You’ve no doubt seen the commercials: Dr. Neil Clark Warren convincing a waitress to try eHarmony all the while distracting her from giving him his bill. A Match.com spokesperson who looks like he just left a Trump rally, asking random strangers to open up to him and, y’know, an entire camera crew about their dating situations. And then each ad ends the same way: the promise to find that special someone or even marriage.
An algorithm to find that special someone? Whoever said math isn’t sexy was a dirty liar…or an English teacher. (Full disclosure: I’m an English teacher, and I said math wasn’t sexy because it was my only B in high school. I’m not bitter at all.)
What these sites fail to mention is that searching for that “special someone” isn’t as easy as a click away. Wading through profiles, trying to decipher if the photo is the actual person or some model. (Here’s a little tip: if you’re going to use a stock photo of some runway model, please make sure to remove the watermark from the photo.) Reading through hundreds of “About Me” posts and trying desperately to not match with someone just so you can correct his grammatical errors.
But online dating also has its benefits: the cliché of “meeting new people” is actually true, the asinine profiles that you screenshot and send to friends, the strengthening of your inductive reasoning.
If you learn anything from online dating it is how to quickly decipher between your own expectations and actual reality. So, here’s a reality check for all your online daters. Get ready to get your mind moderately blown.
Farmers Only
Don’t act like you haven’t checked out FarmersOnly.com.
This dating site plays up to the paperback romance junkie in us all: a handsome, lonely farmer who just wants a little lady in the streets and a missionary style only freak in the sheets. A good ol’ boy who loves his mama, Johnny Cash, America, and anything that grows in the ground. Even its catchphrase – “Small Towns, Big Love” – is pretty much the foundation of almost any Debbie Macomber series.
Expectation:
Source
About Me: I love holding animals, flip flops, and even tans.
Reality:
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About Me: The last time someone touched my plow was my circumcision. Also, smelling onion root gets me rowdy.
Self-Employeed
Expectation:
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You think he’s runs his own publishing company or vineyard. Perhaps he’s a venture capitalist and you will finally find out what the hell a venture capitalist does.
Reality:
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He actually lives in his mom’s basement where he runs his silk-screen t-shirt business where is only client is…his mom.
Also, if he puts “photographer” and all his profile pictures are from Snapchat, chances are his only photo exhibition is his dick pics found in a file on his phone labeled, “Richard Head.”
“Open to New Experiences”
Expectation:
“New experiences” to you means couple pottery classes or French cooking lessons. Pretty much anything listed in Stuff White People Like.
Reality:
“New experiences” to him means trying threesomes or using toys named “Satan’s Forefinger” or “Butt Propeller.”
“Do You Like to Have Fun?”
You finally find that match, make contact, exchange messages and start feeling comfortable with each other. For some, it’s almost too comfortable. And then you get that message:
Expectation:
He means sex.
Reality:
He means sex.
