“ARE YOU ATTRACTIVE but you don’t have the money to travel?” I nearly fall out of my seat once the promo video ends. MissTravel.com has the solution to my biggest problem! It’s here, and it’s real: the world’s first travel dating social network, matching “generous travelers with attractive travel girls (or guys).”
I head over to register at the site. I am faced with two options: 1) Generous: I will pay for travel. 2) Attractive: I want to travel for free.
I consider this. When I’m not sprawled out on the futon in my pajamas inhaling a bag of Doritos, I can look good, or decent. Sometimes I get hit on at the pub. I click “Attractive.”
I get to give details of my salary, my net worth, and whether or not I’m interested in a Sugar Daddy. I make my profile as suggestive as possible. “Candycane” is my name, and I’m looking for an activity partner…and “who knows where else that could lead?” I upload a photo in which I don’t look homeless. I am excited for someone to send me a wink.
The dashboard is laid out to showcase all the “generous” men, and the ones who most recently viewed me. I can’t see my female competition, but I know they’re there. Lurking. Nobody views me until my photo is approved. I thought announcing myself as a 20-something freelance writer would be enough, but then again, that line doesn’t work in the pub either unless I’m showing some cleavage.
I “favourite” a man named Zac. He’s a 24-year-old hotel / resort owner and developer, who has accumulated over $20 million in properties. He’s hot, too, and has impeccable grammar. All qualities I look for in a man. He does not return my wink, however.
Then there’s an SEO expert whose muscles are so big, I need to ask him for workout advice. I send him a message. “Hi! Are you on steroids? Your muscles are so hot!” He does not respond.
Another guy wins me over with his shirtless mirror shot and his body hair. I’m intrigued, until I read, “I am very very rich. However, I have no real friends. All my friends are on the internet.” Now the mirror shot makes sense.
At long last, someone returns my wink! A 4o-year-old Hawaiian man wants me to travel with him. I accept. What could go wrong, right? Having a handsome stranger pay for my travel to the middle of nowhere?
This is how I picture it going down. I show up in Hawaii. He greets me with a rose, the smile fading on his face ever so slightly as he realizes I’m wearing yoga pants and an Aeropostale hoodie. We share a long, uncomfortable car ride making small talk about the weather. We try to break the ice with random questions like, “Where are you from? What’s your favourite flavour of Jello?” We embark on a trip together, to Rome. We argue loudly on the airplane about who gets the window seat. I want to see the Colosseum and he needs to buy new shoes from Gucci.
When I refuse, he strangles me.
This is more disastrous than Beautifulpeople.com, the site that asked over 5,000 members to reapply in 2011 when they posted photos of themselves looking “chubbier than normal” after the holiday season.
These people are too attractive. Too rich. Too grammatically perfect. These people aren’t real.
Except maybe for this dude, who is probably my only ideal mate from the site: “I have no personal opinions about anything, because I am apathetic and ignorant. I enjoy smoking, drinking, petty theft, pornography, and self-righteous indignation. I have middling intelligence but try to appear smarter by affecting a world-weary air, memorizing useless statistics, and chuckling at my own mean-spirited, agenda-driven jokes. I’m 29, but look 45 and feel 61.”
Stick to PlentyofFish.