In a recent visit to CNN.com I bumbled upon an article about Internet dating sites that cater to (let’s not call them cheaters) attached individuals looking for some extra curricular activity. The politically correct term for this is Internet Married Dating.  Strangely I found this rather intriguing. The featured Internet Dating site was a site called AshleyMadison.com. After reading the entire article I was so disgusted that I did what I am sure many other outraged readers did - I immediately went to AshleyMadison.com and signed up.

The folks at AshleyMadison.com present themselves as an online dating agency. As I have discussed in an earlier IdleRomance post, an agency (a real agency) provides a much broader range of services than the standard, run-of-the-mill, Internet dating site. After looking things over I can safely tell you that AshleyMadison.com is not an agency. They are an online dating site plain and simple with a bit of twist on the pricing. I say this because unlike other Internet dating sites like Match.com and eHarmony.com, AshleyMadison.com does not go in for the subscription price model. Instead they have you purchase credits which can then be used to contact other members via site email or chat. I know that doesn’t sound that different but it is in two ways. The first thing is that you only pay so many credits for the first email you send to another member. Once communication is established there are no more charges for email to that member. The second difference comes in how they handle chat pricing. Chat is priced by the half hour session and there is no break for chatting with someone you have chatted with before.

Another way that AshleyMadison.com is different from other  Internet Dating sites is in the amount of information you are asked to put in your online dating profile. They really don’t seem to expect you to write a whole lot. They cut right to the chase with nine basic details: a screen nickname, a brief caption which appears on screen under your screen nickname, a statement of your limits (more on this later), weight, height, body type, ethnic background, smoking habits, and (the all important) relationship status. Most of these are self explanatory but two are kind of interesting. In terms of your limits you are basically stating to others browsing your dating profile what it is that you are looking for. You can pick between long or short term involvement or you can go all in with an “anything goes” stance. You can be undecided or limit your “relationships” to “Cyber Affairs and Erotic Chat”. The other thing that struck me was the choices offered in the relationship status category. For males your choices are Single Male seeking Females, Attached Male seeking Females, and Male seeking Males. I guess in the Male seeking Males category it really isn’t important if you are Single or Attached.

I am sure I’ll be posting more about this site in the near future.
jd

I guess I have been at this Internet dating thing for over a year so it had to happen sooner or later. As I mentioned in my last post I actually found a lady who was willing to meet me - I was going to say “in the flesh” but it was really in a local coffee shop and everyone was fully clothed.  This was kind of a strange one because we had only chatted for about an hour last Saturday (7/18) night and had agreed to meet for coffee at one on Sunday. We had got to “talking” because she had “winked” at me on the dating site OKCupid.com. I was a little leary due to the fact that she had just joined the “community” the day before. But, to my surprise she actually showed up!

Well now, in accordance with the rules I layed down at the start of this blog, I am not going to tell you about her or trash her in any way. She is a very nice lady and we had a nice conversation over an hour or so. There was no “click” or “spark” that encouraged me to pursue the relationship further and I am confident that she feels the same way. I feel lucky to have found a new friend.

That being said I did learn a thing or two about meeting people in person that I have met on an online dating site. The first is to study the picture(s) provided closely before committing to a meeting. If I were more of a fashion buff I would have been able to tell that the styles being worn by the people pictured around my new lady friend were a tad old. After the meeting I would have to say that the photo was four or five years old. A lot can happen in that span of time. It is really best, in terms of establishing an honest relationship from the start, that the photo you post on any Internet dating site be as current as possible. I also learned not to let a first impression be a deal breaker. This is not to suggest that when I first laid eyes on her that I wanted to run, screaming, out of the room but I was afraid that the conversation may be a bit stilted. It was not.

If I got anything from this experience (besides a new friend) I would have to say that I have gained some confidence. I guess I was fortunate to have a relatively good first meeting but, then again, I didn’t gain one of those memorable stories of dating disaster that I could use at parties for years to come. Like I go to parties.
jd

Once again I’m considering sprucing up my online dating profile on a couple of the Internet dating sites that I frequent. I’ve already covered the divorce thing here and I have decided to continue to leave that out of my base profile. Still it is hard to know what you really should include. I’ve been thinking about bringing up a bit of my medical history in that shortly after the arrival of my second child I paid a little visit to the doctor for some alterations. Don’t know if the ladies would be interested in this information or not. Seems like it might be hard to naturally work into an internet dating profile - I was thinking about the following headline:

jd

Technorati Tags: online dating profile, online dating site, internet dating profile, internet dating site

Three out of four of the Internet Dating sites I’ve joined up with have used questions with multiple choice answers as determiners of my personality. I have to say that I struggle with selecting an appropriate choice because the answer I really want is not in the selection list.
Here is an example from OKCupid.com:

You’re in a relationship/marriage and feel that you and your mate aren’t having sex frequently enough. What do you do?

    * Talk to them about it
    * Try to spice things up. (Toys, fantasies, etc)
    * Do nothing, but hope things change naturally.
    * Cheat on them / Break up with them.

None of the four choices do it for me. I’d have liked to see a fifth choice:

    * Buy a bottle of Jose Cuervo.

You know - candy is dandy but liquor is quicker!

Here is another example:

Is a person who has had 100 sexual partners a bad person?

    * Yes.
    * No.
    * I don’t know.

In this case I found the answer choices adequate but the question simply didn’t have enough information to really judge the situation. It seems to me that there is a time element that must be considered. A person who is 90+ years old could arrive at this number and still be considered “good”. On the other hand an 18 year old girl on a Spring break weekend………

jd

Technorati Tags: Internet Dating, Online matchmaking, online dating site, internet dating site

One discovery that I’ve made in my recent forays into the various Internet dating sites available online is that you have to protect yourself. This may not strike you as anything too profound. Of course we all know that the world is full of wacky people most of whom seem to be members at dating sites. But my discovery has extended the scope of those-to-be-protected-against to the dating sites themselves. It seems that once they have your credit card number they feel obligated to continue your membership whether you want them to or not.

I thought I’d found a solution to this issue in a product offering from PayPal. Any eBayers out there will know who they are. They are marketing a way for you, the buyer, to give the seller, in this case the dating site, a generated secure MasterCard number that can be used only once. They go so far as to call it a “Single Use” card. This, I thought, was the perfect solution. So I joined up with a site - whose name I will not mention for a one month (19.95) premium membership using a “Single Use” number. I got a huge response from other members in terms of expressed interest in me. Every “interested” party was a spammer. So it was obvious that this dating site wasn’t doing anything in the way of screening its members. So I just stopped visiting the site.

Imagine my surprise some months later when I discover (by accident) that the afore mentioned spammy dating site has hit my account for two additional months of premium spam. What the h***?! So I am immediately on the line with PayPal. It turns out that the phrase “Single Use” doesn’t mean single use in PayPal’s magic world. It turns out that a “Single Use” card can be used by the merchant for up to four payment authorizations. So PayPal was quite happy to honor the payment requests from this dating site.

Now I need someone to protect me from PayPal!
jd

What did I recently say about procrastination? (Internet Dating - Not for Procrastinators!) I just started (seriously) using Match.com as a source of hope. Unlike Chemistry.com, Match.com allows you to search the posted profiles and they seem to have a good number of subscribers. They also automatically present a daily selection of five prospects for your consideration. Last Sunday my daily five had two ladies that were particularly appealing. Not wanting to be overwhelmed with dating options I sent a “wink” to one of them. Now it is Wednesday and I have not been winked back - a rather common occurrence that I am encountering on all the Internet dating sites I have been haunting. So I deemed it time to wink at bachelorette number two. Much to my disappointment - she has deleted her profile! She deleted it Today - probably while I was eating breakfast!

The search continues.
jd

Certain on-line dating sites tend to promote themselves as masters at finding the perfect match for you. They all point to their special scientific methods as proof of their expertize. Chemistry.com and Eharmony.com are probably the major examples of this sort of approach. Loyal readers know that I have been hip deep at Chemistry.com for the past month or so. Eharmony is coming up sooner or later. Pretty much all of the Internet dating sites I’ve run up against so far eventually give you a chance to put in your two cents in regard to the type of person you are looking for. Most are pretty general but I’ve seen a couple get right down to eye color. It seems to me that some of these stated preferences are subject to review and some are deal breakers. I mean, I can’t see somebody rejecting a potential life partner because their eyes are Hazel and not Brown. On the other hand, I can see a person rejecting a match suggestion in the case of stated income criteria. I have been amazed at the number of “matches” that have been presented to me by the so-called scientific approach dating sites that are simply non-starters. They present some wacky statement like “you are a 59% match based on stated criteria” and then show me a lady who expects her date to be 5′ 10″ and make more than $100k annually. In this type of situation I really don’t care about any of the other matching criteria. At 5′ 8″ and an income well below $100k there just ain’t no reason to set myself up for the inevitable let down - even if the lass does love to watch Woody Allen films in bed….you know?

jd

No sooner had the ink dried on my last post (The Science of Online Dating - Is it Chemistry?) when I checked out my account on Chemistry.com. I knew right away that I had reached a major milestone on the Internet dating scene. Neither of the two ladies whom I had expressed interest in had responded (in fact one of them is now listed as “no longer available”) but - someone had expressed interest in ME! A female, no less! So I clicked on her profile to check her out - what else could I do?

As I’ve said before - this blog is not here to disrespect or malign people (with the one of exception of myself). No details will be given here on this lady’s profile. I can tell you that she meets a lot of my (I won’t say “requirements”) preferences. Her picture left a little to be desired in the clarity arena. I will never stop complaining about the photos I find on Internet dating sites. But, from what I could make out, she is an attractive person. So I made the jump to the next step.

That next step, as controlled by the folks at Chemistry.com, is what they call “Relationship Essentials”. This is a series of relationship variables that I was expected to evaluate on a High to Low scale using some slider controls. Stuff like, how important is it that your date likes to attend athletic events and how important is it that your date shares your religious beliefs. There were about 10 or so of these items. Once my ratings had been made I clicked and sent them off to her. She is supposed to rate the same “Essentials” and send her ratings to me. Which, so far - four days later, has not happened!

My experience with this step is the source of another of my Rules for Internet dating: If you express interest is someone don’t leave them twisting in the wind when they respond back! Especially at Chemistry.com where you are not going to be able to offer any excuse for your tardiness. They simply don’t have a way for you to indicate that it is extremely important that your date is fashion conscious and your dog died. If you are going to play this game it’s best to stay on the ball.
jd

Having tried a less mainstream Internet dating site (GreatDatingSite.com) I decided to take the big plunge into one of the better known online dating venues. If you haven’t guessed already, that site is Chemistry.com. So far the experience has been good by which I mean I was not immediately bombarded with messages from “ladies” in California who said they wanted to get to know me (I’m in Pittsburgh, PA). I guess the reason for this is that Chemistry.com does not let you browse the member roster. They use a true matchmaker approach to the whole deal. They pick the ladies they think you might hit if off with. How do they decide which of their members to present? Frankly, I’m not sure.

Signing up at Chemistry.com is a bit different from most other dating sites. You start by taking a test. Not a pass/fail kind of thing but more of a personality determination questionnaire. Some stuff you could probably fudge on the answers a little but there were a couple that completely mystified me. Both of these had you look at two different sized objects (lines in one example, octagons in another) and then had you adjust the smaller one until you perceived that it was the same size as the bigger. There are also some other lines and patterns in the picture to make this sizing exercise harder than it sounds here. What does this have to do with finding a date? When the test is over you get a chance to fill out the more expected types of profile items. You know - who I am and who I am looking for etc etc. Once all this is done they let you know what type of a personality you have - I am a Director/Builder. Then they present you with three potential matches - each with a picture, a brief bio, and their personality type. Mostly they match me up with Negotiator/Explorer types. From here you can express interest in one (or all) of the potential matches and (if you are willing to pay) move on to the next step.

Even though I have expressed interest in two interesting looking ladies and paid for a month’s membership, I have not progressed to the next step - so I can’t really talk about that. The problem? It appears that neither of my two sirens spends any time at all on Chemistry.com. I have heard nothing back. I guess the bright side of that is that I haven’t been rejected. At least, not yet.

jd

It really is kind of nerve wracking to post your dating “profile” on an Internet dating site. Personally I had to think about it for quite a while before I actually did it. On the one hand, I’m definately not going meet anyone without at least a minimal post and one photo. On the other…well, you saw Fatal Attraction. You just don’t know anymore.

So I decided on two steps that I could take to help mitigate the terror. The first was that I made myself promise (me) that I would not communicate with any potential date in any other way than that provided by the particular dating site I was posting on at the time. I figure we could each check each other out a little before we started to open the real channels of communication. Second - I realized that there are some Internet dating sites that do not provide an internal means of communication. Craigslist is the main example of this. For this situation I decided to use my Hotmail account. I’ve maintained this account for years to sidetrack potential spammers - so I figure it could shield me against a nut case as well.

This plan isn’t exactly fool proof but it makes me feel a little better.

jd