Starting something new here.

I’ve mentioned in a few posts over the last six months or so that I’ve gotten back into the dating world – and while I’m not exclusively using online dating sites to date (there is at least one “candidate” that I’ve kept in touch with/started seeing organically), most of the new candidates come from those resources.  Mostly because I know literally no one here.

And also because, historically, while I tend to have really bad experiences with dating in general, I find that I end up with fewer narcissistic psychopaths when I utilize these sites and a higher percentage of nerds (which works really well for me, since I am also a nerd myself).  You’d think this would be the other way around and, of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but… well… that’s just been my experience.

Anyway, so I decided to start writing reviews of my time on these sites for this blog.  Not because I’m an expert at this by any stretch of the imagination (especially since it’s really been almost a decade since I was on any online dating site at all), but because like everything else, when I dive into it, it becomes a fairly significant part of my life and rather than spend all my time screwing around with people who aren’t taking the site seriously like I used to in the old days, I’d rather spend the time analyzing the effectiveness of the site, the quality of the matches, the mechanics of the matchmaking, etc. 

It also makes me feel as if I’m being semi-productive when I end up posting a profile into the ether and filtering through hundreds of candidates to get one or two decent conversations.  Whether this is actual productivity… well… it probably isn’t.  But… at least I’m trying, right?

Anyway, so since I’m not independently wealthy, I can’t afford to be on all the paid sites at once (and I don’t have the time or patience to pay attention to more than one of them anyway), so I bounce around… therefore, the reviews come sporadically so that I can distribute the funds around, but also so that I can get a really solid feel for what I’m actually getting out of the experience.  A week on any given site isn’t long enough to come up with an analysis – mostly because when you’re “new” to any site (and you’re female), you get a lot of up-front attention that tends to die away after a couple of weeks, when the user base has already viewed your profile and made a decision as to whether they’re interested in you or not.  I feel like three months (give or take) is probably enough to get the “new toy” reactions out of the way and get an idea of what I think about it without overspending or overstaying my welcome.  Obviously for some sites (like eHarmony which requires a longer subscription period), that’ll have to be extended but, generally, three months is the amount of time I’ll devote to any one site.  Unless they’re free – in which case, that might change.

Finally, as for a profile, to make this as scientific as possible (and also because I don’t do anything half-assed), I’m actually filling it out, giving it a true shot (because really, truly, my goal here is to MEET someone – not just to fuck around for the sake of writing blogs).  I’m using similar photos on the profiles – some the same, some a variety depending on what the sites require.  But the effort that goes into creating the profiles on each site is the same and is overall reflective of my overachiever tendencies. 

So… stay tuned.