I started dating at age 30. Now I am 37. Over the past several years, I have talked to a lot of women and I have been in a relationship or two. And I am trying to educate myself to find out what it is that makes good marriages, because that is my #1 prayer to God. I would like to have a good marriage. But first, I have to find a marriage partner. So, how do you do that?
I am going to make a guess. I have messaged about 300-400 women, and about 10% of them READ my messages. Half of those who read them RESPONDED to me. And maybe one or two went on to start an exclusive conversation with me, so we were chatting for weeks or months, and we became close friends. We were not a good match, so I did not marry any one of them. But we got to know each other pretty well.
Getting married is like buying a house with one exception -- you are not allowed to sell it ever. So, the house you're going to buy is the place you're going to call "home" for the rest of your life. So, you go house hunting with THAT MINDSET. You are looking for a place you can call "Sweet Home," and it's going to be the house where you retire.
Now, if I wanted to look at a house inside and I called the realtor, and she didn't answer her phone, I would be very disappointed. I would call her in the morning, at noon, afternoon, even at night. If she never answered her phone and never called me back, I would eventually go to the realtor's office and knock on the door. If buying house involved so much hassle like finding a date, then very few people would buy/sell houses. And the moment they got a chance to SEE a house inside, they would feel pressured to buy it on the spot, because they just hate calling and calling and getting no answer. So, even though the house might be very-very different than what I DESIRE, I would feel pressured to buy it IF IT'S SUCH A HASSLE to look at houses. I think, dating sites in general are extremely ineffective, because of what I just described. On the other hand, if you try to talk to women in real life, it's kind of like stopping at a red light in traffic and getting out of your car and walking over to the car in front of you and asking the driver, "Excuse me ma'am, Is your car for sale?" LOL Now, you know, that's what car lots are for. There are places where they have lots of little flags. They have a bunch of cars, and they are ALL for sale. That's where you go if you want to buy a car. So, a car dealership would be a dating site. Right? You go to a dating site, and write messages to women, and they don't respond. And I am thinking something is wrong with the world, because THIS SIMPLE THING SHOULD NOT BE SO DIFFICULT! I mean I can go on Craigslist and put up my bike for sale, and I would instantly start getting messages from the buyers. Why should DATING be so much more complicated?
I feel your pain, although I haven't had as much patience with online as you. It is not going to get any easier the older one gets, is my experience.
Have you tried praying about your situation? Many times in my life the Lord has provided answers I never considered but they turned out perfectly!! Give Him a chance, He is waiting on you to be prepared for your Miss Perfect.
Some dating sites are better than others, when it comes to meeting great people for a Date. I have had nice experience from Paid dating sites. Free ones have more scammers and people playing games.
True maybe the dating sites where one pays are better but I want to believe no all men/ women in here are scammers. There are good and godly real people who can not afford to pay for the dating sites.
Dating sites tend to be big on quantity, which unrealistically raises hopes. You can be in Missouri and supposedly "meet" people in Florida, Rhode Island or wherever, but what are the real world odds of something permanent happening?
Once again sticking with reality, a very low percentage of people who come to sites like these meet someone. That's why you see the same faces (mine included) for years.
Almost all mainstream dating sites are built to exploit 1) women's vanity and attention craving, and 2) men's pro-active willingness to cut a deal into the bedroom. They work by getting men to join up, pay if necessary, write 100s of mails, get next to zip replies, and eventually move on. Women meanwhile get lots and lots of admiring attention for doing precisely nothing, and then tell all their friends about it. Ker-ching. Except nowadays, men are finally wiseing up and refusing to play anymore.. unless the site is based abroad.
An truly honest dating site would vet all applicants according to their true age, income, height, index finger length etc, and only use photos taken by an in-house photographer. It would also take into account impartially the member's true dating preferences, without nudging them into accepting what is PC, and charge an upfront one-off fee for joining. I'm pretty sure such a site would soon gain a positive reputation, ride out any bad outliers, and dominate the "serious" dating market. But such sites do already exist - they're called introductions agencies and several of them are dedicated to introducing Christians.
