Time has been short lately.
Between the new house, job issues and everything else that has been going on, we haven’t had much time left to go out, meet people and, hopefully, get introduced to our next girlfriend. Both the time and energy have been lacking to have our usual adventures.
Sure, we’ve been having a lot of fun just the two of us, but we still wish we could get out there more. Our lives, however, are kind of on hold until the new house is bought and moved in to. Until then, we’re floating around in limbo.
To counter that, we’ve been debating another idea, posting an ad on Craigslist and seeing if we can somehow fit dating back into our schedule.
The truth is that we’ve had a lot of bad luck with dating sites. The problem is that most dating sites that accept couples are simply swinger sites. Though there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not what we want. Besides, the sites we’ve been on have been crawling with fake profiles, misleading information and a lot of people who can’t take a hint (what part of “couple for woman” is unclear?)
We also took out a personal ad once in a local newspaper, with disastrous consequences. Turns out in Columbia, SC the number of couples that do what we do is very finite and, despite the lack of identifying information, it was clear to our friends who took out the ad.
Being the butt of jokes and snickers in the coffee shop is no fun. However, it certainly wasn’t the worst fate we’ve endured. It takes a lot more than a few jokes to slow us down. Still, the fact remains that we are 0-2 when it comes to personal ads. A reason we’re a bit hesitant to move forward with this.
Why Craigslist?
So all of this begs the question, why Craiglist? Here are my reasons:
- Free: For us and those who respond.
- Private: Disposable email addresses only.
- Disposable ads: Post an ad, get no replies, no big deal. Just walk away.
- Say what WE want: Be ourselves rather than having to pretend to be swingers.
- Less spam: Free Yahoo! mail + Craiglist means not cleaning out the inbox daily for a month.
Does this make it a good idea, no, but it’s a better idea than the sites we’ve been on. Spending so much per month on a membership or making interested parties pay $2 to respond doesn’t make any sense. Craigslist, more than anywhere else, is a zero censorship environment that is free in every regard. It’s quite liberating.
The Fraud Problem
The main thing we’re worried about it is the same thing that everyone else is, fakes. Looking through the site, most of the fakes are pitifully obvious, wanting you to IM or containing obviously fake pics, but some responders might not be so obvious.
However, if we do this, we’re going to guard against fraud by insisting on meeting in a public place such as a coffee shop and not giving up pics (at least nothing we wouldn’t send to a stranger). These are sensible precautions and if they deter anyone from meeting us, that’d be too bad.
Still, we’re not convinced about doing it and we wouldn’t consider it a long term strategy if we did. It’d be something to use for the next few weeks, until things settle down. Once we get arranged and our finances/personal lives calm down, we’ll probably be back out there, beating the streets, doing what we’ve always done.
Of course, the real temptation is to just do it and for the sake of seeing what happens. We might meet someone interesting, we might not. We might meet the love of our life, we might meet some very strange people. No matter what though, it wouldn’t be dull.
We’re going to give it some thought, but we’re interested in other’s opinions on it. So what do you think? Is it worth a shot?
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