My Name's Denise and I'm a Matchaholic

I have a confession to make.

I fell off the wagon.

I am back on match.com.

I know, I know.  But hear me out!  I was doing great, had been clean for weeks.  Then the July 4th weekend came.  It was long, it was boring, it was lonely.  My postman has changed routes, I now have a postwoman.  And the UPS man doesn't even ring the doorbell anymore - he just leaves my packages.  That's it - no men wander into my house.  Yeah, yeah - I should go out and do stuff.  Like what?  Cruise bars?  I don't think so.  Most of my friends are married or are dating, so that leaves me without a wing woman.  And I really don't want to find my next BF in a bar. 

And this may shock some of you, but there are not really many 40 something men roaming around solo.  If they go to the places I go (festivals, museums, chocolate shops) they go with a chick.  And no, I am not going to start hanging out at Hooters.

So - I am back on match.com.  Clearly insane.  But I am learning some things for all of us:

What Online Dating can Teach You about Success

I am a veteran Internet dater. I have studied countless profiles, looked at endless photographs, and gone on enough dates to qualify me for some type of sainthood. In this brave new world of electronic love, I was a pioneer. (Now I simply seem to be a fixture.) But I have learned some fascinating things about self promotion that can help everyone. (If you think you don’t need to sell yourself to others, that is your first mistake. We are always selling—to our bosses, our spouses, even to customer service people! And the most successful self-promoters win.) Some tips:

1.) Appearance matters. You will be judged by how you look, like it or not. Am I going to go out with the guy wearing sandals with socks in his photo? Please. I’m not taking these men on to raise. Are you hiring the candidate with the ZZ Top beard? Or the swastika tattoo? The first impression people form of you—online or off—will be based on your appearance.

2.) The details count. Can’t seem to spell or complete a sentence? Call me crazy, but I prefer to date the literate. I’m betting you’d prefer to hire and promote the literate. If you can’t write well, it’s going to hurt you—even in this technologically savvy world. Stupid and sloppy will always be stupid and sloppy.

3.) Bad attitudes are poison. I’m always surprised at the people who go on rants in their dating profiles about how they’ve been cheated on, lied to, and just done wrong. I read that and think, “Yay! I’ve been looking for an angry, bitter man!” People who have bad attitudes—and they manifest in many ways—always being the last one into work and the first to leave, bad body language in meetings, heavy sighing, eye rolling. No one wants to hire, work with or date the miserable (or the angry—I figure some of these guys are one bad date away from serial murder).

4.) Don’t lie. I can’t believe I even have to list this one, but apparently some people think they can get away with saying they graduated from Harvard when the closest they got was a bar in Boston. Men online think they can lie about their height, women think they can lie about their weight. Really? All that does is make the first meeting painful—for everyone. If you lie, you are a liar. Please—you did not misspeak when you thought you fought in Vietnam or were a Rhodes Scholar or were 6 feet tall. You lied. And you will be labeled as a liar forever. Just tell the truth.


More tomorrow!!!!  Aren't you just a little bit glad I'm back on?