Meeting Men Via an Internet Dating Site: A Personal Story

I signed up for an online dating site for singles during a free trial period back in September 2005.  I wasn’t desperate.  I just wanted to try something different, because I had met men in traditional ways that most single women do such as: walking down the street, being introduced through a mutual friend, attending a class, or family event.  After spending about 30 minutes answering questions about everything from my preference in a man to what I like to do for fun, I had to create a small sales pitch as to why a man would be interested in me and upload my photo.  By the time I had completed my profile, I realized that I had spent nearly two hours online and then another couple of hours looking at page after page of single men.  What I didn’t know is that every time I clicked on a man’s profile page my clicks were being tracked.  The next day I received so many requests to chat live that I had to turn my speakers off because of the beeping alerts that were letting me know someone wanted to chat with me.

There were Hispanic men, white men, black men, married men, and God only knows what other races of men flirting with me.  “Hey sweetie!  Hi beautiful! You are gorgeous!”  One married man told me I was going to make him divorce his wife!  So I had to sift through all of the smooth talk and settle on a few men to chat.  I selected three:  a Hispanic man, a Middle Eastern man and a Caucasian man.  The Hispanic guy was a college educated guy with eyes to die for!  The Middle Eastern guy seemed to be open-minded about topics such as race, religion and politics.  He also wanted me to know he loved America, but had no photo uploaded.  The Caucasian guy told me candidly after a few conversations that he was interested in a sexual relationship and that he would even pay me if only he could do ABC and XYZ to me.  I was so disappointed in him, because he only reinforced a known stereotype of why some Caucasian men will date women outside of their race especially f they are darker hues.  What’s funny was we had more in common than the others, but I had to politely tell him we couldn’t chat anymore.  I was too offended beyond words.