Do people who use dating sites to find love ever stop looking

[Butterflying]

Before joining a dating site myself, I was under the empression that only a "particular" type of person uses dating sites to find love. To be honest, I thought those types of people were nerds, geeks, socially retarted people.

 

Then I joined (of course I don't consider myself to be a nerd, geek, or socially retarted) just to see if my perception was wrong. Well...

 

What I found was a guy who claimed to be in love with me. But he remained active with his profile on the site. We talked about it. He said it wasn't a big deal and he was only there to delete the random messages so the inbox didn't fill up. But I was like "why not cancel the entire account" then you wouldn't have to worry about any messages.

 

Now I have a cousin who married a guy she met online. Just recently they seperated after being married three years because she discovered he was still using the dating site. He told her it was just communicating with "friends" and she shouldn't have a problem with him having female friends. Well...

 

Aren't dating sites a tool to generate a relationship that will be more than friends? So now I'm wondering, is it true that once a dating site user always a dating site user???

[GirlnamedAngel]

If a guy doesn't just automatically delete the dating profile from the site the second he asks for exclusivity then run like hell. At most mention how you feel about it if he doesn't and if he says, "oh I totally forgot because I never log on anymore." Then give him a pass on this one, but if he says, "No I am not deleting it because of my friends there." Drop him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I speak from experience here. If he is leaving one dating profile open I promise you he is still creating other ones.

 

But don't fret my pet... lets say you really like him and he won't delete the dating profile.... what can you do then? You can use his little profile as a tool to figure out what he is really after. Make a profile - make sure it isn't about you- you're creating a random fictitious girl. You can make a free email address on yahoo for this purpose. Then get on facebook or something and click your sister's friends, sister's, brother's girlfriend who you met once and thought was beautiful and borrow her picture for a day. Use it on your fake profile. Contact him using the fake profile and then you have your answer. But make sure you delete the profile after you're done with it. The girl's photos you borrowed probably should be left out there in cyber land.

 

Some people would say this isn't fair but in my opinion it totally levels the playing field and fyi- anytime I've tested this theory and done this the guy has FAILED the test. So if he is still on the dating site he is probably no good.

 

And yes there are dating site lifers... when I go through a break up and go back to POF a year later to look again there are always this set group of guys who contact me who have contacted me before.... I can't explain it but they are out there.

Edited February 3, 2011 by GirlnamedAngel

[Stung]

Hmmm. Well, I met my husband on OkC, and I have several friends who are active on OkC. I still have a profile on OkC, and I sincerely do use it to contact my friends, and compare tests and questions with them and check on their journal entries, etc. I used to log in sometimes to check out the profiles of people my friends were dating, also (at their request).

 

I've yanked all the pictures off my profile.

My profile states explicitly that I'm happily married and only interested in platonic friendships and personality quizzes.

My IM is disabled.

 

My husband still has his profile on OkC too, only because I have a profile. Now and then if we are both bored and I take a particularly amusing or interesting test on OkC he will log in to take it also so we can compare results.

 

My husband is perfectly aware that I still have a profile, and I show him the weirder letters I get.

 

On OkC you can check when your partner logged in. I'm pretty sure that if either of us checked, we'd find neither of us has logged in at all in over a year, maybe even two--since our son was born, I don't have the time to waste that I used to. I guess I could go ahead and delete my profile, but I hadn't even thought about it in a long time, kind of forgot it was there.

 

OkC is more of a social networking site, though. I'd be a lot more worried about somebody with a profile up on, say, Match, and if there are recent pictures involved etc. obviously it's a different ballgame altogether. And I don't think it's kosher to maintain a SECRET presence on a site like that, your partner should be aware that your profile still exists and know how you intend to use it.

[Crazy Magnet]

I tried online dating, met my BF there (currently R is up in the air after over a year) but we both canceled the accounts at eHarmony right away after becoming exclusive.

 

I did however keep my OKC profile. Not to communicate with cyber friends but to check out guys my actual, real life friends were interested in. Then I added some of my BFs friends to my favorite and I chat with them on the site. We talk about the articles and stuff. I changed my relationship status and gave my BF free reign to look whenever he wanted.

 

Sure, I still get messages from guys who are interested but I delete them without reading them.

 

It depends on the way someone goes about maintaining a profile. If they give out passwords and let you look whenever you want that doesn't seem like much of a red flag to me.