Maybe you’ve seen these posters around your respective cities?

They haunt me. I see one at least once a day in whatever subway station I find myself.

Things I know: PlentyofFish.com is this free online dating site that’s giving the other online dating sites you pay for a run for their money. Apparently it was started by some guy as an experiment or business school project or something. He runs it out of his house with like his wife or neighbor or an alternative persona that’s actually just him. He claims that, “its matching algorithms and technology is unmatched, we are the only dating site capable of generating matches in real time. At 26 my algorithms and their results were cited in the Nobel Prize of Mathematics (Fields Medal) paper.” I don’t really understand that, but it sounds extremely official. Also places like Forbes and BusinessWeek have written about it, so that’s something too.

That sums up what I know to date. I have yet to try PlentyofFish.com because I remain scarred from my latest experiment with match.com (no, PartyArty625, I don’t want to meet up in Astoria for Indian food because it is in fact NOT the food of my people!). Plus I think this hot pink poster campaign with its “we delete users unfit to date” claim is a crock.

Of course, if I’d figured out how to eliminate people unfit to date I’d have some posters made up too. Or just a really stable relationship and so fuck the posters…

I have taken some significant measures to figure out exactly what this means. After my calls, letters, and emails to the Mr PlentyofFish man (woman?) went unanswered I went to the site and found this code of conduct policy explaining who the site deems unfit to date.

As I suspected — crock:

• you will keep all information provided to you through the Service as private and confidential and will not give such information to anyone without the permission of the person who provided it to you;
• you will not use the Service to engage in any form of harassment or offensive behavior, including but not limited to the posting of communications, pictures or recordings which contain libelous, slanderous, abusive or defamatory statements, or racist, pornographic, obscene, or offensive language;
• you will not forward chain letters through the Service;
  d. you will not use the Service to infringe the privacy rights, property rights, or any other rights of any person;
• you will not post messages, pictures or recordings or use the Service in any way which

So…we delete users who don’t follow our very basic privacy policy. Does this make them unfit to date? Well, it makes them dumb and somewhat conniving — two things I’m not personally looking to date — but ineligable for dates of any kinds seems harsh — and that’s coming from a girl who views men who wear chain lacklaces as unfit to date.
Verdict: Plentyoffish — not to be trusted.

But back to this issue of determining who’s fit and unfit to date. This would be helpful — very helpful. If I’d had previous knowledge of certain people’s lack of dating fitness I’d have avoided starting or perhaps stopped trying to date them. But – and this is very big of me to say – unfit to date me and unfit to date are potentially different things. Guys I’ve branded unfit have actually gone on to successfully date other girls…aanndd guys.

Is there a person out there who is guaranteed to screw you over? Probably. Some guys are players. Some girls are liars. And vice versa. But I tend to believe that’s all just circumstantial until the right person comes along.

To be completely unfit to date you’ve got to really have something going on. Recently divorced? Yeah, should probably take it easy for awhile, but what if it was a long time coming and he’s already moved on? Small time crook? I mean not the man for me, but what if some female small time crook is looking for a con man mate? Pathological liar? I’d agree that is a problem, but who’s going to admit that to some online info fields?

I’m not saying I don’t have a dating dealbreaker for every letter of the alphabet (3 for “s”…), but could I deal with S, Short if I came across a more important deal enhancer like M, Musically inclined? and H, Handy? I’ll get back to you on that. You get back to me with what circumstances you think make someone undeniably unfit to date, anyone ([email protected])
In the meantime — feel free to vandalize that PlentyofFish crap whenever you see it.