The True Adventures of Jamey on Match.com
I love being single.
Really, I love it. I have all this time to do whatever I want with whomever I want. I don’t have to spend all this time getting to know a woman and all the calling and expectations and dates…I love the complete freedom.
That being said, I still gravitate towards finding a woman. I simply can’t help it. I find myself doing this naturally, instinctively.
So last night I decided to see what’s out there. From the comfort of my own home, of course.
I went to Match.com.
It’s okay to look, right? So I try to search the site for local hot women who like dorky board games and cats. But right away, Match tells me I have to sign up–just my name, e-mail, a few little things.
I enter that information and try to go back to my search. But Match tells me that if I want to find people who “match” well with me, I need to fill out a profile. No cost, just a few minutes. No big deal.
So I fill out this extensive profile. Page after page of questions–some multiple choice, some long answer. It was like the SATs all over again. I think I passed.
This is my primary photo on Match.com. Should I have included one with more skin?
While Match is approving my profile and profile photos (they have to make sure that I’m not crazy and that my photo doesn’t have a penis in it), I’m finally able to look around the site a bit. It’s actually somewhat complex. There are all these different ways to match with people–you can click “SingledOut” or “Daily 5″ and immediately get five great matches (the two buttons are different somehow, but I can’t figure out how).
Then there’s this concept called “winking.” If you find someone who intrigues you, you can “wink” at them for free. You have to pay to subscribe to Match to actually e-mail someone. So instead, you wink, which is the equivalent of walking up to someone at a bar, tapping them on the shoulder, and running away while giggling to yourself.
That’s right up my alley, so I immediately winked at about five girls.
I woke up this morning to find that a few of them had winked back. Intriguing, I thought. I still didn’t want to pay for this online dating thing, so I contemplated winking back again. Luckily I searched Google for “Match.com winking etiquette” and saved myself the embarrassment of winking at the same girl multiple times. My street cred would have been ruined.
Now, here is where Match is particularly tricky. At one point this morning, I got an e-mail from someone on Match. But the message nor their photo were included–you have to subscribe to get that information.
How brilliant is that? The mystery! The intrigue! The woman could be super hot or laugh-out-loud hilarious or a foot massage specialist or a cat whisperer. She could be anyone! How could you not subscribe to find out who she is?!
I will say that I felt a little icky doing this. Although I was paying a third party, I still felt like I was paying to talk to a woman. Which felt a little weird.
And just like that, I was in. I’m officially a 3-month subscriber to match. Go check out my profile. Not knowing any better, I used my real name. My full name. I think I’ll just marry the first woman who figures out that she can just Google me and contact me directly instead of paying to e-mail me through Match.
Daily Quickie: I had saved up a huge back of recycled cans and paper, so I lugged it down to the recycling bin today. There’s one right outside my building. Unfortunately, it’s right next to the dumpster, and I, being tired, tossed the whole bag into the dumpster. I realized a split second too late that I had just killed the environment. I wasn’t in the mood to crawl in a dumpster, so I just left it there. What would you have done?
Good luck on your Match.com escapades! You do realize that this might mean going on actual dates with women who want a boyfriend, right?
Also, I tried match.com years ago when I was single, and in my opinion, the biggest negative I found was that, despite the extensive survey, they didn’t ask a single question about what I was looking for physically in a woman (what I was attracted to). I know there are other important things, but to me, that’s still important. Is that still the case on Match?
You tell it like it is, don’t you, Trev? I guess we’ll just have to see what Match brings.
Match has some questions about what you’re attracted to now. It asks you about body type (slender, athletic and toned, a little heavy, etc), and then there’s a photo-based series of questions about what you’re attracted to. I’m not sure how Match uses that metric, but it was interesting to flip through.
you will have to keep us informed, sir jamey of stegmaier. i’m convinced that at least half of the women, excuse me, “women,” on that site and others like it are fake profiles designed to elicit interest from folks such as yourself. especially if the photos are too good and the women too pretty. sounds superficial, but i swear those kind of profiles are fake…..or so i’ve heard.
but maybe that’s just adult friend finder. can’t go wrong with that one.
You’re right–I can already tell that there are some “fake” profiles on Match. I don’t know why someone would take the time to create a fake profile like that.
one word:
money.
man A, sees hot women A~Z. he signs up so he can talk to them. they aren’t real. he never hears back or gets strung along for months.
he has blown money he can never recoup.
i believe hot women A~Z are created by the company itself and maintained by the company to increase the number of paying members.
but i’m paranoid.
Dude, how does Match expect you to find a nice potato eye fearing, cat loving woman if you can’t show her a picture of your penis first?
That’s the greatest mystery of all, Josh.
If you’re going to delve into the world of online dating, be sure to check out this blog – from the makers of OkCupid, a free dating website – which shows a ridiculous amount of statistics and metrics about what words to use (and not use) to get responses back, what your pictures should look like, etc etc etc. All empirical evidence.
http://blog.okcupid.com/
Seriously, spend a few hours reading this blog and you’ll wish you could trade jobs with these guys.
Joe–I love that blog. Thanks for sharing it with my readers.
I like match.com, I go through phases of disabling my account on there and then re-activating it. It definitely gives you oodles of people to meet up with. Maybe I should get back on there, might be fun to harass someone I feel like I know.
You should definitely keep us readers informed of what happens in your 3 month journey with Match! A girl from where I work loved it and had a good time on there.
It would be interesting to see what the first woman who does google your name has to say! How funny would it be for her to go through all the rigormaroll…HA!
It is interesting though what you do and don’t have to pay for, if they really wanted people to find love they would offer everything for just the membership price. Maybe? (Especially with as many members as they have.)
There is nothing wrong with having to pay to talk to a woman, its been happening for ages since the invention cover charges at night clubs and bars. If anything this way is safer!
Good luck on Match.com!
OH and as far as your daily quickie goes, you probably did the right thing by not diving in the dumpster to retrieve the trash. Its a nasty process and you wouldn’t want to be wading through everyone else’s trash, even though they may have also tied their’s in nice neat bags. The personal risks involved outweigh the matter of the environment!
Georgia–I most definitely will! One woman has actually Googled me and found this blog entry–we had an interesting interaction about it.
And that’s a good point about paying for bars and night clubs.
Ha ha…I’m glad that I made the right decision about the recycling. I really didn’t want to climb in there
A few years ago, after a good friend told me that she met her now husband via Match.com, I went through a very similar process of eventually signing up it. What I wasn’t anticipating was how much time it took! I found it extremely time consuming to consistently be emailing, calling and setting up first dates etc. I found all my extra time going into Match.com instead of other activities. And that was just trying to keep up with, and sort though, the men who contacted me—I never even got around to looking for myself (probably a mistake) after going through all my email. It was exhausting so after my 3 month subscription expired I was more than done with it. I had to jump through some hoops to get my profile deleted as well. Maybe it’ll be a little different for you being a guy? I don’t know, but just a warning!
You must have gotten a lot of interest while on Match! I’ve found it pretty easy to just tell people I’m not interested (there’s even a button for it).
I totally hear you that 3 months seems like a long time. I can’t fathom using this thing for 3 months.
At what point do you intend to administer your own questionaire for the perfect mate to prospective dates?
I already have
[...] read a lot of profiles in my week on Match.com (and OkCupid, thanks to their awesome blog that sucked me in). So far I’ve been [...]
I’m always late to the party with these things, Jamey! I’m excited for you. And I just had a friend make a great connection on Match.com. She’s been looking for a while but is super happy now. Yay you.
Your blog should have a like button. OR a wink button.
sleep on it.
Definitely a Like button. I get all frantic when I can’t find it.
[...] was ready to meet someone special. I had never tried online dating and wanted to give it a go, so I signed up for a three-month subscription on Match.com and a free membership to [...]