Ladies, ditch the bad attitude paragraph

Ladies, my first matter of business is to apologize. I am sorry that you have to deal with the idiot men that you have to deal with on your dating site. I am sorry that there are members of our species that will devalue you and make you feel like an attractive cut of meat rather than a person. I am sorry that while you prefer educated men, you're getting emails from guys with little to no grasp of their native tongue. I am sorry that you're getting emails from old dudes who want to trade in their 50 year old wife for two 25-year-olds. I am sorry that you get emails from philandering businessmen who want to take you for drinks at their hotel bar and "let nature take its course."

I'm sorry because I've gotten those emails too. Every one of them and then some. You're not alone and you are not wrong to feel as frustrated and angry as you do. It's a waste of time to weed through all these emails when you could be doing better things.

But please, please, please, don't add a "bad attitude paragraph" to your profile.

What's a bad attitude paragraph? Here's one:

"Please don’t email me to tell me I’m hot. Or to invite me for drinks at your hotel for the 3 days you’re in town. Or if you are still “technically” married. Or if you’re a “young 54.” Or if your profile has pictures of you with: a gun, a sports car (especially if you don't own it!), or a Hooters girl. If you don’t match my ideal man, I’m not going to write you back, so just don’t waste your time. Thanks."

We write these paragraphs when we feel frustrated with all the bad emails we receive on a daily basis. We write them in hopes that we'll scare those idiot guys away. But I have bad news, ladies...

Those idiot guys who email you those useless emails are idiots. They're not going to care about your warning, much less heed it. And sadly, the majority of good guys are going to assume that you're some sort of Halloween witch rather than a great girl who is really frustrated with the content of her inbox.

So what can you do? For starters, reply to the guys who send you those awful emails. Tell them exactly why you're not interested. They won't learn until they've been told they're doing something wrong. I'll go into this in my next article. Once you've sent that email, you can feel free to block the person and move on to better men.

Good luck, ladies. It can be a crazy wilderness in the online dating world, but in time, you'll get the right email from the right guy.