In a sign that I have reached a new personal low, I’ve been using some of these online dating services. This is because everyone I know is 15 years younger than me and no one will date me. I am a creechy old man in my own social circle. Whatever with me. It’s not happening.
I have some observations about these services. Please note that my feelings about this are not to be held as representative of my feelings about women, human relations, sex, or any other Great First Principles. I’m bitter and misanthropic about all that too, but not today. Today we have:
- People suck.
- On most dating services everyone is “down to earth”, “sick of the games”, “fun”, “loves to laugh”, and “wondering if anyone is out there”. Also, “tired of the bar scene”. Shut up, shut UP, SHUT UP.
- If everyone who said they liked the outdoors on personals did, we’d have no one indoors. You’re all a bunch of couch potatoes and liars.
- Please don’t say you’re a princess. No one is a princess. This is America, we did away with our aristocracy a long time ago. We’re all just folks.
- Women my age (see last post) for some reason all seem to have big poofy blonde 80s hair. I can’t deal. I know this is unfair. I just don’t want to go on a first date with someone who looks like the real estate agent on my free notepad.
- I am obviously still 23 (see last post) because only younger people seem to make any sense to me at all, at all, at all. People my age are all about money and stupid middle-class hobbies.
- I shall now give up because I will never ever get a date this way; I am not an athletic, outdoorsy prince who loves to live and laugh and wants nothing more than to cuddle with a movie and his princess. If anyone meets someone like that, please kill him for me.
The exception to these rules is nerve.com where everyone is a Public Radio-loving, left-leaning, ecowarrior-vegenazi who likes indie this and alternative that and fight the power. These people all hate me also. I tried matches with several likely looking people and I got my first rejection approximately 30 minutes later. Forget them; they’re all a bunch of new age hippies anyway with Free Tibet stickers on their SUVs.
If i sound bitter, it’s just because I’m really bitter. 🙂
P.S. Anyone whose listed last book read is by Tom Robbins should be used for BAIT CHUM.
Be My Blog 
You mean to say…
…you’re not using FRIENDSTER to do some ROMANCE NETWORKING???
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Re: You mean to say…
I sentence you to 36 hours in a turkey processing plant with Cory Doctorow.
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Re: You mean to say…
[3-pointer noises]
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Unless you fit somewhere into societies norms, dating services are not for you.
You need to find people with the same interests as you, and go looking for people the same age with those interests.
Luckily, LJ has helped a lot with that for me.
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No bait chum here, I can assure you.
Not sure how long you’ve been using the dating service. It can be a maddening experience. Yet, that is how I met my wife.
It is a pain in the as being single out there, good luck.
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My one Internet dating experience involved a woman who couldn’t walk up a 10% incline for a quarter mile without getting winded; who changed my date plan around so we could go to her friends’ baby shower; and because I’d never been in the area before that, and my reservations for dinner were shot, when I let her pick the restaurant, she picked Arby’s!
I think we should create a site, call it realpeoplepersonals.com or something, and do background checks on people before allowing them in, or making someone on the site vouch for what they say. You can’t be yourself when you do online personals – I found that out the hard way.
And then I found that the joy I was seeking from online personals was in a friendship I had abandoned long ago…
Clearly, I’m bitter.
PS: I like the outdoors. I just happen to love the indoors. Anyone doing Internet personals has to spend some significant time on a computer. Take That, Common Sense!
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I clearly am not normal but I’ve had ok luck with Internet dating, even HOt or NOt, believe it or not. Well, it hasn’t been any worse than men/boys I’ve met other ways anyway.
The people on Nerve.com are mostly just as shallow as any other site, they are full of shit.
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Ugh.
And then there is some ugh, too.
I too have face-planted on the metaphorical concrete of onlien dating networks. Generic sites, regional sites, The Onion, Nerve (you speak the truth), and the worst of the lot — Christian Dating Sites.
eHarmony.com, for example, makes you fill out a freakishly naive 200-question personality profile that reads like a cross between a precious moments ad and a purity test. Then it automatically matches you with ‘compatible people.’ I never realized I was so compatible with 20 year old Mary Kay consultants from Wisconsin.
I gave up and started writing profiles like, ‘My hobbies are Jesus, cheetos, and snowpants. I have gills. Please reply in Esperanto.’ The results haven’t changed.
Well, that was a narcissistic little aside. But yeah, the point being that you are far from alone in your bewilderment and annoyance regarding these things. We should start a good site. And make… lots of money. Yeeaaahhhh…
-v
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You’re 100% right about Nerve.com.
and any woman who seriously refers to herself as a “princess” needs to be taken out. not taken out for dinner, just fucking taken out.
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My mother has been on the internet dating thing for quite a while. Actually, that’s how she found our favorite tattooed schizophrenic. For some reason, she refuses to come to the same conclusion that you (and any rational person) did.
I’m glad your not wasting your time with that nonsense.
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whats wrong with T. Robbins, if i may so inquire?
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I really think his writing is a lot of wanking and he’s a terrible influence on writers. Plus he thinks he’s funny and he’s not.
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Well, I liked the one book I read of his about 10 years ago, but he is indirectly responsible for the Worst Uma Thurman With Giant Thumbs Movie I’ve ever seen.
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I like SUVs, money, power, control, blond trophy brides, and golden showers. No smokers please.
I cannot say anything one way or the other about dating services because my two experiences when them were: (1) I was sent a “please join” form letter with application, which I filled out in crayon and taped to the wall. It was later thrown away. (2) Viewed through the prism (or funhouse mirror?) of Technopagan’s stories and experiences. (3) Reading the “unconventional” personals sections at the end of OC Weekly aloud to friends.
Anyway, if you think of a good way to make an internet dating service actually WORK, I am sure you have enough programmer friends that would volunteer to help implement it (myself included). “Build a better dating service, and the women will beat a path to your door.”
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Coding is the answer!
Anyway, if you think of a good way to make an internet dating service actually WORK, I am sure you have enough programmer friends that would volunteer to help implement it (myself included). “Build a better dating service, and the women will beat a path to your door.”
Allow me to smile at this, a typical geek reaction : “it doesn’t work! Let’s code a better solution!”
Coding a dating matching is simple. “All” you need is to match up criteria as closely as possible. The hard part is GIGO. Garbage-in, garbage-out. Most folks seem to put garbage into their dating profiles. The results are therefore garbage. More coding won’t solve this, because it’s a social problem.
-Philip
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Re: Coding is the answer!
Actually, I was not referring to “better algorithms,” but a better paradigm. The maths for determining probability of compatibility between people are pretty simple and straightforward. You can throw in more complex probability computations, but that does not solve much.
I was actually offering to help with (if someone can come up with it), a more intelligent way of doing this all. For example, an above comment [jokingly, I think] mentioned doing background checks, possibly by having friends vouch for the person. This kind of thing has been done in non-dating circles for years (PGP key signing, PKI Certificate Authorities, etc), but I have only seen it applied to the social community recently (Friendster).
If someone were able to come up with enough things like that to break out of the current problems with dating services, they might come up with a service useful for “the regular Joe” and not someone who is lying through their teeth to sound like an Adonis. I do not pretend to know the answers of what would be better, I was just volunteering to help with a project that will probably never happen. 😉
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The TOM ROBBINS thing
Is that why you wouldn’t give any book suggestions? Because I’ve read so much of him? I THOUGHT WE HAD SOMETHING!
I’m not far enough away from the mean age of my present social circle to be a creechy old man, so I am another sort of dating undesirable: the big brother. Whether I am related to you or not, whether I have assumed this role with you in particular of my own free will or not, whether I can stand your guts or not, I am somehow this big brother to all. Sometimes it bothers me, but not much. What bothers me more is the moment of realization that these people can often be more stereotypically annoying kid brothers/sisters than my little sister ever was. Now I get along really well with lil’ sis. Some of the others just make me ill.
Ill, I say. It’s directly related to your first point. If you ever hear me complain about a specific subgroup of the entire human population, it’s because I’m giving the rest a break right then. One of the things that really gets me is how people can say with honest conviction how (for example) “women suck”. YES. DAMN THEIR CRAZY BITCH-MAKING CHROMOSOMES. I HATE THEM SO MUCH. TOO BAD I LIKE BOOBS TOO AND WITHOUT THEM WE WOULD STARVE AND NOTHING WOULD EVER GET CLEANED. OH, AND WE’D HAVE TO HAVE SEX WITH OTHER GUYS HEY! DON’T TOUCH ME, FAG!
Pardon, where was I? Right, people suck. And while I, like many people, use some broad indicators taken from experience to help me out with everyday interaction (and sometimes I find I slip towards using stereotype, disappointing myself more than anyone else), I try to let individuality shine through. And sometimes it does so very well.
Age is one big factor on nearly everyone’s mind, isn’t it? I know people in their 50s who are frighteningly immature. I consider most people around my age to be unreliable sex and party junkies. And the younger ones don’t know what they’re doing, have no respect, and don’t care about anything even slightly below the surface. There are a few good ones out there, though. There must be. And when you find a good one, you may be pleasantly surprised.
I think it boils down to this: they hate me too, but at least I have enough sense to hate them back. Hell, most of the time I was quick enough to hate them first.
And now I’m not even sure why I typed all of this.
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Re: The TOM ROBBINS thing
I would like to add that, at 38, I am frighteningly immature. I aim to be even less mature by 50.
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You lie
I think you are quite mature, but you are treating it as a dirty word when it shouldn’t be. Moreover, I consider you childlike (which is good, as opposed to childish, which is bad).
Growing up doesn’t mean you have to be solemn all of the time. You’re one of the good ones.
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Re: The TOM ROBBINS thing
Also at 38, I’ve basically decided to ignore immaturity and maturity altogether and just float.
Still, I have to admit, I liked the one Robbins book I’ve read. Maybe that’s because I’ve only read one, though.
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Re: The TOM ROBBINS thing
Though I am not in the same situation, I end up feeling the same way you do about people. Well said.
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Perfect!
When you made this comment, I read the email LJ sent me and that was all. Only now do I look over the entire thread and see the userpic you used. Well done.
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Re: Perfect!
Thanks. It’s one I’ve had since I started my LJ.
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I have nothing to say except the things that I always say which aren’t really useful unless I had a lot more money or something. POOT. *hugs*.
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fave on-screen sex scene: the “hi-ho” scene in Snow White
yo, i met my afianced throught my food bitch what met him through salon personals. now he is my bathrobe or whatever that word is. and i am a queen which is why i just waited for the food bitch to bring someone good home. and i love the outdoors. i used to live out there. i hated the chihuahuas tho. damn smelly insects. anyway, my food bitch always say “everyone sucks! humans are shit!” i don’t think the people online are any worse. food bitch had a lot of bad dates with guys who would claim they were like 5’9″ and they’d show up and she’d be looking down at them and she is like a midget. and they’d say they were her age (38) and they’d show up and be short and as old as her dad. and then they’d try to compliment her by claiming she were smart! and she ain’t. but they were more stoopit. i gotta agree, overall, people are shit. and then there was the guy who claimed blade runner was his favroite movie and _he’d never heard of philip k. dick_. him she had to kill. it was a quick humane kill, which were rather kind of her considering.
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I actually met my girl friend on a Jewish dating site. Of course I had to wade through a sea of dates from hell first before I met her. The secret to online dating is: Dont date anyone over the age of 33 who has never been married. There is a reason they have never been married.
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Thanks, I’m 38 and never been married. 🙂
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I should clarify my last comment…..do not date women over the age of 33 who have never been married…..There is something wrong with them…..This rule does not apply to men. Since most women would just say there is something wrong with all men, it is inherent, and therefore inconsequential in this case.
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