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dr_pretentious"Hey, Dan," I said, "I need to research online dating services for the novella. If we start getting even weirder junk mail, that's why." We get pretty odd junk mail. I made a donation once to an organization that supports queer rights in the military, and ever since, I get stuff addressed to me from direct-mail businesses that clearly believe me to be a gay man. The housewares catalogs are fabulous, but I could do without the guy-on-guy porn.
"Online dating," said Dan. I'd ambushed him in the middle of his efforts to seal the new grout for the kitchen tile. "Hm. Would you like me to be worried?"
"Well, I guess that would be kind of a compliment, but no thanks." Because, really, it would be better for us to spend our energy and attention on regrouting the tile in the bathroom.
I might be able to make the case to the IRS that the cost of registering for an online dating service was a legitimate research expense, but the prospect of actually registering skeeves me out. So far, I haven't found the Luminous Detail that will make Jane's unfortunate courtship efforts feel real on the page. There is always, somewhere, a Luminous Detail. Usually, I trip over it while I'm looking for it someplace it isn't. (The cover band that's always playing songs in the back of my mind is now singing about looking for the Luminous Detail in all the wrong places, too many faces, etc.)
Maybe you have the Luminous Detail. Anybody out there attempted online dating? The only person I know to have tried it is a friend of my sister's. Match.com has not been good to D. She's had a long series of problematic non-starters, culminating in a dreadful relationship that should end but won't. She could probably tell me something useful, but it seems unkind to ask. It can't be quite that unpleasant for everyone, or people wouldn't pay for it. Would they?
Really, all I'm looking to find out about is the experience of composing an ad, and the experience of awaiting or receiving the first replies. That's what we get on stage in the novella. It's a small detail, not one of the big plot points, but it's important enough that I don't want to get it glaringly wrong. An old married lady who settled down twelve years ago with a former high school sweetheart is not necessarily going to get it right by guessing.
Weirdest find of the night: One link on about.com promises to lead readers to a basic overview of online dating, but instead leads to a papal encyclical on erotic love. The mind boggles.
"Online dating," said Dan. I'd ambushed him in the middle of his efforts to seal the new grout for the kitchen tile. "Hm. Would you like me to be worried?"
"Well, I guess that would be kind of a compliment, but no thanks." Because, really, it would be better for us to spend our energy and attention on regrouting the tile in the bathroom.
I might be able to make the case to the IRS that the cost of registering for an online dating service was a legitimate research expense, but the prospect of actually registering skeeves me out. So far, I haven't found the Luminous Detail that will make Jane's unfortunate courtship efforts feel real on the page. There is always, somewhere, a Luminous Detail. Usually, I trip over it while I'm looking for it someplace it isn't. (The cover band that's always playing songs in the back of my mind is now singing about looking for the Luminous Detail in all the wrong places, too many faces, etc.)
Maybe you have the Luminous Detail. Anybody out there attempted online dating? The only person I know to have tried it is a friend of my sister's. Match.com has not been good to D. She's had a long series of problematic non-starters, culminating in a dreadful relationship that should end but won't. She could probably tell me something useful, but it seems unkind to ask. It can't be quite that unpleasant for everyone, or people wouldn't pay for it. Would they?
Really, all I'm looking to find out about is the experience of composing an ad, and the experience of awaiting or receiving the first replies. That's what we get on stage in the novella. It's a small detail, not one of the big plot points, but it's important enough that I don't want to get it glaringly wrong. An old married lady who settled down twelve years ago with a former high school sweetheart is not necessarily going to get it right by guessing.
Weirdest find of the night: One link on about.com promises to lead readers to a basic overview of online dating, but instead leads to a papal encyclical on erotic love. The mind boggles.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 11:42 pm (UTC)My daughter married a man she knew previously but met again though yahoo singles.com or something of that nature.
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Date: 2006-01-20 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 10:14 pm (UTC)That oughta turn any man's knees to jelly.
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Date: 2006-01-20 12:39 am (UTC)On an interesting, semi-related note, I met my fiancee online, we play the same superhero RPG. *grin*
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Date: 2006-01-20 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 05:12 am (UTC)but folks who wrote to me... we'd exchange emails for a week or two. (with these "personal ad" things, I really had to rein myself in... I'd get excited about just having someone choose me, then kind of forced myself to take my time getting to know them.) if I was interested enough in the email dialogue, we'd progress to a phone call. usually one call was enough to judge how we'd get along.
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Date: 2006-01-20 02:05 am (UTC)The signing in process is kind of interesting, the process is free, and might not freak you out so much because it is also just for folks to meet friends and take quizzes.
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Date: 2006-01-20 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 05:34 am (UTC)Good luck!
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Date: 2006-01-20 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 05:59 am (UTC)We talked online via email and AIM for about a week, then we talked using VoIP for about a week, then we started chatting on the phone. It was about a month before we met. Yes, I did have some misgivings. I'd had a couple of other dates from the same service that didn't go well. Not bad, just not well.
Did that help?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 07:50 am (UTC)No help on the online dating thing from me. I've got the wrong gender perspective, and my few attempts at it have mostly been setting something up and then never hearing anything.
Sounds like some site got hacked...
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 08:11 am (UTC)eHarmony has the take a personality test, and then only matches you up with people who match you at like 97% or higher. A list of potential matches show up and you can choose to contact one. Then both of you go through a series of multiple choice questions you ask one another, and if you are satisfied with that, you go to freeform questions. Then you can go to freeform/e-mail contacting one through the site (so you don't have to give out any personal information). Then you can choose to give one another more personal means of conversation/meeting in person.
I think it's a good service, but as I said, it wasn't right for me at the time (a friend had bugged me to try it). eHarmony will let you sign up for free and only asks for pay once you've tried to contact someone (and then it's a 7 days free trial).
personal ads SUCK
Date: 2006-01-20 08:15 am (UTC)then again, what I've really discovered is that I want someone socially adept enough to never need a personal ad, who has numerous other attractive, interested parties, and chooses me anyway.
(of course, what I get is a lot of other people who also feel like leftovers. we're so used to being single at this point we're better off just being friends, rather than dating and wondering if the other person is dating us because they feel like they've run out of options.)
this sounds way more bitter than I feel. I'm entirely ok with being single, as long as I have roommates who don't drive me batshit crazy, (which, as you know, is a pretty short drive).
Re: personal ads SUCK
Date: 2006-01-20 01:47 pm (UTC)Best way to meet someone? Completely stop trying, but still leave the house. Then they show up. It doesn't seem logical, but that's exactly how it works.
I heard that one of my sister's best friends decided rather definitively at one point, maybe about five years back, that she would _never_ get married. Guess what? Yep, she got married last year.
Re: personal ads SUCK
Date: 2006-01-20 05:22 pm (UTC)the real problem is, if they show up when I've decided not to be interested, I project enough non-interest vibes that I usually end up hearing about it at their wedding. "I was going to ask you out that time, but, you didn't seem at all interested."
at this point, I'm really not interested in starting again. I sorta want to just wake up and have it be my 10th anniversary with someone. I'm burnt out on false starts.
But, I'd reconsider if it meant getting to see the nice restaurants I never have company for except when out of town folks visit. I rarely seem to attract the attention of guys who actually like to go on dates, to restaurants where you can use the terms "cuisine" and "ambiance" and not feel like you're in a sitcom.
I've become mercenary about it, having tried the low-maintenance thing only to constantly feel like I'm being used. And, well, I don't attract guys who are into anything that requires effort. I'd have to remember to put make-up on every day, and, well, I don't.
Re: personal ads SUCK
Date: 2006-01-20 09:00 pm (UTC)In the current draft, she posts on a minor service (the fictional pagansingles.com), and three months later she still has no responses to her ad. Right now, she's too stubborn to change her ad, post elsewhere, or stop checking for answers. I'm pretty sure that's dead wrong and will need to be changed in the next draft.
Oh, and thanks, by the way, for the Legos!
I am an entirely unique level of bitter, dammit
Date: 2006-01-21 07:10 am (UTC)I placed my first personal ad in my family paper, solely to make sure we had some ads in at all. it got responses from guys who wanted to meet at weekly "Coffeehouses" in the basement of Biblethummping churches. After that, on a lark, I did put it on some online sites, and got a few responses.
I managed to go on 3 dates, one of whom was the under 6' and over 40, and obsessed with palindromes. If he'd been upfront about those things, they probably wouldn't have bothered me so much, but the dishonesty was a buzzkill. Another was a reasonably attractive, sane, etc. dude, except that he was kinda dull, not excited about his job, and had a form of OCD when parallel parking.
A third one was a hot european who I later realized tried to give me a movie kiss in a T stop, and I absently stopped it as a peck. (stupid. stupid. stupid. argh.)
the rest are folks I've never even got so far as to meet. Mostly a combination of personal ad dates having a lot of performance anxiety, and I'm still hung up on my past.
I still keep ads around. It's nice when someone responds, even if they're not my type. I've had to edit my OK cupid down to "I'm just here to proofread my friends' profiles" to stop getting inquiries. I haven't updated my Nerve (springstreet, or whoever bought them out) ad in a long time (except to tone it down into "not really looking"), but since they send me email whether I get a response or not, I've been conditioned into not checking.
I think you'd have to have a phenomenally awful ad to not get inquiries from non-US folks trying to marry their way into the US. And be a pretty dull person to check an unresponded ad every day without at least surfing other ads to determine ways of polishing it up.
(and you're welcome. how could I NOT send dan legos? "What would your therapist think of THIS?" tee hee.)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 09:01 pm (UTC)many offers of sex
Date: 2006-01-21 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 03:54 pm (UTC)On an interesting side-note, soon after I started dating DW I sent her a brochure that I created that looked like it was from a dating service. She almost threw it out until I suggested that it looked like a desktop publishing job. Then she read it thoroughly, filled out the response form and we were married nine months later.
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Date: 2006-01-20 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 12:45 pm (UTC)I think I'll stick with my original statement.
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Date: 2006-01-24 03:55 pm (UTC)