Online Dating or is it Really Online Waiting

What is it about these online dating games? I've been on http://blackplanet.com and http://blacksingles.com and now http://blackpeoplemeet.com. Long ago I did http://match.com but there was so little selection among black men, my preference. Each one there are always plenty of men to choose from but very little connecting just for the fun of it. We are all spending our money to meet people. The companies are making a killing of our lack of commitment to having what we came for. When we will really get that we are really not committed to being in relationship, experiencing intimacy, dating and marrying. But we love looking like we are committed.

COMMITMENT: (1) the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action; (2) an engagement by contract involving financial obligation; "his business commitments to him to London; (3) a message that makes a pledge.

I see how I waffle between aspiring commitment, acknowledged commitment and experienced commitment. I am committed to definition #2, the financial obligation because I've paid about $100 a year for online dating. Others pay as much as $300 or more a year with these sites. More often than not all I have as a result of that commitment is online waiting. Think about it this way. When I do a perfect match search on blackpeoplemeet.com it comes up with about 200 people for me. 200 peoples times $100/year = $2000 made off of people's unfulfilled commitment. You know there's thousands of people on this one site and they probably facilitate LatinPeopleMeet.com and JewishPeopleMeet.com etc. They are gaining off our our unfulfilled commitment. But I stay because I haven't found an alternative is what I justify in my head. But in reality, I like so many others are just afraid to go out and meet people. Join a club or organization is what I am looking at next. I want to meet people in the flesh not sit at home wondering and waiting for the perfect match online.

They say you know how you can tell what you're committed to? Just look at what you have in that area and that's what you've been committed to in the past. Once you see that and accept that IS what you have been committed to, you can choose to really look at what you've been doing and who you've been being that had that be the result of your commitments.

POSTSCRIPT: Had a little mixer for reloading my meetup group Friday night at Frank's Lounge in Brooklyn (May 31). One sister who grew up in Fort Greene commented "when did Frank's become a hoodrat hangout." We made the best of it. Had some Cuban dinner, examined what our core values were as an exercise. Had 9 people rsvp - 6 women, 3 men. 4 sisters showed up; you can expect about 40-50% turnout from your rsvps. We had a good time AND we missed having the masculine energy around. I'm returning to my strategy that each sex must invite a person of the opposite sex to maintain gender parity at future events.