Five types of men you meet online

Ready for cyber romance? Here’s the cast of dubious characters you’ll encounter

In January 2014, I woke up by myself for the first time in almost 20 years. The separation was new, like the house. I had my two teenage boys, but on the nights they were with their dad, I felt pretty alone.

During that year I shared conversations with many women in my situation — middle-aged divorcees. Most were back in the dating world, which is how I first heard about the online dating phenomenon.

At first I thought, how desperate. There’s no way I would be involved in that. But I was intrigued by the stories — some of these women sounded like they were having fun. So I jumped in with both feet.

I joined the popular dating site Match.com but quickly realized I wasn’t ready to date and I let my membership lapse. A year later, curiosity got the better of me and I logged on again and found myself looking into many of the same eyes that had stared back at me 18 months before.

I read dozens of profiles and checked out their photos and soon realized I could place most of these men into five personality categories.

And so, with a light heart and for your amusement, I compiled a list of personality types you will meet on online dating sites.

Hey, look at me and all my toys

I’ll just call him Showy for brevity. This guy posts 10 to 20 photos of himself in many complimentary settings. Showy loves how he looks. He loves his toys. And he’ll always love himself more than he will you.

Showy has a great life and he wants every woman on the site to know it. He posts photos of his vacations and photos of himself sitting in his red sports car, roof down. You will see the gorgeous furnishings in his house, his poolside exotic plants and rodiron furniture. He is photographed wearing only expensive label clothes, his hair is perfectly coiffed. When he contacts you it will sound something like this: “Hey, beautiful. I’m just outside sitting by the pool. Wanna get together this weekend?”

Wasn’t I hot 25 years ago?

This guy was popular in high school and unfortunately everything went downhill after graduation. The years have not been kind and now he lacks confidence. He is stuck in his glory days. His profile photo is from a longlost era when he was buff, had a full head of dark locks and his skin was smooth and tanned. He uses a “blast from the past” headshot to draw you in. But when you click through his profile (hopefully he has posted at least one up-to-date photo), you wonder how someone could have changed so drastically. When you put his photos next to each other, they don’t even look like they’re related.

His email reads something like this: “That was me when I was 20 years old. My name is Brian. What is yours? Maybe we can talk sometime. Please contact me. Please.”

Serial online dater

He is online to hook up with as many women as he can. His profile is polished and fun and he keeps it online even after he has met “someone special.” He is a professional dater. Maybe his marriage tanked and it was all her fault or perhaps he has never been married. He is an eternal bachelor who does not want to settle down. He wants to have fun with as many women as he possibly can each and every week.

I was contacted by a guy who fit perfectly into this category. He was charming, funny and made me feel special. Nicolas and I interacted via email and phone calls for two weeks. I felt like I knew him. I knew his kids’ names, what he did for a living and the struggles he had in his marriage.

We lived in the same city and one time we realized that we were in the same neighbourhood at the same time so we met outside a coffee shop for a quick chat. He repeatedly told me how beautiful I was. Flattered, I made plans with him for a formal date the next week.

But his smooth talk did make me suspicious and I asked a friend to check her dating profile to see if he had contacted her. He had. She replied to the message he had sent her weeks before and he wasted no time getting back to her. She knew he was meeting me on Tuesday and after telling him she was leaving for vacation on Wednesday, he suggested they meet for lunch the day before. A couple of hours before our dinner date.

I told her she could deal with it anyway she found fit. And she did. She let him know that she had a close friend on the site, and we had discussed how we were both meeting a guy on Tuesday. And to our surprise it turned out to be the same guy — him. Poor Nicolas ended up dateless that day. Or maybe not, chances are he had someone else booked for coffee after me.

Another type of serial online dater is the guy I was referring to when I said I recognized their profiles from a year and half earlier. They hadn’t changed their profile photos or their personal stories. Some of them had sent me a message in January 2014 and sent me a similar message again in June 2015.

I figure this buys a full-year membership because he is either addicted to online dating or can’t make it work with women. After watching online activity for one week, I noticed they still log on to the site daily. When I asked one fella, “Why are you still on this site after so many years?” He said, “I don’t go to bars and I won’t date anyone from the office. This is the only way to meet women.”

One line fits all

The jury is still out on whether this guy is just lazy or possibly a player. He will send you a lovely scripted email message — poetic, thoughtful and produced for the masses. This is the one-size-fits-all message. Be on alert for this type of guy. He is good. His message reads like this:

“You have an interesting and intriguing profile. You are indeed a very beautiful and attractive lady that comes across as warm, intelligent and down to earth. A lady that seems modest in behaviour and strong in character. You are an ideal blend of beauty, elegance, innocence and passion. Very sexy indeed :)”

There was another gentleman, who stated in his profile that “he wanted to meet that special woman who once they met he would understand why his past relationships had never worked.” I had read that exact line in a couple of other profiles. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. I didn’t want to embarrass the poor guy who had attempted to sound original.

Maybe I’ll give this online thing a try

I have a soft spot for this type because I was hard-pressed to find someone in the same situation as me — in their 40s, newly single, who had never tried the online thing. So you can imagine my elation when I found two attractive men who fell into this promising category.

These guys don’t want to online date. But they also don’t want to be alone for the rest of their lives, so they gave it a shot. They didn’t want to get divorced. They had found themselves in loveless marriages, and they would have stayed if they had a choice. They loved their kids and the whole idea of “family.”

Dolce986, in his mid-40s and from Toronto was tall, handsome and established. He replied to my email with a thoughtfully written message. We interacted a few times but never met. He admitted he met some lovely women online but this process wasn’t for him. And with that he was gone.

Another reluctant onliner, Skyblue4life — a dark blond widow in his mid-50s and new to Match.com — sounded stable and interesting. I sent him an email, but it was never read. I was sure that he had not joined the service (you don’t get to read your emails unless you buy a Match membership). Two weeks later, his profile was gone. My message, left floating in the World Wide Web. I knew this man had the ability to alter my questionable impression of online dating sites. But Skyblue4life was gone and our future would never happen. Sigh.