Mate1.com is a big bag of sham. You know why? I'll tell you why. But first, let's hear the story about how this all came to be. Let's face it, that's pretty much all the material I'm gonna get out of this.
It was just another day, and I was going about my daily routine. Doing the same old things like sleeping in, playing video games, cooking, and surfing the internet. Our story takes place during that last one there, surfing the internet. It's a common thing I do, and I can never get enough of it. If I lost the internet, I'd probably shrivel up and die within a week.
So anyhow, I love the internet and like I said, on the whole, I never get bored of it. It's got unlimited potential, you see. But I do get bored if I use it for too long at one time. See, I have my daily rounds that I check (Gorillamask, The Sneeze, X-E, etc.), and once I've visited all those sites, I'm kind of out of ideas. I know there are tons of other sites that I could check out for entertainment, but for reasons unknown, I rarely do.
Now every site's got their ad banners. At least a good 98 percent of them. I click on these banners every now and again, assuming they advertise something I find interesting, they manage to really grab my attention, or I'm just bored and don't really have a next cyber-destination in mind. You've likely seen the Mate1.com banners floating around. They're nearly everywhere. Now, Mate1.com is a website that I would normally never visit. But on that particular day, at that particular time, I just couldn't resist the underwear-clad girls in the banners any longer and I clicked.
Upon clicking this banner, I was transported to a sign-up page that asked for my basic personal information. Since I was bored at the time, and really didn't have anything else to do, I said to myself "This should be good for a larf" and started filling it out. I also have a compulsive need to fill out website membership forms, so that was a big part of it. Don't know what it is, but I really enjoy filling out forms...
Before I get back to the story, maybe I should explain just what Mate1.com is, for those unfamiliar with the ad (I assume everyone who reads this site has a solid understanding of the internet, but just incase...). Basically, it's an online dating service. Meaning you fill out some information, and they find a bunch of other user who either have similar interests as you or that fit that criteria that you search for. People can also do their own searches and end up finding you. It's not an original site idea, but as I said before, the banners are everywhere and every man is likely to give in at one point, because they all feature pretty girls in their underwear.
Now I'm not overly interested in normal dating, and online dating ranks even lower on my list of things to do, but upon seeing how many little things Mate1 has for users to fill in, I was simply overjoyed. Again, I don't know why, but I love fiiling out forms. So I got to it, and spent somewhere around half an hour filling out little tidbits of information about myself. I didn't care if anyone ever read it, but it all got filled out. I even uploaded a couple pictures of my handsome self.
After everything was filled out, I became less amused with the site and, as I didn't much care for searching for other people, I left and went on my merry way to see if Wii Fanboy had any new updates since the last time I checked (which was likely about an hour earlier).
Night came and went, and a new day was born. I woke up towards noon and hopped into my computer chair (after a few other, less you-want-to-hear-about-them events), as I usually do not long after I wake up. I signed into MSN Messenger (appearing offline, of course), and then booted up Firefox. About an hour into my rounds, Messenger notified me that I had received an e-mail from Mate1.com. Intriguing! Well, I'm not one to ignore e-mail, so I opened up my inbox and checked it out. As it turns out, it was notifying me that some 20-year-old fox had send an e-mail to my Mate1 account. Eager to find out whether they'd be constantly spamming me like this or if someone was indeed showing interest in my humble being, I clicked.
Then "tragedy" struck. I got this:
Yeah. Mate1.com is a jackass. Here I am, with an e-mail in my inbox, that could very well be from someone who may play an important role in my future (I highly doubt it, but I'm not one to write of any possibilities), and they have the gall to try to make me pay actual money to see it? I don't think so! I may be a sucker most of the time, but I know a sham when I see one. If you're gonna ask me to pay for something, say it right away. Don't dangle goodies in front of my nose then snatch them away and tell me I can't have them until I fork over some cash. No. Doing it that way just makes me pissed off and will make me less likely to give you money.
After giving the Mate1 "give us your money" screen a good flipping-off, I left the site, intending never to return. But then they came.
My [regular] inbox never saw them coming. It was the "someone has sent you a message" e-mails. They came from all directions. Usually two or three, maybe even four a day. My belief that they were simply spam to get me to pay was growing stronger by the message, but I still couldn't give up on the small ray of hope that people were actually responding to my hilariously filled-out profile. I wanted desperately to, but I couldn't. So I decided to get to the bottom of this. Since each e-mail came with a user name, it was a simple matter of looking up those users to see if they were legit.
Fortunately, all of Mate1's search functions work just fine for free member, and even better, there was a nickname search! So I started copying screennames and pasting 'em into the search and seeing what happened. In the end, most of the profiles were either very legitimate or very well-faked. One person even e-mailed me twice, and based on my knowledge of past spam e-mail, that almost never happens. It looks like people are, in fact, trying to contact me. So to confirm this theory, I had to come up with a new plan.
My grand scheme was to place my real e-mail in my self-description box on my profile page, and if people really were reading through it, they would find that and then e-mail me directly, skirting around Mate1's little tollbooth. A day passed, and there was no response, but I still got Mate1 alerts. I checked my profile to make sure I spelled it right, and low and behold, they had removed the e-mail address! to be fair, there was a warning saying that would happen, but I assumed that the admins were too lazy to follow up on it. Way to prove me wrong, Mate1. Way to prove me wrong.
My last bastion of hope was a tricky one. Since they wouldn't let me directly write out e-mail addresses or links, I came to the conclusion that only one thing would work. I then proceed to suggest googling the words "Torrential Equilibrium" to anyone who reads the profile. To this day, the suggestion remains, and my plan... well I don't know if it worked. If it has, nobody bothered to e-mail me after getting a brainful of my writing. I imagined that might happen.
So that's pretty much how my struggle against Mate1.com has gone so far. At current, they're leading about 2-1, but I'll keep trying my hardest to find ways to get around paying them. Not that I really care about contacting anyone out there in internet world. I just really want to beat Mate1. You know what really drives me to it? The fact that women get to use all their services free. Yeah. That's right. Chicks can send you messages all day, but they'll never recieve anything in return because no man will ever pay money to use this service. Not only are they pissing off men around the globe, but they're probably crushing all sorts of women's hopes and dreams too by instituting a system where they'll never ever get a reply to their advances. In conclusion, Mate1.com hates everyone.
But you know, now that I think about it, the joke's really on them. I don't have cheques or a credit card, so even if I wanted to pay them, there's no way I could. But I'm not giving them a damn cent as it stands, so it doesn't make a difference. The really fun part is that I jsut wasted like 20 minutes of your life making you read this dumb story that doesn't go anywhere. That more than enough to keep me entertained. If ever I'm bored or sad, now I'll just be able to sit back and think about how someone read through this entire article thinking it would go somewhere or be even remotely entertaining. Ah. Good times.
By the way, I know you're itching to see it, but I can't link to my profile because any link goes straight to the home page. You can try looking me up if you like, but I'm not going to give you any hints. You'll have to use all the knowledge about me you've learned by reading this site over the years. Good luck with that. I've come to the conclusion from conversations with people that nobody retains any information they read here. That's probably for the best though...
~Ryan
E-Mail:
Tuominenator[at]gmail[dot]com
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