No, I'm Not Going To Do Online Dating.

Since I started saying that I miss conversations, it has been suggested to me a few times that I should do the online dating thing, even when dating/love is not what I was talking about on my blog. The suggestions always come with all these claims about how wonderful online dating is and how many friends have found their significant others online, blah, blah, blah.

Sorry, I'm not doing it. Ever.

But why, Cesar, why?

I'll tell you why in a sec, but first let me say a couple of things. One, I'm not judging people who do online dating. I have many friends who use or have used online dating sites, including some who ended up marrying people they met on these sites. Good for them. It just doesn't work for me, unless I do it for comedy. Two, I've never been able to comprehend the concept of dating, which is nothing else than hanging out with people you barely know with some sort of romantic intention. I don't know, it may be just me, but I think having romantic intentions before knowing the person makes no sense is not possible. You can pretend or you can be in denial, and both cases are problematic. But dating gets even more confusing because it could mean different things to different people. To some, dating means just getting to know other people, some are OK with making out but not with sex, some consider sex some sort of requirement, some think that dating multiple people at the same time is OK since they haven't committed to anyone yet (but they make sure none of the people they are dating know that they aren't the only ones), some prefer dating to be exclusive, although, it's not really a relationship. It's just a mess, and as far as I know, I've never been on a date. What I do is hang out with people without any romantic intention or expectations, the whole point is to get to know the person. If it happens that there is some kind of chemistry, then perhaps I may start thinking in other terms. And yeah, the possibility that something intimate could happen will always be there, but that's just not what I'm aiming for.

Now that I've clarified that, let me explain my point of view. The reason why I don't do online dating is because it's a losing game for men. Unless you're extremely handsome, or have a solid gold cock, or lower your standards quite a bit, or truly dedicate yourself, then it's a losing game. I'm not saying that men don't meet women or get laid or find romance, in fact, I know it can be quite the opposite. For some, at least.

Since this social networking thing got huge with MySpace, I've noticed that you only have to be a mildly attractive/interesting woman to be bombarded daily with messages and friend requests and most likely you'll even get your own stalker. Men, on the other hand, barely get anything, unless you're that one ultra-cool dude. In most cases, it's rather rare for guys to get approached by stranger women, unless they were actively seeking for it. Women can just upload a cute picture of themselves and say nothing and they will get a minimum of 5 messages/friend requests a day. Men can have lots of pictures and plenty of interesting and/or fun activity, and if they get 1 message or friend request a week they can consider themselves lucky. This behavior actually mirrors the real world, but it appears more extreme online because people have much more exposure. I've talked to a couple of people on dating sites and they can confirm that this phenomenon happens there as well, and it's probably much worse than on a regular social site, and this is enough for me to stay away from online dating sites.

It's a losing game, I'm telling you. If you're a guy, you'll have to learn how to play that game, you'll have to learn the patterns and memorize the key words, and then you're going to have to spend sometime browsing, selecting, researching, to be able to send some type of personalized message to a shitload of women, and see what comes back. I estimate that about 97% of the time your message will be ignored or it may get lost among the many other similar messages girls receive every day. So you do it again, day after day day, while fine tuning up your techniques. If you do this every day, and you aim realistically, then you may achieve some kind of success. Partial success, because it only means that now you have to prepare for the second round, which can be as challenging, if not more, and it always has the potential to become a disaster.

Fuck that!

Seriously. Fuck online dating. If I was a girl I'd gladly do it, but as a man, fuck that. You know when you're at a party and there's always a superhot girl with 15 dudes around her kissing her ass? Well, I'm never one of those guys, and that's exactly what I'd feel if I did online dating. It almost feels like a contest where you get selected if you win (the first round). No, thank you, I don't compete, I refuse to do so. I'd rather be the one, plain and simple. This, of course, comes with its sides effects, because I'm less visible by choice, which means that all of those 15 dudes I mentioned before will get laid and find a potential significant other before I do. I'm OK with that, especially the getting laid part. I've discovered that I really don't like sex. Yes, really, I don't. I like mind blowing hot sex, otherwise it's not really worth my time, and it's really difficult to have good sex when you barely know the person. Most guys wouldn't mind would love having a different partner every weekend, and that's cool, I envy their capability to enjoy shitty sex, but I just can't.

But don't you wanna find a nice girl, what about that?  

Well, first you need to be careful about the numbers these online dating sites throw out there. Their "success rate" is based on the percentage of people who met someone and got in a relationship, but they never talk about the success rate of these relationships, or if they were actual long lasting matches. Think about this, those are sites where single people with the desire to be in a relationship go to find each other. You go there to sell yourself, to tell them what you're good at and how they are going to be happy with you because you rule. This happens everywhere, true, no asshole in real life is going to tell anyone they just met that they are jerks and bad people. But now imagine if you could see the Facebook and eHarmony profiles and interactions of these assholes, which one do you think will be the most deceiving? I think it's fair to say that the bullshit flies more freely at online dating sites. I'd be very careful with people's pictures on dating sites, because I'm sure you'll see those miracle unrealistic shots way too often. I guess part of the skills you'll need to succeed at dating sites is to know how to identify the bullshit. Or to pretend you didn't notice. 

You see, way too many people get in relationships because they don't want to be alone, not because they really found a compatible partner. These people will ignore details about the other person in other to reach the relationship status, after which these details start becoming an issue out of the blue. I can try to be as true as possible when I'm interacting with potential relationship candidates, but I will never know if the same can be said about them. I would guess there are more people who don't mind getting in relationships just to not be alone on dating sites, so I think I may be avoiding future problems by avoiding dating sites.

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UPDATE: 

This is the comment a friend left on Facebook regarding this blog. She's also someone who met her husband on eHarmony:

"WOW. Your blog is 100% TRUE. Dude, even I got hounded and stalked on dating sites...and I am not what is traditionally hot unless you are a chubby chaser...and I am perfectly cool with that. But yeah, the dating sites can get crazy and just like you said, the guys get zilch attention there, it is not really fair at all. I hear those same sentiments from a lot of my guy friends that have tried it.

Actually the one thing I did like about the whole online dating process was getting to know OUN through that venue first, then emailing each other for a while and then talking on the phone before we met. It was weeks before we actually met. And it made meeting him for the first time pretty rad, I felt I already knew him enough to want to have a connection and there was already a spark. It didn't feel like I was hanging out with a stranger, and that rocked cause I hate that feeling...it's too awkward.  

 But I got lucky, REALLY lucky, because I also have a hundred nightmare stories from online dating too that could make people just stop using the internet forever."


What can I say? I told you so.