Ah, the Internet: bringer of new guilt

I'm developing "match guilt." It's like TiVO/DVR guilt or Netflix guilt: a mental state created when there's so much of something which requires your attention that you don't have time to properly address it all, which only serves to create a further backlog that requires your attention. It's a self-perpetuating, spiraling form of obligation that has no true impact on your daily life, yet causes occasional bouts of low-grade anxiety or guilt.

Now I'm finding it in online dating sites. I've been on a free one for a few years now, mainly because the tests are amusing, though if I stay away for an extended interval I have no guilt. It's free, and there's nobody expecting me to contact them. On a paid dating site, like the one I joined a couple months ago, things are different. They send you matches night after night. I was rather busy when I signed up, and so left a lot of these women in the queue. Now there are four "pages" worth. I've weeded out the ones with no photos (because you can tell a lot about personality from the face) and the ones that weren't going to work. But that's the catch: the majority of these women are interesting enough that I can't simply eradicate them all. I could, though that would defeat the purpose of the exercise.

Now, there are four pages of women. After joining a paid dating service with the intent of meeting women, I now have a backlog of them. The larger it gets, the more daunting the sorting becomes. It does not help that after reading a few profiles my brain begins to glaze over.

Hence, match guilt.

Which will now have to wait, as I've work to do.