The CEO of a dating site writes back

Hi Brain Dancer,

Just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know how much I
enjoyed reading your alternately hilarious and sobering blog.

I founded __________ about five years ago because I had a wonderful
experience with online dating and thought I could put together an
easier to use system. I think I've made progress, but there's still
a lot of work to do.

People regularly send me cute and heartwarming notes about getting
married to someone who met on _________, so for some people, it works.

Being able to see things from the inside also makes me aware that
there are a lot of people who find it impersonal, exasperating, and
ultimately shallow.

Ultimately, I am sanguine. This thing is still in it's infancy and
people are still struggling to figure out how to do it. This is true
for both service providers and users.

Your observations surprised me though. Is it really that difficult
for an intelligent, articulate, successful (terminally 39) woman to
find a great man? Or are you exercising your prodigious writing
talent to tap into the groundswell of frustration and anger about the
state of dating and relationships today?

With the current ratio of men to women online, and the apparent
dearth of people who can string a couple of coherent sentences
together, it would seem that yot are in the catbird's seat.

Best,

Chris

Dear Chris,

Thank you for your well written and articulate post and your compliments. I love to see the reaction of others out there to my observations. I am usually an optimist, but I really do think that online dating has changed our relationships for the worse.

I can't believe that my failure to JUST FIND A BOYFRIEND (let alone a life partner or someone to marry) after two years of dating, after at least 100 dates (to men I met both out there in the real world and on here in the fantasy cyber world) ... I can't believe it's because I'm not desirable. Or that I'm "too picky." Or that I'm "too old." I really think the Internet is to blame. (By the way, a year after I started this blog, and stopped Internet dating, I did meet a lot of really great men, and have been dating someone amazing, who I met slowly, over time, the old fashioned way, while dancing in a community of friends.)

Back in the "old days" I always had a boyfriend. A boyfriend. I wasn't expecting the world -- just someone to do things with on the weekend. Someone to walk with. Go to parties with. Go to concerts with. Hang out with.

Back then, a 45 year old man didn't dream of trying to date a 25 year old. (Now, with online dating offering so many choices, it's de rigeur...men my age won't even think of dating a woman their own age. They all first lie about their age, and then they dial down their age requirement to 10-15 years younger.)

Back then, a man that much older than me probably never would have crossed my path -- not at a party or a social event. But the Internet gives these guys access to younger women, beautiful women, blondes, brunettes, redheads, rubenesques, BBWs and petites -- and they think they can just order up what they want. Online dating reduces us all to a product offering. Choose your size, hair color, eye color, age, height! It's just like Costco!

It seems that now unless you are 100% PERFECT and meet a laundry list of requirements a date won't "waste their time" with you, even just to date casually. It seems that back when there weren't so many options, when dates were rare and precious, we took them seriously. And we expected less.

This HOLY GRAIL, Hefty Bag, Costco wholesale approach to dating makes us all ultimately lonelier.

Do I sound bitter and disillusioned? Yes. And yet I keep submitting myself to the ongoing process of mutual rejection. I kept believing that it would happen, and when I abandoned online dating and spent more time doing what I love in the real world, it did start to happen.

If I just click one more time...

I agree that there is a groundswell of frustration and anger ... and when I started Braindancing, I thought I was the only one who noticed it. I have since discovered dozens of blogs about dating and its discontents. In a way this makes me feel better -- at least I'm not alone. But what can we all do to change the situation and make it better?

BrainDancer

If you can get over your ovaries, I'll discipline my testicles

This personal ad in "Men Seeking Women" on Craiglist is outrageous. I love the headline. Will men ever discipline their testicles? Will we ever stop being ruled by our baser, biological instincts and rise above them to a new level of conscious relating? Or is that just too new age woo-woo for this guy?

-------------------

I'm looking for a SF city woman that can enjoy the relationship in the present, without too much of agenda and trading the futures. If you care if we fcuk or don't fcuk on the first date, if you are looking for a potential husband or if you care about my tax bracket I am not interested in you. Also, to be stimulated, I need extremely clever, eloquent, literate and educated, sexy and sex loving, fit woman, not fucked up with new age/mysticism/religion, without TV and with identity independent from consumer items, pop culture or class (and if you can differentiate between your yours, you'res and youres, that makes me mad with passion.)

Obviously, the intersection of the above specs among SF female population is near-zero. Maybe 6-7, but they are all taken, with a long waiting list.

So what we need here is a freak accident, a probabilistic singularity, a counter-intuitive event against all odds, something less probable than politician uttering the truth, that one of those is reading this stuff.

I am degreed, wide interests, non-mainstream, tall & fit, good looking, big ick, and addicted to improbable outcomes.

Please use a few caps in the reply.

Why do they look like mushrooms?

I found this hysterically funny and beautifully written post today in WOMEN SEEKING MEN on Craigslist. Yes, guys, we really don't get turned on when you send us photos of your dismembered, detached, disembodied members. We're looking for a heart, not a head. But that occasional penis in my in box is at least always good for a giggle.

Why do they look like mushrooms after all?

I would like to point something out. "They" are not cute. "They" look like mushrooms, and generally speaking it's a good shape for the purpose but not to look at.

You guys must know that while you want to see us - we do not care so much what your parts looks like. We are after a feeling. The picture may be a shorthand - or a kind of "I owe you", but as such a picture of a penis is just so much human compounded by so much ego.

Yes, I like them. (You have no idea...) But isolated from the frame of a man, from the face of a man, from the voice and interests and violence of a man - it looks to me like some austere shrub - like some peculiar hothouse flower. (Native, perhaps, to the tropics).

I'm not clear on where I'm going with this. I just think you all should know. The girl thing - we want the composite, not the close-up. "It" is an accessory. Make love to me me with your brain. With your arms or your heart. Mean it. Care more. Study more. Take the time and you'll get it all back. I will wait on you. I will defend you to the world, comfort you, care for you. The whole thing. Deep clean desperate screwing?

Yes.

Degraded, fine, guilt-ridden, unharnessed subservience? Yes. Yes already.

I do want it - but not the picture, the real thing - the push and pull of hope and fear, of wanting the other person to meet you half way and never being sure where that is. Give to my giving and you will be overwhelmed. That is the difference between men and women. We actually have more to give. It's because of what nature makes of us. We're always ready to be transcended.

You - your funny mushroom flower.

I get all the winners

One of the online dating services sent me this "winner" in my "cupid report." Well I do like to play Scrabble, but other than that, this man meets not one of my qualifications -- from location to age to fitness level. Isn't it great that we're now leaving the most important decisions in life to computers?