Online Dating: Not just for the socially awkward. Part 1
Posted by Tim on 26 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Hey, it’s really not that bad…
Once you get over the initial mental hurdle of “Fuck that shit! I’m not some desperate loser” It can actually be a lot of fun – assuming you don’t take things too seriously. Mind you, that actually is a significant hurdle to get over, at least it was for me. Up until this point I had shunned social networking as a whole. Why? I’m not really sure…Friendster was really lame, I didn’t go to college so Facebook initially deemed me unworthy of membership and don’t get me started on the cluster-fuck that is MySpace. So really this was a double hurdle for me.
Mind you I’m not what anyone would consider a shy person and I have no problem meeting people the traditional way so really this whole thing started out as an [beer fueled] experiment.
Chapter I: Recon [Choosing the most appropriate site]
There are no fewer than 3,141,592 dating sites on the internets. And I use the term “dating” very loosely here. I’m sure for every terrible idea (http://www.womenbehindbars.com/) there is a success story but probably not many. Signing up was embarrassing enough so there was a snowball’s chance in hell I was paying for it. But that didn’t stop me from checking out the “talent” on the more popular sites like match and yahoo (yahoo was better). I’m not sure why I even did that cause I knew the whole point was to meet people and see just what kind of person meets strangers off the internet. I realize that sounds redundant as I, myself, was trying to meet strangers off the internet so that pretty much answers my question already…but where’s the fun in that?
After much searching I found the winner: http://okcupid.com . Initially I was a little put off by the inability to actually see all the women who match the search criteria but as it turns out they are really doing you a favor by limiting it to 100 results per query. At this point I just had an account, no profile, no picture, and other people were not notified if I “stalked” them. I was just getting the lay of the land and really trying to talk myself out going through with this.
Chapter II: Fuck it all! What do I have to lose?
I finally filled out the questionnaire (Yes I’m looking for chicks, dudes too? Umm no thanks just chicks. 5’7” etc…) and uploaded a picture. Now it was time for the hardcore (no, not that hardcore I wasn’t on AdultFriendFinder) dating to begin. I had found a couple people who looked interesting so I “wooed” them. Little did I know how lame that move really was. It basically does nothing, there are a few prewritten responses (Your profile made me laugh, Cute picture, I’d really like to lick ice cream off your toes while you sing Barry Manilo), you know the usual bullshit. Regardless of what message you pick it really only means one thing: I’m not witty enough to actually write something interesting but if you’re easy you wont care.
Quickly realizing that was a losing battle I decided to actually write some well thought out emails to a few people. I scrutinized their profile looking for things we had in common, told them some interesting things about Tim, each one was a masterpiece in itself. One chick was even a software engineer! I couldn’t miss. Not a single response from the first batch of messages. I would be totally discouraged at this point if I hadn’t been receiving messages from other people that I didn’t write to. Mind you I didn’t pick them to write to first because, frankly, I wasn’t interested in them. Any attention is good attention and knowing how I felt not having someone write back I couldn’t do that to someone else so in the name of good karma I said I was writing everyone back who wrote me. After all it is the polite thing to do.
Chapter III: Somethings gotta give
This vicious circle of people I’m interested in blowing me off and getting practically buried in messages from people I’m not interested in (that I write back to cause I’m a nice guy) indicated clearly it doesn’t take someone with a degree in online marketing (if there even is a degree for that) to figure out my profile [ad] is targeting the wrong people [potential customers]. My first move was to upload a second picture. The reasoning being: maybe with only one picture its conceivable that I’m really a 50 year old living in my mother’s basement playing WOW all day. Little did I know how potent a move that would be! My second picture was of me sitting on a couch with my three dogs one of which is giant and fluffy. If any single guys out there have the means get yourself an Old English sheep dog it’s the best investment you can make. I’ve considered having a service where I rent Malachy out for photo sessions but I decided against it as it would be bad for business to flood the market with pictures of guys with giant fluffy dogs.
Here’s the part where I was really in the dark: How to make a profile that would attract the kind of women I’d like to meet. I reflected upon the last couple of weeks of reading women’s profiles and realized I actually stopped reading them. I would skim them looking for interesting keywords or something that made it really stand out. Like falling off a toilet and visualizing the flux capacitor I had a plan! I deleted my entire profile and just made a concise list of stuff about Tim. Wouldn’t you know I started getting responses! Then I started changing my email technique, clearly if they didn’t give a shit about what was in my profile then my unsolicited emails were probably going unread too. Three sentences. That’s it. No more, no less. In any order:
1. Point out something from their profile (you know…to prove you read it)
2. Poke fun at them a little bit, so they know you’re not too serious (i.e. you really have Hanson listed as a favorite band?)
3. Ask a question. This is by far the most important thing in the email. Make sure its something so good they can’t live with themselves if they don’t answer it.
Maybe this next part is specific to OKCupid (OKC) seeing as one of the main attractions to that site are all the friggin quizzes they have. Everything is a test and you get graded on it some how. It’s actually a great time waster and you end up getting different personality “awards”. For example on the dating persona test I scored:
The Hornivore
Random Brutal Sex Master (RBSM)Don’t ever marry, you’re The Hornivore. Roaming, sexual, subhuman.
The Hornivores (you) are some of the most screwed up and naughty beings in the Universe. And their numbers are growing, mostly due to skipped or misused contraception. You care not. There’s one thing you want, one sole need.
Half manly, half bestial, you act on instinct, and animal charisma smoothes the way. It’s unlikely you’re driven by much other than your own selfish, orgasmic requirements. Your appearance and personality have evolved for the hunt. Ass beckons, you oblige.
For the record, you can happily bang all personality types, however your match percentages might be low with the kinder, more sensible people of the world, purely because they all wish to avoid you. Good luck to them.
“One day, the villagers came with torches to the house. In the smoldering ashes, stray dogs looked for cooked flesh.”
Not really sure if that’s going to help me attract the kind of women I’m looking for…but hey what’s the worst that could happen?
Anyways, I digress. My list of key talking points about Tim had grown and I decided to assign arbitrary point values to line item. For example:
Would you be comfortable crashing private functions? +23
You watch American Idol -20
You find it entertaining to watch awkward out-of-town businessmen try and pick up hookers in hotel bars +77
Again, another example of accidental brilliance on my part. At this point I didn’t have to write people anymore I was getting a fairly steady stream of unsolicited emails from people I actually wanted to get them from! Fuck Yeah! Needless to say my plan for writing everyone back was out the window and I hold no bad feelings toward the people blew me off in the beginning, I get it now.
So I guess its so far so good…
Stay tuned for Part Deux: The Dates [Insert ominous chord progression here]
