The disastrous effects of Match.com

"The Disastrous Effects of Match.com and What Women Can Do About It" is an essay that appeared last week in the Washington Post sending shockwaves through the internet dating industry.

It's about time that someone in the mainstream media had the guts to admit what dozens of bloggers have been observing for years now -- online dating has drastically changed the ways we relate offline by giving everyone a false sense of unlimited opportunities. (Or why "Online Dating Sucks" returns more than 2,000 hits in Google including a multitude of blogs devoted to the subject.)

While the anonymous writer of this essay is pretty much in alignment with what I've been bitching and moaning about for months now, I do have to say she unfairly excluded the male side of this story. (Men complain that women are all out to find a venture capitalist, millionaire or a guy who looks like Brad Pitt.) Here's an excerpt from the essay:

Jennifer Aniston. Christie Brinkley. Sheryl Crow. Teri Hatcher. Either dumped or cheated on in a most humiliating and public way.

Every woman in the dating world has thought, "If it can happen to her, it can happen to me." While he's snoring away, we think quietly at night about what we can do to make sure it doesn't happen to us.

We respond by trying to make our stomachs flatter, our boobs bigger, our faces prettier, and our clothes tighter and more revealing. We do everything possible to please our man. You prefer French cooking? Mais oui, mon cher! You want my hair long? No problem, I'll get a hair extension. Spending part of your vacation with buddies? Go have a good time. You don't want to be with my family on Christmas? I'll see you on New Year's Eve. Is that OK or would you prefer some other time? Do you like my mani-pedi'd, spray on tanned, liposuctioned, Pilates body? Can't commit? Oh, that's right. You're just not that into me. Or her. Or her. Or her.

What the hell has happened? Three words. Match dot com. Match.com and other online dating services have given men access to thousands and thousands of women in every city who look just as great in jeans and a little black dress (the requirement in every man's profile), a smorgasbord of women each one more delicious to devour than the next...


Essay: