OKCupid – A Series of Very Bad Decisions

In which we discuss online dating

One of my friends is on OKCupid, and has really weathered some absolute bullshit because she’s a trooper, and I’ve just listened to her stories over G-Chat, vowing never again to test the waters of online dating.

Well, today she received two messages that just speak for themselves in terms of WTF. First, we have bachelor #1:

Okay first of all, the grammatical errors. Your vs. you’re is one of the most common yet infuriating grammatical errors that will automatically eliminate you from her and my dating pool. If that makes us snooty bitches, then so be it.

Second of all, who is he kidding with the 300 pounds comment? I mean, sure it was said in jest, but if my friend were even ten pounds heavier than her picture (she’s not) I am sure he’d run for the nearest cliff.

Bachelor #2 sent her something that was EERILY similar:

Both of them with the weight and the teeth and the misuse of your/you’re. Are these the messages we’re sending now? I don’t even know how to do this anymore but isn’t there a way to be witty without being offensive?

I really wonder what goes in to sending messages like this. Of course I’ve sent many a first message I thought was witty in which I was brutally rebuffed, so who knows. It’s obviously an exact science that involves a certain amount of cleavage and teeth.

But these are two very similar messages from two different people. So originality is out the window. No wonder shows like I Wanna Marry “Harry” exist. What else is there to do?

In search of: a magic wand

guilt

noun

1. the fact or state of having committed an offense, crime, violation, or wrong, especially against moral or penal law; culpability: He admitted his guilt.

2. a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.

3. conduct involving the commission of such crimes, wrongs, etc.: to live a life of guilt.

B3 texted me this morning to ask me if I was happy about Jay Cutler signing a seven year extension with the Bears. And I ignored him, because after his last declaration of, “I’ll screw you as long as I don’t have to care about your feelings,” I was feeling less than inclined to respond.

But here’s the thing: I am drowning in my own guilt because I agreed to the last part of his last pre-Cutler text – the part where he didn’t want to hear about me being upset. I wrote “ok.” As in, “okay, you don’t have to hear about it,” not as in, “sure, I’m up for hanging out and doing x-rated things and falling deeper into this rabbit hole so sure, now let’s talk about Jay Cutty. Awesome.”

I feel guilty for responding to one text while not responding to another.

It would be ideal if someone had given me a magic wand for Christmas that I could use to abracadabra away all of my feelings and just not give a shit anymore.

I just said yesterday that this would be the year of no guilt in terms of demanding more/better, and here I am, already failing. Hence the need for the magic wand.

In other news, I completely deleted my OK Cupid profile. I have only been logging in to read the ridiculous messages I was getting and am currently so turned off by the concept of dating right now that having a profile serves no purpose.

It’s a shame, too, because

Reva out.

F- in sarcasm, and other OKCupid fails

My friend is trying OKCupid again, and we’re keeping official stats this time as a mini study. And we’ll get back to you with the semi-sort-of-official results in a couple of weeks, but in the interim, here’s what she has to work with:

1st message:

Perfect cuddle size? That could also be described as fun size or bite size. :-X

You have strawberry blonde hair which probably means that sunblock is your best friend, but can pull off wearing warm colors like beige and orange. That’s all I got for that. What else is unique to you about being a ginger?

Where are you going for the hot air balloon ride? Are you doing that in NH?

Comparing her to what I can only assume is a candy bar and then talking about colors that match her hair? Can we say…WTF? As she said to me over G-Chat:

I CAN PULL OFF BEIGE? What the what? That’s not a compliment – “you look good in bland brown colors.”

Look, I get it – first messages can be awkward and it can take you four hours to construct the four most perfect sentences you’ve ever written, only to get no response (which is why I gave up) so I am not saying I can do any better. But, you have to give us something to work with here. Also, I don’t want to get into grammatical snobbery, but the second sentence is structured as if the sunblock can pull off those colors, not my friend. I believe we call that a misplaced modifier? (No wonder I’m alone).

She did not respond, so he sent a second message:

For some reason, I am going to take a stab in the dark and guess that you’ve had excellent luck on this site finding someone who’s incredibly gorgeous and everything else you’ve ever dreams of. 😉

She and I felt it was dripping in passive aggressive sarcasm, however others disagree.

Either way, we have yet another example of how awkward online dating can be – can some people who have met significant others this way offer some tips??

Why online dating has never worked for me

Earlier today, my friend Jerod tweeted out a link to a blog by Kate Morin, talking about why online dating might not be the answer for everyone.

Morin brings up many good points, some of which are the following:

While many dating sites claim the ability to find your perfect match, social scientists aren’t buying it. Research suggests that, while it is possible to predict whether two people could enjoy spending time together in the short-term, it’s (nearly) impossible to scientifically match two people for long-term compatibility. The strongest predictors of a good, functional relationship are how a couple interacts, and their ability to handle stress — two things that science says current dating website algorithms can’t predict and online profiles can’t demonstrate.

Isn’t that the truth? Wanting to get it on occasionally is not the key to a lasting relationship, and sometimes I feel like all online dating represents is the cesspool of people looking for never-ending casual sex.

Morin also notes:

Even though the number of budding Internet relationships is increasing, the overall rate of partnership is not increasing at all. This suggests that online dating is proving to be no more effective at creating lasting relationships than the old standards.

“I really didn’t see it as any different from the way that people met each other for decades past,” said Feifer. “The thing that… creates a relationship, is not the way you meet, it’s what happens after meeting.”

SO true. I’ve met guys in every way possible and every relationship has failed, so why would I continuously go back to the online route, which has not proven to be any more successful? What way is “every way possible”, you ask?

Just to name more than a few: online, work, work conferences, through friends, at an art museum, at an airport, via Twitter (don’t judge me!), at a bar, on a Time Out Chicago boat cruise, on an actual cruise, at a baseball game (okay, fine it was the tailgate), at a party, in Vegas (but I guess that wouldn’t count), in Mexico – you get the point. There are literally tens of ways to meet people, so does it seem folks flock to online sites more and more?

My theories:

Well, for one thing, it’s easier to lie. Don’t give me that look! Who doesn’t put up their most flattering pictures, or pictures of their better looking sibling, or pictures of someone who isn’t even their relative but is way better looking? “No, that’s not my sister from when she was 22 and doing bikram yoga five days a week, why do you ask?”
You literally have thousands of options in front of you all at once. Don’t like that guy/gal’s profile you’re looking at? No problem! There are 4,000 more where that came from. Have fun getting lost in the bottomless pit of trying to differentiate between fact and fiction, virginal or walking STD, booty call or future spouse.
The actual looking turns out to be far more fun than the first date: Ugh. The awkwardness of a first date never gets old…or new. Wait, what? I went on one right after graduating college in which we had not exchanged cell phone numbers so I could not call him to tell him I was running 20 minutes late. Luckily, he was still there and every bit the upstanding and handsome gentleman I had hoped for until, upon us leaving the restaurant, he ran to go pee in the woods, and subsequently blocked me from AIM. (God, I really just aged myself, didn’t I? Whatever, I’m 31, people.)
Online rejection is easier than in-person rejection, and then you can just drink wine and make fun of the person who rejected you on your blog.

I have also tried literally every online dating site:

Match? Check! Went out with pee-in-the-woods guy, nice but insanely boring guy, Hollywood Kisser guy (there was just no spark), and a bunch of others. Right after I turned 28, I got a free month of Match for my birthday, which resulted in zero dates. How depressing.
eHarmony? You betcha. I wasn’t quite ready for the intensity of this site. You have to get through like 47 levels to even be able to email the person, and after ALL that effort I wound up on a brunch date with super intense creepy guy who wanted me to commit then and there. DOESN’T HE KNOW COMMITMENT SCARES ME AND WHY WAS I ON eHARMONY AKA MARRIAGE.COM TO BEGIN WITH?
OKCupid? Guilty. I have run the gambit with this site – I’ve met online some really stand-up dudes who canceled dates because they wanted to commit to someone else (no, that is not sarcasm), to the creepy ones masking their desire to only hook up with their desire to be in an actual relationship and I might need to bathe in Clorox to stop my skin from crawling, FYI.
Plenty of Fish? You caught me! (see what I did there? *drops mic, walks off stage*). My friend in San Diego was a serial dater and swore by this site, but all I wound up with was a supremely awkward guy with horrible body odor who tried to date me even after I moved to Chicago.

As my friend Brian so kindly pointed out – I might be doing it wrong. I’m sure that’s part of it. But on the other hand, why has NOTHING EVER WORKED? Oh, because I’m doing all THAT wrong, too? Gotcha.

Maybe it’s not just online dating that doesn’t work for me, but dating in general.

Ten points for creativity

I am no longer testing the gator-infested waters of online dating, but Susan, bless her heart, is. Though, the dating scene in Chicago and New Hampshire are vastly different, I’d imagine, she just got the funniest, most creative message ever. It actually made me laugh out loud.

Behold:

After a rigorously brief overview of your profile I wanted to let you know that I have decided to marry and divorce you inside my mind.

Thanks for all the imaginary memories. You will always have a special place in my heart.

Your Ex-Hubby,

Weeeez

P.S. I get to keep the beach house in Florida. You can keep the over weight cat.

I mean – is that not hysterical? It takes the all the pressure of meeting someone completely out of the picture. It’s saying “hey – you’re cool, and we might get along, but nothing in life is guaranteed.” Or something. At least, that’s how I am reading it. Sometimes things end, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun during. I don’t know, I’m tired.

The reason this message is so cool is that it also doesn’t include any of the normal boilerplate shit that people put in first messages: hey, I went to Ohio State, I love biking, I’m a software engineer and every March I go to Mexico with my Delta Tau Delta frat bros.

(For example)

Anyway, bravo to this dude, for proving that it’s okay if we don’t take ourselves too seriously.