I am a Gen-Xer, I was also a shy guy, and a Nice Guy! Despite being in a Fraternity in College, these things made dating difficult for me. Partly too shy combined with too high of standards on my behalf. I was also clueless when the girls were interested in me…many girls that were attractive to me and attracted to me, I just simply didn’t pick up on the cues. I had no game in the flirting area either.

Telephone Voicemail Dating Systems — Anybody Remember These

In the 1990’s I used a phone voicemail system, guys had to pay for credits to contact women. It was fairly expensive, and you certainly had no visual cues. As a guy without flirting game, this often did not work, you have to have great game when you only have talking to make the connection.

Speed Dating Anyone?

I think but I am not sure, I may have also tried early versions of speed dating in the 1990’s if anybody remembers those disasters? I don’t think I ever got a match from one of those.

Professional Matchmaker

I also tried a match making service, I think these are still around. I think they were called LifeMates or something of the sort, really expensive, and failed miserably. I think I had a 10 match package and the first 4 were nice enough people but nothing in common and given the extensive personality testing that they do, should have been a lot closer to what I was looking for. I had several matches that they made that I never actually met, and yet the company told me that counted as a match. It was so bad that a national news program featured an article on them a few years back.

I did date several co-workers in an era where this was just emerging as a problem that most companies today want to avoid at all cost.

Online Dating Saves the Day

In the end I did find my wife through online dating, just as this type of dating was emerging. In fact I found being an early adopter of online dating was a game changer for me. We have been married for 15 years, in a relationship for 17 years and have still never told any of our friends that we were one of the earliest matches from online dating because way back then that wasn’t a thing…it was creepy.