As a single-woman I have my experience with online-dating. It is not that bad, if you do not expect much. But if you are a woman with too many kilos on your hips, even in Internet life you will encounter the stereotyped thinking of people. The categories you can click on your dating profile are: slim, normal, chubby, a few kilos too much and overweight. If someone were used to have more kilos for his whole lifetime he or she would describe his shape differently than someone who is slim and never has been what he or she might call „fat“.

The consequence is that over-size people have to bear more bad communication and bad behaviour when trying to find a partner via the Internet. It is easy to bash people on Facebook, to choose possible partners like shopping in an online-shop when you are sitting comfortably in your own apartment – not seeing the reactions of the one you are attacking. When it comes to an actual date the impolite behaviour continues and no one even thinks about it.

It happened to a man I know: He one evening went to a date with an online acquaintance. It had started days before in Internet with a nice conversation – he is an intelligent man. But when the women he wanted to meet came into the bar and saw him she left without even saying „Hello“ or starting a polite and short conversation. She wrote him later that he should have told before that he was not only having a few kilos too much, but that he was overweight. She knew that she was impolite but as she was a doctor she could not stand such an unhealthy appearance of people. This man did not loose his humour yet but he also showed me what kind of women are usually asking him out for a date: women from abroad, looking for a man to marry. They do not care about his weight, they care about a man who is having a job. He described his situation as not even being attractive for the „second market“: divorced women. For him it is not important that a woman is having an academic career as he has. But it makes him sad that till now women ignore his inner values and the possibility of an interesting life with a good man, a life with intelligent input.

For an intelligent woman without a normal size the „market“ is almost not existent. Especially in the Internet. To be honest: What men are online-dating? If it is not a service where you have to pay for the profile, most of them are married, just joking or looking for affairs. And some of them are not even able to have a normal conversation. If you do not answer their messages in the next three minutes or if you dare to leave the dating-homepage without even checking the mails, you can be sure that the next mail will be: „You bitch won’t find any men with this reaction!“ Men are thinking that I should absolutely be waiting for this one and only mail with such an intelligent question like: „How are you?“

But even if they are able to write more and if they are patient enough to wait for the next day or the next time when you are checking your mails, the results are not like you expect in adult life. What would you think if someone is telling you that he has a big house only missing a woman who is able to keep it? The stereotype of a fat woman is that she is wearing an apron dress while scrubbing the floor. The best joke is if someone has read you are interested in gardening and then wants to show you where you will be allowed to realize your dreams: In his garden. And of course they are not your but only his dreams. So: I was offered a house and a garden already. Not bad for the beginning. But I already have both and I do not need a job as a housekeeper. I am a journalist. Thanks for your offers.

You might think that the stories about people who were first online-dating and are now married are reserved for slim women and men only. But that is not true. Even my normal-sized friend met a man in world-wide-web first and after that decided to better stay a single-woman. He called her on the phone and the first question was about her weight. Although she is wearing size S and M, she did not tell him and was angry about his question. She asked whether he wants to have a soul mate or a hallstand. But none the less they met and she confronted him with the question again: „Just look around there are so many slim women, just offer them a cup of coffee or something else and you are able to achieve your aim without the internet.“ She thinks that he continued being a shy guy wishing to fulfil his idea of a perfect woman by online-dating.

What is the phenomenon of online-dating? Nothing special if you use it as one source of having conversation with people and if you agree to continue this conversation out of the world-wide-web to prove if it is possible to be more than just friends. But if you have checked too much before you meet, it is like dating with an emergency trip wire. Nothing you really need if you want to stand with someone on solid ground. So, if you are really looking for the one and only online, be careful that he already has a housekeeper or is able to keep his house by himself. And trust yourself that you could easily find someone outside in real life as well. Online dating just one chance more in your life but not the only one.

Stefanie Riepe