Why Online Dating= Epic Fail
My good friend bkmichele has to stay at work all weekend as the on-duty manager or something like that, so I dropped in to have dinner with her last night at the hotel's restaurant. Hey, I'm never too good to pass up free food, and I still had to bring her up to date on the adventures in North Carolina (to be chronicled in the other blog), and my newest dating mishaps (to be chronicled...somewhere).
For the time being, we're both doing the OKCupid thing, since from our combined observation there seems to be a disturbing lack of worthwhile single people in our respective work/ life circles; Michele works with a bunch of older married guys in the hotel industry, and I'm going to school with a bunch of virginal 20 year olds and mid 20-somethings in long-term relationships. Not exactly the best place for either of us to meet people, and the folks typically encountered a the bar scenes in either one of our neighborhoods are about as appetizing as a peanut butter and Brussels Sprout sandwich.
I've also been doing the Plentyoffish thing (discovered that thanks to Amy several years ago, and encouraged by my friend Kat), and have been having pretty much the same results both places:
I'll message women that seem to be saying they're looking for exactly everything I have to offer, and who should typically find me interesting or intriguing, and while I'll get a glance or two at my profile, I won't get any responses. Or, the only girls that will initiate contact with me are the same kind that would typically come up and grab my ass at a bar out here- trashy, disgusting, and usually with a couple of kids already. Notice that I said "out here." Yes, I did notice a difference back east last week. Chalk another one up to why Southern California blows.
OK, I know I'm not the slimmest guy in San Diego (although I'm working hard at getting back to pornstar body status), and I realize that everybody in Southern California is obsessed with physical appearance, income level, etc but damn. Granted, I also wish there was a class available, like an "Online Dating for Dummies" type thing, because this shit is hard. I can ask five different girls that I'm friends with for advice on how to make my profile more likely to get hits, which pictures to upload, and what to say in first messages sent out, and I'll get five different opinions. But of course, isn't that how it works with women in general anyway?
So getting back to my original point- are girls in California really that deluded to think they're going to find some gorgeous multimillionaire artist/ architect/ self-employed guru that's 7' tall, deadlifts 300 pounds, and is going to whisk them all over the world at the drop of a hat? Maybe. But then I went and found the following study, and interview, that I think helps explain at least part of the reason why I've been having virtually no success with this whole online dating experiment.
The ugly truth
In addition, I also found this interview that one of the site's founders did with NPR last year. And yes, I thought the date of the interview was hilariously coincidental as well.
Why I'm screwed
So they pretty much speak for themselves, but I'll do the cliffnotes because I know some folks won't bother reading the full articles: basically as a guy, if you're not white, you're not going to get many responses, or messages from folks, unless you're sending messages to black females. And apparently white people are the least likely to want to date outside of their race.
For the time being, we're both doing the OKCupid thing, since from our combined observation there seems to be a disturbing lack of worthwhile single people in our respective work/ life circles; Michele works with a bunch of older married guys in the hotel industry, and I'm going to school with a bunch of virginal 20 year olds and mid 20-somethings in long-term relationships. Not exactly the best place for either of us to meet people, and the folks typically encountered a the bar scenes in either one of our neighborhoods are about as appetizing as a peanut butter and Brussels Sprout sandwich.
I've also been doing the Plentyoffish thing (discovered that thanks to Amy several years ago, and encouraged by my friend Kat), and have been having pretty much the same results both places:
I'll message women that seem to be saying they're looking for exactly everything I have to offer, and who should typically find me interesting or intriguing, and while I'll get a glance or two at my profile, I won't get any responses. Or, the only girls that will initiate contact with me are the same kind that would typically come up and grab my ass at a bar out here- trashy, disgusting, and usually with a couple of kids already. Notice that I said "out here." Yes, I did notice a difference back east last week. Chalk another one up to why Southern California blows.
OK, I know I'm not the slimmest guy in San Diego (although I'm working hard at getting back to pornstar body status), and I realize that everybody in Southern California is obsessed with physical appearance, income level, etc but damn. Granted, I also wish there was a class available, like an "Online Dating for Dummies" type thing, because this shit is hard. I can ask five different girls that I'm friends with for advice on how to make my profile more likely to get hits, which pictures to upload, and what to say in first messages sent out, and I'll get five different opinions. But of course, isn't that how it works with women in general anyway?
So getting back to my original point- are girls in California really that deluded to think they're going to find some gorgeous multimillionaire artist/ architect/ self-employed guru that's 7' tall, deadlifts 300 pounds, and is going to whisk them all over the world at the drop of a hat? Maybe. But then I went and found the following study, and interview, that I think helps explain at least part of the reason why I've been having virtually no success with this whole online dating experiment.
The ugly truth
In addition, I also found this interview that one of the site's founders did with NPR last year. And yes, I thought the date of the interview was hilariously coincidental as well.
Why I'm screwed
So they pretty much speak for themselves, but I'll do the cliffnotes because I know some folks won't bother reading the full articles: basically as a guy, if you're not white, you're not going to get many responses, or messages from folks, unless you're sending messages to black females. And apparently white people are the least likely to want to date outside of their race.