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Just trust me, I've checked it with the experts

In this somewhat humorous opinion article at The Scotsman, Just trust me, I've checked it with the experts, the author expresses some doubts that in five years, fifty percent of single people will meet their partners online.

I would rather throw myself head first into the miserable pit that is spinsterdom before internet dating again. What happens in the web pages of the damned is that you put a picture of yourself and a few details such as what you do, your favourite film, etc, and you wait to get e-mails from potential suitors.

The up-side is that you do get lots of offers. Sadly, these often come from people as desperate as yourself. Most you don’t even bother to reply to as they are from people old enough to be your grandfather or have listed Phil Collins as their all-time favourite artist. Sometimes they say things like: "My wife ran off and left me with five children to look after. Would this bother you?"

Then what happens is you get another e-mail from them a day later saying: "Why didn’t you reply? You just think you are too good for me, don’t you, don’t you?" To which you think this person must at least have some common sense because he has just hit the nail right on the head.

As you can tell, the author is a woman. It's interesting how men and women have vastly different complaints about online dating, but I suppose that's the subject of a future post.

posted November 19, 2003