Online Dating As A Man: From A Woman’s Perspective

Found this article at Sofiastry, via a link from WMASAW.

Sofia put up an OK Cupid profile posing as a guy and she talks about her experience.

Men constantly have to be on. Not only were my initial messages to girls necessarily concise and witty with a healthy dose of denigration, but every succeeding message has to be interesting even if – as in most cases – the girl gives you a minimal level of conversational material to work with.

SO very true. Seriously annoying to get absolutely nothing back in response and then have to try to come up with something witty based off a one sentence reply from her. And if its not greatly entertaining, you can forget about further contact.

Women are fickle. Even if a sequence of messages seems to be going really well, a woman will arbitrarily change her mind at any given point if you did not re-calibrate effectively, or her competing options are disqualifying you as a sexual candidate. This trait in particular made me really sympathetic to the hoops men have to jump through when acquiring a girl’s attention, even though most women have nothing to offer.

(Emphasis in original) And no matter the hoops you jump thru, it pretty much ends with nothing if you indeed got that far.

the fact that my profile (which indicates I’m a professional masturbator, who does drugs, seeks casual sex and lives with his parents) gets more attention than a relationship-seeking, professional who is being nice to girls, makes you wonder what fucked up mechanism is responsible for this.

I made a similar profile and the difference is truly night and day. Seems that not only will women reply to the profile of a cad, they send unsolicited emails to get your attention. But while it is entertaining, I honestly have no desire to meet a woman who seeks out such a man.

In the end, online dating is pretty much a waste of time. Yes that is pretty obvious, but I gave it a shot as my ability to “get out” is severely limited unless one counts parks, grocery stores or the playground at McDonald’s. Now I do know guys who have had success on the site, but these guys are admittedly cads who are looking for something very different from what I would want. I also know a poly who is/was on there and she had much success, but it doesn’t seem to me that a female poly really has problems finding people whether online or not.

This is a match? Seriously?

I signed up on OKCupid some time ago. I have had no luck at all from it. But perhaps its that somehow I can “match” women who have NOTHING in common with me. I go through there and see someone that matches fairly highly and then I come across a profile like this:

My Self Summary
Don’t contact me if you can’t do 50 push-ups in a row (real, quality push-ups). I have had complaints about this, but I am at the point where I just cannot stand the prospect of yet another disappointing first date push-up contest. Do not contact me if you can’t spell “grammar”; if you do not know the difference between “your” and “you’re”; if you use the term “irregardless”; or if you’ve said “for all intensive purposes” or “should of.”

I enjoy starting fights for no reason; gossiping about everyone on “The Hills” like I actually know them (Heidi is totally brainwashed by Spencer!!); and drawing anthropomorphic caricatures of rabbits. I’m an avid indoorswoman. In my spare time, I write free-verse, non-rhyming limericks. In elementary school, I was named “girl of the year” 8 years in a row.

I think perfect names for babies are Mercedes and Clooney, (f/m respectively), but this tends to change weekly based on what I read in Us!, lol 🙂 However, I think that actually HAVING kids is the ultimate tool of the patriarchy, and am hoping that Science will develop some sort of artificial womb.

To me, dating is like Fraggle Rock; specifically, the Doozers. They build and build, only to have their structures knocked down. But sometimes it’s fun to knock down people’s hard work, and I guess that’s what justifies it for me. I mean, come on. Life should be fun. That was the first sentence to my third master’s thesis, in which I mathematically proved that insult added to injury equals fun. I know what you’re thinking–how does the Coase Theorum play into this? That’s something I’ll save for our first date 😉

What I’m doing with my life
I really enjoy my job–I get paid to think all day. I do Indian law and commercial defense litigation.

I’m really good at
Casting a broad net. I’ve developed skills in SQL and asp.net, languages, law, gymnastics, fitness and nutrition (certified ACE during law school), and lolcat.

I grew up in Denver, went to undergrad here in Seattle, studied abroad in Spain, worked in DC and San Fran, and went to law school in Charlottesville. I opened a champagne bottle with a saber in Slovenia.

The first things people usually notice about me
My cape.

Also, I walk fast. Maybe it’s billing to the nearest 6-minute mark, but I hate inefficiencies. Why walk slow and/or block people that are actually trying to go somewhere (me)? I might “accidentally” elbow slow people when I pass, hoping that they might wonder if they shouldn’t be going a little bit faster or being more cognizant of their surroundings.

Favorite Books Movies, Etc
Books: Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce
Movies: Rudy, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, About a Boy, Hable con Ella
Shows: Cougar Town, Arrested Development
Music: Nena Daconte, Alex Ubago, Juanes, Hilltop Hoods
Food: I like good food and good wine. I watch what I eat, but don’t have issues with indulging occasionally.

The six things I could never do without
Cats
Gym
Rhinestones
Heavy Muscle Radio
Calle Sesame
Slovenia

I spend a lot of time thinking about
What is Britney up to? Will Keynesian economics work for the Obama administration? What day is it?

On a typical Friday night I am
pretending I don’t speak English at a local bar.

You should message me if
To limit future inquiry from, to quote Old School, “the guy who probably won’t get in,” here are answers to some of the more frequently asked questions:

-yes, I can do over 50 real pushups;
-no, I don’t care or find it alluring that you feel you could beat me up;
-yes, everyone, including me, has heard of crossfit;
-Jan Tana.

-I’m looking for college grads and grad degrees. Just personal preference.

Seriously? She challenges people to push up matches on a first date? Umm, how f’ing childish is that? And she is a match for me?

Life should be fun. That was the first sentence to my third master’s thesis, in which I mathematically proved that insult added to injury equals fun. I know what you’re thinking–how does the Coase Theorum play into this? That’s something I’ll save for our first date So is that before or after the push up contest? But I guess it is good for her that she likes to workout because she also states she likes to start fights.

Its not OKCupids fault really. It can only go off of answers a person supplies to the various questions and the pool of AW is what it is. However, I’ve not exactly been thrilled by the experience so far. “Matches” like that don’t leave one with much confidence that there is anything out there.

POSTAGE FAIL!

I totally failed to put in the link to the original article for the prior article on Holly Hill. I have corrected that at the top of the item. Sorry all!

Internet Dating

Its amazing how predatory companies are towards the male desire for companionship. When one looks at any site that doesn’t require money to set up a profile you are about 50 times more likely to see a spam account than the account of a real woman. Simply put, this woman is not on yahoo looking for dates

Or alternatively, you will get a foreigner, often from Russia. Fortunately the Russians are easy to spot by their grammar, such as

I young, beautiful, self-confident, in opinion the girl. I love tenderness calmness, romanticism!
I hope to meet the fair, decent, benevolent, strong person, for the serious attitude. Loving children, equality to an opposite floor. It would be desirable to find the best the man to divide the incorporated dreams of desire and the safe partner in our life.

Problem with these is the ridiculously good looking pic attached to the profile probably IS that girl, but she is in another country and you’d have to pay to bring her over here.

There are other sites. Someone once mentioned Backpage, so I looked it up and all I can say is, wow! That’s like prostitution central! I didn’t know there was a site to advertise such “services!” So all that is left is Craigslist, but this is mostly spam. It doesn’t matter what you put on there you get spam. Put an item up for sale and you get spam. Put up a resume and you get insurance companies trying to recruit you because of your “unique” skills that will just ensure your success. Put up a personal ad and get porn and dating sites. Once I even got a pic of a buxom, Hooters shirt wearing chick who was holding up a hand written piece of paper with the days date on it.
I was suspicious because the file name was the days date. Sure enough I got a response the next day with that days date. I have to hand it to them, it was pretty clever and I bet it took in a lot of guys.

But occasionally you get a real woman on there. They are almost always single parents. Of course its a bit hypocritical of me, a single parent, not wanting someone else who has kids but I have already had to go thru the whole idea of raising someone else’s child and am grateful that I don’t have to and that I was able to realize that doing so would make me rather unhappy.*

The other commonality is that their posts usually begin with saying they are a BBW, but I don’t think that these women know what that means as evidenced by their posted pictures. BBW means Big BEAUTIFUL Woman. Two out of three just doesn’t cut it! Some of them truly are beautiful, most of them are just big. I think if I ever put up another personal ad I am going to list the max diameter that I can wrap my arms around because I really don’t think that a woman should ever be bigger than that. Is it really too much to expect women, who are usually shorter than men to weigh less than they do? Seriously, I don’t weigh 200 pounds and if I am 4-5 inches taller… It’d be like dating a butterball turkey, but at least with the butterball you get both dinner AND leftovers. How about not drinking a half bottle of wine with your double serving of lasagna. Or stepping AWAY from the double whopper with cheese, king size fry and diet coke. (I used to work at BK, that actually happens a lot!)

And I see that this is devolving into a rant and that I seem to have forgotten the opening of this whole post. Spammers and scammers and legitimate companies all play upon the strong male desire to find companionship (some would say for reproducing) and finding your way past that maze is difficult. And its not just teh internets of course. Sex is used to sell basically everything but Bibles nowadays, tho I am sure that if Bibles were advertised on TV it wouldn’t take long to sex up those ads too.

*I thought I would expand a bit upon that. Raising the children of a widow is something that I could do as it is a totally different set of circumstances and issues as well as a Biblical ideal if not a commandment. A big part of the raising someone else’s kids is that, statistically, the woman broke up the family and any remarriages have an even higher rate of divorce than the first which is currently at 50%. I don’t want to risk losing my children to a woman who has already proven that she can and will break up the family.

Wives: Submit To Your Husbands

Wow, such a simple saying, and yet it has made international news. The short story: A vicar in Britain, rather than give some mushy ear-tickling sermon, on the sunday prior to Valentines gave a sermon that included the verse that wives should submit to their husbands. Terribly controversial I tell you! From the article “One woman churchgoer said she was ‘disgusted’ by the sermon, adding: ‘How can they talk that way in the 21st Century?’ Disgusting I tell you! Apparently numerous womyn and their mangina enablers are never coming back to that church. So sad…

Know what is funny? Supposedly Christian women will flat out REFUSE to submit to their husband saying that either they just won’t do it or that “no one is going to do that anymore” but then go down a couple lines and claim that men have to love theirs wives because THE BIBLE SAID SO! The disconnect is striking, but they don’t even attempt to address it.

But there is some hope offered at the end of that article: A woman of 24 who was at the sermon said: ‘Isn’t it a vicar’s job not to tell you what everyone wants to hear and what society says, but to help explain the Bible says about issues?’ This young lady has the right idea. The Bible has much to say on our culture and the Church needs to start reading from it. They might lose lukewarm “supporters” as those mentioned above, but will regain a power that the Church hasn’t had in quite some time.

How Feminists View Marriage

Crime Reporter: Man Had Sex With Wife Thousands Of Times Before Killing Her

Another example of how men oppress women. And over a period of 10 years! The horror of it all.

Dating: 8 Red Flags

I’ve come across an interesting site called Shrink4Men and have been reading thru some of the posts there. I came across this post titled “8 Red Flag Dating Phrases that Should Send You Running” Some good info there and some of it should be patently obvious. Like the woman who refers to herself as a princess, or as a drama queen. Those shouldn’t even need to be said but I recognized some things in my PEW

6. “All of my ex-boyfriends/ex-husband(s) are jerks.” Wow, yeah. It wasn’t quite that they were all jerks, but that nothing was her fault. Now it is me that is the supreme evil one. I am now the source of all of her problems, even things that happened before we met and certainly everything that is wrong in her life now.

7. “I don’t speak to my father.” I would add to this one the relationship with mother as well. PEW definitely did not have a good relationship there. Not the worst by far, but some serious issues. Also, Shrink4Men brings up how the mother treats the father. I think that is a good thing to look at because there were some signs there as well that I tried to work with her to correct but damage was already done and at any rate was too late for me.

8. “I like it when the man makes the plans.” S4M notes on this one “For instance, she expects you to make all the plans and you inevitably choose something she doesn’t like. She then gets to tell you what a disappointment you are and you “never” do anything she likes.” Oh how I HATED this one. It was especially bad after marriage. She wouldn’t choose ANYTHING. Didn’t care what we did, didn’t care where we went to eat. Didn’t care if we stayed in or went out. But of course I was expected to know what it was she wanted despite her steadfast refusal to even voice a preference. So of course I could not do right because I hadn’t an inkling of what was wanted. Talk about a breakdown in communication! I don’t think this one is too obvious, but if S4m is right. If she is one that wants the man to make all the plans, that should certainly be a big warning sign that needs to at least be looked at.