I said I'd come back to this topic, and I almost always keep my promises.
Online dating probably isn't anyone's first choice, right? Wouldn't we all rather meet someone through a friend, or across a room, or something way more romantic? But those of us who have turned to online dating have done it because we do want to meet someone, and it's hard to meet someone at bars/through friends/etc etc, so we are trying a different route.
Most of us make a real effort with our profiles. We try to be kinda cute, and smart, and different than everyone else. And all we expect in return is some kind of effort in the e-mail we get in response to that profile. It's partially why I hate those icebreakers -- all you have to do is click a button, and I'm looking for a tiny bit of effort and maybe some creativity and interest.
But these are some ACTUAL e-mails I've received over the past month. I have archives going back years and could probably go through them and find even better examples, if you're interested. For the most part, I'm nice, and I send some kind of response even though I could probably just as easily ignore them. The profiles that go along with these e-mails also leave much to be desired. Either they give NO information, or they belong to 60 year-old men. All spelling and grammatical mistakes are left intact. Each line is one entire e-mail, the dashes are where there may have been separate lines within the email.
-- look at those muscles/ hiya, can we chat
-- hi / leave ur phone number:)
-- Whatcha up to? (this was the 2nd email from this guy. the 1st said "hey alabama")
-- What's going on ?
-- hey how are you? / im D, nice to meet you
-- tell me more fun smart down to earth curly hair ok pinch me are u real me sorry no pic but there u need not worry and twist my arm ill get u one ok yes pretty daring of me dont shy away when u see mine dont look it or act it and never judge a book by its cover ok tag u are it o u knew that
-- its real cute but i contect to you abot you write-ask me if you want to know percific jes i want to know please
Oh My Word!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteGiven the quality of the actual e-mails, maybe you should give the icebreakers a chance!
Yep, seems about right. I've gotten way to many of those over the years, too. They leave a lot to be desired, and make me debate internally when to cancel my Frumster subscription (since it's yielded me so little over the years) - especially when I see the automatic charge on my credit card statement every feew months.
ReplyDeleteHang in there. Eventually it will all be worth it! That's what I tell myself, anyway.
Ok, but here's my question for each of you: when a guy actually does provide an email that is well thought out, shows some interest in your profile, do you always respond? I have numerous examples of girls not caring what is written, only caring what a guy looks like. I mean, I actually had a girl outright reject me on JDate (wasn't very nice about it, either), only to see me at a bar and hit on me. When I told her what she had said to me, she sheepishly walked away (and apologized profusely through email to give her a chance).
ReplyDeleteI had another girl respond to a message, not even reading what I wrote (which was moderately eloquent, as she loved Shakespeare as much as I do), only to find out she was nothing more than a total twit who kept saying 'I heart William Blake', when I even gave her a little chance (she had never heard of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell or the Songs of Innocence/Experience).
I know each of you guys would like a guy to write something nice, but, what about us guys who would love a girl who likes us for us, not a picture?
Anonymous, I respond to every single e-mail I receive, after I've thoroughly read it and reviewed the person's profile.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, writing someone off because s/he hasn't heard of something isn't fair. There's a lot out there, and it's impossible to know everything. I once received a message from someone and there were items in his profile that I didn't recognize. Before writing back, I looked them up (on Wikipedia, admittedly not the best source, but it was expedient) and explained in my response to him that while I was not familiar with those ideas/people/etc., I was curious to learn more. And no, he was not drop dead gorgeous. But his profile was interesting, and we ended up talking for a couple of months. Ultimately, we had other differences that didn't allow for it to work out, but yes, we actually do look for people based on the person, and not just on the picture. There has to be a small amount of attraction, but that doesn't mean it's all about the picture.
However, it's difficult to get these e-mails that show virtually no effort from people who probably only wrote to us because of our own pictures on the site, or maybe after a quick, quick skim of our profiles, from people who are old enough to be our fathers or are clearly not on the same page religiously (when I write that I wear pants and consider myself modern orthodox, emphasis on the modern, and a yeshivish person who wears a black hat and sits in kollel learning all day writes to me, it's clear he hasn't looked at my profile) - it's frustrating. Getting a one line e-mail, when the entire content is "hello" or "how are you?" - frustrating! And I think that is where the Doctor was coming from when she wrote her post.