I am doing online dating

[customerserviceguy]

108. You have to approach online dating in a totally different way than conventional dating

My lady and I met on a website nearly ten years ago, and even though we lived a continent apart, we did what we needed to do to get our lives together (me, moving from the PNW to NY, and her, being patient while I found steady work in my fifties) and we're glad it happened.

We met on a dating site for larger folks, and that takes away a lot of people who are going to be, shall we say, 'shallow' on that issue? With more generalized dating sites, like Match.com, etc., a shallow person will try to put out all the "I don't want..." items somewhere in the body of the profile.

Consider yourself lucky, you don't have to waste another second with that person, unless you want to, and clearly, in the case you describe, you felt the need to call him a hypocritical jerk. That's not going to change him one bit, and it just makes things worse for the next woman he does finally meet up with, as he's got one more "crazy b****" story rolling around in his tiny brain while he's trying to interpret his next victim's words.

As I said, in the real world, finding a mate is like trying to figure out what it is about a person that you like, and what it is about you that they like. It's an effort in coming together, and sometimes when people try too hard to do that, it sows the seeds for the eventual breakup. With online dating, it's just like shopping, it's about rejecting as many people as possible quickly, so that you can find a little wheat in that chaff.

Unfortunately, it's not easy to be commodified on a dating site, but that's the price you pay to get through the sheer numbers of potential daters out there. It might just be somewhat of a numbers game, instead of hoping that every little flicker turns into a flame, then a roaring fire, just acknowledge that like bits of burning leaves escaping from an autumn bonfire, nothing will come of the vast majority of them.

Write a profile that spends time telling a potential date what he might see in you, don't focus on past relationships, and give them a hook to begin conversation, such as a favorite book, movie, or musical choice. You say you have pets, do they feature prominently in your profile? If so, that may be telling a man that he's just going to be the third cat in your house, or the second dog. Pets are wonderful, and they're an important part of people's lives, but with some profiles I've read, it seems that the person simply wants a two-legged pet that will at least have a conversation. People go into serious dating relationships to become the most important person in another's life, not just an accessory to it.