The Downside of Any Online Dating Site

Sometimes you come across people that unexpectedly find you online outside of the dating site. For instance, I made the mistake of having my Match.com username as the first initial of my first name and my last name. Which is rather dumb since I have a very unique last name. So it's fairly easy to Google me or find me on MySpace or Facebook.

Me being the giant brain I am had a great thought when signing up for Plentyoffish.com (POF). I thought, "I know! I'll pick a username that doesn't include my last name." Unfortunately, I stopped thinking after that and used the same username as I have for my AOL Instant Messenger. Yeah, great idea.

I was talking to "Med student guy" two Fridays ago on IM and a message popped up on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) from this guy who had put me on his favorites list on POF. Being polite I answered the message from this guy that I will refer to as "Way too young guy". He first asked if I was the same person from POF with the username. I made the mistake of answering "yes" to that question.

He then proceeds to ask me how strict I was on my age restrictions (on POF you can post the age range of men that you're looking for.) I told him I was pretty strict and then asked how old he was. He responded with "18 but I'll be 19 in two months." That immediately put me into shock and somewhat offended me at the same time. If you hadn't guessed by reading this blog, I'm 30. I'm almost twice as old as "Way too young guy"! The conversation continued to me telling him that he was definitely too young for me and him saying that he's always dated older women because they are usually hotter, sweeter, and much more mature than the girls his age. No shit we're more mature - we're adults! We're not teenagers anymore!

I insisted that he keeps looking for girls his age because there are girls that are mature and just as beautiful as those of us who are almost twice his age. Unfortunately, I think he's trying to wear me down because he keeps sending me IM's saying "hi" and trying to start conversation. Poor kid doesn't realize how stubborn I am. And he doesn't realize how gross it is that he's still a teenager and trying to hook up with women who are out of college. "Way too young guy" doesn't even go to college - this is probably why he's not meeting mature women. He's probably still has friends in high school!

So important lessons learned:
1. Stay very strict with those age limits. They're there for a reason.
2. Always respect people age restrictions. So if you're 50 and I'm 30, looking for someone between the ages of 27 and 35, don't message me.
3. Never use a username that you have on an instant message application.
4. Never use a username that allows people to Google you or track you down through social media sites.
5. If you do accidentally have a username that allows people to find you, always tell them that you're not the person from the online dating site and pretend to be offended (or if you are offended, no need to pretend - just act as such) that they would think that. Especially since you're engaged. Sometimes you just have to lie.