Nature Girl

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A few posts ago I introduced you to the wonderful world of Zoosk via my date with the lovey Rita. That makes a total of 2 dates over 6 months. Add in one more conversation with a third member and you have the sum total of all my interactions on that web site.

And it's not a free site.

Huh?

Yeah, I don't get it either.

But I do have a theory.



Somewhere around month two of my membership I received a message indicating that a woman calling herself "Nature Girl" was interested in me.  Note that the message was from Zoosk, not Nature Girl herself. All Nature Girl had done was click a button to express interest.

I clicked on the email so I could see what Nature Girl looked like.

OMG

She deserved honorable mention as one of the World's Seven Wonders. No make-up, freckles, sparkling blue eyes, no smile. But holy cow. She was not only my type, she could have been the poster girl for exactly what I was looking for. She was 48, and a runner with a graduate degree. A self-proclaimed minimalist, Nature Girl boasted a writing and IT background. . . and physical beauty that reached the stars.

I immediately send her a message.

Nothing.

I way another week and wish her "Happy Saturday."

Nothing.

A few days later I'll tell her a little bit about myself.

Nothing.

Finally, I threw in a few one-liners like "hablas espanoel" and "sprechen sie deutsch."

By now no response was expected, and none came. I figured she must have had a trial membership that allowed her to express interest in members but nothing else. Then I got a message for a fourth member that started to explain everything.

This member had no profile picture, but what she wrote still grabbed my attention. She said that normally she never messages anyone, but she was reaching out to me because I looked interesting, like someone she might want to meet.

Hmmm.

Let that one soak in for a minute.

"I normally don't message anyone."

Why, pray tell, are you on a dating site then? Turns out there are other ways to flirt with members than messaging, like sending virtual gifts and such. But upon reflection, the site is not set up to encourage conversation. I remember "winking" at a couple of members early in my membership, and I received back what amounted to an auto-reply: "Thanks for your wink, now tell me a little about yourself."

So I did.

No response.

I quit winking.

What I concluded was that the three people I talked to were as clueless as me. They, too, thought that a dating site was meant to meet people, and once you saw someone you were interested in, the best way to get to know them was through that little thing called conversation.

Apparently some percentage of the world has figured out a different way to begin relationships.

Due to my failings, or perhaps those of Zoosk, I never did figure out what that way was.