Ireland seems to be developing an annoying pattern of producing inferior products but charging superior prices. Broadband is the most obvious example – assuming you can even get it.
Those of you unfortunate enough to be Internet dating will know exactly what I mean. The main site is a travesty of technology and users. It is slower than the M50 at rush hour and most of the functionality doesn’t work. As a result I get to enjoy the following experiences:
Doing a search on guys living in Dublin aged between 30yr and 40yr I will get a selection of 19yr from Kerry.
Similarly if you try to do a “computer match�? you get linked with guys whose last public outing was a day release programme.
When I try and barr the very attentive guy called “bigdick�? it only seems to increase the number of mails I receive from him. I don’t think a girl has ever been so unhappy to be bombarded by a Bigdick.
Assuming you are not a fully paid up member any references to numbers in your mail will cause you to be immediately barred in case you might be passing on your mobile number. (Back slap of respect to my friend who uses the following Nancy Drew code to pass on her number on emails – Apple India Hotel)
Now of course there is a significant issue of user error as well.
When I CLEARLY state that I am looking for blokes over 30 in my profile this is not an invitation for 22yr to mail and enquire if I would be interested in some casual sex. I can assure you boys if I wanted to shag a 22yr I would not need a web site to help me. Alcohol maybe, but not the Internet.
Any bloke selecting the user names Bigdick, Hotforyou, Frombehind or similar can not expect to get many reply emails.
Basic literacy is a huge advantage, not that I can write, but mails such as “ure rely nic, tal me abot yursel�? are not doing anyone any favors.
My wish list is pretty simple for the building the better man trap:
An ability to search by a range of very shallow, but necessary, criteria e.g. education, employment etc. Ideally you should be able to enter all your criteria and then it matches you. A bit like looking for a house on “Daft�?. Granted the first few searches may meet with “No Matches�? aka Brad Pitt is married and Jude is still shagging the nanny. But eventually after a bit of compromise you should get a decent selection
A lie detector / background check to confirm their height, hair, weight, location and single status. I reference the bizarre experience of Girl Dates London who tried to meet a guy she was mailing only to discovered that he lived in the south of Paris and not south London as he had stated in his profile.
A site that doesn’t take an hour to open every page. Time to change those arthritic hamsters on wheels who are powering the servers.
Now I know most of you, particularly the SM, will be horrified by my stance and think that I am even more shallow and obnoxious than you realised and it is no wonder that I am single. But until you have spent hours every week fending off the cast from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video you really can not begin to throw body parts.
Assuming you are very drunk, in a dark room and squinting - a lot. Email me on Irishflirtysomething at hotmail.com
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Sounds like you are on the wrong site…mbf works!!! I know
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Well done! I shall obviously continue to blame the site as the issue can’t possibly be me - can it?
February 23rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
If there’s one thing I hate Flirty, it’s text message language. I have cause to go on the internet dating sites myself (for purely research purposes you understand, ahem!) and as soon I see one hint of ‘Interests: drinkn wif me m8s’ or that mad capitals/lower case lettering shite they all do then I’m gone. If you want to find a thirty-something then don’t write in the language of a 14-year-old. It doesn’t make you look cool, hip and youthful, it makes you look like a numpty.
http://treasonvoice.blogspot.com/
February 23rd, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Dating’s mad. It’s much better to give out a series of complex (though highly plausible) lies about what a refined and gentle fellow you are, which are slowly unravelled over the course of a relationship until you eventually uncover the real person beneath all the chat, than it is to simply advertise in the first place: Name’s Kav, I like shagging, fillums and eating food, and that’s pretty much it*.
Or is it?
*I must point out that I am far more refined and cultured than this. Ahem.
February 23rd, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Treason - can’t believe you internet date. Am adopting the word “Numpty”
Kav - I just read about your porn college days! How cultured was that
February 23rd, 2007 at 7:41 pm
A comment taken from the internet’s biggest jizz-rag:
Nobody wants to go to UCD they just didn’t get the points for Trinity.
Yes, I did have Medicine in the Royal College and Trinity and Malta but through a combination of laziness and apathy I contrived to get 490 points and had to settle for UCD.
I take it you were a Trinner’s lady so, yeah?
February 23rd, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I don’t think you’re requirements are shallow at all.
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Thanks Franje, I left out the REALLY shallow ones. Hope both our luck improves!
February 24th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
YAY! The campaign to spread numpty across the Interweb contains to succeed!
I’d be concerned about the quality of blokes available on a net dating site, not having sampled them myself, mind.
But it would imply a self-selecting cohort of fellas who don’t get to leave the house much and/or are married looking a bit on the side.
At least those single lads who turn up to speed dating nights and the like have to be able to appear in public, are more likely to be single, and are less able to lie about their looks, age etc.
Back to the bars, maybe, Flirty?
February 24th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
You could also try Enda. He seems to be having similar difficulties:
http://endalife.wordpress.com/2007/02/21/you-know-life-is-bad/
February 24th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Hey JC - me and my slap are back to the clubs, starting tonight. Am picking up my bucket and spade and going winkle picking.
February 24th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
People give me grief for staying in a relationship that has some problems. Right, even with it’s problems it is 1000 times better than what’s out there.
As for love, stop looking and switch to “one less…phone to answer” mode for a while. I’ve done it when I was single and some great stuff turned up.
February 25th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Dave - could spend a whole lifetime debating “better off single?” tough one. As per always when you stop looking things turn up - I hope!
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Sorry for odd comment, my fault for not switching on monitor while away.
March 4th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
flirty! I spent much of the blog awards approaching young ones asking “are you irishflirtysomething?” They weren’t though. Rick O’Shea said maybe you were a boy. The internet and all that. But I said he was being ridiculous, and you were probably in the disabled toilets with one of the barmen or something. Now I read on Annie’s blog you had a fever - hope you’re better.
March 4th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Thanks Fiona. I am neither young nor a boy but the toilet idea sounds good! Spent the night hallunicinating that tiny cake decorations were being placed all over my body! Freud would have a field day!
March 4th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
love yr blog; am adding it to my blogroll. please take a look at mine:
sexagenarian & the city
sexagenarian07.wordpress.com
go raibh maith agat agus good luck,
mimi