The Game of Love
I think at one point we all swear we will never do it; however, there’s always that curiosity of just how well we might perform on that open stage.
I’m talking about Online Dating.
First of all, not much of anything existed online before I got married in 1991 and when I was married, I never thought much about it because I never believed myself to ever have to worry about being a player. I had the mindset most people in my position had, and some still have, which is online dating is sacrilegious!
However, as the years went on and circumstances changed, more people began proclaiming their faith in this type of dating and millions of dollars started being dumped into marketing campaigns to combat that part of the sub-conscience that tells you this way of life is so wrong.
And, being newly released of my marital duties by 2014, I was still apprehensive. But when you have a grandfatherly-like, Billy Graham looking, reassuring type character that is consistently visiting your favorite TV shows telling you that online dating is not only OK, but your best ticket to finding happiness – suddenly you receive that short burst of courage within your brain that grants you super human powers to jump when all common sense screams, “NO!”
Oh, he’s good; real good.
I think when most of us take that initial plunge and hit that button announcing our presence to the online world - we have a certain expectation of being well-received and truly needed! And I imagine we all feel a little disappointed when we realize that’s not really how the game is actually played.
In fact, it’s a pretty ruthless, cut throat game that will devour those who take things personally or have very little ability to adjust their thinking to understand they are just not that important, valuable, or good looking.
Interpretation … I got my ass beat.
What the grandfatherly guy doesn’t tell you is the incredible work it takes to get to that one success story that finds that one needle in the haystack due to the sheer volume of players, really good players, in this arena. Especially if you live in the Central Florida Arena!
And yes, you have to picture it just like an arena, a small arena that has become waaaaaay too overcrowded with participants!
Here’s the truth: when you hit that button announcing you are the best candidate in the game – it’s similar to that scene in the movie World War Z when Brad Pitt was trying to get back to the plane quietly and his cell phone rang. If you saw the movie, you have the visual.
Suddenly, you are thrust into a pit of souls that have been frantically feasting upon one another and when fresh meat comes to their attention, by God, you better be ready. Although there are plenty of beautiful souls amongst the crowd, it is infested with some truly dark souls who have been honing their skills manipulating the weak, the vulnerable, the trusting, the hopeful.
(Don't be scared ... I'm being factious ... kind of )
Likes, winks, nods, messages, hopes, prayers, saviors ... you name it, here they come!
At this point you’re thinking … Man, was that old man right!!
“Not so fast, my friend!”
But, oh, the woes of the divorced male ego that is desperate to prove that his ex was going to be sorry for sending him back into the game! The excitement and chills down the spine that take place upon the initial insertion with all the frenzied and sudden attention will make idiots of even our most respected geniuses.
Not that I'm saying I'm a genius (tilted more towards idiot).
An observant man; a patient man; a man thinking in his right mind, will easily dissect the real from the unreal and be able to keep his brain attached to the place it needs to be attached. A wise man is able to identify from a great distance away these beasts hiding behind a keyboard portraying young, beautiful flowers that have miraculously been waiting just for you.
I said a wise man.
However, upon that initial drop-in, most men are not in their right mind (wise) and regretfully are overdosed with an infinite flood of compliments to their ego system (aka, brain-displacement) causing them to suffer from a very specific type of insanity called Blipenisity, which terminates the person from using any common sense and just simply questioning such obvious things as the following:
Why are so many young, single, widowed, divorced beautiful women from all over the United States so eager to meet them.
What is the deal with all these grammatical mistakes or conversational misuses found in their profile?
Where are all her other pictures? Why only one? Or ... why do her only 2 pictures look so different!
Why are so many 25-35 year old beauties posting on their profile that they are interested in men of every race, every size and shape, in the age groups of 50 to 95 ranging from 3 feet tall to 12 feet tall?
Unfortunately, if not immediately identified or just ignored, Blipenisity has been known to morph into a severe case of ElTigre el Loco which will reduce you to just a shell of the man the world had previously known. The only known procedure to treat such a disease is a delicate procedure called a Bobbittectomy and even that may not be successful.
Hopefully, Blipenisity is a short-lived affliction and, once shaken, allows you to eventually figure out that these beautiful girls with such an intense desire to make you the toast of the town with them on your arm are, in the majority of cases, Nigerian men tucked away in an internet café in some Nigerian town that 60 minutes will eventually make famous for a week or two. These cheeky bastards prey on the blipenic and use the most precious of emotions to scam you of every last dollar you have trying to pay the hospital costs of the love of your life after she was injured in a car accident on the way to the airport to finally meet her soulmate.
For a guy, this epic blow to your egonadis glands and realization that you just might not be such a big fish in a small pond should help you understand a couple of rules in the Internet Arena of Love ...
(1) instead of sprinting down the hill of happiness towards the very first beauty that bats an eye towards you, try walking down the hill and savoring all the qualities every profile projects, thus increasing your chance of a better experience; and
(2) girls have the advantage
If it pleases the court, I would like to introduce our next piece of evidence as further illustration of the Online Dating world:
The Supermarket Decisionary Model.
Lets say you’re grocery shopping for Italian Sauce and you suddenly find yourself standing in front of several shelves filled with a variety of choices ranging anywhere from $1.99 to $7.99, red or white, thick or sweet, garlic and herbs or just marinara. And to top it off, each sauce has it’s own unique marketing label to entice your eyes and tempt you from making your decision on sight, while forgetting about what is truly in the sauce.
Using this analogy, Online Dating is very similar to this shopping situation. Except … when a man shops here, he only has a limited opportunity for that one sauce he truly believes is his sauce, the sauce that just makes his world right. In most cases, for guys, it’s going to be an extremely well marketed, beautifully labeled sauce, and - unfortunately - every guy in that store is trying to get that very same exact sauce and because of the competition for that one sauce - there's very little of the sauce to go around and a waiting game ensues. Meanwhile many other available sauces stare in disbelief at these morons who can't recognize some great things standing right in front of them because they have a predetermined assessment of what a good sauce looks like.
For the ladies, they have an endless supply of samples to choose from and their sauce will never be out of stock. However, and this may take some time, they may find that their best sauce has a certain spice within it that has been causing some internal issues where as these ladies lose the ability for their brains to receive truthful transmissions from their eyes. It’s a certain kind of blindness that sees, but only sees a false image that deceives the brain into thinking it has great value, when in fact, this beauty brings very little value to the soul at all.
And yeah, it has a name.
It is called MyFabioBitches and is usually brought on by a deep rooted desire for one or all of the following:
[if !supportLists]· show [endif]the ex-husband that she was always worthy of someone better than him
[if !supportLists]· [endif]the pursuit for financial freedom
[if !supportLists]· [endif]or maybe just the chance to strut around town with that certain piece of art that few have the ability of owning.
Good news! Just like Blipenisity, this condition is curable and, even better, once the truth is finally being registered within the brain, it can be a great lesson learned that opens the doors to those men who are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to treat you like the Queen you are!
As we march on in the Online Dating Quest for Love, my best advice is to keep everything simple, from your pictures, to your profile, to the messages you send to your hopefuls. Don't over think what you are trying to express and don't lie! Most importantly, be vigilant in protecting your best interest; slow down, do research, Google the names and pictures of those you are thinking about seeing face to face and TRUST that inner feeling that says, 'Something is just not right!"
UPDATE: I wrote this article in Oct of 2014. On May 15, 2015 I had the last first date I would have for the rest of my life and on June 10, 2017 I married my true soulmate. She was one of my matches on Match.com.
#DATING #OnlineDating #Match #TheDatingGame #Singles #TheSingleLife
