You Ain't Got No Alibi

by Nicholas Allen — July 12, 2007

I recently signed up for JDate on the advice of a friend. There are a lot of indignities you have to endure when you're a single guy, like the at least twice-weekly rejection of making a tentative move on a woman who turns you down flat, but I'm starting to think online dating might be the worst of them all. The question that's been keeping me up at nights these days is: "Just what the hell kind of a loser do these people at JDate think I am?"

For those of you unfamiliar with JDate, they send you a daily and weekly recommendation of their members who they claim to think would make a good match for you. What kind of state-of-the-art, NASA-approved logarithms they employ to cull through their hundreds of thousands of members and arrive at this list, tailored just for you, is beyond the ken of a humble schlub such as myself. I have to keep assuring myself that this is an entirely impersonal process, carried out strictly by a computer program, or else I'd have to wonder what I'd ever done to piss somebody at JDate off. Although the thought that there's something in my online profile--or maybe my personality--that innately screams "loser" is possibly even more off-putting.

It's not just that the women whose profiles they send me are almost always extraordinarily ugly, although they are. Look, you can call me shallow and vain and hurl whatever epithets you want--and maybe I've got 'em coming--but let's be honest: Appearance is a big part of what initially attracts us all to each other, and we all have, somewhere in our minds, a mental image of the minimally attractive person we're entitled to based on what we perceive to be our own level of attractiveness. I'm nobody's Brad Pitt, but I don't see why JDate is under the impression that the best I can do is women who are 10 years older than I am, 150 pounds heavier than I am and, in some cases, have less hair than I do. One woman whose picture they sent me was missing a front tooth. I mean--old, fat, and toothless? Really?!!?

That's not even including the crazies, the women who've clearly long since run short of whatever medication they should be taking to keep everything in balance. I got a couple of profiles that showed women brandishing rifles (On JDate?! What is this, Fiddler on the Roof meets Guns and Ammo?) or describing intricate numerology systems for selecting their ideal mates--one woman very earnestly implored me to send her my "life path number" so she could decide if it would be appropriate for us to date--that would put the whack job in The Number 23 to shame.

Somebody at JDate's clearly messing with me, and on behalf of all my oppressed fellow online daters, I'm not taking it anymore. JDate, I'm calling you out. Me and you, Fight Club style, in the parking garage or back alley of your choice. We'll settle this like men. Who are reasonably young and in reasonably good shape. And who, at least for the time being, still have all our teeth!

Nicholas Allen is a writer and columnist based in Manhattan. To read all of his blogs, click here.