Just when you thought it was safe - OK CUPID PART 3: The Return of the WOO!

god I sincerely hope I don't end up like that guy - if I do you have my express permission to shoot me

i felt that drawing a comparison between you and this dude would have been too mean even for me

Louis, I know I'm not often particularly nice to you, but you are a prince by comparison.

(Also, L, you are a prime example of someone who *is* both infuriating and endearing in equal measure, in a way that makes it actually entertaining and fun to spend time in a pub with you - and why I'm convinced that my comment was *not* the insult this nutjob seems to think it was.)

yeah I'd have been all lol you think THAT'S pretentious have you heard my music *link*

The letter certainly explains why he's failed creatively, if it makes you feel any better, K.

I actually really enjoy spending time with slightly pretentious people - if they are *aware* that they are pretentious and able to have a bit of a laugh about it. As always, it's the lack of self knowledge that is the problem, not the pretention.

I know I'm just playing sour grapes here (but after having that email blasted at me, I think I'm allowed) but honestly. If you are going to freak out that much at being accused or being pretentious, or view being a little pretentious as THAT awful and horrible and bad and negative a thing then you are going to HATE my friends and honestly, I can't be doing with a boyfriend that hates my friends?

Well, maybe it shouldn't have been posted here at all, being part of a private conversation? It did remind me of LJ a bit, though, ha.

Yeah, OK, maybe I shouldn't have posted it here in its entirety but it's one of those things that is just so o_0 that quoting little bits of it for effect really wouldn't have conveyed the full horror.

Also, I did strip out any identifying names and details.

It reminded me of myself at my most humourless, desperate and overanalytical - the parts of me I dislike, in essence. I can see how these parts might be nurtured by bitterness, disenchantment and a growing sense of non-achievement. Please let the dice not fall that way. I can make them not fall that way.

Really, it kind of confirms a lot of suspicions about people and dating - i.e. people who can fall in love *that* quickly, i.e. they are professing their undying affection after just READING YOUR PROFILE and not even talking to you - they can fall *OUT* of love that quickly.

And when they're throwing a bunch of accusations at you, they're not actually talking to you at all, but this projection they built up in their mind of what they thought you were.

i'm okcupid, you're not okcupid.

Estela, <3 So much <3

<3 back and i'm glad you're shot of that scold.

Don't worry, LJ, ilx will look after you and puncture all your bombast.

Just to contradict myself and both read and comment on someone's private correspondence, I don't think this guy sounds like a psycho or anything, just a rather pompous dude who has obviously been called pretentious many many times and instead of embracing it has retreated into defensiveness.

This on its own, however, is enough to be damning: I get the impression you’d be the kind of woman who would feel obliged to comment on everything just because you can, and not because the situation calls for it.

It totally smacks of underlying misogyny, or at least a desire to be the alpha that I can't imagine K standing for.

seen and not heard amirite fellas

Most of the bits in isolation have a point (although there are still a couple of o_O money-shots, such as the one emil.y restates, and "Perhaps now you’ll suggest that I am precious", the bits where he's really going for you sight unseen, building his own terrible projection) but together, expressed the way they are, and in this context, they're awful.

No, what smacks to me of underlying misogyny is the whole I mentioned the litany of troubled and quite unbearable women who have all but drained any faith I have in internet dating, not to step on your auto-sorority nerve, as I possibly might have done

That really ticks some of my warning signs there, that "oh noes, the sorority is out to get me" reflex, rather than recognising that an individual woman might be cautious of a man who sneers at other individual women, en masse, in an email to an effective stranger.

ah yeah that too - it's disdainful in an unsavoury way

L-Jagz I just tried to use the ILX email function to message you off board and it didn't work. (I've been having this problem a bit lately.)

um you can email me maybe? name dot name at gmail...

Will do, this afternoon, L-Jagz.

Also, I think I need to stop now because emil.y has a point, that it isn't really fair to deconstruct the email of someone who isn't here to defend himself.

I am just very very o_0 at this email, and I'm glad that other people share my reaction because this morning I was feeling very very rattled by it.

I thought 'auto-sorority nerve' was quite a clever turn of phrase. 'Troubled and quite unbearable' is a more dickish move, I think, as it takes any and all blame away from his obviously saintly self. Although if you shared your story about Mongolia-girlfriend man, I could totally see why he might be perplexed at your dislike of him sharing his own terrible date stories.

But YES, we should stop, this really isn't fair.

out of the ash
i rise with my red hair,
and i eat vegetables like air.

'AUTO-sorority' implies that Kate has no control over her impulses or beliefs imho

OMG estela <3

I didn't share the story, I just said that my reason for not wanting to "dive straight in" was that I wanted to check that he wasn't married and didn't have a girlfriend in Mongolia, or Kent, or even Canada as ha ha, that has actually, unbelievably happened to me quite recently.

I did not expect, in return, a *detailed* date post-morten of the last eight women he had gone on dates with (including sexual proclivities) followed by another kick at his ex wife (in addition to the two pointed swipes he takes at his ex wife on his profile.) This really went beyond "ha ha, here is a funny story" and into the realm of "I either have some serious issues with women in general" or "I think it's really amusing to mock other people for the entertainment of others"

And yes, I realise that this thread is turning into both post mortem of a date that didn't happen and mocking or at least o_0 of a person for the entertainment of others.

I don't find it a clever turn of phrase because I've just heard too many times before, men blaming "oh noes, the Feminist Sorority is what turns women against me, rather than my actual behaviour being in any way questionable, ever."

I meant "Kent, or Canada, or even Mongolia, ha ha, that has just happened" in point of fact. I'm riled.

x-post estela, you are so great, you have just made me laugh so hard I want that for my screen name.

And so it shall be.

DAMN

Does this fit?

lol xp

I don't find it a clever turn of phrase because I've just heard too many times before, men blaming "oh noes, the Feminist Sorority is what turns women against me, rather than my actual behaviour being in any way questionable, ever."

Okay, I've not heard this before, and probably would've been more annoyed by it if it had been something I'd experienced. I guess I was just thinking that he may have been so pleased with his phrasing that he hadn't really thought through the implications of what he was communicating. People are often either lazy or hyperbolic when they talk to others, and that can lead to misunderstandings and arguments. But if it's a generally known 'thing', then yeah, you should recognise that in your own words straight away and excise it if that's not what you mean.

People are often either lazy or hyperbolic when they talk to others, and that can lead to misunderstandings and arguments.

Given that he wasn't willing to give *me* this benefit of the doubt and projected all kinds of crap into the lazy/hyperbolic things I said... I'm not really willing to give him the same leeway. Especially given that it is kind of a thing, at least in the blogosphere I surf.

sounds like you and he are a bit too similar for a functional relationship - needs to be more complementary, probably

That is the worst insult I've had in ... wow. Quite a long time actually.

That really kinda hurts, TBH.

well, you posted upthread about his email displaying some of your worst tendencies ... i mean, i'm guessing this email could be this guy at his worst - i didn't mean it as an insult. Honestly, I didn't find his email _that_ bad, but then I'm not clear on what he was responding to.

maybe he'd be a perfect match for you, sarahel

considering he lives in the UK, no.

You know, it's kinda like, I can *see* some of my worst tendencies in JK Huysmans' Against Nature. That doesn't mean that I think I am very much *like* the protagonist of the book?

And actually, as much as I like brooding on stuff, I really don't think I should be giving this guy any more thought. It was unpleasant, it is enough.

The thing is - people have their good sides and bad sides, and a lot of behavior, personality, etc. is contextual.

When I said that K and the dude that sent the really long email might be too similar, there was no good/bad value judgment involved, just that it appears that both of you seem to share certain sensitivities to language, articulate an ambivalence to your own self-worth, have a tendency to overanalyze things, and are wary of relationships with new people based on a number of bad experiences. These are not inherently bad traits.

I really don't think I should be giving this guy any more thought. It was unpleasant, it is enough.

good thinking!

"In relation to hooting" was my favorite turn of phrase.

The guy is nuts, but let us agree to treat each new dating experience as a fresh start and not weigh it down with the baggage of previous failures and nutcases. Nothing worse than being on a date and all she's talking about is all the shitty dates she's been on!

that can be funny sometimes - if the person tells good stories.

Right, Sarahel, this guy is perfect for you. All you have to do is dye your hair red, become a vegetarian, call yourself Kate and move to the UK.

I didn't bring up any previous dates. I asked if he had a girlfriend. In Mongolia.

Coz, quite frankly, dude having a girlfriend in Mongolia is in hindsight the funniest thing that's happened in my whole OKC experience. But, mind you, maybe I just find Mongolia funny. I blame the Mungolian Jetset.

no the Mongolia thing _is_ hilarious!

Were the stories of the previous dates good stories or were they boring/ranty? If they weren't good stories, he would definitely not be perfect for me.

I just found them a bit weird, to be honest. Like, ridiculously over-detailed in a way that I couldn't work out if it was meant to be sad or funny. And one or two of them would have been fair enough, but, like, eight of them was really a bit much. And not even in a funny entertaining "Scott Pilgrim vs The World" set up but just... why are you telling me this? I've only known you three days?

I think you have to refer to it as Outer Mongolia for greatest effect! Like "darkest Peru".

the brief duration thing wouldn't bother me, but the ambiguity of the intent - the was it meant to be sad or funny part - that might weird me out, I think.