A short summary:

• 9 men who ranged in age from 19 to 36 signed up (this dropped to 8 men later on)
• 12 women contacted me and provided their profiles to pass on to the lucky man (or men) who caught their eye
• geography appeared to play a huge role in the men who were contacted and the women who expressed interest. Location matters!

A few of the men and women involved have given me updates, which wasn’t necessary but was nice to hear. Some men liked the women who contacted them but didn’t feel any chemistry. I don’t think we have any love matches (yet?) but we may have a meeting or two in the works and at least it allowed people who perhaps wouldn’t ordinarily meet to meet. Maybe a couple who met on here will one day matchmake for each other! Maybe I’m getting carried away.

I’m happy to report that all the men complied (or are planning to comply) with my plea suggestion that they respond to every woman whose profile is forwarded to them, even if just to say that they don’t think they’d be compatible, so if you submitted your profile and haven’t heard back from the guy, please let me know, so I can check to make sure I forwarded your profile. I did send confirmations to each woman (with the exception of one that was confirmed via chat) so we should be fine.

* * *
This week has gone by really quickly, which I really needed because I’m a bit car lagged from my trip to the US last weekend. I’m still trying to catch up on my sleep it seems. The fact that I’m writing this is a testament to the first thing I’m thankful for: traveling mercies. People get into car accidents blocks from home so to drive five hours away, most of it in the dark, and arrive both at the location and back home safely after spending a night in a different country is something to be grateful for. I didn’t drive sha; it was my friend. The two of us who didn’t drive were lucky to have a friend who enjoys driving and drives well, so well that we didn’t have to worry about our safety (except when he was checking his ipod!).

I am still thanking God that although we have had some snow flurries, it has not stuck around on the ground. This is a miracle! It’s actually usually warmer when the snow is falling but snowy weather means slush to walk through, and this slush often freezes overnight making walking and driving a bit more treacherous. I don’t mind the cold so much, it’s the slippery roads that frighten me. I just need the snow to hold out until Monday evening, because I have an appointment to put snow tires on my parents’ car that morning. I don’t want to have to drive in bad weather with summer tires to get winter tires put on the car.

Last week I was thankful for friends who accept me as I am; this week I am thankful for friends who are committed to helping me be who I want to be. I have an addiction to sugar that I’ve been trying to kick half-heartedly and it’s nice to have friends say that they’ll do whatever I want them to do to help me detox from sugar and get on the right path. Friends who support your goals and dreams make the journey that much more pleasant.

I’m thankful for the reduction in H1N1 outbreaks in Canada.

I’m thankful for life, my own and that of my family, friends and everyone who draws breath without difficulty. This is my same old song and dance but life is a gift! So many are plagued with health concerns that prevent them from enjoying the kind of life they have. You don’t have to be 100% well to enjoy life but there are some conditions that make it harder to enjoy life (in at least some small measure) than others. If you wake up and are mostly pain-free, thank God. If you can do something you enjoy doing without wondering if you can physically do it, be grateful!

* * *
A friend I met through blogging almost six years ago mentioned that a friend of a mutual friend had passed away. I’m not sure if I’m just weird, but I think my healthy fear of dying means that unless the person is in their 80s or older, I get emotionally impacted to hear that someone has died, and my heart just feels a bit sore after hearing the news.

This particular guy was only one year older than I and passed away from cancer less than a month before Christmas. Losing your loved one is sad any time of the year but if there’s one holiday that makes you think about family and togetherness, it’s Christmas. A friend in Nigeria lost his father two months ago and he was telling me how difficult Christmas will be. I am just wishing these two families a peace and sense of understanding they never imagined coming to them, and continued strength as they deal with their losses. And to anyone remembering a loved one this holiday season, I am thinking of you and have said a prayer for you. May you focus on the happy memories alone.

1. I have been contacted by seven women, three who expressed interest in one guy (not all the same guy), and four who expressed interest in two or more guys on the list. I’ve passed information on to two guys so far, and will be passing on information to two more guys as soon as one of the women who sent me their profile clarifies something for me. So that means that five of the guys on the list aren’t getting any love! Come on, ladies! Don’t be shy (and check out point #4 below).
2. I don’t know any of the men with profiles personally. I have informed the ones I have sent women’s profiles to that I feel that in a small way, my including them in this project means that I am vouching for them. I know it doesn’t really, but early on there was a guy who was clearly not treating the whole thing seriously, and I told him that I could not help him.
3. Just to remind people: the purpose of the Online Meeting Project is to bring people in contact with each other with the hope that both parties will be honest about who they are and what they are looking for. If there isn’t honesty, that can affect the possible outcome. To that end I have asked the men I have forwarded profiles to to refrain from leading any women on, and if they are not interested, they should let the women know.
4. Women’s profiles will not be posted on this blog. They will be forwarded to the men they refer to and he’ll take it from there. So that means no woman has to worry that people will be reading her profile and trying to guess who she is (if she happens to be a blogger).
5. I think some people were expecting more profiles to be posted but you have to realize that it’s a fairly brave thing to put yourself out there to have your profile read and judged by an audience. And let me not lie: Nigerians aren’t exactly known for keeping their opinions for themselves so I know some guys refrained from submitting a profile because they didn’t want to deal with comments or attempts by readers to identify them. Blogville is a mostly friendly place, but every now and then some not-so-pleasant people come out to play.
6. And finally, I appreciate all the comments from people who said that since I’m single (which yes, I still am), that qualifies me to take part in this project. However, that was not the original intention behind the project so I am happy to be a facilitator. Although I appreciate the support, I am not taking part in this. Maybe if someone starts their own dating site for Nigerians they can allow me to join free of charge. Deal?

If you have any other questions, let me know!

In related news, I have been trying to do some matchmaking in person too. I met a friend’s new girlfriend, and she mentioned that she has a female friend that she’s trying to set up. I don’t know any males looking for love right now but then she mentioned that she also has a male friend who is looking for someone special. I thought about one of my colleagues that I mentioned here and the process has started to introduce my colleague to this guy. Obviously I don’t know my friend’s new girlfriend well enough to call her a friend, and I have not met this male friend of hers, but she showed me pictures of him and told me a bit about him and really, it doesn’t have to be that serious: if they meet, and they don’t like each other, they go their separate ways. It doesn’t have to be this huge deal where you go into an in-person meeting knowing everything about the person. All you really need to know in time for the first date is whether or not you have to be afraid that this person will chop you up into tiny pieces, right? ;)

This is how it will work (please read all three steps first!):

1. Ladies will read the profiles below and be completely charmed by one or more of them.
2. They will send an email to date@goodnaijagirl.com, indicating which of the 9 profiles caught their eye. Ladies may select more than one profile, but the maximum has been set at 3.
3. The email in step 2 must also include the following information:
   • their name or nickname
   • their age
   • their location
   • things about themself that they would like this guy who’s caught their interest to know.

As I receive emails, I will send them along to the lucky bachelor. As I’ve mentioned before, my objective is not to be a busybody and know who likes who, so I encourage ladies to use nicknames or email addresses that won’t give away their identity if they will be more comfortable with that (if you use your real name/nickname or email, this information will be kept confidential).

I have asked the gentleman to please be kind enough to respond to every email they receive, so hopefully they will agree to that.

So, without further ado, here are the profiles. I performed minimal editing to make sure each guy’s personality or way of speaking came through as much as possible:

I have to admit that a few of these profiles got my attention, especially in cases where I had to do some back and forth correspondence to clarify answers. But don’t worry: I know it would be a conflict of interest if Good Naija Girl contacted these men but what if um, “Good Naija Chick” contacted one or more of them? *ahem*. Not that I’m going to do that of course; that would be wrong. And anyway, most of them are younger than I am (but then again, age is nothing but a number right? Right??). So ladies? Maybe you better strike before I do!

[**If you are a male and you want to submit your profile, you still can! Just send the required information to date@goodnaijagirl.com and you will be included in the next round of bachelors.**]

Ladies: don’t be shy! If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.

I really appreciate the men who have taken the time to send an email to date@goodnaijagirl.com or used this contact form to let me know that they are interested in throwing their name in to my online meeting project. To summarize quickly, men interested in meeting women for a potential serious relationship have until Sunday November 22, 2009 to submit a message with the following to me with the following information:

• Name or Nickname
• Age
• Geographical location
• More information about you or what you’re looking for

On Monday November 23, 2009, I will post these profiles and we’ll get the ball rolling! Please see this post for all the details.

So far, five men have provided me with complete profiles, and they range in age from 22 to 36 years of age. I have three applications in process: one guy needs to provide me additional information and two guys need to make a final decision on whether or not they will be submitting their application. Don’t be shy, men, and remember, I’ve promised that this will be a discreet operation and its purpose is to get people who might not ordinarily meet each other to get a chance to, nothing more.

I have a poll for the women:

That’s all for now. If you are a male or have male friends that you think could use a little shaking up of their dating life, please mention this GNG project to them. I’d appreciate it!

Back to my point: guys have contacted me with some of their stats/details, letting me know they are looking for good Nigerian girls to date and/or marry, and I guess they were hoping the owner of the site called good naija girl would be able to point them in the direction of good Nigerian women. I have decided to try my hand at…it’s not exactly matchmaking, but how about facilitating introductions?

Here’s how it’s going to work.

For the next week (until Friday November 21, 2009) I’m inviting males who are serious about meeting Nigerian women to send a message through the contact page or send an email directly to date@goodnaijagirl.com. By “serious” I mean you are a man who is looking for a woman for a longterm relationship. You’re not obligated in any way to enter into a relationship with anyone you’re introduced to through this, but please don’t bother sending an email if you aren’t at all serious.

In your email I need only the following information:

• Name or Nickname
• Age
• Geographical location

(You are welcome to add more information if you want. The most useful information to add is a few things that you’re looking for, so that the females will know which males are looking for women like them.)

Since we are all adults, this is just a way of getting people who wouldn’t ordinarily learn about each other in contact. Both parties have to do the work of discovering if their religions, lifestyles and dating styles actually match, and if they’re physically attracted to each other.

On Monday November 23, 2009, I will put up a post with these men’s profiles. Interested women will be asked to send an email to date@goodnaijagirl.com or fill out the contact form with the following information:

• Name or Nickname
• Age
• Geographical location
• which profile or profiles they are most interested in (limit of three)

From past experience, most women prefer it if the man takes the lead in contacting them. If you are a female who prefers to take the lead, forgive me this time around, but for this we’ll try it this way. I will pass the email addresses and descriptions to the lucky males who I expect will contact the women in a timely manner.

***Please note: you are welcome to use a pseudonym or nickname when sending in your emails as I’m not doing this to know the inside scoop on anybody. I’m very discreet and can be trusted not to divulge any information even if you use your given name, but you are welcome to use whatever name or email address you wish when contacting me. Just make sure it’s a valid one!***

I’ve never done this before, but one of the first bloggers I met on blogville, schic actually tried something similar last year though not a lot of people showed interest. I think this might have been because there’s still a little bit of a stigma in the Nigerian community, about looking online for a significant other. (I didn’t say among all Nigerians, nor did I say it’s only Nigerians who have reservations). When you think of how busy our lives are, if you don’t manage to meet someone in school or through work, you’re pretty much limited to meeting someone through chance encounters at parties or a setup by a friend. As friends get settled, the chances that they’ll be thinking of setting up their single friend goes WAY down, not because they don’t care but because it has been my experience that couples tend to hang out with other couples more and more, so they don’t see the single folks they could set you up with as often as they used to when they were single (maybe it’s just me sha).

I’m not telling you to take part in online dating if it doesn’t feel right to you, but if your reason for rejecting online dating is that you’re afraid what people will think, I’d encourage you to not focus on that. After all, if you end up meeting someone special, you probably won’t care that you first met online.

Before I continue, have you:

1. Gone to Vera’s site and voted (the poll’s in the top right corner of her site) for the response that best reflects your position on Virtual Dating?
2. Gone to the radio show’s site and set up a reminder for yourself so you don’t miss the show (near the top of the page, in the middle, there’s a checkbox you can select to get a reminder)?
3. Left a question in the comments for me or for Vera regarding the show? Like I said before, there’s no reason to be shy. If you don’t have a question, feel free to share your experience with online dating or that of a friend…or a “friend” ;)
4. Come back here in two days, where I will give those who are interested in trying out online dating some ideas of where to start.Nice to see you!

So, there are a number ways that you can enter into online dating. Today I’m just going to list the ways and if you want additional information, let me know in the comments and I’ll follow up on it two days from now.

ENTERING THE WORLD OF ONLINE DATING
The following are some ways you can experience online dating, depending on your comfort level:

• Ask trusted friends to e-ntroduce you to single people they know well and trust to not be fraudsters, liars or cheats. People have been doing this by snail mail and telephone for ages, so this is nothing new. This introduction can be a one way or two way exchange of email addresses, facebook monikers or similar online identity. The key is that the person who is doing the introduction should make sure that both parties have agreed to have their information passed along to the other party. If you don’t make sure this is the case, you could end up losing two friends.
• join an online forum that focuses on something that you’re interested in and if someone on there interests you, start a conversation with them off the public forum.
• look for your tweetheart on twitter. With its popularity, it won’t surprise me if twitter becomes the hottest place online to meet potential partners.
• blog! I don’t know how many bloggers have met and dated through blogging but try leaving consistent comments on the blog of someone who’s captivated you with their writing (or their general hotness) and maybe they’ll take notice of you. Or, ditch the subtle hints, find their contact information and email them (you may have to wait a while if they registered their blog with an email address they rarely check). Although this is a good plan in theory, and it may work for the younger folk, most guys who are in the right age range for me whose writing appeals to me are married.
• join a dating site that’s specific to what you’re seeking. If you’re a Nigerian who wants to marry a Nigerian, look for dating websites that specifically address that population.
• join any dating site that looks good to you. This may make finding what you’re looking for a bit of a longer process, but you’ll have lots of selection and you may discover someone who doesn’t match what you thought you were seeking but who ends up being the perfect person for you.

So, have any of your tried any of the above with good (or bad) results? Do you have any good ideas of other online communities or avenues for meeting people?

I hope you’ll come back tomorrow for my Thankful Thursday post, and you’ll definitely want to come back on Friday for my last post before Vera’s radio show because I’m going to try my hand at matchmaking.

Depending on your experience with online dating or what you’ve heard from those who have done it, all of the above and more could be used to define online dating. But as more people become connected to the internet worldwide, the perception of online dating is changing. Right now, in many parts of the world, online dating is an accepted way of meeting people, and it’s no longer shocking to find out that your colleague, hairdresser/barber or friend is registered with a dating site or has met a significant other online. And think about it: online dating is just another way of meeting someone. It doesn’t mean you conduct your entire relationship online; the hope is that the internet serves as a way of connecting you to someone you would not ordinarily run into on the street, either because they live on the other side of the world or because you have a different daily pattern from them.

Since the internet entered my life, I’ve accepted that you can meet people online and feel as connected to them as you would if you had first met offline (and I’m not talking about meeting people for dating; just friends). I have had online friends in the past, people I met through online forums or chat rooms, and I think the distance is the only think keeping some of these people from being good pals. In one particular case, as the years went by and the friendships deepened, I went to the US to meet some of the people I had gotten to know online, and enjoyed getting to know some of them better. I found that the people I liked online I still liked in person, and the ones that I wasn’t crazy about online, I wasn’t that impressed with them in person.

But back to ONLINE DATING. There is so much to say and so little time. Why’s there so little time? Well Vera is hosting a show on the topic this Saturday November 14 and I will be joining as cohost to speak on the topic of Virtual Dating. My experience with online dating is:

1. Over the years I have been on several dating sites, some targeted towards Nigerians, Africans or anyone.
2. I have met several men from these dating sites in person and gone on dates with them.
3. I have met the love of my life through online dating. Oh wait, that’s a lie. But maybe it’ll be true by Saturday!

So anyway, I have some homework for you to do in preparation.

1. Go to Vera’s site and vote (the poll’s in the top right corner of her site) for the response that best reflects your position on Virtual Dating.
2. Go to the radio show’s site and set up a reminder for yourself so you don’t miss the show (near the top of the page, in the middle, there’s a checkbox you can select to get a reminder).
3. Leave a question in the comments for me or for Vera regarding the show. Come on, don’t be shy. You can share something that you fear about online dating or something you’re curious about, or your experience with online dating (or that of a friend, or “friend”).
4. Come back here in two days, where I will give those who are interested in trying out online dating some ideas of where to start.

I didn’t spend much time looking around the site the first time, but I took a closer look today and I was impressed with what she had to say on her blog. She (Neenah) is a believer, and isn’t embarrassed to bring up that that she talked to God about whether or not she should break the “rule” about not kissing on the first date. She comes across as a smart woman who has it together and who isn’t content to go with the flow and hope that someone will find her. Instead she’s taken matters into her own hands and doing her part at age 42, an age where I bet most of her friends have probably been married for years, to find her husband. Some of her friends and acquaintances may even be working on their second or third marriages while she, never married, no children, has not yet met her husband. Some may have told her to give up on finding a life partner, to just continue to enjoy her career and her friendships, but I admire her for following her heart and doing what she can to realize her dreams.

I wonder what I would do in the same situation: If, twelve years from now, I’m still seeking my Good Naija Man, would I be optimistic enough to start a website and put myself out there for the world to judge like she has? Would I still care about finding a partner by that point or would I be so embittered by the years of searching waiting searching that I’d have decided that singledom is my destiny? How would I handle knowing that conceiving and giving birth to a child “naturally” is a remote possibility at that age? I’m not sure. I do hope, however, that if I ever find myself in that sitaution, I would handle it with the grace that Neenah has.

If you are going to be emailing prospective women in an effort to get to know them, please send your email to the women individually: it’s a real turnoff to receive an email that is actually addressed to another woman, with you as the cc or bcc.

While it was easy as pie to delete my profile entirely from one site, the other site, Afrointroductions, doesn’t actually let you delete your profile forever and ever. Your nickname and details remain there, but in deactivated form. My guess is they do that so they can say to the next suckers people who want to register for the site that they have X zillion members. Even if your account is deactivated, I imagine you still count as a member, albeit inactive.

(Me, bitter? Naaah.)

So, I changed all my details. I am now half my actual weight and I’m not Naija anymore: I think I come from St. Lucia now. Don’t worry about anyone contacting me; the account is deactivated. I’m back to hoping that Naija parties and weddings (none of which I am invited to this summer) will yield some interesting prospects and if they don’t, I’ll always have my Naija wedding sites to fall back on.

And when I finally get a car and I’m ready for a road trip south of the border, I expect you Yankee-based Nigerians to hook me up with your brothers, cousins, and friends. We’ll call it the GNG Dating Tour, and I’ll make stops in every city a blogger lives in. I’ll keep you posted on the details.