I'll spare you the details of how I stumbled upon this site. I'll even spare you the details of why I decided to fiddle with it. What I WILL tell you is the scoop on how this "blind date" web site works, and how I had terrible experiences because of it.

The sanity you save might be your own.

So, on to Singles.com. Normally, I'd make fun of anyone who would even consider using one of these sites. In fact, I DO make fun of people who use these sites. I'm an equal-opportunity heckler.

Since you probably aren't familiar with the way these sites work, here's the scoop. The first step is filling out a basic profile about yourself. This part is pretty easy, since it's the criteria that the search database sorts you by. Hair/eye color, age, race, height, religion, education... on and on. The one zinger category is the 'body type' category.

This category leaves a lot to interpretation because the available choices are 'slender' (you are a rod), 'average' (you are a few pounds overweight), 'athletic' (you can crush bowling balls with your thighs), 'full figured' (a few pounds overweight, but all in the right places), 'a few pounds overweight' (you influence tides), and the enigmatic 'other' (which leaves everything to the imagination). There are exceptions to every rule, of course, so there is the occasional person that actually reports truthfully for this category. By far, the most common one is 'average'. Liars.

Now that we've got the simple stuff out of the way, it's on to the details. There are two essay-question style interviews that you can fill out to bump up your chances of having someone bite on your profile. The first interview is the 'intimate' interview. This one asks you all the stock questions about what you do for a living, what type of person you're looking for, what you think you're biggest flaws and strengths are, etc., etc.. Pretty standard stuff, and it's primarily what the saner folks out there use as a guide. The second interview is the 'adult' interview. That's the interview to read if you are looking for someone that likes to be tied to the bed or enjoys having sex on the kitchen floor at 2 in the afternoon.

So, you've done the basic info and the detailed info. What else? Pictures, of course! If you haven't posted a picture of yourself, you'd better have a pretty amazing adult interview or no one will even bother to contact you. In fact, there is an option in the search criteria that filters out all profiles that don't have pictures. So, if you want to know what you're getting into, check the box and filter out 70% of the profiles out there. There's always a chance that there is a 'diamond-in-the-rough' that you filter out by checking 'profiles with picture only', but that's Russian Roulette dating. Then again, chasing after some woman because she has a cute picture isn't necessarily a mark of sanity either. Caveat emptor.

By the way, a note on having pictures in your profile: Apparently almost everyone searches just the profiles with pictures. Once you post a picture, you pop up on the radar of a lot of wacky folks. Be forewarned. I'm not the most ideal physical specimen out there, but I kinda like to think I look a bit better than average. The point when my picture first showed up next to my profile was when some interest stirred up and my stories really begin.

A scant 24 hours after the picture was up, I had my first nibble. From a woman who worked in the IT/telecommunications field. Who was 40-something. Being only 23 at the time, this was a pretty scary proposition for me. She said that she really liked my profile and that she wanted to go out and get a drink in the evening sometime. I sent her a message back with a very good-natured and polite refusal. The fact that her picture showed that she had teeth that reminded me of Mr. Ed wasn't helping her case, either. I held back the urge to ask her if she had any cute daughters.

A few days later, I received a very odd message in broken English. From a woman in the Philippines. At least this one was the same age as me. While the mangling of her sentences was reaching the Zero Wing level of proportions, I could roughly make out the gist of her message. She wanted a husband in the United States. I wrote her a nice refusal back, saying that I wasn't that interested in mail-ordering a wife at this point in my life. I silently wondered how many other guys she's hit with this request before. I bet she's the type to search the profiles without pictures, too.

After another few days, a young lady who seemed to have a lot on the ball contacted me. She seemed to have everything going for her: good job, only 25 years old, and a graduate degree. Her message said that she thought I was a good match for her and that she'd like to get to know me. There were two major snags to this one. Number one was the fact that she didn't have a picture in her profile, so I had no idea what this girl looked like. Still, I was willing to give it a shot if her profile matched me really well. Second, her message said that she was looking for "a GOD fearing gentleman". Yes, the 'GOD' was in capital letters. The 'gentleman' part I think I could manage... it'd be a stretch, but I could handle it. The only reason I would ever fear God is if I thought he/she/it actually had a chance at getting back at me for calling Sister Kate 'Atilla the Nun' in my Catholic confirmation classes back in high school. One more polite rejection stating 'agnostic tendancies' was sent out and was understood and well received. That girl actually sounded very nice, and I hope she finds what she's looking for. I'm pretty sure that what she was looking for wasn't me, though. I tend to start smoldering when I step inside of a church.

Strike three, and I was out. It was time to start going on the offensive. I had burned a week already and I wasn't getting anywhere. Hanging out in bars was starting to look pretty good.

Next Dating Update: My blind date from Hades.