Online Dating and Taxidermy

Actually, this post has nothing whatsoever to do with taxidermy. I just thought it would make for an interesting title to a blog post. And I like the word.

I've been involved in the online dating scene for almost a decade now. That's a bit of a frightening thought, but it's true. Recently I joined Match.com to take advantage of their guarantee - they advertised on television and said that you're guaranteed to meet someone you actually want to date (not in those words, of course) within 6 months of joining. Of course, in order to get them to hold up their end of the bargain, you have to pay for those 6 months up front, and you have to remain an active Match.com member during the entirety of those 6 months - and, to them, remaining "active" means that you need to send messages to at least 5 unique Match.com users every month. Normally this would be easy. Piece of cake. But it was actually quite difficult for me to find 5 users each month worthy of contact in my eyes. They were all too beautiful or pretentious or religious. And for three months, I diligently contacted my required 5 people a month. How many messages did I receive in return? One. One stinking message. And it wasn't even someone who wanted to get to know me. No. It was a guy who had "winked" at me on the site, so I sent him a message. He returned the message to say to me "sorry, I clicked the wink button accidentally, I didn't mean to send that to you." RAGE.

Today I realized that the next month has passed and I haven't sent all 5 messages. But you know what? I don't care. I don't like the guys on Match.com. And their stupid guarantee doesn't give you your money back if you don't find someone. No, it just gives you another 6 months membership for free. Riddle me this, Batman - if I haven't found the man of my dreams on your website in the first 6 months, what makes you think that I'll find him in another 6 months? I highly doubt it would happen. So I don't care anymore.

Besides, I've become more active on another dating site. And this one is FREE. And fun. And guys there think I'm cute. And they send me long messages with complete sentences and everything. And no one sends me messages by mistake. OkCupid.com, you're the winner. You are now my preferred online dating website. And if I get bored trying to find Mr. Right, I can always take some dorky personality quizzes to pass the time. That's the magic of OkCupid. They're fun, and inviting, and free.