New Hope or No Hope?

Just when I thought Christian Mingle could not get worse, it exceeded expectations yet again.

Here is how things have progressed, chronologically.

1. I spent a short time talking to people I thought were actual women, and I was relatively happy.

2. Later the same day, I realized nearly everyone I communicated with was a West African scammer, many of whom are male. I learned not to trust messages from accounts with photos of attractive women, but I figured the ugly ones were real, even if there was no possibility I would form relationships with them.

3. I learned that most of the messages I received from accounts featuring old and/or ugly women were also coming from West African scammers.

So, to recap, I paid something like $50 for one month of talking to fewer than 10 ugly and/or old women, as well as hundreds of West African men.

Two days back, someone with the username newhopexxx (the X’s are substitutions) sent me a “smile.” I checked her out. I will use “she” and “her” even though I’m talking about a man in Africa.

She was based less than a hundred miles away. She was a churchgoing Baptist. Her photos showed a woman who had probably been beautiful at one time. She looked good for her claimed age, 58. Faint praise, I know. She was probably 25 pounds overweight, and her arms were getting that look where fat accumulates and masks the transition from upper arm to forearm.

I’m not picking on her looks to be a jerk. It relates to the story.

I was not interested, but for a day, I felt I should give her a response. Because of her age, I thought she was an actual woman, and I felt she deserved ordinary courtesy.

I responded, thanking her and letting her know I was getting ready to delete my account. I wished her well.

Check out this response:

You are welcome, how are you doing? I just join the site two days ago and still checking how it work. When did you sign up on here and how is been your experience so far and if I may ask why are you getting ready to delete your profile.

That’s not an American typing. I really thought this was a poor lady trying to find companionship. She was old, she was not a looker, she was local…it all seemed legit. But she’s a man.

My question: if you’re trolling for older American men, why would you use a somewhat dumpy 58-year-old as bait? This is not how the online dating scam business works. You want your older man to think, “JACKPOT! A woman who is still attractive wants me! I’m not going to have to pretend to enjoy cuddling with someone who looks as bad as I do!”

If you didn’t want brutal honesty, you came to the wrong blog.

I feel that if I can’t make it with a more appealing class of women, I should at least be granted the mercy of dealing with a better class of criminal.

I told her I was going away because it appeared that everyone on Christian Mingle was an African scammer. Then I told her that based on her English, it looked like she was one of them. I reported her to the site’s Oompa Loompas, as I have dozens of other fake women, and that was that.

I didn’t block her. I am curious to see whether she’ll respond, and whether her account disappears. I feel like I can’t delete my profile until something happens.

On the whole, you could say I’m not a satisfied customer. I paid for a bad experience I can get elsewhere for nothing.

I live in North Florida. If I want to meet eager old women who aren’t from Africa, free of charge, all I have to do is join some clubs. I don’t need to pay anyone or weed out scammers. I can show up at the nearest shuffleboard court, and women who are collecting Social Security will start bombarding me with poorly-executed baked goods as though they were roofies. If I pick the right crowd, I could end up with a new Bentley.

Well, not a Bentley. Those are for younger guys. But I could probably score a Mustang.

Or I could smear myself in honey and go lie on a fire ant mound. Same level of enjoyment with none of the commitment.

No one on the run from fire ants ever had to change his locks or get a restraining order.

Men are just not like women. There are plenty of women out there who can be genuinely attracted to men who are older or not handsome, but give a woman all the money in the world, and 95% of the men on earth who find her ugly will still run from her. If that sounds shallow, remember that women routinely turn down men because of the cars they drive or because they’re under 6 feet tall, and wealth requirements are not merely common, but standard. Most men could not care less what you drive, how tall you are, or whether you have a dime to your name. I knew a woman who almost rejected a proposal because she didn’t like the man’s last name, and I have heard single women discuss their minimum-dollar criteria for engagement rings.

Who’s shallow now? Men actually have the advantage, by a considerable margin. Be reasonably attractive. Don’t have VD. Don’t be an axe murderer. Don’t bring a scary family along with you. Be pleasant and helpful. Share religious and political beliefs. You’ll do.

I looked at women ranging from 4’10” to 6’1″. I thought some were pretty extreme, but okay. No big deal. I didn’t wonder how much money they made. I didn’t insist on college degrees. I didn’t think about the clothes they wore. I “liked” women who were attractive in spite of having what I would very kindly call non-standard types of beauty, including some girls who needed to shed some pounds. I don’t feel bad about rejecting 300-pounders, women who are older than I am, and the truly homely. The goal was to make my life better, not infinitely worse.

I should not have tried Christian Mingle based on one person’s review. If you look around, you will see an ocean of people complaining that Christian Mingle is a waste of money.

So…back to being an unmolested eccentric bachelor. I think I’ll roll the Harley into the living room.