Remember the good ole days of 1998 - 2003? That is when there were at least a dozen major FREE internet personals sites. Remember Excite? There were many more freebies such as Match, Matchmaker, Yahoo, FriendMaker, Love At AOL, SoulMate and of course, Match Doctor. Between the various sites, you would have a choice of at least a hundred potential dates in reasonable driving distance and local telephone range. It was the ultimate in the free market economy applied to romance. All the experts said that internet dating was going to make the world a better place by producing happier people and happier marriages.
Oh there was one paid-for dating service. I can't remember the name. However, they charged women $1500 and men $3000 to place a profile in their online website, but guaranteed "perfect matches" to those forking over the money. The company has been bankrupt for years now.
Like everything else in America these days, greed, cheaters and psychos killed a wonderful thing. Ironically, the movie about internet dating, "You've Got Mail" conincided with the end of the free market of dating.
Well, first the psychos . . . they would put up false profiles and then lure women (or men) into situations that the victims couldn't escape. It gave internet dating sites a bad name. Some women began to equate internet dating sites with russian roulette! My favorite experience is when a woman wrote me on a then free Yahoo and described herself as an art professor at Georgia Southern University. Once she was in my home for the weekend, she admitted being a professional prostitute, who was hired by Georgia State Police to spend the weekend with me. Is it a wonder that the state government here is near bankruptcy? 
The capitalists? Like Match Doctor and Plenty of Fish today, originally all dating web sites were free and supported by online advertising. Then after seeing the movie, "You've Got Mail!" some capitalists decided that there was big money to be had in running dating web sites. If you look up the major dating web sites in Wikipedia, all of them except Yahoo and PlentyofFish, have been sold and resold several times. Each new owner had to figure out a way to make his or her big profits, while paying back the money borrowed to buy the website. Typical monthly fees for male members quickly jumped to as much as $25 a month. One just could not afford to have a full membership on more than one site at a time. The number of potential dates listed on the profiles dropped catastrophically.
The cheaters? . . . the last time I had a profile on Match - in 2005 - I got six dates in two months (=$50 in fees) Five of the women, after we had ordered from the menu, admitted to being married and living with their husbands. After I had a wonderful hiking date with an accountant, she called me a couple of days later and informed me that "she was not married, but living with a guy, He was an asshole, and so was looking for someone else to move in with."
Want to go dancing? Forget it! Virtually all of the dance clubs, except those catering to the rich and famous, have closed. They have been replaced by a few "sports bars." They seemed to make tons of money, so I couldn't understand why practically all the clubs in the Atlanta Area had closed in recent years. A real estate developer explained to me that is was a similar phenomenon to the fate of internet sites. The initial club owners usually did make healthy profits. However, most clubs were sold and resold to the point that the final owners still didn't make enough profits to pay their loans. People don't drink while on the dance floor. Whereas while watching bigscreen TV at sports bars, they tend to keep a drink at their side constantly. Also, sports bars don't endure the wear and tear of a hundred dancers.
Well, such is life in 2009. With the nearest female on Match Doctor being 75 miles away, I reckon I will just dance with my dogs in the basement Friday night, and then watch the big PBS special on the Rock N' Roll Era. 
Copy & paste to friend: (Click inside box; Ctrl + C to copy; Ctrl + V to paste)
|
|
read more blogs!
Blogs by Etowah:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The End of Dating As We Knew It |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Etowah
|
Aug 12 @ 7:37AM
|
|
Someone just wrote me directly and asked why I don't try PlentyofFish . . .
Well, I did have a profile on PlentyofFish two years ago. Never got a date from there, because there was no one of appropriate age from my community there. I consider women under 25 as being too young for me.
Then a gal in her late thirties moved here from Florida. She wrote me first on PlentyofFish. She said that she was temporarily living with her brother. FORTUNATELY, her brother's house was adjacent to where I exercise my dogs daily. I saw her get out of a car at a known Florida drug dealer's house. (I have 20-5 vision)
Shortly threreafter, she asked if we could meet for the first time at a Waffle House 18 miles from here AT 1:30 in the night! There is a Waffle House in this town, and plenty of other places to meet locally. IT SOUNDED FISHY - if you excuse the pun. I declined the invitation, and stopped answering her emails.
Immediately, I recieved a message from PlentyofFish that I was being banned from their website, for writing obscene emails to women on the site. I am always a gentleman and never write anything that I wouldn't want my sister to see. In fact, I had maybe emailed brief introductions to around five women in a year's time. It didn't matter, because PlentyofFish's owner refused to respond to my response. That was the end of that.
|
|
Fayvorite
|
Aug 12 @ 9:18AM
|
|
Actually I remember the days before dating sites were even heard of. I remember when becomming single and thinking, "Wow datings sites are going to make being single so much easier"....What a lesson I learned in the last three years.
|
|
Etowah
|
Aug 12 @ 9:48AM
|
|
I became single just as the internet dating sites were first coming out. In fact, I confess to signing on an internet provider in 1999 specfically to find a girl friend. LOL I had only lived with one person, my ex wife - had been on a goat dairy farm in the mountains most of my adult life, and knew nothing about nothing, when it came to finding female companionship in the big city.
However, within a year, email replaced fax machines as the way professionals communicated. Since then the internet has become a necessity like the telephone.
|
|
musicianfriend
|
Aug 12 @ 11:27AM
|
|
Ive used the internet dating sites ...I have dated only afew times off of the dating sites..
I will not date anyone until we have talked for 6 months or more...Thats the way I do it..
The ones looking for nookie..move on....the one more interested stay and we go out..
Actually..I have had good luck....I have met one man I might would marry..and we have been seeing each other off and on for almost 2 years now...I have no idea how that will turn out...as I am not exculsive with anyone until there is a real commitment..
and the others..have turned out to be awesome friends...some are other musicians that I meet at music jams and political meetings..
Some men I have met are from other parts of the country and the world..I have totally enjoyed them...SOme I talk on the phone with..and others only on here..We cant get together..but the ones I am close to are near and dear to my heart....We cant be together as I will not move across the country away from my kids........
I have also met some awesome women friends on here..NO..Im not lesbian..lol..but these gals have become my virtual friends and I like them very much...Some I talk on the phone with..and some only on here...
So..for me...my experience has been pretty good..no complaints...
I think as far as my dating experience...it is my long--------------> get to know you time that makes it sucessful...
The ones who are not that into you...or are merely just looking for some quick sex...eeeewwwww......will move along..thus..culling the herd...lmao...
|
|
|