Online dating with a thick skin and a sense of humour

Dating at any age is difficult but when you get to ‘a certain age’ (ours) it becomes dammed near impossible, take me for instance.  I am a 65 year old single woman and being a writer I not only work odd hours but don’t get out much (probably a good thing at times!).

Recently I got to thinking that it would be nice to have someone to go out with, perhaps dinner, you know someone other than my dog to talk to!  Well where on earth would I go to find someone, I don’t go to pubs – and honestly do I really want someone who hangs out at the pub – I don’t go to clubs, I am not into going to church so where does that leave me?   Hmm, well how about Internet Dating!  Ok sounds good so I go online and start to check out all the sites, and there are a lot of them!

First I look at the paid sites, now all of them seem to based in America, rather a long way to go for a cup of coffee and a chat, plus they all were expensive (just a note here do NOT log into a paid site called ‘be2’ it is only American based and very very expensive, yes we are talking hundreds of dollars and you get nothing in return) – ok after checking out all the paid sites that leaves the ‘freebies’ – now there are quite a few of these also but to be honest the best one I found is called ‘Oasis Active’ it is free, yes you do have the choice of paying if you want but really you get everything you need for free.

Logging into the site is fairly easy, they ask you to fill in all your personal details (don’t worry none of this is put on the site) then you choose a ‘user name’ see told you it is ok – nothing personal – they will however put your town up on the site so a potential ‘mate’ knows where to find you!!  Then you proceed to put in something about you, keep it simple and light hearted – no personal details please, then you are asked what sort of person you are looking for, well someone alive would be a bonus!!  then you list your interests, no collecting scalpes does not quality!!  Oh one last thing you need to put up a profile picture, that is head and shoulders shot for your site, you can add full body shots at the bottom also.

Well we are off and running, you have filled in all the details and now you sit back and wait for Mr. (or Mrs) Right to contact you…….ok so nothing happens for a few days,,,,,or more….then all of a sudden you have a contact request, hey so exciting,  you log into the request and ….oh hell … it is a 30 year old guy wanting to contact you with a request stating, “I think you are hot”… ok they must have looked at the wrong photo or something, so you ignore, then you get another request from the same guy, yes well a toy boy may be impressive but really I have children older than you, so you send a polite ‘no thanks not looking for someone your age’.    Some days later I find that there are six, yeah six contact requests, so I start wading through them, once again toy boys and –  hey this is strange a guy stating that he is 60 something and white and the photo shows a 20 something black guy,  alarm bells start ringing, we have a scammer, yes this is someone who just out to fleece an unsuspecting person of all their hard gotten gains, you know the drill, ‘my mother needs asn urgent operation and I vow to love you till the end of time if you will send $……. ” ok if you are dumb enough to fall for this you will probably never see you money again or – 30 people wind up knocking on your door, this is the scammer, his aunt, uncle and various assorted cousins, fine we shall just hit the delete button on this one.  Somewhere in amongst all this is a really nice guy, so I accept his contact request and we chat for some time, but the sad thing is that he lives on the other side of Australia and I live here, ok so that won’t work out, did I tell you that I seem to live in as place called, ‘dark hole unknown land’ some very nice guys but distance is a no-go.

Well back to the drawing board, and after waiting for some time I get other requests, some are just plain sleazy (that is something you need a thick skin and a sense of humour for as you will get plenty of these sort of guys – just hit the delete button – it will become your best friend).  After being on the site for a number of months I did get to chat to some interesting and pleasant guys but none that I felt a connection with, yes there were plenty of young guns wanting- well I am not sure just what they wanted, scammers, sleazy ones, and sorry to say a lot of married men out for a ‘bit of fun’ – did I find anyone, no, but I did make some really nice friends out of it.  Would I recommend it, well if you have a good sense of humour, not easily offended, thick skin and can take the good with the bad, then yes, go for it,  really what have you got to loose, and who knows you just might meet the person you have been looking for, all in all it was an interesting, eye-opening, jaw dropping experience that I would not have missed.