The title is slightly misleading. Online “dating” is not really happening for me at this point. I haven’t been on a “date” for a couple of months, and that’s okay in the grand scheme of things. But in looking at my current site of choice (OKCupid), I have found myself frustrated with the entire process.
Part of me wants to think that my lack of successes is partly due to the fact that I have been a passive participant in the site for around six months. With my pending move to Illinois, and my subsequent absence for a year, I just didn’t want to get too invested in looking for Mrs. Wright — aka The Next Mrs. Eberhard — in a place that I wouldn’t be for at least a year, not wanting to waste the time of either party.
I recently decided to shift my location on the site to Champaign, Illinois, and, compared with my matches from Salt Lake County, it seems to me like maybe there are a few more fish in the sea. Though school and writing should keep me sufficiently occupied over the next twelve months, you never know when I will actually tire of going back to my tiny apartment and staring at the walls, especially when I will be someplace where I have no immediate friends or family.
So if I do decide to keep dipping my toes into the dating pool, at least as it appears from this site, I might have a decent chance of locating someone to spend some time with. Unfortunately, my plan of remaining passive and waiting for The Ladies to reach out to me probably won’t be met with much success. For some reason, which I don’t think is too hard to figure out, I attract a certain type of woman from the site, which makes it even more frustrating.
The site, and internet dating in particular, places a high emphasis on “match” percentages and compatibility based on the response to a bunch of varying questions. I have no complaints with this process, and I have found that some arbitrary questions actually work well in clearing the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. But, as in real life, it seems to me that it is really just a matter of how you look.
The reason I am so jaded, and the reason why I wish my friends and family had more eligible bachelorettes to introduce me to, is that I have become a person that I thought I wasn’t. Maybe it confirms that I am not as desperate for affection or dating in general as I thought, but I have turned into a person that judges a person based on how they look.
Don’t get me wrong; I realize that attraction is a huge part of what becomes an actual relationship. Even if everything else is perfect, attraction still plays a role, so it makes sense to be like this. Maybe it just means that I should stop waiting around and just message the ones that I think would be good matches, and stop worrying about the ones that message me first.
I know that many of my messages in the past get the same treatment (a quick check of the profile and a delete without response), so maybe I should stop taking it so personally. I can also hold out hope that I might meet “the one” without the aid of the internet some day. In the meantime, I’ll try to limit my time on the internet dating site so it’s not so frustrating all the time. I guess that’s all I can really do.
Until next time…
Robert Writes About... 
Don’t take anything about online dating personally. If a girl doesn’t want to meet you based solely on a picture, then she’s not worth your time. Send your messages. Put yourself out there. Don’t feel badly about being “deleted.” You have nothing to lose because chances are you’ll never meet these girls out and about. But don’t give up either. I met the love of my life online. When it’s time, it’ll happen. I promise. She’s out there.