Mad Match Beyond Thunderdome?

I have a problem with Match.com.

To begin with, the very word "Match" is starting to annoy me. There's only one damn vowel. For someone like me, this is a problem of the first order; as a hobby, or, some might say, a symptom of OCD, I enjoy spelling things backwards, making anagrams, forming new words, generally causing verbal chaos in my mind.

How delightful, for example, that "Peet's" spelled backwards is a very zen "Steep", but "Starbucks" becomes "Skcub Rats". With just a little tweak, "Santa" can become "Satan"... don't piss off the guy in the red suit, kids!

But "Match" spelled backwards is just "Hctam", which maybe is what cats utter when that hairball congeals after that seventh helping of grass. With only one vowel, the best you can do for an anagram is "Chat'M". If I wanted to chat 'em, I'd be at a bar, for God's sake. Then there's the definition. Match. Okay, sure, maybe I'm naive for hoping that Match will light the fire under two people, creating a fever hot burn. Is that so wrong? Apparently, yes.

Match.com is all about all of the profiles, well, matching. No wonder they trumpet their "twice as many marriages as any other site" statistic... they make everyone look the same.

Everybody reads lots of books. Everybody likes some kind of pet and doesn't like fleas. Everybody likes to dance and cuddle in front of the tv. Everybody can cook their asses off. Everybody's looking for a mate who's "up to the challenge." And everybody loves their job working with startups, orphans, or the homeless.

As you may have guessed, my problems with Match run a tad deeper than letter order and subjective meaning. Pretty early on, I started assuming that since everyone was the same, the pictures were what mattered. So I'd scroll down there first, then check the kid plan, and finally read the "about me" box. Also pretty early on, I got bored, because again, everyone was the same. So I decided to spice up my own profile. By doing so, I have discovered HellMatch.com. I can sum this up in three sentences, so that if you wish, you can skip the rest of this.

I am somewhat quirky. (Ask my friends... OK, so don't ask them.)
I adore other somewhat quirky people.
Match.com censors everything.

I can understand screening for commercial content, solicitation, profanity, that sort of thing. They want to run a clean shop, and they're the behemoth mass-market provider, so hey, good for them. Blockbuster refuses to carry porn, too. Whatever, right? But when they start screening for eccentricity, they may be keeping me from my match, and dammit- that's not cool!

I've never even received one decent email from a man on Match; I'm not really worried about turning off a potential love connection any more. So I've made it a bit of a game. I create random indiosyncrasy in my profile and see what the censors strike. I send the censors messages... "hi guys!" My latest effort used the word "KERPLOP" like "STOP" in a telegram, and sure enough, kerplop is not an acceptable Match word. I change my profile every few days. Just to keep them busy.

I sometimes fantasize that I'm so troublesome that they've assigned a special proofreader to my case. Maybe even a task force. Maybe they even have a cool office with track lighting, and their own dramatic series on Fox. TASK FORCE MATCH. Maybe starring Noah Wyle! Without me, they wouldn't have a job! This shit is important! Of course, in reality I've probably got some guy with a French accent, named Armand; I try not to know this.

Match doesn't even let you break up your paragraphs with line breaks, which you can see I like to do. This has been a special project for me. At first I tried to separate paragraphs by hitting "enter" a couple of times. Hey, works on Yahoo, right? No. Armand says, No. "Run all words toogezzaire..." what could be more harmonious?

I saw the little guideline that read "no HTML". Saw it. Ignored it, of course. Did Armand? NON! "No line bhhhrrreak for you!" All my little "br's" were for naught. "I deeduct 38 charrrractaires from zee pro-Phyle!"

What I don't understand is why Armand & Co. don't just reject my profile and let me re-edit it. No, they just butcher it and post it, then send me a cheerful email: "Your profile is approved and active!" it says. "Now you look just like everyone else!" it doesn't say. Allow me to demonstrate.

Original "About Me", the Peter Pan angle:

"Sometimes I just wish all the adult, wise, stuck-up, pretentious people would just embrace who they were as kids and stop worrying so much about who I can be FOR them, and just appreciate who I AM right now."

Which becomes, under the pen of Armand:

"I just wish the wise people would embrace kids! I am right!"

See?

How about the bitter, jaded, Addams-family style section:

"You're only reading this after you've scrolled down to look at my pictures. I've somehow passed muster, or maybe you're just drunk, and now you're trying to get a sense of my personality before emailing me. Well, the fact is, sometimes I'm going to be a bit of a disappointment. Sorry, but that's life, people. It doesn't matter in the end, anyway."

Now a potential caffeine-addicted lover wearing black who likes to discuss Sartre might read that and get turned on, but thanks to Armand and Match, he won't because what they clip it to is this:

"You've passed muster, now get emailing me! I'm a bit of life!"

And then finally my all-out frustration shows through:

"I wish I could explain to you how I'm a complicated person, with a brain, and a heart, and even a liver and spleen, and all those same guts you have. I care about independence, and growing old, and taking vacations, and eating strawberries, and sex ... and the truth is sometimes I want to smack kids upside the head and say "Don't you see what you're missing?!? Be a KID, you ungrateful bastard!" just because I'm envious. But no, the Match censors won't let me say those things, so maybe you'll find out the hard way."

Which of course manifests on Match, right next to my grinning face, as:

"I'm as comfortable in an evening gown as I am in jeans. I'm an outgoing, friendly person, and I love hiking, candlelight dinners, and walks on the beach at sunset. I can be a little intense sometimes."

Thanks, Armand. Here's your forty bucks. Get me a date!