Confession: I used to be an avid user of the dating website. To call it a confession is seemingly to insinuate a pervasive sense of guilt embedded in such an act, which is to me the very essence of online dating. As we heap high hopes in the Internet to facilitate our perhaps stagnant and stale romantic life, we must simultaneously deny this very mortifying fact of our loneliness and singlehood, and therefore online dating suddenly becomes a sabbath sort of unholy, sinful ritual that cannot be committed under the broad daylight. Rather, it remains at the dark corner in your browser's history, along with other sordid truths.
My memory does not serve on the total number of dating sites I have signed up to, but I am rather confident that none of my mates have seen my profiles. To the fortunate some who happen to be in a relationship, my diligent attempts to seek love unimpressively exudes the stench of desperation and pitifulness. To all the "smug couples", to employ Bridget Jones' jargon, don't you ever use a career website when you are unemployed. Why should you? Isn't it all quite equally desperate and pathetic? What kind of lunacy is this?
Yet the ultimate reason that drove me off the dating site habit is that it increasingly reminds me of job application. Well indeed, to create a profile would mean to fill out your own detailed CV outlining your strengths,
career romantic aspiration, expected
salary matches, and availability, coupled by sometimes a cover letter where you demonstrate your eloquence and creativity to impress the
HR manager potential date. When you approach you must as well deploy the correct tone and vocabulary just in order to construct the desired image. Nevertheless, the depressing part, as well as what I have most experience in, is when your application is ruthlessly rejected. Perhaps not entirely ruthless as in receiving caustic, savage comments, but somehow just disregarded, as "only shortlisted applicants will be notified". Confident as I usually am, these premature debacles did bring me moments of feeling awfully unwanted, unloved and unwelcomed, especially when you have the identical picture in your actual job hunting. In short, unnecessarily unbearable.
Perhaps it's just me, for I have seen quite a good number of successful cases of virtual dating turning into a verisimilar, healthy relationship in reality. Good for them. Perhaps I am simply typing this lengthy rant out of unknowing jealousy.
