Having Too Much Fun in Online Dating Platform?
You are not alone, Chump!
Despite the improbability of it; yes, it is possible to have too much fun with online dating sites. In fact, I daresay I may have had more than I can stomach. It’s my own fault for hanging around, or turning up like a bad penny, on and off dating sites since 2005. In that time, the dating apps have done little to grow out of their old algorithms or matchmaking tools, however, as the platforms mainstreamed, the landscape morphed into a cynical cyber-charcuterie wasteland of snarky women, and unbridled testosterone.
Male members frequently ‘love-bomb,’ or send out as many ‘Likes’ as the app allows, in hopes that some perceived law of averages will prove rewarding. That’s not unlike the theory of hurling feces at a wall and hoping one might stick.
The backlash of all this virtual socializing, I’ve discovered, is that the more people rely on dating sites, the harder it becomes to meet people in real life. Surveys say that a mere 19% of women in Great Britain met their spouses online, but I believe people might not be entirely truthful in those surveys. If it is said that only 50% of all single Brits have ever asked someone on a date face to face, than how can there be a mere 19% of success stories.
Dating apps, like Match and OK Cupid, rely on primitive algorithms, similar to those that were used in computer dating in the 1960’s that collect your personal data on a few basic parameters — keywords, for one, and match you with partners in proximity to you. Most users put little stock in these algorithms — data gathering that a three-year old could master. For the 18–25 group, this sort of circumspection is an utter waste of time- when they can use a swipe app, like Tinder, and hook-up.
Match and OK Cupid are ostensibly for people seeking rewarding relationships that may lead to marriage. Of course, the downside of Tinder is a rise in STDs, but one could never posit that skanks are not ubiquitous on the more serious sites.
The Lies
New and existing providers alike, must circulate alluring stock ‘fluff’ profiles to boost membership. Some are easily recognizable, others not so much. In some cases, these fakes persist for years — latter-day Dorian Grays.
With so many potential partners, thin-slicing seems to be the most economical way to waste one’s surfing, or trolling. Women with their dogs: never married, women in suggestive poses: stay back, absolute hottie — badly wants kids, or already has three at home. Always asks for suggestions in bed. Bring the money. Men showing off their materiality and machismo: insecure and likely to be mentally abusive. Big smilers — men aren’t supposed to smile in photos : especially watch out for these type. Always carry pepper spray on a first date. Always.
“A women I met claimed she caught her herpes ‘in her bathtub after she returned to her sublet apartment.’ I was skeptical, to say the least.
Not to confuse these with members who perpetually post a photo of their younger years. Technically, it’s them, but it’s not them now, or in recent memory. Almost all of women over 45 I have dated lied about their age. As a fudge factor, I add at least three years to any woman’s stated age. Men lie about that too. Add at least three inches — to their stated height.
‘A given braggadocio’s IQ is rarely greater than twice the equivalent of the length of his member.
Sites are rife with impersonators and grifters. I used to get likes from myriad women — all over the states, and always 27 years old. I’m 57. Watch out for those “out of the country volunteering …” as these will invariably lose their passport and money in the middle of the jungle, and ask you to wire money.
I once met a woman who’s profile photo glowed with a beautiful full, silky, shoulder length russet-ruby red hair, which of course I wasted no time in complementing as soon as we sat down. She had a pretty face, but not as much without the hair, which she intimated as her affliction of hypo alopecia. I felt awful for her, but I felt lousy. I did not check the bald box under preferences (yes, it was there) under hair color. Poor Dear! Bald men just look like so many walking penises to me, but it must be hard for women with no hair. It makes me think of Sinead O’Connor, or Britney swinging an umbrella. Who am I supposed to be — Mr. Potato Head?
‘Sometimes the word ‘love’ is bad fucking news.
Sites will send you profiles of members they think you might fancy. They even weigh your similarities: 97%, 87%, it’s all sounds very scientific, but in fact, all of these results are algorithmically based. Match used to show top keywords in a sidebar that you could filter people who used the keyword. They discontinued the practice. It appeared that they were tipping their hand as to how they find your ‘matches.’
The Stark Facts: Americans are fat, ugly, and stupid.
Most Americans are ugly. Especially Americans. If you disagree, I strongly urge you to travel outside the states. Don’t think so? Imagine, for a moment, each stranger you see without a head of hair, just a gnarly, welted skull covered with mottled skin and ridges. Now look at the face? “How do you like me now?” I don’t. I tried it, and I look just awful with no hair. In fact, I grow my hair long to hide my high forehead.
Worse, Americans are fat. We know 66% of Americans are overweight, and 33% of these are considered obese. For online dating members the ratio is closer to 80% overweight, and 50% of those obese. That doesn’t leave a lot of svelte or athletic looking members, despite their claim as such. These are the undateable, or at least seldom asked. They’ve completely given up on real-time meeting, in deference to the dating sites.
‘I was starting to attract ‘anorgasmic’ women. I had never even heard of them. Yeah — fuck me! — and what did I do to deserve this? I just met this person? Sometimes I’d get a singsong “what do you want me to do, or giggling. Giggling in bed, in case you weren’t sure, is a bad sign for you.
Most Americans are stupid. This epiphany is painfully redundant in the online world. To the trained eye, it’s not so difficult to judge simple-mindedness from a photo or two, without being Malcolm Gladwell. If that should not suffice, a glance at what the member has communicated in their profile will invariably betray a somewhat less than brilliant suitor. More extended reads inspire disgust, loathing- even nausea and vomiting.
‘Krikey — gimme the Moloko-plus- quick!
I once kept a sort of digital horror-show gallery of members whose utter unsuitability I’d marveled at over my early user days. I recently began again, with some startling specimens that made the earlier lot look like beauty queens. That denotes an exponential increase in the undateable in proportion to the whole. It also says that I’ve considerably lowered my standards at the bottom end. However, this bell curve has in no wise increased the number of the dateable.
From what I have seen, and women have told me — aside from misogynistic aspects, men tended to be shorter and fatter and balder than stated in their profile. Surprise! They seemed more likely to be married, and more likely to lie about that detail. That surprise no women, many of whom outright refuse to broker any such duplicity
As in real American life, ugliness. It is ubiquitous on the dating sites. The over reliance on using photos as a vehicle and measure of attraction is superficial and hollow, but that’s what first impressions online are all about. Especially when people struggle to make attractive and, enticing profiles. There are, naturally, standouts. After a brief feeding frenzy, these get swooped up with amazing alacrity and zeal to the point that you may never see their profile make it on and off the face stream.
For that blurred cyber-Barbie look, profiles will also feature photos touched up with auto face cleaner.‘ Many healthy complexions turn out to be injudicious use of facial auto correction apps, like Facetune, that merely blend and smear the skin areas with a broad airbrush, over natural feature and deformity with equal abandon.
“The worst five words I ever heard repeated directly after first date sex with a partner: “so, do you love me?” It takes a real fucking cunt to make such an enthralling demand. I didn’t even have time to think.
With such a dearth of talent, new standouts are subject to feeding frenzies — men IMing them with lewd, suggestive, sexist gestures that make one’s skin crawl. Unfortunately, there aren’t nearly enough good looking or interesting ones left for everyone, causing a severe impoverishment of pedigree in the constituency (membership). Many most sought after women prefer to view members in secret, than brave a feeding frenzy. This is good counsel. The male online dating ritual is not not suitable for ladies either. Invariably grinning and shirtless, in front of a car, motorcycle, boat, or bathroom mirror — the old standard: the absolute zero of comportment.
If ‘obvious’ quality goods should appear on the market, act fast — before the feeding frenzy, you know, the one when a new female hits the feed and she gets bombed with 400 emails in a day? That’s your competition. If you want to fight for that, go for it! I never, ever chase. One show of disinterest always suffices. Thus, is Internet dating the great leveler: any swinging dick could be mistaken for a DOn Juan, and vice-versa.
Statistically Speaking, it’s a wasteland out there.
The constituency of profiles on any public dating site includes a smattering of characters and profiles of which only a molecular subset of which I ever found worth pursuing. For example, when I was a Match member, in 2006, I began with a choice of +2,000 women in New York City. I narrowed that down to slim women, living with city limits,with at least a high school diploma, for a grand result of 300, or so. I filtered next for marital status, religion, etc. The remainder was about 20. Of these 20, only 2 or 3 did I find attractive. I would date and sleep with some 15% of those I met, and established relationships with 15% of those debaucheries. Those bountiful days are long gone, replaced with snarky cynicism.
Before there was Match, there was The Nerve Personals, which was part of The Onion’s early dating platforms, now know as OK Cupid. It no longer matters, because Sam Yagan now owns both those sites, including several others.
“Barbed wire upper arm tattoo.” Not your night, Bub.
In my research, I did my utmost best to provide reliable data wherever possible, but given the inconsistent circumstances that I encountered, and my unpredictable responses and reactions, my records are spotty in places. I have deliberately left out basic details. In others, I have given perhaps too many. My intent is to convey my state of mind at the time toward the aspect of meeting people, for better or worse.
These figures are meticulously iterated and conveyed in the spreadsheet below.
It was no picnic — these dates. They were highly stressful events for me, and I spent a ton of money in meals, drinks, transport, memberships, and grief. How stressful? I soon began having date blackouts. I passed out from panic attacks on two dates, and threw up staving off another. This ugly game was finally taking its toll. I settled down — now and then — with women I got on with — but found out the hard way that I had no mind for exit strategies. They perpetually ended unpleasantly — especially the stalker — also a former family friend.
Get Smart
Don’t make this critical mistake: we all value our privacy, and are vigilant and sensitive to any trespass of that wall, yet I see thousands of daters unknowingly make it easy for creeps to discover their real identity, and probably — your place of residence. It’s quite a simple exercise:
Here’s why: the one simple mistake so many make is that they post photos of themselves that reside somewhere else on the Internet, for example, on Facebook, Instagram, or even your own professional photo from your website.
The reason this works is that all digital photo files include in their code meta-tags that show GPS coordinates of the photo location, file size, date and time, the user’s device, and other data that can be easily traced back to another file source using Google Image search. This has nothing to do with facial recognition. If you suspect a photo fits the description, copy the photo and paste it into Google Image search, and there’s a good chance you just outed someone.
Fuck Social Media: it’s a rubbish way to interact and negotiate meaningful relationships.
Social media engenders shallow, infertile relationships casually made and broken in a few keystrokes without paying no more conscience or recognizance than one would stepping on an anthill: this is commonplace on Facebook and Instagram, and such, but it is more poignantly felt from online Dating Site relationships where people are inclined to feel rejected on any number of levels, and for good reason: people can treat each other like shit online with impunity, behavior they would never consider in the real world — I believe ‘punk’ is the operative term.
This is especially true with behavior of men toward women: most of the women I’ve dated through a dating site said they were routinely objectified, abused, or otherwise aggressively and intrusively provoked by men on the dating platform — which is what you’d expect. I couldn’t fathom why they were surprised.
It works like this: when men troll the dating sites, they’re hoping to strike it rich and go for all the best looking ones at the same time, which they tend to have far higher — even idealized conceptions of. Despite there being far more women profiles than men, this setup creates a feeding frenzy resulting in a scarcity of the best selection. Most of what remains is considered undateable, damaged goods, leftovers.’
That, is the man-think of some majority of male daters over 30. The rest may fall on either side of gentlemanly or outright swinish, I really have no idea … in the aforementioned feeding frenzy, there is ever-present an inevitable vicious testosterone-driven bottleneck — at the source- the object of desire.
Unfortunately, for less virulent types, they hit the same wall that women put up to deflect those most unwanted suitors, and stand no more chance of gaining their attention. Naturally, now and then, there are exceptional men and women. But these days they are extremely rare. A 2014 founded site — MeetMindful.com, tries to change that perception. It fashions itself with the Mindfulness movement, where living in the moment, self-awareness, and wholesome living.
I appreciate certain aspects of the mindfulness movement, including meditating and healthy living. I was marginally excited at the prospect of any site not owned by a conglomerate. Women’s profiles were more down to earth, seemed like they were people I could identify with. But surprise! Despite an exquisitely curated profile, women only respond to perhaps one in fifty polite, insightful, messages, far less than their supposed lessers. Go figure.
This brand of asocialism is often associated with borderline personality disorders — people who basically toxic for anyone they have relations with.
Community?
I am an old world person, who most of my life met women before the advent of the Internet and social media. I began dating on The Onion’s Nerve Personals, where I was stalked by a Misty doppleganger, I have rode the wave from the early 90s chat-rooms, to today’s swipe-away meat markets, and stuck-up assholes.
‘In the early chatrooms, people masqueraded without photos — only an outline, you never knew who you were talking to. It’s till that way — even worse — low-life grifters.
Times have changed, but impressions are pretty much the same — you never know who you’re talking to, no matter how many selfies and likes. Only a shallow facade of one’s character can be imparted in most profiles. That’s because most people simply are poor writers, especially when inventing their persona in the ethernet. Yet, online dating site transactions are the modern replacement for real-life ones; i.e., people stop noticing those around them in real life in deference to online profiles .
Never has the concept of ‘community’ had so little context
It’s much more enticing, and easier, for people to anonymously conduct blind date screening from their living room fart-cushions, as opposed to real life interactions — to be avoided at all costs: why ratchet up anxiety and self consciousness by putting yourself out there to meet people in the real world when you can swipe away undesirable suitors with your fingernail, and never have to face the music. This fly-swatting attitude is an invertebrate level social transaction.
Ugliness is a state of mind — except for Americans, for whom it is a fact of life in so many ways.
We know people are at their absolute worst when they’re anonymous — a drive on any Interstate highway will shatter any illusions of humanity in that Hummer goosing your behind. Do you assume it’s a 225# gym rat road raging crackhead, but notice a puny 19 year old boy operator. As in real life, and so on line, you will find people engaging in every sort of unconscionable and cynical behavior without recompense, or with impunity, to the point of vily shaming someone, or posting nude photos of people without their permission.
‘Online dating has had its moment in the sun. It’s lost its former lackluster promise in exchange for rampant snarkiness.
There’s no consensus as to what percentage of couples met online, but statistics don’t give the whole picture, and miss the point, which is that you’ll burn through far many suitors online than you ever would, or could, in real life. This sort of hyper-selection invariably decreases one’s ability to negotiate real-life social transactions, other than those familiar to them, such as coworkers, and friends and family.
Men not even bothering to look at women who they rightly assume will never even notice them. Some of this is a consequence of people who simply don’t want to meet other people, but more often — it’s just smartphone mania.
Get Out in the World. Get a life.
I’m out in the world everyday. I notice who looks at who. And I found that most women aren’t looking at anyone — they’re rapt in their little smartphones, filling the void of entertainment space between work and the subway, mid-subway stair, or busy street intersection. When they are not talking or looking at it, they are holding it out in front of them, waiting for the next distraction. And you thought Americans weren’t so easily entertained.
It’s not just on the street, it’s in public places, like stores, bars, restaurants, people ignoring each other. It is so much easier to make fun of them because they’ll never see you do that. For example, on an otherwise simple, quiet walk, a blabber appears in my path. Her voice is stentorian, and she is gesturing and wrenching up her face. Just as we pass each other, I give a quick little Bronx Cheer in her ear as gratitude, and quid pro quo. You foul my purview — I sully yours. Is this what love is supposed to smell like?
