I first heard about Catholic Match from a friend many years ago and decided to check it out shortly thereafter. At the time, the website allowed people to preview a handful of profile photos if you checked a box that identified your gender. If you wanted to see more photos beyond these or if you wanted to click on an individual profile, you needed to create an account. I thought some of the women weren't bad looking and seeing these teaser profile photos only made me dwell on what possibilities were out there.
Every once in a great while, I'd see ads for Catholic Match in different church bulletins and that had me thinking about what I was missing by not joining. The website seemed to take its mission of helping singles into the vocation of matrimony seriously and in a comparison of other dating websites, Catholic Match boasted their members were free to marry. After a long stint of unemployment ended, I decided to finally purchase a six month membership.
To say my expectations for this website were huge is an understatement but I would soon find out a lot of my preconceived notions about Catholic Match and online dating in general were inaccurate. Where those free Catholic dating websites were filled with sloppy profiles and terrible photos, I thought the women of Catholic Match were in it to win it. I expected to see tons of well thought out profiles with great photos. This was not the case and those blurry, badly lit, sunglasses wearing images plagued this website too. “How could people pay all that money and then not put in much of an effort?” I thought. Only later did I realize Catholic Match offered free memberships in addition to paid subscriptions but users had no way of telling one from the other.
Before joining Catholic Match, I tried to imagine what kind of women would be on this website. Maybe they were reasonably attractive and kindhearted but unsuccessful in love not because of some antisocial personality quirks but because they just couldn't find a guy to fall in love with. Maybe some of them had gone to all-girls schools for many years and were a bit sheltered. Maybe they held true to the Church's teachings on premarital sex and found themselves to be outcasts in a secular and sex-crazed world.
Well, despite the website saying its members were free to marry, I soon found out Catholic Match allowed divorced people to join the site...but they could only use it for fellowship and friendship, not dating. That kind of defeats the purpose of a DATING WEBSITE, doesn't it? So instead of finding lots of dateless wonders like me, I had to weed out a large number of women who couldn't even go on a date without it being a sin.
At the time, Catholic Match featured 7 faith questions about specific Church teachings and users had to answer whether or not they agreed with them. A heck of a lot of people did not accept the Church's teaching on premarital sex so instead of finding that inexperienced woman of my dreams, I found plenty of ladies who had been around the block and were proud of it.
The website also had two useful features that were removed shortly after I joined. One let people know when you logged in last and this helped to separate active profiles from inactive ones. Unfortunately, some members were using this information to stalk other members so the feature was eliminated for safety reasons. The other feature I liked allowed people to search profiles by interests and hobbies. Catholic Match staff felt it limited members in their quest to find a spouse, however, so they got rid of it. During my time using that specialized search feature, I found very few women who shared my passions.
Within a few hours of purchasing my subscription, I received a message from a 60+ year old woman from Mexico welcoming me to the website. This was not a good sign. Another curiosity about Catholic Match was the large number of women from foreign countries, particularity the Philippines. Unfortunately, the amount of local women on the site left a lot to be desired. With almost 2 million people in the Archdioceses of Boston alone, I wondered where the heck everyone was.
Still, I looked on the bright side of things and put my faith in God that “the right one” would eventually come long. After all, there were so many Catholic Match success stories featured on the website with some accounts bordering on the miraculous.
Well, the world's largest Catholic dating website may have worked out for some but it didn't work for me. After 4 years and 6 months, I decided against renewing my paid subscription. Being on the site was an interesting experience and one that I will probably blog about in the near future. I certainly won't discourage anyone from joining Catholic Match because it really could be how you find your significant other. Unfortunately for me, my time on the website seemed to be a big waste of time.
