Miss March on Dating Website Addiction

It’s Theory Thursday here at Miss March About Town. Today’s theory is the “Internet Dating=Crack” theory.

It’s true. I’m addicted. I’m not even someone prone to addiction and I can’t stop clicking the little refresh button to see who else has looked at my profile, new members, new emails, etc. I’m a member of both Jdate.com and Match.com; I pay for Match.com only because it was my mother’s account and she rolled it over to me. So, technically, she pays for it. Jdate I don’t pay for, because as previously discussed, it’s usually the men that pay for Jdate and contact the women (therefore, my broadband cable line is like my Yenta, matching us up). At first I was all “whatever” about internet dating; I mean, it’s fun to search for guys and see their profile, much like buying a shoe and seeing it from a 360 degree angle, but I wasn’t thoroughly impressed with the men on the websites, nor was I blown away by the websites. Don’t get me wrong, I like Jdate.com, a lot, it’s been good to me (for the most part, I did go on some odd dates from there, including MusicTeach), but simply put, I like the design, layout, and way that Jdate works.

On Jdate, when you see a guy you like, you click his face and the profile opens in a new box. I like this. You don’t lose your place on the main search page; you can click around his profile and not have to worry you’re going to go back a page and mess up your search. They have a simple layout, nothing too confusing. Perhaps I am biased because I’ve been using Jdate much longer than Match.com, but as you will soon see, it’s this “open in a new window thing” which bothers me. On Match.com, when you click on someone, it opens in the same search page window. This is annoying. It loses the place on the search page, and you have to keep clicking back to get to your searches. Yes, I am aware that these issues are trivial in life (to open in a new window or not?), but from a design and layout standpoint, this was dumb on Match.com’s part. I don’t want to keep having to click back and forth. This causes me to want to spend LESS time on their site, simply because it’s annoying.

Anyway, I’m addicted. I love seeing people’s profiles. I like to check their astrological sign, birthdays, profession, whether they want to have kids or not, their favorite books. It’s really interesting too; when you click around for long enough you start to see patterns: 90% of the men on Jdate are laywers who want children, come from big families, and show pictures of themselves with kids. The men on Match.com, however, are a totally different breed of men. Many of them did not finish college, many of them are teachers (which I love), many of them also want kids, but instead of showing pictures of themselves with kids, they show pictures of themselves taken…by themselves. There’s a disparity and a great difference between the men. It’s so addicting to keep checking my “winks,” “flirts,” emails, recently viewed, etc. Thank god I don’t have a Blackberry because I’d checking all the time.

Oh no, I just found this. Do they have group meetings for people addicted to internet dating? I don’t go on many dates, I just love sitting there browsing the profiles. Hello, my name is Miss March and I’m addicted to my Jdate.com and Match.com accounts.

Have you ever gotten addicted to your internet dating websites? Or am I crazy?

PS. I boxed the gifts from MusicTeach like a Number Three.

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Miss March’s New List
• Miss March and the Man Catalog
• Miss March on Balls and Courts
• Fast fix – block your *unwanted* contacts from Google Chat