The world of dating has changed from the good ole’ days. The days of meeting someone through a friend or at the grocery store are much less frequent than it used to be. With that, the possibility of encountering a lot of negativity increases exponentially. Unfortunately, I’ve learned my lesson(s) the hard way in a lot of cases. Hopefully, you all out there can learn from my mistakes.
Dating By Wegs
As we proceed down the dating Yellow Brick Road, we have to learn how to decipher what is real or what you are looking for versus something you will just waste time and in some cases money on.
(We’re Off to See the Wizard)
Rule #4: Create Your Own Screening Process
Let me preface this section by saying that I am the type of guy that has a lot more tolerance for nonsense than the average person. As a person who has been in a marriage and struggling for a few years now, I entered the dating universe open to just about anything. I mean the whole world was open to me. With that approach, naturally, you will encounter just that – ANYTHING! Much like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, it’s hard to know who and what to trust. So, most of you may think, “Wegs, of course, that was going to happen.” Well, I like to open myself up to different people without judging more often than not. However, even I have learned from various things that as a grizzled dating veteran in a few short months, you better believe I’m more discerning now more than before.
Let’s take it back to the early days of online dating, most people asked some key questions like, “Is that really the person?” Or “Aren’t you afraid of meeting someone you’ve never met?” The easy answer is “yes,” but if you are on an app or dating from your computer, then there is a leap of faith we all make in meeting someone new. If we all are too afraid to meet someone off an app, then 9 times out of 10, you will be home on Friday and Saturday night by yourself. It is a balancing act between that healthy skepticism of this person and wanting to meet just anyone off the apps. I do think those initial questions the skeptics had are right on, and as our society changes, we have let down our collective guards, which unfortunately opens the door to negativity out there.
I’m going to cover a few pitfalls I’ve personally encountered so far:
- The Catfish – Originally chronicled by the MTV tv show of the same name (http://www.mtv.com/shows/catfish-the-tv-show) and the documentary movie, a Catfish is someone who represents themselves as something they are not. Often times, that is a person who is using someone else’s pictures and will build a relationship with you based on a set of lies and assumptions made. If you have ever watched the show (which is legitimately good), most of the Catfishers lack self esteem or maybe they are in a difficult situation they are trying to escape from psychologically. They are people trying to be loved in a way that they feel they cannot get as themselves. The Catfished get emotionally invested in some way, but eventually want to have a real, in person relationship which is when the tension happens. In dating, Catfishing comes across in many ways. The most common way is a scam of sort where the Catfisher asks for something – cash or more commonly some sort of “verification” process which involves credit card information. For me, the tell tale sign of a catfish is someone who wants you to communicate in some other way other than the app itself. That may be What’s App, Google Hangouts or even just over the phone via text. The last time that happened to me (and common on Tinder) the Catfisher was very specific about their job, day, etc. (trying to build legitimacy). Then, they wanted to Video Chat before meeting (a little weird), and then the ASK – “I’ll video chat after you verify yourself on this site…” Whoop There It Is! Catfishing is definitely out there.
- The Sugar Baby – A Sugar Baby is a woman or guy, typically younger than you, who is looking for a guy or woman (Sugar Daddy or Sugar Mama) to give them an allowance or pay their bills for them in exchange for “personal time.” Now, I’m 44 years old. I am open to dating younger women. So, when I first put myself on Tinder and Bumble, I set my age parameter as low as 25 years old. Wegs?!? Well, hey, I’m not looking for anything serious and maybe I can meet people who are goal oriented with great potential. For me, I have enjoyed meeting women in their late 20s, as the energy and ambition in that age range is unparalleled. There is a downside to it, though, and that is the amount of women who are looking for what is also deemed a “mutually beneficial relationship.” Look, I don’t judge people in these types of arrangements. I’m not an uptight person, and I’m sure this can work for some people. However, for me, I’m not looking for that type of thing. I’ve learned there are some tell tale signs in ads, mostly on Tinder. The cash emoji (seen below) is a clear one. Sure, women who list – SB looking for SD or “mutually beneficial relationship” are obvious. However, I had one women who I matched with chat with me right away, gave me her phone number, and then asked for an allowance of $1500/month before we even met. I was like, “Why didn’t you put that in your ad and there are sites for that?” She said, “You should have known, a young, sexy woman for an older man. Don’t stop my hustle.” Well, needless to say, I’ve encountered a few of these ladies, and unfortunately, Tinder has been terrible for me in this regard. I’m not saying to avoid Tinder, but if you are an over 40 year old dude, raise that age range on there, for sure.
- The Crazy – I know this is a label. I’m not big on labels, but unfortunately, not everyone has a normal range of emotions. Crazies are kind of a catch all for people that are not only outside the norm, but more importantly are more volatile and can flip on you quickly. Now, as a recently separated guy with a lot of varied energy, yes, I attract the Crazies. The old adage that you get back what you put out applies here. People who are volatile can be interesting and even fun, but you have to watch out. I recently matched with someone on Match.com. She was very pretty, and for once on there, I got a response. Well, you know when someone is not stable when you have a date set up or thought you did, then they switch it last second and when you get frustrated a bit with the change, they send you a Text Screen Shot of your texts (Who does that?) – mind you, we have never met. So, the general rule is if you are getting into arguments or disputes with someone you have never met and have zero invested in, then that’s a bad sign. I’m probably wrong to label this person as a Crazy, but she has continued to text me photos of herself nearly once a week since. I respond cordially, but we will never meet.
I’m sure there are several more pitfalls out there. However, these are the Holy Trinity (or Unholy) of pitfalls out there in the Dating Yellow Brick Road. How do you handle all of this?
Well, I now have a screening process I go through. It’s pretty simple. I still swipe on all the apps and if I pause (like I mentioned last week), then I read the profile carefully. I look for those tell tale SB tells. However, for the Catfish and Crazies, they usually will not reveal themselves until the chatroom. If someone is trying to move me to another communication method right away, then I know it’s bogus. For the Crazies, I like to just ask questions and see the responses. Also, if the person is moving to a more intimate communication method very quickly, then that is a red flag to me. Most people want to meet you first before giving the phone number or at least agree to a date before exchanging numbers and speaking on the phone.
There is no hard and fast rules here. You have to use your Instinct (Rule #2) and if it is too good to be true, then it probably isn’t real – unfortunately. Us guys all want to be Leonardo DiCaprio and date a 25 year old super model, but we don’t have Leo’s money or his good looks….
Now for the story, I wish I had more here, but I wanted you to understand what you can deal with out there. So, after 2 week or so of Tinder and Bumble and about a month on Match, I thought I would try another app I had heard about. The app is called Coffee Meets Bagel. The concept sounded fun and different than the others, so I gave it a shot.
Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB) is a free swipe app. Much like Tinder and Bumble, you get to review people with some minimal information. Now, CMB does allow for more information than Tinder and Bumble – there are sections like Hinge with “I am (fill in the blank),” “I like…,” and “I appreciate when my date….” In addition, CMB has a section for job info and education. The novelty here is that every day at 12 Noon, you will receive 12 matches or “Bagels.” You can review the short profile and “Connect” or “Pass” on them. Your Bagels are based on a general search criteria which you set. If the other person also “Connects” with you, then you will go into a Chat Room for an 8 day period, which either person can initiate. There are provocative conversation starters at the top once you match, as well. Once you go through the 12 Bagels (or less the longer you are on the app), you can also look at another group that fall under your search criteria. You can reach out to the Search Group, however it will cost you something. You have an allotment of “Coffee Beans” that accumulate when you first join the app and add up if you are on the app every day. However, the cost to reach out to a non-daily Bagel is about $5, if you don’t have the beans built up. You can buy more beans for a discount, but then the purpose of the free app kinda disappears. I found CMB a cool interface, and I liked the apparent quality of ladies on there. However, I basically didn’t match with anyone on there. I was on CMB for at least 3 months and I literally never met anyone in person. However, I did have 3 similar experiences that are relevant here.
I had been on CMB for about a month with very limited success. Finally, I saw someone I found attractive, a bit far in North Chicago, however I work in Northbrook, so I thought – why not? We “Connected” and I got the conversation started. After about 3 messages, she asked me to communicate on Google Hangouts (yeah, I know – Red Flag #1). So, I was like, “Ok.” I downloaded the Google Hangouts app, which is really straightforward just like any other chat application. We started to communicate on there on let’s say a Wednesday. She almost immediately sent me a photo of herself in a selfie pose in a dress in front of a mirror. I thought to myself, “Alright, that’s strange, but she looks good.” Of course, I was interested in meeting up, because isn’t that the point? So, I asked her availability. Well, she then informed me she was actually deployed in Afghanistan for the US Army for a full year (Red Flag #2). Huh? I was confused. So, you actually aren’t in North Chicago? I asked her, “Why did you put you were in Chicago?” She said she was from here. So, typical Wegs, I was like, “What can it hurt? She will come home eventually and I don’t have anything going on.”
I continued to communicate with her via the Google Hangouts app. After a day or so of the typical, “Good morning. How are you?” messages, she asked if I was looking for a “serious” relationship. I told her my standard answer at this point, which is “I’m looking to date now, and if things progress, then I’m open to a long term relationship.” She proceeded to tell me how most guys are just players and she’s been hurt in the past (Red Flag #3) – not that people don’t get hurt, but she clearly was angling to get “serious” with me – oh and she sent me another slightly more provocative photo of herself. Then the weekend came, I was out with friends and playing beach volleyball, like I did most every weekend. I wasn’t on my phone a lot. When I ended up checking the Google app on Sunday, I saw that she had sent me 4 messages asking where I was and who I was with…(Red Flag #4). I did respond simply saying I was busy with friends and asked her how her weekend went. She proceeded to lay into me about how I was just playing her and not serious. I responded, “Well, you are halfway around the world and I’m just enjoying my summer.” Her response was a curse-laden tirade about how awful a person I was, yadda yadda. Needless to say, I actually blocked her on the Google Hang Outs app, deleted her from CMB and shook it off. Wow, I really never expected that response. However, clearly this person has some issues. Thankfully the experience taught me something, I encountered another “overseas” military person about 2 weeks later on there and about 3 weeks after that someone in Virginia Beach who listed Glen Ellyn or something, and I cut them off almost immediately. So, lesson learned and my screening system improved.
I’ve actually deleted Coffee Meets Bagel, since it wasn’t yielding any results. I’m sure it works for some, but not for me at this point. The lesson here is when you put yourself out there then you will have negative experiences. The important thing is you have to adapt and not continue to invest any time beyond initial screening to move past these negatives.
Until next week, keep swiping and hopefully, you will make it to the Emerald City to see the Wizard.
Wegs