I Hate Online Dating – August 26, 2013

eHarmonyI hate online dating. As I consider this sentiment, I wonder if anyone actually likes to be on an online dating site. I’m trying to imagine a person who is over the moon to be on eHarmony. She’s jumping up and down, “Woooo, online dating is the best!” This is just funny, right? I’m sitting in a coffee shop as I write this, attempting to smother a laugh. Mostly, I see people who are either jaded (like myself) or those who are trying to remain open about dating sites. For the latter, there’s usually a tinge of regret. “I’m trying to be open and try something new.” This is usually accompanied by a shrug of their shoulders.

I think the only people who are truly excited about online dating are those who are either in a relationship or married. Born out of care for the single people in their lives, this seems like a tangible solution. “Have you thought of trying online dating? My friend Josephine met the love of her life after 2 days on Christian Mingle.” I keep hearing about the multitudes who fall in love online, yet I actually know very few who have. Are these online couples just an urban myth?

I’ve hated online dating since I first knew it existed. There’s something so awkward and embarrassing about the whole idea. There’s no shrouding or ambiguity. We haven’t met anyone in our network of people. We’re here for one reason and one reason alone: to meet someone. It’s humbling to be sure.

I really hate the ads for online sites too and eHarmony commercials are the worst. Everyone’s so perfect, and blond, and smiley. There are numerous times when I have wanted to give one of those commercials the middle finger. And maybe I have. I can see right now happy couples twirling around, with big goofy grins on their faces. This amount of twirling is only acceptable in a Malick film (i.e. To the Wonder). Ugh.

I can’t stand how unrelational dating sites are. How much can one really connect online? It’s so easy to cut off communication or to be completely dishonest with another. I just wrote on Friday about how technology and social media has the power to increase our loneliness. I think online sites can fall within this realm as well.

Despite all of my frustrations with online dating, I am giving it a try again. It still makes me want to roll my eyes (and I actually did just roll my eyes as I typed this). I feel great amounts of reluctance. I still detest those awful ads. I read a great article last month on Donald Miller’s blog. The author (not Miller) spoke about her experience on eHarmony. It was not a pro-online dating type of article necessarily, but it was an honest piece. I appreciated her honesty and frustration with the process. Somehow, it encouraged me to try online dating again. I don’t enter in with grand expectations. I guess I enter back into the online dating world, if even just to be intentional about trying to date again. God can work in some unusual ways.

3 thoughts on “I Hate Online Dating – August 26, 2013

  1. Jen, I’m having fun reading through some of your blogs. I just got introduced to your writing through my daughter whom you may know, Christine Lee Smith, who also graduated Talbot in Spiritual Formation.

    Anyway, why I’m writing is because I cracked up and my heart smiled in not feeling so alone with regard to your writing on online dating. I shutter when I think of it even though I found my late husband on a site 12 years ago. I believe God dropped him out of the sky so to speak and the site was only a tool. Since then I experienced all negative from trying it out. I join and get angry and quit. Then months later I join again. I live in a rural area now and it’s hard to find men I have much in common with especially since I’ve spent my life until 2 years ago in CA. Let me give you my short litany of frustrations:

    ~ It feels like such a sales job.
    ~ I don’t fit the cute young, tan, blonde many want who love to hang at the water, boat sky… I’m a redhead also and I hate the heat. So why the h. am I living in TX? That’s another story. …smile
    ~ So many men profess to be Christians, but are far from it in their values. What’s with their wanting sex at all in dating much less the first date or two?????!!!!! Oh my gosh!
    ~ Or those who FEED on watching horrible movies or garbage on the internet?!
    ~ It doesn’t feel natural and it’s intense and draining. Actually becomes like a part-time job keeping up and all the zillions of questions as if on a job interview, but worse.
    ~ Where’s a man who has controlled eyeballs? The VERY few I know are married. …ugh

    What attracted me to Doug (my late husband) was that he wasn’t smoke and mirrors. He didn’t brag about all the toys he had and places he’d been. He was straightforward – so much so, his profile picture showed him in his wheelchair and I was drawn to his courage.

    I’ve also considered the thoughts of ideally meeting someone in my church and knowing them with their circle of friends, etc., but then I remember dating a man for several months who was in my church and had been married many years and his wife died. I thought, “Oh wow… someone really stable), but then learned he was like a 16 year old in a 60+ year old body. It was like he was let out of a cage. I’m not against sex, but I don’t believe God changed his mind on waiting till married.

    Didn’t mean for this to go on, but I found your thoughts refreshing and they helped me not feel so alone in this journey. I hope you will continue to share what you experience and learn. I know it will be a hearty read.

    Okay… now back to reading more of your writings. THANK YOU and may God continue to open your life to more and more of His riches.

    Melody

    • Thanks so much for reading Melody! I find that it’s a frustrating journey for many. And the more I write about it, the more I find others who have similar experiences. There is something so connecting about that.

      Peace to you as you continue on your own journey with the Lord,

      Jen

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