They’re Barely Pretending

Dearest Rachel –

Back when I first considered subscribing to an online dating service, Jan cautioned me – even as she was encouraging me to sign up in the first place – to think of it in terms of entertainment, as opposed to pinning my hopes of actually finding true love there. Best not to go in with high hopes that will likely be dashed, after all. It was good advice.

Indeed, the longer I deal with these sites, and the people that populate them, the more she’s been proven right over time. It’s definitely more of a place for entertainment over hope. Even the entertainment that can be provided is more of a “ha-ha, can you believe this stuff?” variety than that of pleasant but one-off dates that go nowhere. They say there are plenty of fish in the sea, but most of them – and maybe it’s due to my age bracket limiting the pool, I don’t know – happen to be catfish. You’ve seen plenty of letters about this very thing already, and how I’ve had to learn about such people and deal with them in turn.

The thing is, sometimes they’ve been reasonably subtle about who and what they really are. Whoever it is will actually engage in conversation for a while – sometimes getting a little too familiar, in fact, setting off alarm bells in my head – before starting in with their requests for money or gift cards or what have you. Since re-engaging with this one particular dating website, however, the catfish are barely even pretending to be real women anymore. Take a look at this profile that showed up in my feed, as someone who gave mine a “like”:

Notice anything weird about it?

Let’s start with the name; I’ve never known a woman named ‘Jason’; certainly not in our age bracket. Right there is a red flag of someone pretending to be someone (something?) they aren’t. Then, there’s all these numbers in her initial introduction, most of which don’t have any connection to the rest of the text – she talks about getting up at 5:03 and getting off work at 5●0 (whatever that’s supposed to mean in context), but the other numbers are just… there. It doesn’t take genius to catch on that this is a phone number that “she” wants to be contacted at, rather than doing so through the dating app itself, with its restrictive terms of service. Anyone trying this hard to skirt those rules is obviously sketchy.

Of course, the reason for being this blatant is that “she” needs to hook as many guys as “she” can before “she” gets thrown off the site. And I will give them credit; they take these profiles down with all due speed, usually within twenty-four hours. The trouble is, at some point, they will still send me an email letting me know I got a like from “her,” only for the link in the email to take me to a notice that the profile was removed. Guys, please don’t try to send me to check out a link that you’ve removed.

But setting all this aside, there are parts of the profile itself that would be offputting to me, just in terms of my preferences. This alleged woman happens to live in Dolton, some 45 miles away; that’s farther than I’d ordinarily be willing to go to meet someone, since there are so many people so much nearer. As for her looks, well… forty-nine years seems to have taken more of a toll on her than they did on you, or even I. Finally – and this would be something that would grate on you, particularly – there’s the question of spelling and grammar throughout the otherwise fairly short profile (another consideration; you would think that a real person, if they’re truly hoping to find someone, will describe themselves as best they can, to get their prospective suitors an idea of what they’re looking at). Consider this particular stock question and “her” answer to it.

Now, maybe I’m being overly hard on this person. Maybe there actually is a real woman named Jason (seriously?) living in Dolton who put this out, and I’m being a heartless jerk for making fun of her for it, and for all the shortcomings in her attempt to appeal to guys like myself. On the other hand, if she happens to see this, I’d like to think that this could be considered advice to her; you’re not appealing to me, because you just look like another scammer. Moreover, you’re the most obvious one I’ve seen in a long time. Please, try harder, if you want to appeal to me. Sure, I could call or text you at (503) 500-3499 (by the way, why are you claiming to be in the Chicago area if you’re calling from Oregon, anyway?) and tell you this, but why waste my time?

Needless to say, honey, I’m going to have to ask that you keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m definitely going to need it.