the open range
by rantywoman
Though he was ten years younger than I, everything he said he wanted in a girl was… me. I wrote a clever email about singing dogs, urging him to check out my profile and see how perfect I was for him.
“Thanks, but I don’t think so” was all he wrote in reply.
Oh! That wasn’t good. But to make sure he was really rejecting me- me?? Really??– I wrote again. “Are you sure? Aren’t you blowing me off kind of quick?”
“No, I am not interested, and if you are so thin-skinned, you shouldn’t be on Match.com,” he replied.
Almost in tears, I had to admit that “thin-skinned” was right. One month on Match and I was practically cellophane. Any free-range Internet dickhead who took it into his head had the power to make me feel worthless. No more Dogsong for me. I went to a Leonard Cohen concert with one of my girlfriends and cried my eyes out on every song.
–Marion Winik, Highs in the Low Fifties, p. 53
thebitterbabe 
It’s an odd combination to have, thin skin and a huge ego. It must take a huge ego to not accept an answer of ‘thanks but no’ from the person you just hit on, especially when that person is ten years younger than you. I don’t like it at all when men do it, so I’m afraid I can’t be sympathetic when a woman does it.
Although in this specific example she is being more of a ‘dickhead’ than him, it is true that there are many ‘free-range internet dickheads’ out there.
I think she was a little “green” about internet dating in that she had been in monogamous relationships up until her fifties. I think she does have an ego but I also think she is poking fun at herself a little, and I do relate to that feeling of umbrage we all get when we are so easily dismissed. I’m sure men feel they get “dicked” around all the time too online. It just doesn’t breed goodwill!