Forum Fallout

(From the files of Catholic Match)

If I thought sharing some of my hobbies, personality and humor in the Catholic Match forums might grab the attention of the woman of my dreams, it didn't take long for me to realize how sadly mistaken I was. Not only did I not get along with many of the regular contributors on the site, a great deal of my forum topics and posts caused a certain amount of acrimony among these people.

One of this blog's core beliefs is that the Church should be doing more to help its singles. I've spoken about this on Long Lost Black Sheep far too many times and have highlighted the reasons why I think this is true. My opinion was met with skepticism on the Catholic Match forums however, with some members saying it wasn't the Church's job to get people like me a date. They felt I was just making excuses for my own failures and thought it was ridiculous to place blame on the Church for my chronic singleness. I gave it right back to them and explained how the Catholic Church had far more resources than I did to bring people together. With access to facilities across the region, the Archdiocese could send out a clarion call for singles to meet up in low-cost venues. In some ways, the Church does this already with The National Catholic Singles Conference although that event isn't low-cost and often takes place in locations that are prohibitively far away. I also remarked that at the very least, our Church should be discussing the problem singles face and include us in their prayers. The regular forum users were not impressed although years later, one of my biggest critics admitted I had a point and stated the Church didn't care about single people. He did have to get a dig in against me by prefacing his opinion with the comment: ”Not to sound like someone who used to complain about this all the time....”

While lamenting the lack of Catholic Match women who were informed about world events, I remarked that everyone should have some knowledge of the conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine...at least enough to hold up a conversation where you could justify one side or the other. This comment was met with disbelief by one woman who refused to broaden her horizons and thought my expectations were out in left field. Fast forward to the October 2023 attacks along the Gaza Strip, the subsequent response by Israel and the massive protests and divisions it caused in this country. I guess my forum comment wasn't so wacky after all.

A topic of discussion that was supposed to be on the lighter side of things was music. Forum users often shared favorite songs or posted tunes that pertained to certain categories. Years of listening to college and community radio had opened my world up to so many different genres and countless obscure songs so a good number of my musical selections took people off guard. I had more than one Catholic Match member warn me that my love of goth music was a slippery slope to satanism and suicide. Well, that's not what goth is about and I thought they were pretty ignorant to lump everyone together with the few bad apples that did exist in the genre. Also causing some friction was my utter disdain for hokey Christian rock which seemed to be very popular among Catholic Match members.

As discussed in a previous blog entry, I've had some wonderful opposite sex friendships over the years but for many forum users, such a thing was taboo. Naturally, this caused a fair amount of arguments and at times, it felt like I was talking to people from the 1950s. I placed such a high value on a person's individuality, it didn't matter to me what gender they were. Truth be told, I got along better with some of my female friends than I did some of my male friends because we shared more common interests and personality traits. According to the “trad Catholics” in the forums, having opposite sex friends was dangerous because sooner or later, temptation would set in. When I told one of my female friends about this, she replied, “Those people are idiots.”

In fact, by reading the Catholic Match forums I saw a strange level of discord and misunderstanding between the sexes that reminded me of some Muslim cultures. One regular in the forums who I sparred with all the time admitted that she really didn't understand men and figured things would work out between her future husband and herself once they got married. OH, YOU POOR FOOL!!!! I couldn't help but think how miserable the guy would be for having a wife that clueless.

Even though the Bible really doesn't give us a practical guide for dating and marriage, many forum users expected the men to be near-emotionless providers who were strong at all times while the women ran the households ideally as stay-at-home moms. I thought such notions were naive at best. When one forum member asked what the men of Catholic Match would do to protect their women, I joked, “Buy a rocket launcher.” My type of humor usually went over like a lead balloon.

Despite my bad reputation on the forum, people seemed to be interested in what I had to say. Some of the topics I started had huge numbers of views into the thousands as opposed to a few hundred which was the norm. A few men even sent me private messages of encouragement especially when I put annoying female forum users in their place. One gentleman who commiserated with me said, “I didn't know I was a bad Catholic until I joined Catholic Match.” I could definitely identify with that comment. I went to Mass every week, saved myself for marriage, tried to be a thoughtful person, prayed every day and yet it just wasn't good enough for some forum users.

I even had one of the regular female forum users issue what I considered to be a threat by saying I was hurting my chances at dating since many of the women on Catholic Match read what I posted and often discussed it among themselves. Well, I was only being honest and if these women found fault with my opinions, then I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

This same regular female forum user posted a topic that caused a firestorm: Chastity vs. Purity. I will discuss this controversy in the next blog entry.

Forum Frustrations

(From the files of Catholic Match)

When I first joined Catholic Match, there seemed to be a few interesting souls on the forums who could also be categorized as “black sheep” since they didn't fit into the (trad)itional Catholic mould. One man in particular came from a very dark background and admitted to having friends in the porn industry even though he did not embrace their lifestyle. Other black sheep were women who considered themselves to be feminists in addition to being Catholic. I thought it was beautiful that despite their very unconventional perspectives, there was something about Catholicism that still attracted them to the faith. Unfortunately, these members seemed to disappear after only a short while and the forums became overrun with users who were somewhat close-minded.

Many long-time Catholic Match members lamented how fun the forums used to be at one time. They could discuss just about any topic in an adult manner without it being banned by moderators. Some felt the forums now suffered from far too many trivial topics because serious and / or controversial subjects weren't encouraged. It's typical of me to show up late to the party so-to-speak and I wonder how things would have gone if I had joined Catholic Match several years earlier.

The website's co-founder Brian grew increasingly frustrated with the negativity on the forums and threatened several times to shut it down completely. He also minimized anything we had to say about the website by making the claim forum users only represented a very tiny portion of the total Catholic Match membership. I proposed the theory that all this negativity was a result of the Church's decline coinciding with the emergence of the first few generations of Catholics who were no longer able to find a potential spouse.

Of course we were frustrated, angry and depressed because we couldn't rely on the traditional methods of courtship that had once helped so many before us enter into the bonds of Holy Matrimony. A look at the obituaries of old-timers usually reveals how they met their spouses and for a lot of Catholics of a certain age, there were dances and other social activities that our generation lacks. If my parish tired to put on a dance, it would be populated by nothing but old people...if anyone bothered to show up at all.

Unfortunately, the “new rules” of online dating leave much to be desired and for a great number of us, they just aren't practical. Some Catholic Match members have commitments that prevent them from pursuing long-distance relationships. Others do not want to date foreigners who cannot speak English very well. Some are unwilling to date people who don't take care of themselves. More often than not, Brian seemed to scold us for our many deal-breakers. According to him, dating has changed for the average Catholic and we need to change our long-held expectations or risk being alone for the rest of our lives. He also claimed some of the obstacles we faced while trying to find a spouse were self-imposed and we should be more flexible.

Well, there are some things I just won't compromise on. Should a gourmet chef who is passionate about his vocation date a woman who only loves junk food? Should a fitness guru date a slob who won't get off the couch? Some of us don't have time to learn a new language and culture just to go on a date. Is that our fault? Even in the world of Catholic dating, attraction plays a role. Should I date a person who is totally unattractive to me? I suppose any couple could have a successful marriage if they had zero expectations but that's not reality.

With no women on Catholic Match to date, I kept coming back to the forums time and time again. In just four short years, I managed to rack up over a million and a half posts. I even saw a few regular forum users pass away without ever finding a spouse. What does all that say about the effectiveness of online dating for Catholics?