd about his job vs. his training, but whatever - he's letting me time the date! woo hoo!) and I'm trying to maneuver Muppet Man right before. Because it's much more fun when I'm frazzled of course. Ooo - I was so entertained by his profile and pics that I didn't even check to see how tall he is, imagine that. Although it could have been because I was trying to escape this one guy who keeps stalking me on IM. Do not love the IM function on any of the sites. You'd think if you ignore someone once they'd get that you're not interested...but noooo.

Note to online dating men: stalking = bad. More on that tomorrow! If I can coerce my friend into helping out on her lunch break I will attempt: street-dating! oh I am so not kidding. Unsuspecting pedestrians of downtown Vancouver, brace yourselves! (Although maybe on Saturday. Not sure I can harass AND shoot one-handed video. I am woman, but not sure I am that much of woman.) Either way - new loV-blog tomorrow!

p.s. for the record I make a fuss about the friend thing because we hung out for 5 hours! And I was honest about what I was doing! dammit.

It’s getting fun people! Day 5 and I’m getting asked out on dates…but I can't remember who they are! Oh my god, I’m a guy. Ok, so I’m kidding, sort of – but I’m definitely getting very sweet emails asking for dates...by names that don’t ring a bell. Which is all E-Harmony’s fault. Their user interface is not user friendly by any means – names aren’t associated with pictures when you go down the list, so there’s no quick way to remember who the heck you like. Yes, I suppose I could have paid attention to something like their names if I wanted to be all personal about it – but at this stage? I was just trying to slog through the glut of profiles.

Oh, yes, that. I am now convinced that E-harmony doesn’t do the slightest in terms of special matching. They’ve been overloading me with “meet your new match!” notices just about every hour, and not one profile I've reviewed shows anything to suggest that these men would be a better match for me than for my landlord. E-Harmony has this aura and pedigree surrounding the company because of their supposedly amazing knack for psychological profiling – everyone I spoke to who knew of E-Harmony but had never actually tried the site was even under the impression that it took months to find you the perfect match because of their whole complicated system.

Well, hello everyone, let me be the first to spill the paint on E-Harmony's pristine image: I was asked the exact same psychological profiling questions as on the other sites - just extended and ad nauseum - except they did include a number of questions about my sexual compatibility which I found intrusive and inappropriate (but I answered in the spirit of participation). Matches were produced immediately. Slowly at first, now non-stop. I don’t know for sure, but I'm quite sure I’m being matched with daters simply based on generic preferences like drinking, smoking, location, whether I like to dance or watch movies, want children - you get the point. Which would be fine – except they’re promising something much more in-depth – AND wasted over an hour of my time with their inane psychological profiling. Only to now be sending me basically any guy in Vancouver. Oh, and Blaine, WA. I thought the point of paying was quality over quantity. Seriously? I’m doing better playing Russian roulette with Plenty of Fish. More on that later.

So – back to not knowing who my dates are – E-harmony sent me so many profiles (and remember they have this 50-step “guided communication process”) that the only way I was going to get a date by next week was to cut to the chase: I sent a cut & pasted “hi! Your pic and profile seem sweet – but I can’t deal with this system – here’s my email address if you’d like to chat” email to the top seven. Yes, yes I did. I know, bad me. What else is a girl trying to sincerely date on 30 sites to do? So...there has been a little confusion in the gmail account...along with the Plenty of Fish and Match date scheduling. Sigh. Better than an ordinary life, right?

(And you, if you happen to find me here and were one of my seven of course I meant it and I’m sorry I couldn’t be witty seven different times. Please send your hate mail to E-Harmony)

First dates on Sunday! Video blogs start sunday too! woo hoo!

So we’re on Day 3 – sorry, I skipped a day thanks to an earache - and I am still slogging my way through the “guided communicaton steps” with possible daters on Chemistry a nd E-Harmony (how do you ever meet anyone in person this way???) and Match only JUST approved my profile (not exactly sure, but I think they objected to my use of William Shatner’s name – he’s a cousin twice-removed…too personal!). The guided communication steps are possibly the most frustrating thing I’ve ever encountered in regards to a system supposedly set up to encourage you to connect with another human being (well of course it is – they want to slow down the process, right?) - but is the general idea that if you’re dating online you have absolutely no social skills whatsoever? Have now discovered that E-Harmony does give you the option to “fast-track” – skip all the steps and go straight to email – but they give you this huge long disclaimer and personal letter from some doctor about how you should avoid rushing and are you sure this is what you want to do…I clicked yes! And told my hottie pilot he should come find me on MSN. Oh thank god, no more guided communication on E-Harmony at least!

New site sign-ups:

TrulyMadlyDating: Free to set up profile, wander around

Usability: This one was recommended by a friend who had read about in the NY Times – they do seem to have rather impressive reviews but only two male members in Canada between the ages of 28 – 45. One in Vancouver and one in Montreal! I favorited the Vancouver guy – why not! Same old re set up and with the endless check-off profile questions – I did like the addition of this question: how truthfully have you answered these questions? I checked off “very”. (Which wasn’t the most truthful of them all..like I said…I try!)

Lavalife: Free for most things as far as I could tell. I believe if you want to know who has been checking your profile you need to pay, but sending emails is free. I’ll check back with info.

Usability: Lavalife has always been very easy re meeting guys – especially with the IM function (although guys who IM are not looking for relationships) but since Plenty of Fish turned up on the scene word on the street is that profiles are either dead or skewed very old. We’ll see once my pic gets approved in 24 hours. Just realized while writing this – I only set up one profile in the “relationship” section. Lavalife works with three sections: Dating, Relationship, and Intimate (which – if you’ve ever wandered through – is not for the faint of heart). Have to go back and set up a Dating profile too. Crap.

Plenty of Fish: Free.

Usability: Easy as pie if you like window-shopping for your dates. POF is known for having a buffet of young, hot singles to choose from – my general feeling? Doesn’t matter what anyone says on their profiles here, this is the worst kind of virtual meat market.

Yep, my profile is live. Onwards and upwards!