Things I am Learning About Online Dating
In no particular order:
1. There is no conceivable way in which I can go out with everyone who wants to go out with me. This is baffling, in that there are approximately as many men as women on the planet, and the laws of time should apply to both of us equally. Ergo, the expectation would be that I could go out with approximately as many people as want to go out with me, because with an even divide among genders and an equal amount of time, theoretically it should work out. But I can't. Either I am wildly popular or men violate physics. Choose your favorite and run with it.
2. For this reason, it no longer makes sense to go out with people who don't:
a. Meet my minimum requirements
b. Have at least three interests in common with me.
Enforcing these rules probably makes me sound like a raving bitch (no, I won't go out with you unless you can name three things we might have in common. Deal with it!), but it does act as a great time saver. (In addition, people with normal social skills seem capable of a) not messaging when they don't meet my requirements and b) mentioning things we have in common, so that enforcement is unnecessary.)
3. I know fully well that a generic guy is messaging me because he finds me attractive and wants to have sex with me. There is no conceivable other reason to message someone on a dating site. (Unless, I suppose, he is an extremely odd duck who saw something on my profile that he is deeply curious about so is popping in for an exceedingly specific question.) These things are so obvious they do not need to be stated, and those who state them in a message show an overwhelming lack of social sophistication. Since I value social sophistication, these are automatic deletes.
4. Being brutally blunt is a suprisingly good strategy. Evil profile is both more fun and seems to be attracting more interesting people than good profile. (Also, people who try to explain to me how I ought to improve my evil profile are freaking hilarious.)
5. Liking people is more effective than messaging them. It's faster, and if they feel so inclined, they will message back. Messaging men also seems to freak them out for some incomprehensible reason, although occasionally they do respond. Just none of these responses has resulted in a date, while liking people seems to have a pretty good hit rate. Why? No idea. Possibly, yet again, men violate the laws of physics.
1. There is no conceivable way in which I can go out with everyone who wants to go out with me. This is baffling, in that there are approximately as many men as women on the planet, and the laws of time should apply to both of us equally. Ergo, the expectation would be that I could go out with approximately as many people as want to go out with me, because with an even divide among genders and an equal amount of time, theoretically it should work out. But I can't. Either I am wildly popular or men violate physics. Choose your favorite and run with it.
2. For this reason, it no longer makes sense to go out with people who don't:
a. Meet my minimum requirements
b. Have at least three interests in common with me.
Enforcing these rules probably makes me sound like a raving bitch (no, I won't go out with you unless you can name three things we might have in common. Deal with it!), but it does act as a great time saver. (In addition, people with normal social skills seem capable of a) not messaging when they don't meet my requirements and b) mentioning things we have in common, so that enforcement is unnecessary.)
3. I know fully well that a generic guy is messaging me because he finds me attractive and wants to have sex with me. There is no conceivable other reason to message someone on a dating site. (Unless, I suppose, he is an extremely odd duck who saw something on my profile that he is deeply curious about so is popping in for an exceedingly specific question.) These things are so obvious they do not need to be stated, and those who state them in a message show an overwhelming lack of social sophistication. Since I value social sophistication, these are automatic deletes.
4. Being brutally blunt is a suprisingly good strategy. Evil profile is both more fun and seems to be attracting more interesting people than good profile. (Also, people who try to explain to me how I ought to improve my evil profile are freaking hilarious.)
5. Liking people is more effective than messaging them. It's faster, and if they feel so inclined, they will message back. Messaging men also seems to freak them out for some incomprehensible reason, although occasionally they do respond. Just none of these responses has resulted in a date, while liking people seems to have a pretty good hit rate. Why? No idea. Possibly, yet again, men violate the laws of physics.