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Dating Triumphs and Tragedies
by Nicole Roberge

Oh Romeo

I was recently flipping through a magazine and came upon a little blurb where it seemed that they were yet again rating online dating sites.  So I was about to turn the page when something caught my eye.  The last few lines were not about rating the sites, but rather about rating the people.   That’s right.  They actually encouraged you to go to a site where you could look up your online lovebug before you went out with him to see if others had dated him and what they rated him.

Horrifying?

An invasion of privacy?

Too good to be true?

I was about to find out.

So I did what was required, and then I was in, folks.  See what I do for you?

As a quick description, the site says that fellow women review men they have dated from all the major online dating sites, to help other women so that they may check their potential “Romeo.”

In a more detailed description, it reads:

“We want to help all you fabulous single women out there navigate your way through the confusing world of online dating by giving it a sense of community. Since we're all in search of that great single guy to marry, or just to date, why not help each other out by writing online dating reviews and sharing what we know? After all, one woman's frog could be another woman's prince. It's the next best thing to a background check -- and much more fun! So go ahead...start writing your online dating reviews ladies!”

Sounds innocent enough…?  Or…a complete intrusion into another man’s life.  Or for that matter, another woman’s dating life.  Why spread this information online for everyone to read?

There are some plausible reasons that I can understand.  Then there are some ridiculous ones that I can’t.  First of all, if you had a date with someone you met online and he was aggressive, harmful, physically or verbally abusive, then YES!—let people know.  Warn them!  Because unfortunately, there are not many ways to get these people out of the “system” and they will just continue to do the same thing to other women.  Unfortunately, as popular as online dating has become, there are still dangers even if you think you “know” the person you are about to meet.  So if you were to read a review of this person and it had “WARNING!” written all over it, then what a relief to know you were saved from dating that person.

However, the ridiculousness of this makes it hardly viable that it should be an actual website.  Rating a man on his dating capabilities?  It all seems a little insensitive, and in the non-online dating world, we don’t really see it happening.  What about blind-dates?  Shouldn’t dating be exciting?  Don’t people get into online-dating for a reason?  To get matched up based on qualities and commonalities, and then there is the great, exciting meet.  Not the, “hang on, I need to check out your status first with other women.”  See a bad review because he had lettuce in his teeth and, oh well, better cancel.  Come on, it’s ruining all the excitement, and not to mention the potential for a great date.

So first I scoped out the reviews people had left and had to giggle because mostly it was people who had been on bad dates and were just venting about it.  The only difference was that they had met these people online.  If they hadn’t, they’d be telling their friends that, “I went out with this guys and he was on his cell phone all night, and then he seemed kind of creepy and never emailed me again.”  The end.  It’s basically a community for people to vent about their bad dates.

I was curious though, and since this was for research, and I had a really awful date once who was not so nice, he was the worst of the worst, I decided to enter him in to see if he came up….and he did not.  And I did not enter anything on him.  I merely clicked out of the site and my research was done.  Because I had already done the real research—I met these guys.  I didn’t need to go onto a site to find out about them.  What fun is that?  I already knew them, what their good and bad qualities were, what they had to offer, and what I could expect on a date.  I didn’t need to go to some site to read it, especially after the fact.  And I didn’t need to report it to others.  Let them experience it for themselves.  Because those guys are in the past.  And one thing on that site is right.  While those guys may have been Frogs for me…they could be someone else’s Prince.  Now I just need to go find mine.

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Dating Triumphs and Tragedies is published every Sunday by Online Dating Magazine columnist Nicole Roberge. She can be reached at NicoleMRoberge@hotmail.com.