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June 16, 2003
WLTM
It began with Elizabeth. A 65-year-old American ‘professional divorcee’ on her fourth facelift and on the hunt for a man, any man who would make her life more complete. Other than the one who’d flown from Washington to Guatemala to accompany her back to the States. Who adored her yet was invisible to her, although not to her friends who were called in to entertain him for her last few days.
I’d been hearing about Match.com for some time, a website many of the expat women in Guatemala would use in the hope of changing their chronically single status. One woman used it in terms of where she’d most like to go on holiday, so that she’d know someone when she got there.
That all changed when Elizabeth returned on the scene. Feeling hopelessly incomplete without a man, she asked my mother to help her set up an account, profile, scan in photos, select candidates from those on offer, and vet potential admirers. Most, if not all of the men she contacted never replied, to her incomprehension; all messages she did receive faithfully arrived in my mother’s Inbox within minutes. For a woman who’d been married on several occasions, I was stunned by her inability to handle her own love life independently.
When I returned to London, I found that my flatmate had put an ad in a newspaper – for Friendship – and was receiving a lot of response. She wasn’t sure how the paper had decided to include rock music among her interests, but it didn’t seem to deter those who left messages for her. She’s spent much of the last few weeks on the phone; it sounds like initially, she talked mostly to a man in Birmingham she didn’t hit it off with sufficiently; the latest one lives in far north-west London, so at least they get to see each other more easily – presumably, why she’s not here right now.
Those were my prior ‘experiences’ of online or other such forms of dating. Last Friday, I was walking one of my colleagues to Leicester Square tube station, when she happened to mention a dating website she’d joined, and how recognising one of the men from the site had meant she’d stopped going to the gym in order to avoid him. In fact, it was someone she’d known as a small child, and not something as frivolous as a sudden aversion to a new impromptu admirer. It was only a short walk to the tube station (we’d just dropped someone else off at Covent Garden station), so we didn’t get much further, I think, than that and the URL.
It’s been eight days now, and I realise I’ll probably never remember what I was thinking when I logged onto the internet that night. As I put it to someone today – bearing in mind I’d looked at Match.com a few weeks ago (having chronic jetlag has meant I spend a lot more time online than usual) and primarily thought ‘Ugh!’ – I logged onto the website, and did a simple search. Oh! – I need to sign up to see more. So I did. Oh! – I need to pay some money for nonspecific features. So I did. I’ve received over 160 messages to my account already, and I’ve lost track of the emails which have arrived since.
I know I’m not the best test subject. I’m hardly looking for a relationship of any type, and have been steering clear of any profiles or messages leaning in that direction. One profile was vaguely reminiscent – apart from the age and nationality – of someone I used to know in Costa Rica; since receiving a message from him saying ‘if you’re as pretty in the flesh as you are in your photo, phone or text me….’ I haven’t exactly bothered to reply. I do think it might be interesting, say for research purposes (and so be able to write a more interesting, more balanced piece); all I can think to say is that those of you who know me can easily imagine what a disaster that would be.
My initial thinking is that this would be a disastrous, artificial way to meet people – your sole common interest, from the start, being shared knowledge of this website. Yes, you can vet people according to their looks, but that too is dependent on their having a jpeg photo available, having had it approved and posted, and it being sufficiently flattering to attract attention. Most people are too tongue-tied and modest in their profiles to warrant much interest – I’ve received numerous messages from people whose profiles simply say ‘Hi, I like your profile, let’s meet up’ or words to that effect. Others show an alarming passion for life, travel and the gym. Unfortunately, a lot of them also write to say, ‘Hi, I liked your profile, check out mine, hope to hear from you’; given the alarming bulk (which has thankfully tailed off) of messages I’ve received, that’s not sufficient information to warrant any effort in following up.
That’s not to discount those who I have met. I’ve just forwarded a friend a number of profiles of those I’ve been in touch with. One thing that has perhaps amused me is the direction conversations take; many along the lines of programming and work, as many seem to work in IT. With another I discuss a writing course I was interested in taking; with another, Turkish music and custom guitars. He, specifically, came as a large surprise, recommending an album I’ve never heard of elsewhere, ‘Astrakan Café’ by Anouar Brahem Trio, which I bought several years ago, the chances of which being….. ? Also, a lot of the subscribers seem to have moved to London approximately the same time I returned here.
It seems to form a strange sense of community. I don’t check out enough profiles arbitrarily, only of those who message me and a few more besides, so I can’t be more informed about all of the different sectors who sign up. The ones who contact me fall into: fairly wordless, cheesily romantic, fairly cheesy one-line comments on my profile, those who say more about themselves and are clearly more interested in people beyond a quick flirt, and those interested in friendship only.
The one-liners don’t really go beyond more than a few messages (occasionally making it to two-liners) so I don’t have anything to say about them. Oh well, maybe I do. There are those who I’ve described above, who are looking for Serious Relationships, but who say so little about themselves I have no idea what their success rates are. Usually they’ve said extremely little about themselves, though I’ve been hearing from an older European man who asked me out on the second two-liner and who recent wrote to say, ‘um, was he being a bit pushy? Would still like to meet up’ etc. When asked, they struggle to say more about themselves, and are generally never heard from again.
One man’s profile described at length all the different women he’d met through the website and gone out with. Either he, or the website, therefore, are not necessarily designed for long-term relationships. Anna, the colleague who recommended the website, decided not to post her photo (so will be spared the mass inundation I’ve been receiving), but is decidedly looking for a relationship, so those messages might be of more relevance to her, but probably not by much. Instead of cheesy chatup lines in a bar, they’re simply being done over the internet; at a safe distance, where they’ll be spared rejection or indeed reactions.
Back to a point I mentioned earlier, I’ve been intrigued by the number of programmers I’ve come across. Newly being promoted to a programmer myself, I’m pleased at the common background, but also somewhat alarmed at the high proportion of them. More accurately, out of those I reply to, most are programmers, which indicates that many of these have come to programming late, via other careers and interest, else have explored sufficient during their career to maintain interesting conversations and lifestyles. A colleague explained this by the fact that they spend most of the day in front of a computer, and therefore have wider access to (and knowledge of) the internet than others, hence their subscriptions, also their chronic image as people who do not get out as much and mix as easily. I would say that is likely to have more to do with their colleagues and the desire to meet others from a different background than with failings in their own social skills.
Contrary to that, perhaps, the website is explained as an alternative to the futility and humiliation of chatting up people in bars, where you’re not necessarily going to have any idea of what you’re going to find, but interaction is at least more honest than hitting on someone at a bar. Also, if you often socialise with colleagues, you are likely to be all too aware of people’s backgrounds and experiences in advance, and also sufficiently wary of mixing further with any of them; conveniently, the website provides a portal to meet others outside your normal spheres.
I’m currently in touch with somewhere between 5 – 10 people off the website (not including those I contact erratically). Although it’s done wonders for my social life, it’s also killed all my free time through emailing, and encouraged me to slack off at work when needed. One is specifically interested in friendship alone; as a welcome surprise, the website is not exclusively limited to those seeking relationships, but has also been a useful tool in building new friendships. And I would say that those I am in touch with seem to be working on friendship first before anything else may or may not develop. Although I’ve already met two, and liked each one a lot, I’m hoping to meet up with the rest (as much as is possible) next week, and put facial expressions, gestures and accents to the words which arrive in my Inbox from time to time. I’m pleased that I’ve met an interesting set of people to offset my former friends and buddies, something I never expected from this website, also people who are either not looking beyond friendship, or looking to it for now with no specific expectations beyond that.
Still, I can’t help but think that this is too one-sided, and that I should try some of the cheesier men specifically for research purposes. Despite that sounding too much like suffering…