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After a four-month exploration into one of the top Chinese online dating websites, I’ve decided to wind up this adventure.

On the sideline of a badminton court, a friend of mine recently set me up with a 25-year-old girl from Gansu province who moved to Beijing in 2011 and has settled down with her aunt. She has just taken up badminton and hopefully we can hit it off.

That is what prompted me to end the search for a soul-mate in cyber space, which has been as tricky as Edward Snowden’s situation.

Since starting my search for a compatible partner in March, I have met three girls including an embarrassing tryst. Each one of them turned out to be far from what their profile descriptions. Perhaps I had bad luck, or maybe online matchmaking is not made for me.

Ⅲ An embarrassing encounter

It was like finding a needle in a haystack for someone like me who devotes his spare time to football and badminton rather than cyber space.

The chance is even slimmer for a man who is still untouched by the iPhone frenzy and content with an antique mobile phone, which has problem in sending multimedia messages, let alone running the hot social networking tool WeChat.

But I take digital dating quite seriously and had a lot of fun going through the glamorous profiles. I’ve sent messages to nearly 100 women, receiving three warning letters from the website administrator about three people who were accused of swindling and thus were barred from contacting me.

Another seven women refused my friend-making requests and the rest of the messages went unanswered.

The only reward to my endeavor was an embarrassing encounter with a tall stout woman who personated a cute girl online. Later, the administrator stepped in with a timely warning.

I also gave up on foreign matchmaking services like match.com and eHarmony.com because I can barely do anything unless I pay (in dollar and pound).

It could be myself to blame for the futile attempts. But I’m determined to switch from the treacherous virtual space to real world despite the fact that it is increasingly difficult to find someone in real life to settle down with.

Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are gonna get.