There are tons of amazing, legitimately single, totally earnest people out there in the wide, wonderful world of internet dating. But there are also some duds. Big, fat, disappointing (or disappearing) duds. This list isn’t meant to scare you away from online dating. This is more of a confrontation of the worst possible scenarios. Let’s stare the beast in the face and move on.
Here are the five most bothersome sorts of folks you’ll run into online:
The Impersonal Pete
On Datepad you can “nudge” people. On Facebook, it’s the “poke”. Lots of social networking websites have these easy, random means of making contact. It can be a fun, silly way of getting someone’s attention but it can also be a confusing, message-less alert, especially when there’s no follow-up.
One of the most annoying types of people you meet online are the ones who initiate this two second kind of contact and then expect you to do all the work. Nope. If you want to talk to someone, you can nudge and poke all you want, but when it comes down to it, you’re going to have to do a lot better than that.
The Impatient Polly
I’m not just hating on P-names right now, I swear! But this person really sucks too. They’re the ones who are pushing for an in-person meet up from the very beginning. Don’t mistake me, I’m all about moving things to the in-person realm just as soon as you feel comfortable doing so; there’s only so much you’ll learn and only so far you can progress the relationship online.
But come on, it takes a little time and a few meaningful exchanges before anyone is going to want to book that first real date. Those people out there who get bothered if you don’t dive in right away are a little shady.
The I-Know-What-You-Want Guy
This is the guy who is all about traditionally romantic things and spouts a list of domestic aspirations that is probably longer than his…well, it’s long. And as you’re exchanging messages and having conversations with this person, he’s sounding more like a cheesy romance novel or family-centric real estate ad than person.
The truth is, not all women are online looking for someone to marry and have babies with. And even if we do want that, our only criteria for a mate isn’t “must want same things”. We want to experience a whole, well-rounded person. If we think you’re just telling us what we want to hear, it’s going to be a trust-shattering turn-off…and you might be wrong about what we want anyway.
The Stalker
Plain and simple, these people are almost as terrible online as they are in real life. They are the ones who refuse to get the idea that you aren’t interested and continue to relentlessly email you, nudge you, write on your Facebook wall and generally, cyber badger you like it’s somehow going to magically make you fall in love with them.
The upside is that, if you’ve been a smart cookie, they won’t have enough of your real life information to actually stalk you. The downside is they are still bothersome as a yeast infection and almost as difficult to get rid of.
The Disappearing Act
This is saddest of them all. Have you ever encountered someone wonderful online, had lots of great, witty, stimulating communications and really thought you were laying the foundation of a lovely little love connection? Yeah? And smack in the middle of this, did that person just randomly disappear?
It happens. I hate it, but it happens. I have to believe those are the people who actually have significant others and got busted with their online philandering. It’s not fair and people should stop doing it, end of story.
