The other night I watched Dawn Porter’s “How to Find Love Online” with avid interest. As an online dater (I’m still back and forth with it) I was curious to see what conclusions the show would report.
Now firstly, I adore Dawn Porter’s reporting style, every program she makes I find interesting and engaging and I just damn-well-girl-crush love-her!
Enough of that and onto the parts of the program which, for me, stood out the most (some of this is ground I have covered before so apologies if you have read the similar blog posts)
Shop till you drop.
Relationship physiologist Susan Quilliam who features in the program touched upon the subject of the “shopping list mentality” of finding the perfect partner. This is something I mentioned in an earlier blog post.
Some people think that finding love is about finding the person who embodies the fictional mate they have in their heads, who encompasses all the attributes they have decided they would like in a partner. Blue eyes, tall, handsome, good with children, plays tennis, loves Bovril but hates marmite.
People with this mentality can be very inflexible and therefore are whittling down the people they will go on a date with to a select few, if any.
As I said in my earlier blogs I don’t tend to filter the men online by eye/hair colour or any of the other options made available to you on places like Match.com because I wonder if any of that stuff does really matter.
It’s important to have deal breakers and those should be sensible, like if you really couldn’t date someone with children for example, but how many times have you heard a married person describe their spouse as “not my usual type” - because I have, more than once.
How to you know true love won’t come in the shape of a short, balding lawyer as with Charlotte in SATC? You don’t, so don’t discount the less than perfect matches.
At least meet the guy first, he might do something trivial which puts you off but don't simply go on the info in a profile to discount someone. Go on dates and have a bit of fun, even if he does bath with his cat like the loopy lawyer date I had :-(
Is honesty even a policy anymore?
1/3 of the people who set up their profiles in aid of Dawn’s show were not entirely honest about themselves in their profile. Shocker!
I was surprised that this was so low to be honest as I have yet to attend a date where I didn’t find something that the man had been dishonest about.
The things people lied about most were - their jobs, weight, and age. Height didn’t feature in that list which surprised me as it is the thing I have almost always men online tend to exaggerate.
Lying about physical attributes is pointless because you’ll be sussed out straight away, unless you wear heels gents, and very long trousers to cover them.
(Please don’t try that and take me to court when you fall over, and you will fall over)
Lying about your job might take longer for your date to discover but by then, if you’re getting on well and things progress, she is likely to be unimpressed if you have lied.
I am ready for my close-up
Half the people in Dawn’s show used a photo over a year old, 1/10 men used a photo 5 to 10 years old. One memorable girl admitted in her video diary that her photo was 3 years old and a few stone ago.
It’s not that I don’t understand why people do this, you look at a photo of yourself and you think “hey, looking good” but if you were looking good in 1996 it’s probably not one to use.
When updating my profile (and I do this regularly if I have a haircut or some kind of major doughnut binge) I tend to go through my most recent photos on Facebook and select some from this year that I like, from the last 3 months is best.
Dawn also went to a photo-shoot (and she look hawt!) revealing that it has become increasingly popular for people to use professional photographers for their online profiles. Frankly I wouldn’t know anything about this, who has the money for that? Well some people obviously but not this girl. I spend my money on pink wine.
Look, but don’t leap
¼ of the daters in the program didn’t make the first move when online dating; they browsed and waited for someone to make contact with them. The mathematician featured in the show worked out that you would have to send over 700 messages to have a (I forget the exact figure) 0.00something % chance of meeting someone and having a relationship.
Depressing isn’t it? But if you don’t send any messages at all then obviously you are reducing that to nothing. Similarly if you stayed in your house for six months and didn’t go out the chance of you meeting someone is nothing, it’s simple really. You get out what you put in. You won’t get responses to every email, or even half, but realistically if you dating in this medium you have to make the effort, especially ladies.
Speak to my agent
A very savvy business woman featured in the show runs an agency which can be hired to date online for you and respond to messages as if they were you, with your input. It’s expensive and to my mind unnecessary. However there is a market for everything so good luck to the woman who runs this, she’ll probably make millions and could buy a boyfriend if she wanted. My only concern would be where this stops?
Would you be happy if you discovered the person you had been dating let their secretary do all the running for him, and all sweeping gestures had actually been organised by, well, erm... Mavis?
Relationships are not a job to be outsourced surely? If you’re too busy to get chatting and arrange your dates how the hell are you ever going to go on the date itself?
Relationships are not a job to be outsourced surely? If you’re too busy to get chatting and arrange your dates how the hell are you ever going to go on the date itself?
Scam, Scam he’s our man
The show also featured a woman who has been the victim of a scam. An online con artist left her £80,000 out of pocket. Did he rob her of all her jewellery under the ruse of a date? Did he hack her PC and get her bank details? No, this poor lady handed cash over to him willingly. I felt so sorry for this woman, even though giving money to someone you have never met is insane, she clearly fell for the charm of a man she thought she knew, well haven’t we all done that whether offline or on?
The show itself is a good insight, taking you step by step through the world of internet dating; I can’t wait for part two.
Dawn – I loves ya!
In dating news: I have been texting a guy who I met online and we have provisionally booked a date, however I have a sneaking suspicion he falls into the scammer/married bastard category, but its ok, sister_single and I have a plan…blog to follow.
Love
SG
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