Ask most girls why they’ve recently joined an online dating site, and you’ll hear one of the following:
- Ugh, my friends maaade me…
- I don’t know, I just felt like everyone talks about it so much that I had to try it for myself
- I’m looking to go on a lot of dates – you know – for practice and stuff
- I figure I can’t complain about not meeting any guys if I’m not willing to explore all my options for meeting them
Then ask those same girls if they think they’ll meet “the one” on said online dating site and you’ll get this:
- Oh, I don’t know…probably not. I’m just doing it to go on some dates.
- I can’t imagine I will – I mean what kind of guys do online dating?
- I feel like guys aren’t using it to really find serious relationships – except for e-harmony – but that’s too much for me – so probably not
It is a damn-near universal double-standard of the modern dating set. Girls are willing to try match.com/chemistry.com/plentyoffish.com/okcupid.com for any number of reasons that all amount to the fact that they think they’ll meet more guys, but most in no way believe the kind of guys they really want to meet would ever do online dating. This defies logic (but that has stopped me from believing it…).
Ask those same girls what kind of guys do online dating and they’ll say:
- Desperate ones?
- One’s whose sisters/cousins/already-coupled female friends make them?
- Guys who work 100 hours a week and have no time to find people in the real world?
- Guy who just want another method to find hook-ups?
Is that why these girls are doing it? Of course not.
- We are sensibly exploring another avenue to connect with men we might otherwise miss in this madcap world.
- We are recognizing and embracing the progress of social media as adapted for the dating process.
- We are tired of hearing the success stories from friends of friends of our mother’s…
- So why not? We say.
Isn’t it possible that guys could be approaching the process with exactly the same motivation?
- I mean…I guess…but it just feels so…female?
This is wrong – wrong and sexist and illogical. How could something be fine and logical for us and yet unacceptable for the guys we’re looking to date? Would we want them to apply our same thinking to this date/mate process? It can’t be, and yes we should, and so I can’t explain the thinking other than to say it just feels not good or right. Should men shop at T.J. Maxx because of the incomparable deals on name brand clothing? Of course. Will we think they’re weird if they do? Absolutely.
But here’s the thing of it. Any girl who tells you she doesn’t think she’ll find the right guy on any online dating site is lying. Not about whether or not she’ll find him – she may very well not. She’s lying about whether or not she thinks she will. She does – maybe just the slightest thought on odd days when the moon is waxing, but she thinks it. And I’m not saying that’s her whole motivation for the painstaking process of crafting the perfect, 40 character dating headline – she may just want to date around, she may want to hook up, her friends may, in fact, have made her do it. But regarding this issue of whether or not she thinks she’ll meet a quality guy on match – she says she thinks she won’t, but some part of her believes she will.
Because if there’s anything more illogical than applying a double standard to the male/female online dating set it’s paying $29.99 a month for the potential to go on bad dates…
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As someone who just tried Match.com for the reason to meet more people, I will say the following:
I truly believed that I could meet a guy on there that I liked, and would date, for a while because here in SF, I know other people who have joined that honestly just wanted to break out of their determined set of friends.
I went on several dates, and really clicked with one guy…Clicked so well, we went out of several weeks. Upon us agreeing that the chemistry just wasn’t there, we’ve actually remained friends.
And with friends, comes honesty.
Turns out he, and 3 of his friends, joined Match.com for the instant gratification of dates. DATES. Meeting women and hooking up.
One of these 4 guys had 6 match dates in 4 days and hooked up with 4 of the women. It was his dream. He is still on Match.com, still utilizing this tool to generate more booty.
…From my own experience, there are genuine people out there, but there are a lot of people who aren’t; there are a lot of guys who work and travel so much they don’t have time to meet anyone, and are using Match to have company while home for a few days; there are guys on there that just wanted to see what it was like and who disappear as quickly as they sign in; and there are absolute douchebags, too.
The point is: online is no different than real life. You’ll run in to all types in either place – but with the online world, you have this quaint little profile at your fingertips, complete with pictures of them *supposedly*, education, salary, interests…so you can weed through the ones you KNOW you won’t like only to discover the ones that might be worth your time.
Just my 2 cents.
Regardless of the quality of men that you meet online, read our profiles, we dont not pull the same double standard BS you women do! The topic of this post is women and their double standards in dating, not whether or not people online can be jerks. you are clearly trying to justify these double standards by alluding to the Red Herring that all people can be jerks.. That is entirely irrelevant to the fact that women feel free to oppress men with double standards. When we meet a person we take the same chance that you women take in that relationship, she could stick around, or leave me for some one else, who knows! all that is besides the point. The point of the subject is that the majority of women are so superficial and ridiculous in their filtering of men, they dont even get to the point of meeting those men in order to find out who they are! The majority of women have no concept of their won lack in beauty and also go shooting for the stars for men that will never be attracted to them enough to stay with them. So as you hypocrite go around talking others how men only use dating sites to get laid, you’re all the while reveling you self as a superficial hypocrite your self. If you had not filtered based on such ridiculous standards you might have actually met a guy who was worth while.
bahah i AGREE. My bff is on match.com and after her mandatory month, is leaving and cancelling! She HATED it, and of course gave me her password/username so I could freely stalk, and there were SLIM pickin’s, PLUS I found not one, but TWO guys that I KNOW HAVE GIRLFRIENDS!!!!
There is nobody who has ever been FORCED to join an online dating site. There was one girl but we killed her. Otherwise everyone is interested. Even if you say you are not interested you are in fact, MORE interested than otherwise thought. I think its kind of sad. People should be allowed to join the site and whore themselves out (as a matter of speech) to anybody on there that they so choose. Ya know? Yea. Go team.
Orrrr perhaps some women are just doing it to find random hookups.
wow, all very good points. i always wonder what kind of people (i.e. men) are on these online dating sites. one of my co-workers (female, age 55) is on match.com and she seriously has lunch dates and dinner dates ALL THE DAMN TIME.
ok cupid is free. feedback from someone people might describe as an eligible bachelor: we all aren’t on there just to get laid. i mean that is great and all if it happens (who doesn’t like to get laid,) but if we like what we find, we (the ones on the site) are willing to take it further.
Man… I don’t usually like to simplify things this way, but sometimes I really do think it comes down to the old Groucho Marx-by-way-of-Woody Allen saying, “I’d never want to belong to a club that would let me in it. Women wouldn’t want a man who is desparate enough to sign up for online dating. That would make him as desparate as they are.
People I know who’ve had success with online dating are people who admit to themselves that they’re desperate and/or have a hard time meeting people to begin with. That way they get over the hump of thinking, “All these other people must be so weird because they can’t get dates in real life.”
If you’re not comfortable seeing yourself as “someone who can’t find a date in real life,” online dating’s not for you. Because, if you do it, you will indeed meet other people who can’t find a date in real life. If you don’t want to be that kind of person, and you don’t want to meet that kind of person, then don’t do it!
But despite my attitude, I have to admit that I have browsed okcupid (and, waaay back in the day, friendster and myspace!) looking for precisely the kind of woman who you wouldn’t expect to meet on an online dating/networking site. Like the old Jay McInerny line in “Bright Lights Big City.” “You go to bars searching for the kind of woman who doesn’t go to bars,” or something like that.
I believe it is all about new acquaintances, new hookups and fun. I mean, why are the online dating websites filled with married/in a relationship members if not for “something else”? 🙂
Keep blogging! Do you have anymore articles similar to this?
Learn to Pick Up Attractive Women!
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