Ok, this blog has been retooled somewhat. It will now only deal with me and my personal experiences (which it always did, but I used other people as scapegoats to deny my own shortcommings. No longer. All me. Swears it). So let me dive in and embarrass myself.
I have recently started using a dating website. Fuck it. I'm alone and it sucks. What do I have to loose? The first thing I noticed while setting up a profile is that I do not have a picture of me smiling that isn't me:
a) with a girlfriend
b) noticeably inebriated
c) under the age of 14
FINE. First things first...I need to smile more in life. Noted. I'm working on that.
It took about a day before the site started suggesting that I date people I know in real life. That's great and all, but I don't even like being friends with these people. Why would I want to date them? I was rated as a VERY high percentage match with a woman I had worked with in the past. She was a fun girl and I don't know the protocol so I messaged her. Said hey and pointed out how highly the site had matched us. Said I always thought she was cool and I asked her out. Her response....NOTHING. No response at all. Shit. That can't be good. Maybe I shouldn't message people I know. But then again, if I see them, they can see me. And as a guy, I'm pretty sure I'm suppose to be doing the messaging. What the frack? Isolated incident or poor etiquette to message real life friends?! Its new to me so I don't know.
Next thing I notice is that there are a LOT of women on this site. It seems funny seeing some I know, but it gives me hope that there are SO many other single people out there, possibly looking for me. They just don't know it yet. With that in mind, I march ever forward.
It doesn't take too long before I start to notice a pattern in the women the site is recommending to me. I'm not sure why, but the site has definitely tagged me as having a type. I think its about 20% correct thus far (more details to come...hopefully). I haven't ever noticed being attracted to this type of woman before so I can't say if its true or not. I will have to reexamine my past to see if there is a pattern. Somehow I'm sure math is involved (shakes fist angrily at MATH). Others I'm sure are just being recommended to me because no one else is taking them. The profiles you feel bad for. The girl with nine cats (each with three word names). The girl with pictures of her at the ren faire. Yes, its great that you put all that work into your costume, but its not my thing. No offense, but this is about me (....right???). Women holding swords...this one confuses the shit out of me. Not gonna lie. Its baffling. Is that a "thing"? Chicks with swords? I tend to avoid women who wield sharp objects. Just one of the many life lessons I've picked up over the years. Women who's pictures only show 2/3rds of their face. I get it. You are uncomfortable with your weight. Fine. But you aren't fooling anyone by hiding. Pictures with other people cropped out. If you aren't interesting enough for someone to take a picture of you by yourself, you probably aren't interesting enough for me to be with you. Pictures where you can't tell who you're suppose to be looking at are particularly annoying.
It occurs to me that I am trying to be selective, but not judemental (which is impossible). And as open minded as I'm trying to be, the first thing the site shows you is pictures. Then from the pictures, you have to decide if you want to know more about them. Granted, this is pretty much how life works, but I can't help but feel like an asshole for doing this.
This particular website turns the whole thing into a game. Rewarding you for putting up more information about yourself. More pictures. Spending more time on the site. (I'm sure some of you have figured out the site in question by this point. If you have, then you have no room to judge as you are obviously familiar). Its fine that it makes a game out of it, except that I'm a gamer. I've been a gamer my whole life. One of the things gamers know is that getting to the end the fastest with the least amount of work = winning. That mentality forced me to skip a lot of potentially important steps (I meant on the site, but I suppose in life as well). And I found myself judging people rapidly to get through the game faster. Maybe that's the point. Find someone you really like at gut reaction, but I couldn't help but feel I was skipping a lot of people unfairly. Then I started over compensating by spending too much time on people I knew I didn't like, just so I didn't feel like i was being unfair. Fuck. I can't win in my own head. How is this going to end well?
If you know me (and odds are, if you're reading this, you do), you know that I am very witty. I'm quick and sharp (and humble...eh...not so much). Talking to people I have no problem. I can read people. I can figure out if they get my humor, if they have a sense of humor, if they want to get to know me. Online: None of that. Its all cold calls. You message and try to think of something witty to say. Sincere but original. Something to make you stand out but not make you sound like an insane person (particularly difficult for me). And once the message is out there, its out. And I have to sit and WAIT for a response. And I admit. I'm TERRIBLE at that. If you walked up to someone at a bar and said "Hi", how long would you wait there with them saying nothing would it take before you walked away?
At this point in the blog I would like to thank Google for including a spell check built into Chrome. Thank you Google. Thank you thank you thank. If not for you, I would look like a tard for my spelling alone and not for my crippling retardation when it comes to typing instead of speaking.
More to come? Lets see how this plays out (blog, dating, and/or life)
-El Matherdor
I have recently started using a dating website. Fuck it. I'm alone and it sucks. What do I have to loose? The first thing I noticed while setting up a profile is that I do not have a picture of me smiling that isn't me:
a) with a girlfriend
b) noticeably inebriated
c) under the age of 14
FINE. First things first...I need to smile more in life. Noted. I'm working on that.
It took about a day before the site started suggesting that I date people I know in real life. That's great and all, but I don't even like being friends with these people. Why would I want to date them? I was rated as a VERY high percentage match with a woman I had worked with in the past. She was a fun girl and I don't know the protocol so I messaged her. Said hey and pointed out how highly the site had matched us. Said I always thought she was cool and I asked her out. Her response....NOTHING. No response at all. Shit. That can't be good. Maybe I shouldn't message people I know. But then again, if I see them, they can see me. And as a guy, I'm pretty sure I'm suppose to be doing the messaging. What the frack? Isolated incident or poor etiquette to message real life friends?! Its new to me so I don't know.
Next thing I notice is that there are a LOT of women on this site. It seems funny seeing some I know, but it gives me hope that there are SO many other single people out there, possibly looking for me. They just don't know it yet. With that in mind, I march ever forward.
It doesn't take too long before I start to notice a pattern in the women the site is recommending to me. I'm not sure why, but the site has definitely tagged me as having a type. I think its about 20% correct thus far (more details to come...hopefully). I haven't ever noticed being attracted to this type of woman before so I can't say if its true or not. I will have to reexamine my past to see if there is a pattern. Somehow I'm sure math is involved (shakes fist angrily at MATH). Others I'm sure are just being recommended to me because no one else is taking them. The profiles you feel bad for. The girl with nine cats (each with three word names). The girl with pictures of her at the ren faire. Yes, its great that you put all that work into your costume, but its not my thing. No offense, but this is about me (....right???). Women holding swords...this one confuses the shit out of me. Not gonna lie. Its baffling. Is that a "thing"? Chicks with swords? I tend to avoid women who wield sharp objects. Just one of the many life lessons I've picked up over the years. Women who's pictures only show 2/3rds of their face. I get it. You are uncomfortable with your weight. Fine. But you aren't fooling anyone by hiding. Pictures with other people cropped out. If you aren't interesting enough for someone to take a picture of you by yourself, you probably aren't interesting enough for me to be with you. Pictures where you can't tell who you're suppose to be looking at are particularly annoying.
It occurs to me that I am trying to be selective, but not judemental (which is impossible). And as open minded as I'm trying to be, the first thing the site shows you is pictures. Then from the pictures, you have to decide if you want to know more about them. Granted, this is pretty much how life works, but I can't help but feel like an asshole for doing this.
This particular website turns the whole thing into a game. Rewarding you for putting up more information about yourself. More pictures. Spending more time on the site. (I'm sure some of you have figured out the site in question by this point. If you have, then you have no room to judge as you are obviously familiar). Its fine that it makes a game out of it, except that I'm a gamer. I've been a gamer my whole life. One of the things gamers know is that getting to the end the fastest with the least amount of work = winning. That mentality forced me to skip a lot of potentially important steps (I meant on the site, but I suppose in life as well). And I found myself judging people rapidly to get through the game faster. Maybe that's the point. Find someone you really like at gut reaction, but I couldn't help but feel I was skipping a lot of people unfairly. Then I started over compensating by spending too much time on people I knew I didn't like, just so I didn't feel like i was being unfair. Fuck. I can't win in my own head. How is this going to end well?
If you know me (and odds are, if you're reading this, you do), you know that I am very witty. I'm quick and sharp (and humble...eh...not so much). Talking to people I have no problem. I can read people. I can figure out if they get my humor, if they have a sense of humor, if they want to get to know me. Online: None of that. Its all cold calls. You message and try to think of something witty to say. Sincere but original. Something to make you stand out but not make you sound like an insane person (particularly difficult for me). And once the message is out there, its out. And I have to sit and WAIT for a response. And I admit. I'm TERRIBLE at that. If you walked up to someone at a bar and said "Hi", how long would you wait there with them saying nothing would it take before you walked away?
At this point in the blog I would like to thank Google for including a spell check built into Chrome. Thank you Google. Thank you thank you thank. If not for you, I would look like a tard for my spelling alone and not for my crippling retardation when it comes to typing instead of speaking.
More to come? Lets see how this plays out (blog, dating, and/or life)
-El Matherdor
