My failure to successfully connect with a sea captain was a bit of a blow to my ego. I began to recalibrate my thinking accordingly — to avoid spambots and tumbleweeds, maybe I should go for sites that have some semblance of popularity.
I turned to media for my next choice. We’ve all seen the commercials — “City folk just don’t get it.” Yes dear readers, I signed up for FarmersOnly.com! I figured a site that has the money to place ads on television probably hosts enough users to garner revenue of some sort.
I know I had mentioned that my motive for signing up for sites like these is purely for experimental and research reasons, but I am human, and I began to dream of my potential handsome farmer soulmate.
Blonde, buff, genteel and adorably accented, we would ride off into the sunset and never deal with digital media-induced stress again. But I’m getting ahead of myself here, of course.
The sign-up process again for this site wasn’t overly complicated. Name, age, location and I could specify that I was a city dweller looking for country folk.
Once I had generated my information and clicked the activation link through my email, I was disappointed to see that I couldn’t come up with my own username unless I upgraded to a premium account. Thus, I am known on this site as farmgirl9461783. Misleading, but I guess it will have to do for now.
The layout of the site, to my surprise, was outdated in design just like Captain-Date.com. The colors clashed horribly and the large clickable icons near the top looked exactly like something you’d find in Microsoft ClipArt. Had I stumbled upon yet another site that would yield nothing but dashed dreams and irritatingly cheesy fonts?
Both happily and sadly, this was definitely not the case. As I clicked around on the Member Search section, it boasted that there were currently 22,153 members online at the moment.
To widen my net as much as possible, I set the age limit of my matches from 22 to 99 and the distance within 500 miles of me.
Over 30 pages of results came up, and from what I could garner, they were legitimate accounts! But wait… holy shit, these dudes are OLD. Now, those who know me know that age isn’t exactly a problem — in fact, I tend to prefer my guys to be older than me. Viggo Mortensen, I’ve been waiting for you to call me since I was 10 years old.
The most common account users on FarmersOnly.com seemed to be older white gentlemen between their late forties up to their early eighties living in rural areas, with pictures of their farming equipment and horses.
Perhaps, unsurprisingly, was the fact that their set age range for their ideal matches went as young as the barely legal age.
As usual, a lot of men found a way to be as scummy as possible through their profiles. Larry, a 67-year-old living in California wrote, “If you have a face and body that looks like you’ve been blasted by a shotgun loaded with broken glass and nails … please pass this profile up.”
Larry was also a staunch advocate against body modifications, noting that, “If I want to see the Painted Lady, I’ll go to the Circus and see the freak side show.”
67-year-old Larry’s desired age range for a mate? 18 to 35. I don’t know about you, but I can say with confidence that every young woman under the age of 40 is looking for a plump, mustachioed, wrinkled judgmental senior to tell them how to present themselves. Are you even a farmer, Larry? Pass!
I adjusted the search to show the youngest matches and was surprised at the shift in attitude I had towards what I found attractive. I don’t think on a normal day I would do a double-take on a lot of these guys, but they were around my age range and a commodity. Get at me, you young-and-therefore-hot farmers!
FarmersOnly.com also has a “Discover” section, where you can thumbs-up or thumbs-down a randomly generated profile, akin to Tinder. If you end up both liking each other, a notification is sent to both profiles.
I received a lot of “likes” and even got a handful of “flirts,” which are pre-set statements like “You caught my eye!” or “I see you like John Deere too … want to compare tractors?” that are easy, stress-free ways to indicate your interest in a user without needing to come up with something clever on your own.
Two young, fairly attractive dudes living in California exchanged multiple “flirts” with me, and I clicked the “Send Message” button, ready to make my connection and was brought to … the UPGRADE NOW! page.
I have to pay more than $15 a month to be able to message a farmer? Is my pride not worth enough? I currently have six messages from young farmers that will forever go unread. Sorry cowboys, it’s probably not meant to be.
