We’ve all had one good friend nudge us to try online dating. Some of us have friends who decided to put up a profile for us. (I know someone who posted his mother’s profile, how cute is that?!). “Come on,” they say, “What do you have to lose?”
They mean well. They want us to meet a nice person. In the movie “Must Love Dogs,” Diane Lane plays Sarah, a divorced, single woman. Her sister, Carol, decides to post Sarah’s profile on PerfectMatch.com. Of course in Hollywood, Sarah meets Mr. Perfect after a couple of awkward dates.
Which brings me back to the first question, “What do you have to lose?”
T I M E. Lots of time. Online dating is huge time commitment.
Winks. Photos. Introductions. Reviewing. Writing. Responding. Searching. Writing. Responding (oops, did I already mention that to him or was that the other guy?) Reviewing. Writing. Be clever. Scheduling. Talking. Meeting, finally! …Winks. Photos. Introductions. Reviewing. Writing. Responding. It keeps going, and going…
I’m not the Energizer bunny. I don’t have time for this. I’m single, remember? I have to do EVERYTHING. I don’t have any help from a spouse or partner. I have to work, take care of my condo, buy groceries, exercise, buy my clothes, do my laundry, make my coffee, make my meals, clean, schedule doctor appointments, water my plants, pay my bills and make sure I send my mom a birthday card. And, that does not include my time for friends, family and interests!
You can understand how I don’t have time for online dating. One girl friend suggested I spend 30 minutes at night looking and responding, limit my time so I’m not feeling so overwhelmed.
There is one dating site that reveals when you are online to all it’s members. It’s as if you are standing over a huge fish tank filled with hungry fish. They can see the shaker of fish flakes in your hand. Immediately, they start swimming to the top to get your attention. Ironically, the site I’m referring to is Plentyoffish.com.
Not only do you need to review and respond to the messages that were sent while your were offline, now you see a flurry of messages coming in from other men. Compound interest is not a good thing in this case.
I don’t have time for this. Besides, most of these guys did not read my profile, they just looked at my photo. How do I know that? Because, somehow, the content I wrote describing myself and who I was looking for, disappeared from my profile and I still continued to receive messages.
I’m a busy single, why not turn over this item on my to-do-list to a professional? Let someone do the work for me. Before the internet, there were and still are match-making companies who cater to the busy professional single for a price. Together and It’s Just Lunch are two of many who do some of the work for you. After the interview process, they send you “matches.” If you are interested, they’ll arrange a meeting or lunch. The number of matches you receive is based on the package you purchase. You pay by the date, eight dates for $800, for example. The problem with this process is that your matches are limited by the size of their member data base. Online dating does not have a limit. Match.com has over 15 million members.
It appears I have two imperfect choices:
1) Online dating – Pros: relatively inexpensive/free and large data base with endless possibilities. Cons: requires a sizable investment of my time with limited matching capabilities.
2) Matchmakers – Pros: less time investment and personal matching service. Cons: expensive and limited data base.
Neither is the perfect solution. There needs to be a better option…
Now there is. It’s called Virtual Dating Assistants. You pay them a fee (around $500) to not only write your profile, but to do all the searching, reviewing, and responding for you until they find a match(es) on the dating site of your preference. They work for you, not the dating site. I think it’s the best combination of online dating sites and matchmakers.
My devotion to my career as a road warrior in the pharmaceutical sales field was starting to kill my dating life. Soon after I realized the potential of online dating, I began to develop a systematic process that my virtual assistant could follow to manage my online dating accounts and set up dates on my behalf. It was a rocky ride at first but after a bit of fine tuning we finally got the system down and my virtual assistant set up 79 first dates with truly impressive women over a period of 12 months with little support from me. Now, my partner and I are overseeing a hand-picked team of virtual dating assistants who are using our proven system to find great dates for busy professionals who don’t have the time to do it themselves.
Mark Anderson
Co-Founder, Virtual Dating Assistants LLC
Check out the 10 easy steps to their process. My favorite is #9:
Provision of Pre-Date Executive Briefing
Your virtual dating assistant provides you with a pre-date executive briefing, which is essentially a snapshot of all previous email interaction and other key information (i.e. date’s contact information and online dating profile, meeting time and place, etc.).
Okay, it’s a little strange to think I’m going to meet someone who thinks they’ve been communicating with me, when they’ve been communicating with my virtual assistant. Yes, it’s a bit impersonal, but these people online are strangers.
Let’s face it, dating continues to evolve. Fifteen years ago, online dating was not mainstream. Today, billions of singles use online dating sites to search for a mate. Many of them do not have the time (or the skills at researching). Why not hire someone to do the research for you so you can focus on the moment of truth, meeting in person to see if you have chemistry?
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1st thought: I understand that it is alot of time to dedicate to be active on an online dating site. And I do believe that it may take 10x the amount of dates from men you meet online to find someone you are interested in than meeting someone in person. Because we never know if there is chemistry until there is personal interaction. But what it comes down to is where we decide to devote our time. If we are not actively “out and about” in areas to meet the kind of men we are looking for, we need to put ourselves in the places where we can meet them. That takes time as well. Online dating is just a quicker way to have a bunch of men all at the same time who are single and looking. Doesn’t mean they are right. I still go back to the statement from a love coach…”we decide to put a certain amount of hours per week in working out to keep fit and healthy, how much time is being devoted to our love life.”
2nd thought: I really think its absolutely crazy to use a service that does email correspondence for you. I think that’s even a further step away from being personal, which is the main problem with meeting online to begin with. If I found out that I was communicating with a service instead of the actual guy I would be pissed. Secondly, I think a service may miss the small details that you may like in the writing of guys profile that may not be “on the list” they are provided to do the researching to begin with. Maybe just a feeling or instinct you have when reading someone’s profile. This is all about feelings, not a computerized output of the perfect mate.
Lets be honest, online dating and matchmakers and love coaches all exist because our society does not take the time to be with people. We are too busy behind our computers and mechanical devices. I find it quite sad actually.
I have to completely agree with that. I’ve had some friends that have used matchmaking services like It’s Just Lunch and haven’t been happy at all with the matches they were set up with. I think there is more potential on online dating sites to find matches because those matchmaking services have much smaller membership bases. My problem with online dating is this: Sure, the first email, wink, whatever is easy enough, but then I find myself all of a sudden juggling correspondences with various guys, none of whom I’ve actually met. I guess that’s the point of it, but sometimes I start to feel like I’m a bit out of my league. I get these nagging guilty feelings when I don’t respond back to someone I’ve been writing, because now it’s somehow personal. And since work and my social life have been crazy lately, I’ve been spending all my time trying to taper back on Match.com by not starting any new correspondences. If someone could just take over some of this process for me it would be amazing. I’m still pretty young in my career so I don’t have $500 per month to spend on meeting people but I can definitely imagine this being worth if if I had the money. I’d be interested to hear someone’s experience that has actually tried it.
I hate online dating….but I’ve realized I don’t really have a choice because I get more shy and hermit like with age. So I’m doing eHarmony and I have to say it’s slim pickins on there! The best way to meet men is to go out with a friendliest girlfriends you have to a quality place that attracts the type of men you like. That or the grocery store- just don’t be picking out Fiber One and Tampons.
I launched my own startup, http://www.thedatingrevolution.com to try to make online dating easier. One of the complaints I’ve heard the most in regards to online dating is the fact that it’s so inefficient. You’ve got women in their 20s & 30s getting spammed by guys in their late 40s through 60s.
We created EasyMatch – in short you pick what you’re looking for (i.e. 32-37 from NYC, with a Masters degree) but you can also pick an optional and broader set of criteria of who you’re willing to hear from (i.e. 31-39, from NYC with a BA, Masters or PhD).
When you pull up your search results, it color codes them, very clearly laying out your ideal matches in green and those in yellow are people who you didn’t quite match their ideal, but ended up in that broader filtered range. If someone shows up in red it indicates that they’re not interested in hearing from you. Emails sent from these individuals will end up in a spam box that the recipient never has to review. In short, you can finally proactively control who can contact you.
Take a peek, and let me know if this is something that would be worthwhile for you, to make online dating easier for you.
Ross Felix
Founder / CEO
Dating Revolution