you gave love a bad name

Online dating- I’ve often grappled with doing a post on this, because well it still seems a bit taboo to me even though I think I’d be hard pressed to find people who haven’t at least tried it at some point in their lives. I know many people who’ve had very successful relationships with people met on dating sites, some even married. I am currently trying my luck on two sites, as my mother is constantly wondering if I am dating enough (love you mom, and don’t worry, we are looking at quality here not quantity) and I have a few pet peeves when it comes to interactions on these sites. There must be a way to stop the madness, really (or is it Honestly – T? – can you confirm?). First of all, I don’t understand when someone emails you “hi, I like your profile, we should chat”.  Ummm, hello? What exactly did you like about my profile , can you please at least pick out something I took my precious time to write hoping it would lead us to something to chat about? It could be as easy as telling me about loving dogs too, or that you like to drink, I don’t really care what you pick out, but please pick something. I really think that’s the laziest approach  to finding a date, please don’t copy and paste your blanket email into the message box for all of us. I get that we are all looking to go out have a good time, and it probably will not be a love connection but the tiniest bit of effort goes a long way. I also cannot stand text message slang in emails, look I am not the best speller in the world, but I shouldn’t feel like I am receiving a text message from a fourth grader. Misspelling a hard word, fine – too lazy and typing l8er or 2 c if u want 2 hang out, come on now, we are adults – impress me with your ability to make your computer’s spell check do its job. Not being able to  These are two things that actually will cause me not to respond back to a gentleman, unless he is completely channeling Ryan Gosling or Channing Tatum – if you’re that good looking perhaps the brains aren’t needed (kidding of course).
Have you ever done online dating? What's some of your pet peeves about it?


(photo from The New Yorker)