The Disappearing Act

Last week I mentioned that a guy I e-mailed on match.com wrote back. He sent me two long e-mails, and it gave me hope that I'd eventually get to meet him in person. But after his second e-mail, I never heard from him again. What's even stranger is that he hasn't logged onto the site since he last e-mailed me.

I can't help wondering what happened. Did he meet someone else, either on match.com or offline? Has he been so caught up with work that he hasn't had time to e-mail me back? (I find that one hard to believe, because even a workaholic like me has time to sit down for five minutes and write an e-mail.) Was he turned off by something I wrote in one of my e-mails? (I can't imagine why, because I simply answered his questions and wrote a little about myself.) Was he taken by his fellow aliens back to his home planet, otherwise know as Jerkopolis? I also can't help feeling tempted to track him down and write the words "I have mommy issues" in indelible ink on his forehead.

Another guy on match.com also responded to my e-mail, but he disappeared after the second e-mail. This has happened to me repeatedly; it happened on eharmony, okcupid, and chemistry.com. Guys will e-mail me a couple of times and then pull disappearing acts; one guy disappeared after sending me twelve e-mails! In fact, I have encountered more than thirty disappearing acts. I wish I could tell all of them to LEAVE ME ALONE. If they're not interested in meeting me, then they shouldn't have e-mailed me at all.

Why do guys do this? It puzzles and infuriates me at the same time. I think it was fellow blogger Talli Roland who told me that some of them are "browsing"; they're not ready to date anyone yet, but they want to see who's out there. Others might have girlfriends or wives (or both), but they're selfish enough to want more. Maybe they get some kind of sick ego boost in misleading lonely women like me. I think it was another blogger (I can't remember who) who told me that they're holding out for someone "better"; they think that a Victoria Secret model will finally give them the time of day. I'd like to tell them that the chances of that happening are about as likely as me joining the NFL. (I don't even know who played at the Superbowl this year, or any year for that matter.)

I'd also like to tell all the guys who post pictures of their dogs (not themselves with their dogs, but just their dogs) in their profile that unless they look exactly like their dogs, they should include more pictures of themselves. I'd also like to say that it's really not necessary for them to post pictures of their cars (not themselves with their cars, just the cars), because as long as their car isn't evil like the one in the Stephen King novel Christine, I don't really care what kind of car they have.

And I'd like to know why so many guys do not include any pictures of themselves in their profiles (this was an issue on every dating site I've been on, except okcupid). I'd like to ask them, "If I showed up for our first date wearing a ski mask, would you still want to date me? No. You'd think I was there to rob you. So then why do you think it's okay to conceal what you look like before we even meet?" (What's interesting is that more than 90% of them describe themselves as "athletic and toned", since you can choose a "body type" like "athletic and toned" or "about average" to describe yourself in your profile. As I've stated before, any guy who has a nice body is going to flaunt it in his profile; I know that for a fact, based on all the shirtless pictures I've seen in the other profiles and all the guys I've seen strutting around in muscle shirts at the gym.)

If I had a dollar for every time I saw the statement, "I like to go out on the town, but I also like to stay in and watch a movie," I'd have enough money for at least five new online dating memberships. I think it'd be more interesting if they said something like, "I never leave my house because the apocalypse will happen any day now," or "I don't spend much time at home because of all the spores" (though I wouldn't necessarily want to date them.)

I've gotten so discouraged that I've hardly e-mailed any guys this past week, though I did get several more "winks" from men in their forties and fifties (I didn't respond to any of them). I'm starting to worry that I won't get to go on any dates this time, which has never happened in my previous online dating experiences. Maybe I should join another online dating site. What do you think?

Why do you think guys pull disappearing acts and don't post pictures of themselves in their profiles? What are some of your pet peeves regarding online dating or dating in general?