Get What You Pay For

This image doesn't say much.

Recently, I bumped into an older Catholic acquaintance at my favorite Chinese restaurant and we started talking about relationships and dating within the Church.  She wondered where people like her belonged because she had been married with kids for many years but her husband cheated on her and got a divorce.  I told her my desire to find a good Catholic girl but mentioned how difficult it was for older singles like me.  Not having been a part of the dating scene for decades, she was surprised to hear that.  A few days later, she e-mailed me a link to a website called CatholicDatingForFree.com.

The site describes itself as a place for wholesome Catholic dating and they claim “thousands have formed wonderful friendships, relationships, engagements and marriages!”  They say it's constantly monitored for decency in an effort to maintain high moral standards.  After spending a great deal of time going through the list of eligible singles and then breaking that list down geographically to see who was in the neighborhood, I thought the site was quite the train wreck.  Where to begin?

Profile photos:  This seems to be an issue with many of the women on the site.  (Men could have trouble with this too but for obvious reasons, I didn't check them out.)

Many members don't even bother to supply a profile photo so all we see is the graphic of a silhouetted human figure.  Did attempting to upload an image give them computer trouble or do they have something to hide?

Some women figured it would be best to wear large sunglasses.  This is a step up from no photo available but barely.  If the eyes are a window to your soul, then why have you closed the blinds?  This isn't the witness protection program.

There are women who decide to pose with their best friend.  This invites awkwardness.  Now a potential suitor has to figure out which one is you.  What if a guy likes the girl to the left with dark hair but it turns out you are actually the blond on the right?

If you've never had kids before, posing with your infant niece or nephew isn't a good idea either.  It might confuse people or imply a certain amount of desperation.

Sideways photos.  Again, we seem to be having trouble with basic computer skills.  Perhaps the site's format to upload images is confusing but why would anyone leave an image up like that after seeing the mistake?

Okay, maybe the format is hard to understand because one of the eligible women was actually a man.  While filling out the questionnaire, maybe he got I AM A WOMAN confused with I AM INTERESTED IN WOMEN.

A few females decided to go for sex appeal with tight-fitting or scantily clad outfits.  Some even accentuated certain “attributes” with sexually suggestive poses.  Isn't this supposed to be a Catholic dating website?

Descriptions:  To the website's credit, there is a section that asks what parish you belong to and the frequency of your Mass attendance but not much else is specifically geared toward the faith.  Did the creators of CatholicDatingForFree.com just slap the religion's name on a generic dating website platform?

Some profiles suffer from grammatical errors and I have to assume this is due to a language barrier.  Reading a description like, “I am pleased to be in loving relationship who is strong and looking for committed partner” just sends up the red flags.

To my surprise, a large number of women on the site are divorced and / or have kids.  Again, isn't this supposed to be a Catholic dating website?  Some might be widows and others (like my acquaintance at the Chinese restaurant) could have had the rug pulled out from under them by a cheating spouse but it was enough to make me wonder, “What is being taught in Sunday school these days?”

It's clear a lot of Catholics are looking for love...the divorced...the devout...the lapsed...the single parent and the never been married.  Judging by my own hopes and desires however, I'm not sure all of these groups share the same expectations.  Checking out CatholicDatingForFree.com  was disappointing because it felt like far too many people were playing in the same sandbox unsupervised.

Good Intentions...Bad Results

Ave Maria Singles was founded in 1998 as an online “marriage service” for Catholics who felt frustrated in their search for a spouse.  The site's creator once explained, “I'm not after big numbers or big money, but building a service filled with quality people with like minds.”  I first heard of the website a few years ago while reading a Catholic message board and decided to check it out.

While many internet dating sites only allow the pubic to view a small sample of member profiles, this didn't seem to be the case with Ave Maria Singles.  I was happy to see almost a hundred pages of eligible women listed but as I scrolled through all of the profiles, my curiosity turned to disappointment.

What appeared to be a large number of women really wasn't when you broke down those profiles geographically.  Members of Ave Maria Singles not only included people from the United States and Canada but also from countries on other continents.  My home state of Massachusetts had just two members and one of them lived very far away from me.  “Would love to join you for coffee.  Let me check my frequent flier miles.”

Some profiles had missing photos or introductions that read, “I will answer later.”  Putting your best foot forward is crucial in the online dating scene and incomplete profiles project laziness.  Of all the females on the site, less than a handful intrigued me.  Saying, “I love God and going to Mass and I'm looking for a man who embraces Jesus as his Lord and Savior” really doesn't tell me much about the individual behind the profile.

A 6 month membership was $79 and a lifetime membership was $179.  Basic memberships could be upgraded to a “premium membership” for an additional fee.  If Ave Maria Singles was founded on such a noble intention...to bring Godly people together for the sacrament of marriage, then why must they nickle and dime us like that?

One reviewer on Yelp writes: “Imagine you are a Catholic single.  Imagine you are having a hard time meeting people.  Imagine a website that tries to take advantage of your insecurities and abuses the fact that you may be a little desperate.  It lures you in with the promise of thousands of members and implies that they have a lot of active members.  They had 6 active members.  In all of Texas.”  The reviewer then complains of the site's poor customer service when she asked for an immediate refund.

Another reviewer who met his wife on Ave Maria Singles in 2003 echoes these sentiments.  Despite a lifetime membership, the first conversations he had with his wife on the site disappeared from his account after a long period of inactivity.  The company agreed to restore them only if he provided an endorsement for the site's “success story” section.  After continued discussion, Ave Maria Singles agreed to retrieve the messages for a fee.  He remarks such treatment “...isn't much of a reflection of Christian charity, and certainly doesn't represent what Catholics should be seeking and practicing in marriage.”

This reviewer also says that out of curiosity, he decided to investigate the number of women ages 34 to 41 who were currently in the same state he had searched ten years ago.  Only 8 hits appeared out of a state with a population of 6 million and he recognized a couple of those profiles from ten years ago!  “They advertise that they have had over two thousand marriages take place among members, but that is for all fifty states plus foreign countries, over a period of fifteen years.  From that perspective, two thousand isn't that high a number (if all occurred in the U.S., that would be fewer than three per state per year).”

All of this does not give me much faith in online dating and those negative reviews certainly strike a chord.  There are people who have reported positive experiences with Ave Maria Singles.  They say the website helped them find a spouse when nothing else seemed to work.  According to the site's creator, finding your better half “takes God's time, not yours.”  He advises staying with it even if five years pass.

Being glib about “God's plan” can be very hurtful to singles especially if you've been alone for such a long time.  Charging a large fee just to join and then segregating memberships based on how much more someone pays doesn't seem very Christ-like.  Neither does holding a member's cherished correspondence to his future wife hostage.  I hope the people behind Ave Maria Singles remember the verse “whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

What Does God Need With A Website?

                                             Source: ChristianMingle.com

The month of February can be quite dreadful for single Catholics like me because of two words: Valentine's Day.  Being reminded how lonely you are is bad enough but the holiday's exaggerated expressions of romantic love is like rubbing salt on a open wound.  

According to the television, what I really need is a website.  Sappy advertisements for ChristianMingle.com have littered the airwaves these past few years and I find them to be incredibly annoying.  The commercials feature some of the happiest couples in all of human history.  They hold hands, embrace, jump for joy and constantly smile whether they are going for a walk, planting a garden, volunteering at a soup kitchen or just lying on the floor.  It's the kind of imagery that's supposed to make hopeless singles yearn for love.  Then come the cheesy tag lines:

"Find the person you were meant to find."

"God has a plan for each of us.  It's a plan that starts with

 you and becomes stronger with the power of two."

"Find God's match for you."

Of course, we hear the offer to join for free but there's no mention of how much a paid membership costs or what limits are placed on free accounts.  There's a lot to dislike about these ads.  Relationships can be very complicated, subtle and even challenging but we only see the overtly good things about falling in love.  The tag lines have such an air of authority, it's like they are implying the results are guaranteed.  What if I join and don't find the person I was meant to find?  What then?  God has a plan for each of us?  What is it?  I've been trying to figure that out for a long time now.  How did ChristianMingle.com get inside information?  Find God's match for you?  What does God need with a website?

My many years without a significant other makes me wonder why God in His infinite power and mercy has never steered a good woman my way.  During college, I spent a lot of time exploring Boston but I never met anyone who would have made a good girlfriend.  Many of my fellow classmates had a big anti-religious streak and commuting on public transportation only led me to encounters with strange people.  The few times I went out to a bar resulted in me sitting by myself trying not to look awkward.  The occasional church function never went anywhere, either.  Just seeing a girl out in public that I'm remotely attracted to has been a rare occurrence.

In all those years of taking the train into Boston and exploring the city's neighborhoods, I couldn't have randomly bumped into a nice woman and struck up a conversation with her?  There were no like-minded classmates in college?  Not once could I catch the eye of a girl at a bar?  Church functions don't attract any single females my age?

Many religious dating websites claim to have the answers.  They say good things are on the horizon but we have to be patient.  Love will come but only when God is good and ready.  They seek to justify a single person's empty years instead of viewing them as a big waste of time filled with lost potential.

Yet another Valentine's Day is going to pass by me without someone to love.  Where have you been, God?  Don't you hear my prayers?  How many more years must I lose?  Is it your plan for me to be so lonely and bitter?  Sometimes it feels like the God who's supposed to know what's in my heart doesn't really know me at all.