After finishing my undergrad degree, I was in full force: moving back to Toronto with dreams of being the next Don Draper at an advertising agency and running wild across the city in my high-heeled ankle boots and pleather skirts drinking dirty martinis with my girls. My (then) boyfriend had different obligations: he was starting a Master’s at Mcgill the following September, and pursuing some finance-y certification while playing indoor soccer in a league and watching Entourage with his crew every Thursday night. We were forced to say ‘goodbye forever’ on the day we moved back to our respective cities, and after long days half-heartedly doing my summer job and full-heartedly trying to decipher the reasons for this love lost, it had been a month, and something about my situation needed to change.

“You are an urban 22 year-old and have too much going for you to be doting on a man from Montreal.” My co-worker had said. After all, I was the go-getter of my group; the one who always took responsibility for my life and what I wanted in it. In this case, I wanted to be happy, and I wanted to date men — fast. Was that too much to ask?

My answer: online dating. The eHarmony commercial of Tanya Lee and her match-made-in-heaven Joshua was all too promising. I did the forty-minute personality assessment test and it was spot on, so I made a profile, uploaded some cute pictures, and paid sixty dollars for the month (you can’t see pictures of people you’ve been matched with unless you pay, so I had to do it.) The downfalls of eHarmony are too many though, and the advertising surpasses its match-making performance especially for young, busy women.

Firstly, your personality assessment is based on values. Values you have about your career, your health, your spiritually, etc. If you have any sort of moral standing, the test is likely to pick up on these traits. But just ’cause I respect myself doesn’t mean I’m not a sexy, fiery, fashion-goddess, right? – eHarmony definitely didn’t think so. I was paired with the most intensely modest-looking Star Wars nerds in the country (this is not an exaggeration, believe me). The database of people who join eHarmony isn’t open for all members to see, and since it’s their job to match you with a man, it is your job to dish out the cash until you find him. If there are only two matches for you in Toronto, so be it. You’ll have to wait until another man who is suited to your personality decides to join, and that could take years.

I became bored with eHarmony’s slow and strict communication process: the general interview questions, sending selections of ‘Must-Haves’ and ‘Can’t-Stands’ – all of this, before regular chatting, which they have coined ‘Open Communication,’ with a match. Frank from Toronto didn’t like that I ‘Must-Have’ a person with an open mind when it comes to religious beliefs. He was too polite to ‘Close Communication,’ so he just stopped responding and we never moved on to the next stage. I got to ‘Open Communication’ with a night-club owner from Detroit, but he was from Detroit, and my dream of being the next Tanya Lee was very over.

“I’m so bored that I’m on eHarmony, Maria. Seriously…”

“Honestly, don’t even worry about it, Hun, I have a ton of friends on Plenty of Fish and they’re meeting great guys!”

So there I was, making another online profile. On the upside of things, it was free, and I could see everyone’s photo. On the downside, I was about to throw myself into the wolf-pack. I sold myself on the site as ‘career-oriented, health conscious, and an avid traveler’ hoping to attract men with similar ambitions. Instead, I attracted wide variety. After weeding out 85% percent of the messages from freakishly unattractive, over-aggressive, uneducated, over the age of forty divorced men who were unable to communicate with anything other than “hey baby,” I hit the ‘Advanced Search’ button and went fishing for myself. It was my romantic life on the line here, and these were the men who were going to make it or shake it. I needed to make sure they met my criteria: Bachelor’s degree, twenty-three to twenty-six years old, preferably Sagittarius, Leo, or Taurus.

At first the process was really overwhelming because there are loads of men on this website. I hate to break it to you, but you really have to dig deep in order to find the gems of the bunch. I would spend hours every night after work running through profiles. Thankfully, when you figure out what kind of ‘type’ you’re attracted to, there’s an option which allows you to ‘find other users similar to ManX’ — a very useful option for your search.

The very first person I messaged was a boy named Michael. He was, hands-down, a hottie – athletic built, traveler, banker, and a Sagittarius. My message said something like this: “Hi I’m Claire. Your profile is interesting… You’re the first person I’ve messaged on here so you should take it as a compliment. I also figure, there’s really nothing to lose right?” Michael replied with, “There definitely isn’t anything to lose…”

He was instantly attentive. He told me he’d been on dates with girls from this site before, and there were a couple of horror stories of girls who’d fooled him with photos. We added each other on Facebook for a better assessment of each others looks and ‘normal-ness’ and as it turned out, we had friends-of-friends and I could rest assured that he was not some sort of serial killer. It seemed that Plenty of Fish had worked its magic and I was about to go on a first date with a guy I’d met online.

The scene was charming: A late evening in Yorkville, meeting in front of the steps of Sushi Inn. He was surprisingly and exceedingly handsome in-person with his crisp, white, Burberry-esque golf shirt. I looked cute too: beige silk shirt with ripped jean shorts and strappy heels. But for some reason I became nervous as he exceeded my expectations in the looks department, and I began to sweat. “It’s just a game. Kind of like an interview– You’re so good at interviews, Claire. Just start talking, pull out the swag, and you’ll be fine,” I said to myself. This worked, and in minutes we were talking sashimi, wine, and travelling. He was from a small town outside of the city, and being a city girl my whole life, his off-handed jokes about other cultures bothered me. I was clearly more refined than him in the ‘food and culture’ department. He could keep up with me, which was good, but his backbone was his smoldering/sexy look. I was willing to let his pinches of bogus arrogance slide – he was too cute, and clearly attracted to me. Maybe he was slightly intimidated, just as I?

We hopped over to Hemingway’s after we finished our dinner and a bottle of wine, and started drinking vodka with olives, on the rocks. The couple beside us said that we looked “cute together” after hearing the story of how we’d met. And we did look good together, that was for sure. But would the fire-on-fire, Aries and Sagittarius combo work? His haughtiness persisted and my jabs of knowledge slapped him right back in the face. Was it too much now? Were we both too independent and obsessed with ourselves? Still, we made our way to Strangelove on College Street as a third spot for the evening, where finally the competition between our egos ceased. We found comfort in something new: the continuous drinking, of course, and the kisses – and oh yes, they were marvelous kisses.
Michael was an amazing date, but after two more attempts at meshing lives, his innate autonomy and my make-stated independence were too much of a barrier to break through. Sexual attraction wasn’t enough to hold down the fort. His name and number fizzled away into the history of my Blackberry.

I met with another man on Plenty of Fish before I decided to close my account. His name was John. A short Greek boy who’d found me on the site first. He would call me to talk on the phone and that seemed nice, he was also ‘just okay’ looking in all of his Facebook pictures— although something was definitely off. Since my past experience with Mike went so well, I figured I’d give it another shot. But then he picked me up, and I entered his car and turned to look at him… so frail, and lacking confidence I needed in a man. An alarm went off in my head and I wanted get up, open the door, and run. Out of politeness I stayed, and what happened through the course of the night is another tale which I’ll have to save for next time…

I’m now not a member of eHarmony or Plenty of Fish. I’m focusing my energies on my career, my health, and my life, but somehow trust that the man who is meant for me will come along when he’s supposed to. The moral of the story? Online dating is an experience for the bold. If you have the guts to try it out for the right reasons (wrong reasons being: random sex with forty-year-old divorcees, desperation, and lastly, desperation) I say go ahead and see for yourself. However, before you start paying sixty dollars a month for eHarmony or spending countless hours of your evening ‘fishing’ for men online, you have other options: How about sparking a flame on Facebook with one of those cute acquaintances you haven’t been in touch with since grade nine? Or spending your evenings having drinks with different groups of people where your potential beau might make his awesome appearance? Trust me, the conventional ways are sometimes much more effective than being at home behind a computer screen, reading up on the man who might be too afraid to tell you that you’re wonderful to your face. And who wants a man like that? But if you’re determined (like I was) to date online, there’s no harm. You have my hope that since it didn’t work for me– it’ll work for you. With some good bait, hopefully you’ll catch a gentleman of a fish who will grace you with a few enjoyable dates, a kiss here-and-there, and over all, a great life-experiment to put in the bag.