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Dating Over 40
Online Dating Disasters & Funny Moments #1: Gnaw, Paw and No Car
A blog thread of dating dread
Am I doomed to be alone?
The world is opening up and I’ve come out of quarantine 8 pounds lighter and feeling good about spring and summer dating. So I hop back on a online dating app and my first conversations makes me I feel like I’m on Candid Camera.
I’m on one of the many sites owned by Match.com’s parent company, People Media which I think should be called Everybodysingle.com because it’s just Match with different prices and landing pages with pictures of specific interest groups. Here are all their sites:
You have the option to “automatically” sign up for other sites they suggest. You’ll quickly learn that the same singles are on the other sites because all the sites have equally poor sort, search and alert functions. They are notorious for bait and switch tactics like saying you have 3 or 4 people “interested” or “messages” but when you click on the alert — no one is there.
I put my preference on one of the sites for Black singles and white guys were the first to send me messages. I’ve written extensively about why I no longer date white men, but I’ve doubled down on this position in this current political climate.
Now that we’ve uncovered the genius of People Media basically taking one website and a massive, endless pool of singles and turning it into 24 other fake customized sites to rake in millions of dollars — I’ll talk about my experience.
After about a month of fake alerts and a slew of canned messages -finally a guy who looked like a reluctant serial killer sends a real message. I’m cautiously excited. I ignored all the awkward pictures because I’m not photogenic and I HATE taking selfies more than a mammogram.
He sends me his number and asks can we talk now. I say sure and I send him my Google Voice number (a must for online dating). Several minutes go by, I grow impatient, so I call him.
He sounds like Jay-Z and Mike Tyson had a baby…I push through it because I’ve been told I sound “like a white girl” even though I’m a Black woman in my 40’s.
