Invisibility

I come and go on Match. I stated the other day that I had hidden my profile, but then yesterday I made it visible again.

I was actually doing research for this blog (you believe that, right?). I was looking at men in California. Yummy, there are a ton o' good looking age-appropriate men in Orange County. (I would have to say the majority of age-appropriate men in Tucson look like they've been rid hard and put up wet.) I actually e-mailed one of these yummy California men whose profile mentioned that he had best seats in the house for the opening of the Pacific Symphony season at their new Segerstrom Hall home. I mentioned my friends who are now affiliated with PSO. He wrote back that I knew more people at PSO than he, and said he hoped his seats were the best in the house, 'cause he had paid $5,000 for them. (Eileen, we'd better make sure this boy is a donor as well as a subscriber.) And then he said he had just met someone and wished me well in my search.

Which led me to ponder how involved a man has to be with someone before he hides or removes his profile. There are several men whose photos I've been seeing on Match for in excess of two years. C'mon, in two years you've found no one? And if you have found someone, why is your profile still up there?

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When one logs in to Match, the first thing you see is your own photo and the notation beside it of the number of people who have viewed your profile. If these people were logged in when they were looking at you, their photo is tacked up on a virtual bulletin board so you can see exactly who's looked at you. (If they were not logged in or their profile was hidden, you just see that the number has been incremented, but you don't see the viewer's profile.)
<Sidebar off>

I have to admit that it's very addictive to log in to Match and see how many people have viewed you since the last time you were on. About 4:00 in the afternoon, you can almost sit and watch the digits flip. But with an addiction comes the amount of time required to feed that addiction. That's one of the main reasons I keep hiding mine; there are only so many hours in a day!

So are these otherwise-occupied guys leaving their profiles visible for the rush of knowing all those women, hot or otherwise, have viewed them? Are they simply lazy? Are they so sure the current interest is going to fail that they're not going to bother hiding their profile?

I'll tell you one thing: When a guy I'm seeing removes or hides his profile, I know the relationship has moved to a new level, at least for that moment in time.