Too often in the realm of online dating the phrases, “You have a match,” or “Someone likes you,” are taken overly serious as part of that trite sense of hope, but the two give voice to many a lonely and aching heart crying out for a compatibility and love forged in cyberspace.

The single and wandering eye has been led into a world of quick access love connections in online worlds filled with sex, lies, dubious first impressions and false impersonations of the well put together alpha that we all revel in and love to hate but all hate that we love. Replacing that spontaneous and honest encounter in let’s say, aisle four of your local supermarket with someone you just couldn’t take your eyes from while perusing for garlic croutons, is an inbox inundated with let’s say, utter bullshit, absolute disrespect, and playful innuendo disregarded in favor of blatant, outright shocking, and completely tapped sexual aggression.

For every “match” some poor unsuspecting hopeless romantic attains on either Tinder, OKCupid, Bumble, or any of the countless other online dating sites out there designed and destined to make you eventually despise love for an eternity, should be given what I like to refer to as a dating disappointment parachute. As with most parachutes enabled through the pull of a rip cord so goes the same for the disappointment chute. This being whatever is emotionally, or worse, physically, ripped from them after quickly exiting their latest dating experience. Also included, a dull scalpel to gouge out whatever is left of your bleeding heart, a sedative [optional] to numb the pain, and a copy of the tepid 2003 Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey rom-com disaster How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days to lull you into a depressive coma.

This is what it has come to in the world of online dating. If there isn’t someone intent on wasting your valuable time by dragging you along through black holes of useless, unintelligent conversation for weeks on end and with NO apparent finish in sight or hope or chance of ever meeting them in person, it’s someone flat out trying to screw you, sexually or otherwise using means and tools usually unfit for either job. By this I mean if you intend to screw someone, whether the screwing is being done in the room with the brain or the room with the bed, one should at least be good at.

More often than not online dating matches began with a tiny spark but ultimately end with a giant fizzle. It becomes easier to handle dating online if one can imagine the experience being similar to that a bottle rocket in the rectum. Scary, painful, and with a shitty payoff. Sure, that may sound awful but look at it this way, you haven’t even been on the first “date” yet. If you constitute a date as putting two absolute strangers together throwing caution into a wind storm, while plying one another with cheap food and cocktails in an awkward and off-putting situation and environment, hoping to not get maimed by the skeletal bones hidden in the others closet acting as flying debris.

The first date is only the tip of the love boat sinking iceberg. Who you match or are deemed highly compatible with is not always who shows up to meet you. Don’t be surprised if that Latin hunk who claims he is 6’2 with a hot car and an investment portfolio big enough to choke a whale or that petite blond with the huge breasts who lives in the gym turns out to be Desi Arnez’s bloated corpse and the spitting image of Mama June respectively. And we have yet to touch on the reasons why you are both here in the first place. All the wonderful interests the two of you share and have in common. Such as the “fact” you both do not have any children. Whose counting the three he abandoned in another state along with his third, and still current wife? Trivial minutia. Or the fact you both love to travel. Why bother the truth she has no choice but to travel because she is on the run after conning her last match of thousands of dollars in expensive gifts. Pesky details. The two of you are smitten and no bigamy or federal arrest warrant will ever come between such obvious affections.

So you play it out, you go for it, heart open and eyes wide, shut. Overlooking in the beginning, but over time becoming wise to the reality that your once thought of unique and priceless find, is actually a run of the mill sort valued twelve for ten cents. In our fervent, obsessive, sometimes blind search for a soul mate, we are ensnared too easily and quickly by smoke and mirrors disguised as a strong dating and relationship profile.

By the time one even gets around to checking what is now weeks, maybe even months, the bonafides of a resume given to us whom we have by now possibly elevated to damn near infallible status, the relationship’s good days have all but sailed, leaving you adrift from the peaceful float of the puppy love stage, and shipwrecked firmly in the mutt stage, or what I like to call, the reverse humane society.

This is the stage of the relationship where the wool that was being pulled over the eyes is revealed to be polyester rag, the curtain has fallen on the wizard and where one or both of you are now simply counting the days until something, or someone, takes no discernible mercy or pity on you to speak of, and puts you of your misery. Sometimes this break becomes a regretful, but tangible life experience they eventually grow from, others it is a lingering syphilis infection they only find out about post break-up. Learning lessons all I believe.

We all succumb to the notion that when it comes to the wide variety of online dating options right at our willing and ready to swipe fingertips, there are plenty of fish in the sea, and in that sea, the world is our oyster. Except we neglect the possibility that in the end, our hearts may just be allergic to shellfish. If online dating is to be our only viable source for meeting that special mate. It is vital that we understand and recognize it for what it is. That within this dating sea of plenty where in which we lure, bait and hope to tackle a prospective catch, we are merely fishing among a pool of sharks.