Hi Everyone,

I meant to post this the other day. I was at a friend's last weekend (also a BW). She is trying to recover (herself, not her M) but is at the stage where she is thinking about dating again. She had heard a lot about online dating and had started looking at some of the sites. She's not ready to register yet, just looking for now. She did find one guy who interested her and she wanted to show me. Now, I have never online dated, nor even openned an online dating site, so this was completely new to me.

She showed me the guy and then she showed me how the site worked - how you can search based on a variety of criteria and also what type of stuff you can put in your profile. There are different categories such as looking for "friends", "dating", "long term" and also "intimate encounters" which I can only interpret to be sex (without strings). We thought it was rather hilarious - after all who would put their picture on the internet looking for sex only? So we put in some search criteria - a 3 year age range, Scorpio, 5 mile radius from her postal code and "intimate encounters", just to see what kind of losers were actually out there.

Well, my jaw nearly had to be scraped off the floor. There were 139 hits!!! And she lives in the booneys - I wouldn't have thought there would even be that many men period in the area, let alone those looking for cheap sex. We clicked on a few of them and guess what - ALL OF THEM WERE MARRIED!!!!!! About 2/3 of them were online at that very moment!!!!! Did I say it was around 10 pm on a Friday night? That's right - wifey is upstairs putting kids to bed or folding laundry or some other mundane household chore and these jerks are looking for sex online!!!! Who needs a sex offender list when you have this!!!!!!

What is even scarier is that these are the guys that ADMIT they are married. What about all the rest of them - the ones that say they are a nice guy who treat women well etc., etc., etc? After all, this was a free site - wifey could look them up just as easily as we did. They use nicknames but they have their pictures. It is certainly a very bold move and I'm sure it is not even a drop in the bucket!

So, I don't know what to say except be very, very careful if you choose this route to meet people. I've heard tons of success stories and I probably would have tried it myself eventually had I not stumbled across this.

I guess it just brings back the problem of where do 40-something people meet other 40-something people? I'm not ready to tackle that just yet but it will nag at me just the same.

Oh, you are so right! I've dabbled with online dating and I've met some great guys.......and seen an awful lot of jerks and married guys there too (fortunately, I didn't meet them in person). I think you have to be carefull about what site you are looking on......some sites cater to casual sex, others to more long term type relationships. I do think that online dating is the way to go at my age (45), because I sure don't hang out in bars.......nor do I want a man who does! And since my greatest passion is quilting, I don't think I'll find a man in the fabric store.

Currently, I"m dating a man I *almost* met online. I actually met his best friend, had a nice couple of dates and he asked if I'd like to meet his friend......I did, and we really hit it off. He was on a number of dating sites, but we never met that way; and I don't know if we would have, he's really not "handsome" or photogenic, but he is a fantastic, generous, kind, sincere, single man. So, they are out there, if you weed through the garbage.

whatever you do, don't look at intimate encounters on craigslist.

Most of the postings are just pictures of genitals with instructions on what the poster would like to do/have done to them.

I wanted to bleach my brain after looking at that...

Tabby,

My philandering x was one of those married but looking on the net! When I found out and read all the logs/conversations he had with younger women, I fell of my chair laughing!

They are guided by their you-know-whats and become bumbling, gurgling fools with wooooo - fantastic stories. Sigh, the creative side of my pot-bellied balding nearly bankrupt x blossoms on the net.

Makes me want to go out and post signs around the neighborhoods.."Women, check out this website...do a search on "men looking for sex in this zip code" see if YOUR HUSBAND Is there"..

I was telling my daughter about this..and she said oh that's nothing mom..they were advertising on TV online dating sites Specifically FOR married people...so I did a search...

Suggar Daddy for me

Married Men Dating--ezine

Desperate Wives...

Oh, and what about the men who want to date you even though they live 2 hours away?

Can you say MARRIED??????

Well the only thing I can see myself using these for now is to screen out potential dates. Unfortunately they do use nicknames so you would have to click on each profile to see pictures. But it's still better than nothing, I suppose.

Has anybody here actually tried online dating? Are the pay sites better? By better, I mean, are they safer? Or is there anything safe about it?

I just learned something new today. I will never understand the logic or reasoning behind this - I think I need a man to explain it to me. It's not like the penis is a particularly attractive organ and it's definitely not photogenic.

And they all look pretty much alike - you've seen one, you've seen them all.

Now maybe if they'd dye it blue and stick some of those wiggly eyeballs that crafter's use on it...

Of course, it would probably be mistaken for a Muppet on crack...

omg...fraggle penis...LMAO!

but here is the opposite

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/news/2007/12/speed_dating

I am engaged to a woman I met on eHarmony. She is awesome.
So, there is good, and bad.

How long did you online date before you met her? Any tips on how you screened dates? Were you ever contacted by someone inappropriate, aggressive, crazy or weird in any way? Did anybody you know find your profile that you know of (ie your boss, parents or anyone who might give you a hard time about it)?

This game is different for men than it is for women.

I recommend using eHarmony and setting up casual dates only. I've been burned as a man early on by scheduling full blown dates and learned to "meet for coffee" instead.

I've had a very good experience on eHarmony and have friends from the site. Be very up front when talking with someone about the fact that you don't want hook ups.

For the record, my ex wife was one of those married types adverising herself as not. Imagine the shock the guys she hooked up with had when the H came home from the war and gave them a call. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I was cool about it when confronting them, but the one she got physical with got weirded out by the whole thing. She lied to him about her marital situation and so he's naturally suspicious about meeting anyone after that experience.

So be careful with online dating. Use a site that isn't for "hook ups". Stay the heck away from myspace and use eHarmony. Match isn't all that different from myspace, but a few people have had some positive experiences.

I really recommend brutal honesty in this online thing. If you meet someone and don't like them, just be honest about it. You'll save yourself your time and you save them time as well.

So not all the married types online are men. Women do it was well, as I so painfully found out.

The above post pretty much sums it up.

I dated only one person on eHarmony, my current fiance'; and that was after sifting through about 100 matches, and communicating with a few before finally seeing her.

Ummmmm, however, we did hook up the first date... unintentionally mind you. I don't know what to say about that other than there was an instant physical, emotional, and personality attraction there that blossomed into love very quickly. We are both educated, emotionally stable people with good careers too, so we know better, but I have no regrets.


Best advice:
Be picky, chat with them and make it crystal clear what you are looking for, then set up a casual date.

OK forgive my ignorance, it has been roughly 20 years since I dated. What do you mean by "hook ups"?

Also just as another FYI, I recently spoke to an old friend who is still single at 40. She is also in real estate. She tried online dating for a while and as part of getting to know someone she would get their address, do a title search and 9 times out of 10 there would be another name on the title (i.e. the BW). She used a variety of sites including eHarmony.

I don't know that another name on the title would mean they are cheating. The title to my house has my name and my ex's on it........it's for sale, but I still live here. I think that's a bit unfair to assume someone is cheating by checking that information without talking to them.

Hook up = sex

Don't go overboard on paranoia. Most of the women I've met on eHarmony tell me their experience has been positive overall. Most married guys looking for hook ups will use things like myspace or match.

Two names on a title means nothing. I'm about to add my parents to my home's title so there would be 3 names on it.

Talk on the phone a few times with anyone you may meet and then meet them soon after. You can waste months of time talking to someone and then meet them and be completely unattracted.

I've had that happen to me.

So talk for a little bit, meet in a public place for something small like a coffee.