So you’re looking for love…searching for your soulmate…making to mate for life. Making to mate? Is that a thing?  Nevermind, it doesn’t matter because in today’s world it’s all about the online profile and if it’s enticing enough for a swipe right or a smiley face or a click or whatever it is you do.

In my day, (yes before internet was invented) we met people at work, at school, through friends or family or wait for it…in a bar! You had to look a person in the eye and ask them to dance or out for dinner or a movie all the while risking complete rejection. On the flip side, it was a horrifying thing to be asked out by someone you were not interested in. There you were looking into the eager face of someone nervously putting themselves out there and sometimes, well, you just couldn’t find it in your heart to say no. I’m betting there are people married out there right now that are together today because someone was too polite to say “hell no!”

You couldn’t fake who you were quite as well back then. Basically, you met someone in person or maybe your Auntie Joanne showed you a polaroid picture of someone blurry in the background of her last annual barbeque. There was no setting up a profile picture that was a massively touched up shot of you from 8 years ago when you were skinny, or had a thicker head of hair.

Today you can text each other for weeks before you ever meet. Do you know what is missing from texts or emails?  Sound, sight and smell.  These are three very important senses NOT engaged in now determining someone as a possible partner.  The sound of someone’s voice can grate the nerves. The sight of your dreamboat from the chest up, in reality wearing socks and sandals can turn you off forever.  And of course, the smell of someone can end a date before it begins.

Is it any wonder that all this swiping right – or is it left? – is resulting in a lot of wasted time and effort? It sounds like it saves time but it seems to me half the job in the beginning of dating someone is figuring out who they really are versus who they portrayed themselves to be.

It sounds ideal to sign up for a website that can spit out possible matches for you based on the information you provide.  This should be foolproof! But oh the disappointment, when the hottie that catches your eye is in reality a much older version of a smelly, socks and sandals wearing, offensive tattoo sporting, person whose voice sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard.

When you are searching for a love from the circle of your own little world – work, family, friends, and of course the bar – the options are much smaller than the entire world wide web! You can swipe  all day before you find someone you could consider a match! There is always the worry that something or someone better is just a swipe away so why settle for this perfectly lovely individual? What else is out there?

I don’t use these apps or platforms and I’m not in the dating world, these are my observations from the sidelines.  If you are using these apps, or enjoy wearing socks with sandals, or think bathing regularly is a waste of water, well…you do you!