The Match Nine

This is another repeat that was posted on Facebook around a year ago. Enjoy...

Since my Match.com subscription was scheduled to run out any minute, I decided I should really try and get the maximum use out of it. Maximum use is code for equal parts looking for losers and/or freaks and genuinely looking for decent guys. It wasn’t that I thought I was going to meet someone through the site, but more of a restoration in the concept that there are good men out there. Good men who are really single and not possibly bait for To Catch A Predator. There was a lawyer who lived near Des Moines who, upon only a few emails suggested that he come up to Sioux Falls for a weekend to visit. I politely responded that I would like to get to know him better before any plans like that were made. Of course I couldn’t leave it at that, so I wrote, “Besides, how do I know you’re not really a 14 year-old and this is an elaborate set-up to catch a predator? ‘I made iced tea!’”

He never wrote back.

No sense of humor or 14 year-old boy? You make the call.

As for the looking for losers part, I usually needed to look no further than the “Who Has Viewed Your Profile” section. Who I attracted on that site was a bit disturbing to me. Of course I think my profile is Classic Schooly, meaning funny, no bullshit, and utterly fabulous. Then again, who am I kidding as who I attract in general mystifies me. Alcoholics, drug addicts, the former hobo, those not fond of working, and the last fellow who asked me out was recently arrested for an allegation of child molestation. How many of you gals can claim that delight? I did not accept the date. I don’t like Chucky Cheese. KIDDING. About the Chucky Cheese. I did not go out with him.

The search for a good egg on Match was interesting. The site sent a whole bunch of matches to my email almost everyday. They were clustered in San Francisco, Boston, and Portland. Sigh…

Since I decided to make my search genuine, I explored the site a bit more. I never realized you could really tailor your searches, adding every requirement from physical features to income to education. Want kids? Got kids? Do you like baseball? It was kind of neat. So I went to town. Minimum 6-1, minimum bachelor’s degree, you gotta make at least as much money as I do. I don’t want any kids, but if you already have them, fine. Similar interests, check. Any religion was fine. Smoke or drink, it’s okay if you do or you don’t. Since my Matches via email were always from so far away, I gave myself 2,000 miles from my zip code. And finally, since there were millions of members on the site, I thought it was important to keep the age range really narrow, 32 to 35, just so I didn’t have to many hits through which to sort.

Now, as I was hitting send, I was a little excited. I just built the perfect man. Fun. Then I was a little scared since my old idea of a perfect man was Ethan Hawke circa “Reality Bites” and arrest records tended to be part of the resume. Hope always beats experience though, and excited beat scared. I didn’t shut down the browser and BAM, there they were. All nine of them. NINE. OUT OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, ONLY NINE DUDES FIT MY NEW AND IMPROVED STANDARDS. Balls.

It was shocking at first. I thought I’d get at least a couple hundred hits, but NINE. Out of millions, I could barely get enough to field a baseball team. Four of them were atheists. Six of them were pretty cute. They all knew how to spell. Some divorced fathers. Some never married and never want kids. One hit out of Madison, Wisconsin, otherwise they were California, Brooklyn, Portland, or oddly enough, Texas. I didn’t see that one coming.

The strange thing was, the more I read, the more my little experiment worked. It was pretty cool to find out that they do exist. They might not exist in my world, now or ever, but they exist. I said a long time ago that I would be perfectly happy with Alli, and now Joey, being the loves of this life.

I didn’t sign on to the site for a while for a few weeks after that. I’d get the emails of a new “wink,” which is the way to get someone’s attention if you’re too scared or stupid to write an email. All the winks and emails were the usual suspects, like the guy older than my mother, the single father of three with the epic mullet, or the race fan who couldn’t punctuate. Commas are precious, people. Learn how to use them. I had emailed a few of the Match Nine and the typical response was, “You sound great, but you live so far away.”

Then Match thought it was a good idea to auto-renew my subscription without so much as an email notification. They charged my VISA. And there’s one thing that never happens in my relationships anymore. You don’t fuck with my money.

The time had come. Match and I had been together for a long time, too long. We were really only together out of some faint hope. I didn’t get mad when Match used my profile photo for advertising and one of the line cooks at work was like, “What up schooly77? Wanna meet singles in your area? I saw you when I was checking my email!” Match had burned me with a few dates, like the guy who told me about the lady he wanted to “kick in the vagina.” Match tempted me with The Nine. But then Match took my money. It was time to break-up.

I deleted all my photos. I deleted that delicious profile. Since the site insisted that I have a short description of myself, I wrote something along the lines of, “Dear Match, before I only thought that the single men in my area were uneducated alcoholic racing fans, now I know this much is true. Thanks!” Then a bunch of the word, “blah,” until I reached the required 200 characters. I couldn’t find a way to cancel my account on the site, so I had to call customer care. I was glad to know that Match preferred to care about me rather than service me.

Apparently you have to check your sense of humor at the door when you work at Match’s customer care. There was a terse discussion of how I agreed to a renewal when I initially signed up, I wasn’t getting any money back, all the usual run around. So at that point the only way to get my money’s worth was to mess with him.

“I just want my account cancelled.”

“I can’t do that. You are renewed until August.”

“I don’t want anymore of these NASCAR hobbits that are older than my mother looking at my profile. I deleted my pictures and made my profile snappy. You should check it out. It’s good.”

“You are renewed until…”

I had to interrupt him, “WOW, so I’m signed in right now and I just got an email from ‘harderfaster69’. That’s so classy. He spells ‘you’ with one letter and wants me to text him. I have his number if you want it.”

“Miss, I am going to block all users from looking at your account.”

“Excellent,” I replied, “and please make sure that my subscription does NOT get renewed in August. It’s just not funny anymore.”

“So Miss, you’re account will not be renewed. May I ask why you’re leaving Match?”
I didn’t wait an instant and deadpanned it.

“It doesn’t work.”

There was silence for a moment and he said, “Well let me sign on to your account and see what’s not working.”

“It doesn’t work.” I could hear him breathing. “It doesn’t work.”

“Just let me sign on to your account and I’m sure I can fix whatever isn’t working.”

“IT doesn’t work.”

Suddenly he got the joke and couldn’t wait to get me off the phone as he said harshly, “Your account is blocked from all users and will not be renewed. You can still sign on if you choose. Is there anything else?”

I thought about asking for his number, but decided to leave well enough alone.