Online dating... it stinks

UPDATE: "I am happy to welcome you to eHarmony. By registering, you have started on your way to a happy, successful relationship."
Except... eHarmony can't find a single match within 120 miles of me. Guess I'm too imperfect!

UPDATE #2: Local singles meetup group won't accept me unless I'm legally divorced. Never mind the fact that... ah, screw it. This sucks.

I get hundreds of emails a day. Across five email accounts that I check regularly. Yet I'm starting to act like the proverbial Pavlovian dog when it comes to my online dating emails... Waiting for a response, checking to see if they've at least *read* my impassioned plea for... what? Just a frickin' shot!

I'm so tired of hearing women complain there are no good men. Well, I grew up with some awesome dudes and most women either ignored them or treated them like crap. Don't get me wrong, having seen a number of divorces, etc. in the past few years I have seen what asshole men can do. The ones with kids who just give up, move on and completely abandon their old lives? Yeah, those are the ones I'm hoping get their balls bitten off by an alligator (why a gator? because with luck the thing will open its mouth, show them the jewels, and smile and slink off into the swamp just to add insult to injury).

So I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or what, but out of about a dozen messages I've sent I've gotten one response pointing to a local dating group. And that's *fine* but I'm not sure whatever happened to "thanks, but no thanks." Unless when you do that you get back a whiny response. No doubt some are worried about e-stalking too, and giving a man any response can send the less-strong of us out there into a tizzy. "Why is she rejecting ME? I'm a good guy!"

Yeah, it's easy to fall into that trap. I'm a good guy but by no means perfect. Everyone wants perfection, thanks to movies, crap like "The Bachelor" and whatnot... I can't be hypocritical -- I also have some standards and have rejected plenty of profiles based on a hasty set of criteria. I guess I'm wondering if my profiles show up as desperate or something. I'm pretty lucky to have a couple of amazing friends who can help me through this.

Because not being wanted is one thing. Never being given a chance to not be wanted totally sucks.