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

how do i avoid declining people in my quiver?!?!

It's when you click the "not interested" button, I think? Which is fair, I mean, you're entitled to do that! I realize I'm being irrational by taking this personally.

Haha, back in the days when I was doing this there was no "not interested" button, thankfully, as I'm not sure my ego could have withstood it.

no no i'm afraid of moving too quick but i also don't want to elicit that response

i was assuming my top matches would be like bison or something and i'm stunned to see, uh, results

m bison?

m bisonfly

There's a cute guy, who seems cool, but who is short and 38, just for the record

Now I know how to begin my profile!

Happy to help!

For the record I was trying out giving people high star ratings to see if it would encourage them to contact me, and I starred him and that's when I think he declined me. So if someone has already expressed interest and you know your chances are decent, and you reject them out of hand even though you agree on all the questions you both answered and stuff, pretty much that means I'm either too old, not hot enough, or he didn't like my essays. Which, I make no apologies for any of those things, it's just infuriating.

when i clicked on her tumblr feed i was in the background of one of her cellphone shots.

This is actually amazing.

eh i dunno it was at a show last week, probably makes sense?

Date with random woman #38 on Weds, she seems cool ie. at least as nerdy as me.

This site has paired me up with so many grad students, which is odd considering I work in a factory.

Wait, f.hazel is a dude? I have thought you were a nice lesbian for many years now.

I have made a profile on one of these sites now. It will probably be as successful as my contributions to this thread.

I had an okc profile for 2 years I kind of didn't feel like just dating lots of people to see what it was like, I just kind of wrote a profile and left it there, I didn't really like any of the profiles i saw (yes, i know, unreasonable expectations! but i had attitude of actually im quite happy as i am, i'll just leave this out there if something comes up, im not that worried about it)

The profile i wrote was extremely obtuse, i showed my flatmate and she said "NO ONE is going to reply to this, you sound unbearably pretentious", i said well yeah i know but anyone who DOES reply is going to be interesting at least, right...oh and also you think im pretentious anyway and why is that so bad?

I didn't go on a single date in the whole time, i didn't write to anyone, and i think i got 2 responses

one was from a well known activist-journalist who's been kettled a few times

that sort of goes to some of the previous posts, kind of like dont be disheartened and its ok if you don't get loads of responses and its ok to be choosy

(I realise I mightnt be best example in that i didnt go on any dates, but i mean in that its ok to do it and be open to it but als you dont have to put too much emphasis on it or become downhearted if something doesnt come through it)

Coal, you like the things you like and you're interested in the things you're interested and you present yourself the way you would want to be interpreted. It would be "pretentious" to pretend that you didn't.

I am trying to have 0 expectations. (Rather than wholly negative expectations.)

My profile is probably rather curmudgeonly, but it gives a reasonable impression of what I'm *like*. I picked what probably seems a bizarre profile photo because I'm completely windblown and unkempt (I had just wandered in off a five mile hike in Cornwall) but it's one of the few photos where I'm really smiling like I enjoy life and look like my mental image of myself.

I just don't feel like I can read any more boring profiles that say "I'm a nice person, I like a laugh and a good night out" because it's like... for fucks sake, how on earth do I distinguish you from any other person on the site? Do you want to make yourself that interchangeable? Maybe they don't want to exclude anyone. But you can't have sex with everyone, the whole point of a dating profile is to ward off the people you would want to exclude.

So I guess I end up attracting freaks, weirdoes and insane people, but for crying out loud, at least they're not boring. My life is boring enough, can't I have a partner that at least interests me?

I wonder how many days or even weeks the profile will last until I get disgusted with myself and humanity and delete it in a fit of pique.

X-post I wasn't really complaining, the last guy I dated through OKC was really genuinely interested in a relationship and I was the one to turn him down, being bi makes things more complicated.

Sounds like you are going in with the right attitude (and yes I agree it's better to write a profile that feels right to you rather than anything else. - ha I loved my profile, even tho I knew it wouldn't be partic successful)

0 expectation is the best way. Like its better to have a profile when you're NOT looking than when you are, which is why if you do get frustrated with it, don't take it down! Id that happens then justleave it there but don't look at it

Problem is, I look at my profile and think "would I date this person? no! they're a freak!" Haha.

before I deleted it I showed my new gf, she said she thought it was really funny but she would never have written to it, because there was no 'in'

I saw hers before she took down, it was earnest and sincere, v much the opposite of mine, but actually I wouldn't have written to it either, because no 'in' for me - even tho she tried to make it that way, while I didn't with mine

Not sure what I'm saying with the above!

Dating sites are rubbish in terms of giving you an idea of what the person is like?

People's ideas of what an "in" is are v v different?

I tried to make a couple of references that people would either instantly recognise it and go "oh, you like X" or write and ask "what the hell is that about?"

But in person, whether I want to date a person or not really just comes down to whether I like their haircut or not. All of the people on this site that, when I'm paging through the thumbnails just thinking "ooh, they look interesting" turn out to be lesbians. Should I just date someone who happens to be a lesbian if it turns out that a haircut is a more accurate prediction of whether I'm attracted to someone than their genitals? It's been so long I don't even know how this works any more.

(I don't even know if I'm being facetious or not any more.)

sure but you can tell the haircut from the pic, right? So your profile should have like 5 or 6 hooks or ins, then ideally someone reading picks up one of the hooks and writes you about the hook, then there's your starting ground

I think dating sites aren't necessarily a bad indicator, it's whether people are good at wording themselves or not, and a lot aren't!

I kinda love reading them, I often wonder about the people who can't think of what to say, how they view themselves

Coal, you know me reasonably well. Could you read mine and tell me if it's even remotely like me? Would understand if you didn't want to, though.

presuming you dont want it on here - link it in ilxmail

(also maybe ask a couple others? abbott?)

i've been dating this girl from okcupid and last night she revealed i'd sent a message to her housemate and best friend. cringe.

massive xpost, but I understand totally where you're coming from, Laurel. that just stung a little.

I have updated my profile to say that I am a nice lesbian.

I am so confused now.

(Not that it matters in the slightest. It's just amusing when someone who has been posting and you have been interacting with for years turns out to be a different gender from that you assumed.)

Haz, apologies for my flippancy. I am an equal-op dater w/r/t height, but I recently saw a guy's profile where he spent most of it complaining about and mocking women who specify their pref for taller men blah blah. I hadn't realized it was such a thing on okc cos I don't read other women's profiles much but maybe it is?

Also 38 is close to my age! Totally age-appropriate. What are you doing on Thursday?

so i met up with "i can't fall in love with you" guy and he feels really bad and thinks he made a huge mistake and wants to give things more time. it felt a bit like a therapy session with me as the therapist. but it wasn't a bad conversation. i'm sympathetic/empathetic to being full of neuroses, even though i've been kind of magically transformed by brain drugs and therapy to a calm rational being over the last year.

i said i was not going to commit to anything, that i need to keep my distance but that we could try hanging out and taking things really slowly. but over the course of the evening i started to think this might not be the best idea for me. i had the nagging feeling that he was evaluating me and my lovability that i couldn't shake. plus he kept checking his phone and texting with his ex and complaining about the texts his ex was sending him trying to harangue him to adopt a cat she found and it turned me off pretty hard. so i called it an early night and said goodbye.

i guess the one thing i think is cool is that we can have these therapy-esque talks about our feelings, and neither of us can really afford to be in therapy right now, so maybe we could serve that purpose in each other's lives. however it seems pretty one-sidedly about him and his issues so far. i guess i should just walk away.

unless you have the time and energy to volunteer as a therapist, yeah

ex sounds needy too

http://i.imgur.com/LOpIX.jpg

Texting excessively while out with someone is kind of a dud, but with HIS EX jesus christ man. Tell him to get a cat, embark on a voyage of self-discovery, and maybe you can chill in a year.

btw I am a big proponent of voyages of cat- and self-discovery

plus he kept checking his phone and texting with his ex and complaining about the texts his ex was sending him

sounds p chill

plus he kept checking his phone and texting with his ex and complaining about the texts his ex was sending him trying to harangue him

Please who complain abt drama are often nurturing it for their own reasons, I just saw a lot of that recently w/r/t texting exes & friends & message boards and not being able to stop responding to ppl or move on. Nagl.

if he's going to take your willingness to be understanding about neurosis as carte blanche to be egregiously and inconsiderately neurotic, that could end up pretty annoying.

texting exes & friends & message boards

brb guys, this lady just got back from the restroom, she seems to not get why I keep typing to "that ilx thing"

A fair cop, since we're quoting Python now.

No but my ex-bf used to cause/get into crazy insult wars on a music board, offending & alienating everyone and being incoherent, and then having to "defend" himself from those same people later. He would stay up all night and be miserable and useless and have anxiety attacks (supposedly) and then stay home all the next day being depressed about it. He stopped when we got together but at the end it was happening again, so... just say no to this kind of thing.

would be tempted to live blog my OKC dates on ilx thread

I used to get in the most bizarre pseudo-arguments where I would not necessarily be devil's advocate, but not really have a point? idk, the entire time period seems really bizarre and and inexplicable now that I'm older and medicated

He was a little over-medicated already.

It's a very easy thing, when already unhappy/depressed, to use messageboards etc. as an eternalisation of one's own self loathing.

Combine with poor impulse control and an addictive personality = deep trouble.

whither f.hazel goest, ilx will go.

if he's going to take your willingness to be understanding about neurosis as carte blanche to be egregiously and inconsiderately neurotic, that could end up pretty annoying.

yep, this.

pretty easy to get other people to loathe you as a way to externalize, yup

been there, done that, paid the check and went home