Trying to Reel Me Back

Dearest Rachel –

I’m not sure when I’m going to have time to put this together for you. I actually got a full night’s sleep – until past seven, in fact – but that means I’m running rather a bit late for the men’s Bible study this morning. To add to that, Kerstin and I have agreed to meet for lunch today, and, of course, there’s the fact that I’m going to be working in the booth this weekend. So needless to say, there’s not a whole lot of time for me to put some thoughts together and arrange them in order to tell you about how things are going.

But since, in life, there was never a day that went by without us speaking to each other, I’m still not exactly ready to let go of that yet. It doesn’t seem right to ignore you, even for a day when, like all these many days since, we’re no longer in physical contact anymore. Besides, it’s not as if I don’t have something to tell you about, however ironic it may be.

I literally just sent you a letter yesterday about how I’ve basically given up on the online dating scene. And I’d be willing to guess that this is a deliberate thing on their part, but no sooner do I tell you about writing the concept off for good, than I get hit with a series of notifications from the app. At first, I paid it no attention, since I assumed that I couldn’t converse with anybody out there anymore; the old conversations I’d had with those that I’d previously connected with are all blurred out now, so I assumed it would be the same for anybody new. But after the third or fourth such notification, I had to see what was going on – you know me, and how I hate those little red dots in the corner of the apps.

Well, it turns out that I can still see the names and profiles of those who have looked over mine. Their pictures are blurry – one woman I talked to months ago claimed that they looked “like looking at [them] through the bottom of a beer mug,” and you can take that for what you think it sounds like – but they’re still sort of visible. And at least one of these five women in the past twenty-four hours (I could go months without this level of activity, when I was subscribed) actually sent me a message, and I could read it and reply to it, much to my surprise.

But it begs the question; where was all this during all these past few, relatively quiet, months? Why now, after I’ve decided to let me subscription lapse? I have a theory that the app simply hasn’t been hyping my profile to potential mates with any great enthusiasm; why would they need me, since they had my subscription fee already? But now that they feel the need to earn another year’s fee, they’re farming it out to a number of people I wouldn’t necessarily have considered, to ‘remind’ me that there are plenty of women out there, supposedly looking for a guy like me, in order to convince me to sign back on with them.

The first three showed up within a span of half an hour last night. The first one didn’t even have a photo in her profile (although, given that I can’t make out much from the blurry images I’m able to see, that might not make much difference). The second seemed almost ideal, on a surface reading of her profile, apart from the fact that she apparently lives in Eau Claire; dating, as I’ve said before, is not really feasible from that distance. The third one had an intriguing, almost poetic profile (although the alternating between first and third person was a little disorienting), and actually sent a message to me. She, too, had a few things in her profile that gave me pause, but I decided to at least write back, only to discover that, when she answered my reply, I couldn’t see what she’d written – let alone respond to it – unless I were to pony up thirty bucks for the month (or three-fifty for the year) to re-subscribe to the service. Upon trying to contact the girl from Eau Claire, and send my number so that we could text outside of the site, I was notified that I couldn’t even do that “for [my] own safety.”

Now I see how their business model works – and as a customer, I can’t say I’m terribly fond of it. Going by Dad’s old dictum of ‘if you like the company, you’ll like the stock,’ I certainly wouldn’t invest in this outfit; and I’m certainly not throwing any more of my good money after bad to find out more about these ladies that I might just as likely have passed on with my full knowledge of who and what they were. It’s disappointing to know that they’re just trying to reel me back in – to paraphrase Harold Hill, “they’re the fisherman, I’m the fish, you see?”

And I’m not going to bother; not for a lightened wallet and a mouthful of worms, that’s for sure. I’ve got so many other, better things to waste my time, money and emotions on than this, and I don’t appreciate being played, in any event. So this brings my “Adventures in Online Dating” arc to a close; maybe a day or two later than I expected to, but we’re definitely there.

Anyway, with that being said, honey, all I can ask you is to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.