Men Don't Want To Get Matched?

There was a piece in The Wall Street Journal today about the lack of men participating in the higher end online dating services. There seem to be more than enough on the lower-end (no cost, no background check, "online personals"- type sites) services, but when you get into the serious stuff -- like EightAtEight or The Right One or It's Just Lunch -- men just won't commit -- to being customers, that is. So there are boatloads of women and in some cases very few men willing to participate in these better services.

I had lunch with a certifiable Alpha Male -- very married to a good friend of mine, so no flirtation zone involved -- and I had to ask him, since it was a business lunch and I wanted to impress him with my close reading The Wall Street Journal, what he thought about this.

We both know a lot of single men that wanted to be hitched. We both know that marriage is really the healthiest thing in the world for a man -- and that many of the men we knew who were single really NEEDED to get married. We both know that most of the single women we know are much better at taking care of themselves than the men we know.

So what gives? He suggested that maybe men figure the only women who would sign up for those services were women who couldn't get a date any other way ... this was interesting to me. In other words, he figured that maybe men expected that all the women who'd admit they needed a man that much and use a service, were dogs.

I think he was right that many men think that -- but I also think it's not true. I think it has more to do with the fact that women are much more practical and men are much more romantic. Men really think they'll run into some babe on the street corner who can't live without them. I think women just don't think that way.

There's one other angle. The classic Alpha Male wants the CHERCHEZ LA FEMME mysterious stranger experience. He wants to hunt his prey. He doesn't want to shoot fish in a barrel. He wants the one he can't get. Maybe the services take this out of the equation -- and it's EVERYTHING.

Feel free to blog me a response -- enquiring minds want to know.