There are a dozen or more emails waiting in my Jdate inbox; only one sender is located within a hundred miles of me. Still, he’s pleasant looking enough, so I reply and apologize for the lengthy time it took me to respond.
I receive no reply, and after reviewing the profiles of men that are actually in my area and age group, I note that my strategy of waiting has probably worked against me: Three months is the shortest subscription period Jdate offers, so his subscription likely lapsed in between the time he sent the message and the time he gave up on the site.
Please don’t tell me there are other fish in the sea, unless you are prepared to tell me which sea; it isn’t this one.
At this point, though, I’m an online dating pro, so I quickly execute the drill I perform on each new dating site or app that I try: I search out and block profiles of all the men I’ve met on other sites that I don’t want to encounter, or even make them aware I’m on the market. The nice thing about Jdate is that since it has a limited demographic, and the pickings are so slim in my area, the list is short: I locate and block him quickly.
I run across other familiar faces; each new site feels a bit like a high school reunion, a careful scrutinization of faces that seem familiar, and sometimes I remember right away where I saw them before – people often use the same profile photos on different sites. The brush-offs feel familiar too: The ones who didn’t respond to me on other sites don’t reply to me here, either.
Actually, no one replies.
The site tries to encourage me with emails and popups that offer me a stream of potential matches. All of them are from Canada, even though I haven’t checked the box that says I’m willing to relocate; even after I narrow my search parameters down to ensure I’m not accidentally searching in Canada, they keep coming, this Canadian invasion.
I start to become suspicious of the site’s motives: Is it deliberately trying to lure Jews out of the country? Why? Who’s behind it?
I don’t need a burning bush to tell me that my six-month subscription was overkill.
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