A Letter to E: “Your website, your service, it offends me.”
I got a very interesting bit of “hate mail” last week. I say “hate” mail because it was more sad than hateful. I wanted to share it and address some of the issues within because I know there may be others who are thinking on the same lines.
If you’ve ever wondered:
“Why do online dating help services exist?”
“Isn’t online dating useless? Those success stories are 1 in a million and won’t happen to me.”
“Am I a horrible, sad, maladjusted person to need to hire E to help me find love?”
…then read on!
Statistics and “Results Not Typical”
Clips from the actual “hate” email are in green.
Your website, your service, it offends me. Or a better word is that it depresses me.
I don’t mean to say that YOU personally invoke this feeling, but that the existence of your service hurts my heart. While I have never seen any statistical data to show one way or the other, I do not believe that online dating is successful; it’s at best like playing the lottery. Success stories are the outlier.
I’m here to tell you that statistics don’t matter. Why? Let me tell you in the context of something I know a lot about – WeightWatchers.
If you think of the amount of people who join WeightWatchers in an average year (most of them right after January 1st), it’s a huge number. But if you compare that number with the number of people who reach their goal weight and maintain it, it’s a horrible success rate.
In fact, if you read any success stories on WeightWatchers.com, there’s a tiny byline that says “Results not typical.”
HOWEVER – There’s a reason for that. Is it that WeightWatchers program doesn’t work? Nope. It’s because the TYPICAL person who signs up for WeightWatchers goes for a few months, loses 10 pounds, starts skipping meetings, gains weight, and finally quits.
The TYPICAL person who does online dating writes a boring, vague, or downright awful dating profile. They post pictures that are either too old or that send the wrong message. They don’t actively try to be successful. They sit on their rump and hope that their shoddy profile puts out a bat signal strong enough to draw in their perfect match.
Or they go balls to the wall for a month and write tons of emails. Then they get upset at the low return rate, so they start doing cut-n-paste emails, which gets them an even worse return rate. Then they finally quit, blaming the system for failing them, when in reality, they failed to use the system to their benefit.
If you’ve ever read Outliers: The Story of Success
Can’t Buy Me Love
So I feel it takes advantage of lonely, socially-underdeveloped men who think they can find love online. That your service gives an implicit promise of success in romance. I feel that it is leading them on while taking their money. It saddens me that this service EXISTS because there is a desire for it, that there are men out there experiencing the need so much that they have to pay for Help.
There are men and women paying for similar services and they’ve been doing so long before I entered the market. Check out some of the big dogs like E-Cyrano (aka Evan Marc Katz) or ProfileHelper. What I’ve done is carved out a niche helping geeks, because geeks are my people. I am a geek and I understand geeks.
I can’t make promises that people will get more dates, but it’s certainly a possibility. It has been a reality for many of my clients.
I’m not leading people on thinking they’re going to find love any more than WeightWatchers leads people on thinking they’re going to lose weight or IHOP leads people on that they’re going to Come Hungry, Leave Happy.
It’s up to you as a consumer to evaluate the product or service based on your individual personality and needs. If you hate IHOP’s service, you probably won’t Leave Happy. If you can’t commit to new eating habits, you won’t be a WeightWatchers success story. If you’re bitter and jaded about romance, the best dating profile in the world might get you a first date, but not lasting love.
Admitting Weakness Isn’t Easy
And at the same time, I myself am depressed because I too want your service. I am too prideful, too cheap, and too pessimistic about online dating and my own chances to pay for the service to begin with, but I too am a lonely socially-underdeveloped man and I too am tempted by you. And that makes me feel shame. And reminds me of my own loneliness and the hopelessness of the situation, of the looking online, of the hours spent tearing myself up inside due to the lack of responses and the skimming of online sites, spinning my wheels.
For starters, don’t buy my services if you can’t afford it. Seriously. While your money pays my bills, I don’t want it at the expense of the other things in your life.
As for your shame, think about it this way:
- Would you feel shame for hiring a Realtor to help sell your house?
- Would you feel shame for hiring a copywriter to write the sales page for your business’ website?
- Would you feel shame for hiring a hairstylist to cut your hair and give you a new, sexy look?
- Would you feel shame for hiring a personal trainer to help you work out and get muscle definition?
It’s natural to feel a little shameful. Men in particular are taught in our society that asking for help denotes weakness of character. So admitting that you’re not successful at finding a mate is a double blow to the ego.
However, we are a society. In a society people with strengths in certain things offer their services to people who are not so good at those things.
If the idea of hiring a professional writer and fellow geek to help you put your best foot forward for online dating feels wrong to you, then read my archives, use the free information and give it a go that way first.
I don’t know why I told you any of that, or how I can justify it to myself. You, a stranger, a businesswoman, an individual, owe me no explanation and do not deserve to have strangers dump their accusations or emotional baggage on you (unless they are paying you, after all). You have the right to your own business, and there is clearly a market for it. I don’t know why I feel compelled to tell you any of it. But I do.
You are right. I didn’t owe you an explanation. However, when one person raises some serious concerns, I know there are probably 20 others in the shadows wondering about similar things. Thank you for the chance for me to help clarify and allay these concerns.
To all my readers, clients, and future clients:
I am in this business for the joy of helping the geek community. I do this because I love to read and write. I do this because I love talking with other geeks. I do this because I get warm fuzzies every time a client says they’re having success with their new profile. I do this for geek love!
E. Foley is a geek girl extraordinaire. She writes great online dating profiles for geeks and non-geeks, helping clients all over the world find love. She is the National Online Dating Examiner, columnist at Dating Sites Reviews, and a ghostwriter for several other dating & relationships sites. She lives in Maryland with DaveTheGame and her two adorable cats, Mr. Peanut and Don Juan. (Email e, or follow @geeksdreamgirl on Twitter.)
I really admire your commitment to furthering the geek community and helping people find each other. Nicole and I got together after I found her in my local game store and it just happened that we had the same taste in games (namely the Silent Hill series). To anybody out there who has reservations about going after something you want, stay your hesitation and take a chance because you’ll never know what you might miss out on if you don’t ante up and give it a shot.
You know I’m not one to follow your adventures in the Online Dating service provider world, but that dear friend is one great post. Honest, and probably helpful to many of the doubters out there.
Now I hope never to need your services as I’m happily married, but you can count on me to direct any lonely geek soul I meet to your site.
The Chatty DM´s last blog ..4e Lessons: The Penny Arcade/PVP D&D Podcast, Part 1
I’m not sure on the statistics for dating site but I’m guessing that picking up a geek girl in a bar would have much lower statistics. As for me I met my Wife on one of the sites and as she tells it, the only reason she gave me the light of day was because of my profile and certain movies I had in it. Namely Arsenic and Old Lace.
However before I met her I had tried many sites and it took me a while to perfect my profile, so that I didn’t look despite or like a total freak. Like anything in life it takes hard work and knowledge.
EricD´s last blog ..Summer Movie Rankings as of July 3rd, 2009
Full credit to both E, and the sender of the email. Thank you to you both.
Thanks to the sender, for their honesty, politeness and frankness. E, when you say “hate-mail”, I didn’t expect well mannered and well thought out opinions – unless you’ve edited out the parts where he threatened to eat your puppies, of course
And thanks to E, for answering in your ever lovely positive and professional manner. As you quite rightly say, behind that one email is probably twenty other people who thought the same but didn’t put pen to pixel. If you put pen to pixel to write an email, of course. Which you don’t.
Where was I? Oh yes. Good reply!
From the Anon-O-Box:
I’m a former client of Weight Watchers, I’m not offended. All WW ever gave me was a black purse with their diet plans and the motivation to move…right out the door.
At least with hiring you I might get a date or two out of it.
I like your positive approach to internet dating. I am a 65-year-old geek who had given up on romance until my children talked me into using the internet. I had such a good time that I wrote a book about it (Internet Safari, Finding Love Online at 65) in which I tell about the 19 women I met and my success with a German widow who then became my traveling companion as we went to Europe to visit her family. Keep spreading the positive news that, with common sense precautions, there is nothing to fear.
Having come from a small very non-geek friendly town, I can say that I great appericate knowing that other geeks out there have a chance to find each other when they may lack a good local gaming store or place to find other geeks.
Like a few of the other posters I am happily married to the geek of my dreams and I know he is glad to have found me (we get to blame the housing department at the University we went to).
I wish nothing but the best for any geeks out there trying to find the Someone Just for Them. ^_^
That’s the most downbeat hate mail I’ve ever seen. It’s more of a malaise mail. It makes me pity the writer.
Nicholas´s last blog ..Nerd Watching: Ejecting Jerks
Were to begin, as one man who as had crappy luck with the whole online dating scene, what e says make sense, I have to admit my profile’s are probably not the best in the market. As for the sender, cudo’s for writing, although not cudo’s due to the fact that while you may not of had any luck, and I have not had any luck, it does happen, I have a friend of the family who in her late 50’s found someone on a dating site after her husband died. They are happily married. I applaud e for her service especially since us geek’s while me may be a bit more intelligent, or maybe not as socially adept as some. It gives us a chance to get our profile seen and gives us a bit better of a chance out there. As with everything, that is why there are disclaimers on all sorts of weight loss products, results may vary per individual, same with medicine, just because one person had a side effect doesn’t mean everyone will. Good job e keep up the good work, and when I have the funds available I will definitely take up your services.
Geek’s Dream Girl is like the photographer you hire to take pictures of your house when you want to sell it.
It still may not sell. But the pretty picture makes it more likely to.
“Or they go balls to the wall for a month and write tons of emails. …Then they finally quit, blaming the system for failing them, when in reality, they failed to use the system to their benefit.”
That description is similar to what happened to me when I first tried online dating using e-Harmony three years ago. I think something to keep in mind is that, speaking from my experience, people like these are willing to work hard to find the right match, but some don’t fully understand how online dating really works in practice and unwittingly go about it under misguided assumptions and expectations. They don’t use the resources to their full benefit or seek help on how to do so because they don’t know they’re doing it “wrong” in the first place. It seem to me that most online dating sites explain the mechanics of how the site works, and may even have subsites that offer advice on relationships or dating once you’ve gotten it to that point, but do a poor job of explaining the strategies for how to use the dating tools most effectively. I think that it would benefit a lot of people if there were an “online dating tutorial” that newcomers to online dating would know to review that covers what to expect and basic strategies such as only sending only very brief messages when you are first introducing yourself to someone.
I found this post to be amazingly uplifting. I have always been skeptical of online dating site, but you have put it in a light that makes me understand completely. Thanks for the heartwarming, and I hope you see many successes as you move forward. ^^
Kitanya´s last blog ..Still Falling Apart
I have actually had the reverse experience, Online dating has pretty much been my most successful dating..err, phase?
It gave me the confidence I needed to meet total strangers, and still is the most convenient way to meet girls outside of my ‘circle of incest’
I met my current GF on there, and she’s someone I’d normally never even consider dating. E’s website (among many others) gives a lot of practical advise that you can use to your advantage and turn online dating from a dud-experience to a truely useful resource.
If this site had been available before I met my wife, I would have used it. I met my wife on AOL. I’ve met several women in person that I first found online. My brother made it clear that he would date “any of those skanky women online because if they were any good they could find a man on their own.” He got married a few weeks before I did to a gal he met online. We’ve both been married now for over twelve years.
This is a good and valuable service, when used properly.
Hmm, nice responses. Glad to see a site take hate-mail so well. May use your site in the future, and, this leans me more towards the ‘yes’ category.
@Ryan – I’ll be here when you need me!
The way I figure it, hate mail just gives me feedback on things I could clarify for all of my potential customers. It’s an opportunity to become better at what I do and serve more people. So oddly enough, it’s something to be thankful for!