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

I thought "gulp" was a nice typo! Like "eep, gulp" :)

i should be spending this time just walking around my neighborhood and saying hi to every pretty girl with a small dog i see

i'm glad to hear it's working out for people though and it was cool to see everyone's profile

Window shopping IRL just feels impossible at my age. Most people are already partnered and I am horrendously bad at telling if they even have the right orientation for me.

I know I should get a decent haircut and fix my tooth and get some nice clothes instead of going around like a dirty dronerock schlump. The problem is, none of these things mattered when I was thin, but once you are no longer thin, being a dirty dronerock schlump is no longer a charming affectation and now an actual character flaw indicating severe laziness.

I've always been lazy and scatterbrained, it was just somehow more acceptable to others when I had less body fat. IDGI.

thanx for summing up my life WCC

except, y'know, not the dronerock bit

Also, that thing that Laurel said a while ago, about only really being attracted to people who make you nervous and give you the little flutter of nerves and "can I really pull this off?" in your stomach like looking at a cliff path you don't really think you can climb (until you find yourself on top of it) - OK, maybe that wasn't the exact metaphor she used. But something like that. It's very hard to shake that "I don't deserve this" feeling.

But it's like guilt, in that it's a negative emotion which is actually strangely pleasant to experience.

Really need to grow up and out of this.

I just realised how unintentionally dirty that metaphor looks in hindsight and I'm kinda smirking at it.

i'm finding what's difficult is coming across single people who fall into my allowable age bracket - i.e. very late 20s and up - who i can talk to long enough to find out whether i like them or not. work is a no, pubs are usually a no, i really don't wanna join a sewing circle cos i don't have the dexterity.

i have no idea why anybody would be more deserving of relationships than anybody else esp since a lot of succesful, talented, attractive, desirable, rich and famous people have shitty relationships too

Gee, now where might I get the idea that fat chicks, and older chicks, are totally disgusting horrible not quite even human things utterly undeserving of a relationship? Honestly, I can't think ~where~ that idea might have entered my head. Maybe I dreamed it?

well you did just type it out so most recently it entered your eyes and head that way

Btw a great way to meet people in a low pressure but active type way is photography

Also it makes for a great date esp if you have similar interests eg urban/street photography, well anything outside!

my comb filter broke on my canon and i can't afford to fix it or get the fuji i want

:-(

i bought a camera last month!

i was planning on taking pictures with it tho, hadn't considered it a dating tool.

"as a"

If there's one thing that is attractive in a person, it's seeing them DO something theyre into

Photography is good because two people can be doing at same time without getting in each others way and it also combines well with a) walking b) stopping off at pub c) comparing results after development, comparing cameras and styles etc

I know I should get a decent haircut and fix my tooth and get some nice clothes instead of going around like a dirty dronerock schlump. The problem is, none of these things mattered when I was thin, but once you are no longer thin, being a dirty dronerock schlump is no longer a charming affectation and now an actual character flaw indicating severe laziness.

I've always been lazy and scatterbrained, it was just somehow more acceptable to others when I had less body fat.

Oh come on. Lots of fat women have are happy and have happy partners and have found, and deserved, and cultivated love--I do this too, where I beat myself up about my options (frequently in this thread, holla!) but it's probably good to try to at least acknowledge that you're beating yourself up and not reflecting absolute reality. (I know this message of undeservingness is out there but it's not true, c'mon, you know that!)

You could get a decent haircut and some new clothes because it's GOOD for you to let yourself be kept up like a person, because you can afford it and you have the taste for it and it shows other people, outwardly at least, that you invested something in yourself. It might be rote at first because you're used to disliking your appearance and trying to X it out of existence by ignoring it, but after a bit you might find that you LIKE your new clothes, that it feels DIFFERENT to face the world as a person who is worthy of her own attention & respect & stuff.

That post brought to you by my having woken up at 5.30am on my day off, oh hell.

You are v v good at making sense, Laurel. And v v good at being inspiring.

I wish you were the person that ran television shows and magazines etc. who just stood up and shouted "be awesome!" because you would be amazing at that. If you did a dating show, I would buy a television just to watch the hell out of it.

Aww! Hahaha. I would just spend my show yelling at people and lecturing them to be sensible abt things, advertisers would hate me.

Dude, you have highly developed taste in art and music and style, and your eyes and your brain are attracted to artistic, stylish people of all sorts--it's time to acknowledge that you are one of them! It's not about achieving "beauty" in the sense of the kind of beauty that is manufactured and marketed to us, because that's impossible for nearly everyone and so boring anyway, and is attached to youth and availability and tons of garbage, you know what's up with that already. So yeah, reject that shit but don't reject yourself with it?

Advertisers would hate you but viewers would flock to you in droves, and force the advertisers to change! It would be awesome!

Maybe we should adjourn this to a "teach me how to have style" thread because I hear you, but I'm just having trouble with it right now.

Yeah, find a thread on ILS that fits, maybe the "style goals for 2012" one or sthing?

The question where I say that, yes, nuclear war would be exciting sure is dragging down my match percentages.

But think of the zombies!

I think I said yes to that one to but caveated it with a comment of "in the Chinese sense of "interesting"", haha. I caveat a lot of my replies. Theyre all so non-binary and yet have binary answers! "what do you prefer, passion or dedication?". How about BOTH!?

Not that it matters anyway, I'm just not caring about okc anymore after what just happened.

Here is a strange question that is probably v v stupid of me to ask. And yet I am asking it anyway.

How do you tell if you are attracted to someone? My attraction radar has been turned off for so long that I'm not actually sure how to read it any more.

...

if !(a>b) GOTO END

ok when i'm around someone that i'm attracted to there's a voice in my head that says LOOK AT MEEEE LOOK AT MEEEE LOOK AT MEEEE

OK, sorry I asked. Never mind.

on the other hand, if i'm around some people that are subjectively "attractive" but that i'm not attracted to (for example all this girls at the beach) i might check them out but i don't particularly care if they notice me or not ... and if people are not attractive to me i won't check them out and i don't care if they look at me

BUT there's two things

1) you might not have the same reaction as anybody else on earth. everybody feels attraction differently and it's nothing if not an intuitive and personal thing.

2) if you don't feel it maybe it's not that your detector is busted (i guarantee it's not) but that you have other things on your mind right now

things can be confusing in the field, no doubt - but why go forward if you're not sure?

I've owed someone an email for 3 days and I keep not feeling like even engaging with the site even though it's not the poor guy's fault. Thinking of it as an obligation to knock out a message in the "right" tone with the "right" references and be sparkling and challenging is wearing me out before I even start. I know, that's the wrong approach! But there it is.

just ignore him, i'm sure you won't be first or last

Getting overly caught up in replying and I know I shouldn't do that, should try to meet up as soon as establish they're ok so that one doesn't create unreal expectations. This way madness lies.

Done. I may even have been charming, although I can't even tell anymore. But at least I followed through with the msg.

Keeping up the right tone really starts to feel like a chore after a while, doesn't it?

haha someone was CHECKING ME OUT at 4:47 am

Sort of. I want to be real about where I am w my life & feelings right then, not falsely chipper or flirtatious or w/e if I'm not feeling it, but otoh that person also deserves a better side of me for the time it takes to write that email than some uncaring, dashed-off thing that I didn't have to engage with in order to write. It IS work, a little bit. But I'm not pursuing anyone on there atm for that reason, because it doesn't feel very compelling right now.

just curious why do you feel like you owe them anything?

Done. I may even have been charming, although I can't even tell anymore. But at least I followed through with the msg.

I feel bad not replying to messages too, but I honestly didn't expect to get so many replies and now I'm overwhelmed. I feel like this is one area where time spent on message boards benefits me greatly though, as I can dash off breezy, chatty messages without half trying. Maybe they seem pretty bizarre, I don't know.

A new wrinkle since the last time I used this service is instead of offering to meet up they want me to add them on Facebook or switch to text messaging. Not sure how to take that.

I don't feel I owe everything something, but this guy wrote a quite adept msg with wit and personal touches, obv really read my prof, left it the right amount of open-ended, etc. He did good. I would probably even go out w him if I weren't leaving town on Thurs for 10 days.

I will not add people on fb until/unless we are actually DATING. It seems like that way lies...I don't know, false familiarity? Also I want a dude to make an EFFORT to include me in his life, not just be part of a wide circle of people who get to read his shit.

I basically keep anyone on a dating site away from any aspect of my online life until we've been on at least 3 dates. And I don't even have a FB.

Ok, my profile no longer gets any responses nor does anyone even respond to my messages. I think it's time for a re-write. Anyone got any ideas?

Do you not like your profile, or is it just the not getting responses thing?

Can you do other things to change your metrics on the site - such as go back through your question answers (especially if they are ones you answered some time ago) or retake tests or such? Or upload a new profile photo? You can do lots of things to keep your profile fresh and change the people you see/see you without rewriting the whole thing.

Unless, of course you want to rewrite the whole thing?

It's been about a year of the same ol' profile.. might be time for something new.

m@nuela_wr@ught if you wanna take a look

Do I need an account to look at OKC profiles?