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

I think I just recently figured out that people are such untoward assholes largely because it's a way of acting out their own insecurities in the face of their own romantic failure - a kind of defense mechanism to repair (or at least shelter) a frail ego damaged by one's own rejections / anxieties about intimacy / inability to honestly deal with their (unmet) need to be loved. The other day I was in a really sour mood, resenting the time I'd wasted on that site, and found myself being way more critical than I would be otherwise. Of course the difference is that I never would actually tell anyone these things without merit (and even then wouldn't bother, I hope). So, if it's any consolation, these people are pretty much assholes who can't come to terms with their own vulnerability and can only project their internalized dejection outward on others they perceive as vulnerable / want to assert dominance over. It's an artificial mastery that's far more sad than anything (it's actually really depressing when you think of it), but fuck that, life's too short to waste sympathy on these assholes. Site needs an SB system is what.

moodiness is a big part of the site for me, when i bother to visit it. sometimes it's like o man look at all these gorgeous ppl; no one would ever date me. very occasionally it's like have all of them scrubbed and brought to my tent.

but really, reaching out to a stranger who is presumably looking for love just to shit on them is the essence of assholery

While I'm still in my psychology armchair, I also just realized the extent by which I, a textbook narcissist, am way more interested in maintaining the miscellanea of my own profile than I am in that of other people. I mean, I'll spend forever rearranging the order of bands I like, and then in a second disqualify someone on the sight of "phish" or whatever. There's a real perversity by which I not only create my own ideal through my own self-presentation, but by which I project myself outwards onto a profile that I can thereby take as a kind of "perfect match." But the real perversity, of course, isn't that I just create some kind of ideal for myself, but that this ideal actually lets me direct (i.e. reflect) all my libidinal energy toward it. It's like going on the site let me find true love in myself, and that in itself is an effective (albeit incredibly problematic and superficial) source of pleasure and emotional fulfillment.

Anyways, I think that thinking about the perverse psychic mechanics behind online dating has become for me much more interesting than actually bothering with it.

just got on this ting

DELETE AND RUN

RRUUUNNNNNN!

I love that dating sites have made the internet as awful for a social phobic loser like myself as the real world used to be. Before you had to write a mini-CV and find a good picture of yourself, NOT TAKEN WITH A CELLPHONE!!!!!!! and with no zits showing (why is this still a challenge, I'm almost 40), I used to meet people all the time. Ah well.

But the real perversity, of course, isn't that I just create some kind of ideal for myself, but that this ideal actually lets me direct (i.e. reflect) all my libidinal energy toward it. It's like going on the site let me find true love in myself, and that in itself is an effective (albeit incredibly problematic and superficial) source of pleasure and emotional fulfillment.

Had not made this leap, verrry interesting.

find a good picture of yourself, NOT TAKEN WITH A CELLPHONE!!!!!!! and with no zits showing (why is this still a challenge, I'm almost 40)

Ha, I totally gave up on trying to front like I don't have full Talaxian wacky skin condition. I made it a rule not to be self-effacing on my profile but I did have a warning that I am a total pizza face. I mean, I am! It hasn't seemed to be a problem? OTOH I'm a girl. Acne shouldn't be that big a deal anyway – otoh I have a crush on Arthur Russel. Why am I still typing.,

otoh I have a crush on Arthur Russel.

a poor romantic prospect tbh

look, I know!

VP of Internet company just asked me back to her place to get high, ILXors know now: obscure musical knowledge brought me to this place

did she ask you about the brown sound y/n

Van Halen never even came up in conversation! our loss.

Going to lunch with a guy who also rides a scooter, which is a first. Are two scooters enough to establish THE RAINBOW CONNECTION>>?

Ok it would have been nice to know this guy was a STILL-MARRIED DAD.

Would also have been nice to know he looked like Ron Howard's brother but tbh that's way less of a thing.

Ok it would have been nice to know this guy was a STILL-MARRIED DAD.

christ.

Erk

Arthur Russell is/was fully crushworthy

but before anyone writes themselves off as acne-4-lyfe, get some of this from yr doctor: http://www.ehow.com/about_5156748_clindoxyl-gel.html

someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection, the scooters, the dreamers, the dads

after looking at a pic of Arthur Russell and thinking he looked like a farmer I went to wikipedia and found out he grew up in small-town Iowa. hmm, yup.

Oh, yuck. I'm sorry, Crabbs. That is ridiculous. I call out dumb OKC liars for being really dumb about their dumb lies right in my dumb profile. Maybe that's why all of the shlubby dudes pretending to be 85% of the women on that site have stopped contacting me.

While on the date I thought 'I should never go out on a date again with a guy who reaches out to me first,' just because they've been inhumanly bad every time. With this one being the worst (the guy was also crabby and boring). At the end I got a fortune cookie that said You'd rather be approached than do the approaching, and I thought, 'fuck you, fortune cookie.'

OK Cupid has made me better at rejecting and being rejected. It all just seems like part of life now. I've been going on 2-3 dates a week and I feel like I'm living in a Seinfeldian world for the first time in my life.

This was the first genuinely mendacious person so I guess I should be grateful for that>?

heh, last night on my OKC date I was talking about how small my apartment was, and she was like "well that's all right, I mean it's just you, right?" and I said "yeah" and continued and then thought it odd she when added "you live by yourself?" Now I see it is because she was waiting for me to say "well yeah, except for my wife." sorry you had to go through that.

A woman approached me in a really wishy-washy way about maybe getting coffee sometime. I replied with some concrete suggestions of times, but not in a YOU WILL GO OUT WITH ME AT THIS TIME OR THIS TIME OR YOU WILL FUCK OFF way, more like these are times I have upcoming that are free, how about then? She didn't reply fast enough for my liking (until the day before the first suggested time, which now I think makes me sound like a nut), and when she did she was still noncommittal. I scrubbed the whole thing and changed what I'm looking for back down to friends and activity partners. SHE PSYCHED ME OUT. Perhaps an overreaction.

While on the date I thought 'I should never go out on a date again with a guy who reaches out to me first,' just because they've been inhumanly bad every time.

Pretty much what I always expect women's attitudes to be on that site (and understandably so), and pretty much why I hardly ever do the approaching. Thanks, douchebags, for fucking things up for everyone.

everything takes on dark significance in the absence of normal social cues, so stuff like her being 20 minutes late for your first meeting can result in crises of confidence of sitcom proportions so they should make people take OKC classes about how you should not do that, and about 100 other things that are totally insignificant in other contexts.

"Keep in touch." :\

I have it perpetually set on 'friends'. I'd just like to meet some cool people and also there's just something about insta-saddling things with romantic intent that has slowly started to squick me out. I'm open to friends+, but I'm pretty thoroughly over putting the cart before the horse in that regard (sez the dude with a dating site profile).

so is there a good beginner's guide to OKC etiquette? when to visit-back someone's profile? message? etc.

Pretty much what I always expect women's attitudes to be on that site (and understandably so), and pretty much why I hardly ever do the approaching. Thanks, douchebags, for fucking things up for everyone.

All you need to do to communicate that you're not a douchebag is not be a douchebag. If the other person fucks it up, maybe they're the douchebag. Starting out already resentful and mentally stacking the deck against yourself is nagl.

Yeah for real, I'm not really giving up on accepting advances, in spite of ironic fortune cookie.

Lots of the dates I initiated have gone nowhere, or ended in me catching feelings for a guy who suddenly disappears, or any number of other things, any number of other things that would happen whether an internet website was involved or not. Bcz ppl are cray and I am an acquired taste!

I'm not resentful towards anyone but the lying liars who make people paranoid that everyone's a lying liar. I've already explained ITT my own personal nightmare of trying to combat that mindset. I'm mostly just out of the game nowadays, so there isn't much of a deck to stack against myself.

Bcz ppl are cray and I am an acquired taste!

Feeling this, super hardcore.

There is a v cute guy who is sending me text after text but they're all in Spanish so all I am getting out of them is stuff like "~~~~~~ good ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wednesday ~~~ for example?" I FIND THIS TOTALLY DREAMY

I am so intimidated by this guy, he is bilingual and an athlete. !! Why is he even talking to me?!

Porque no? Tu eres muy linda.

Awww.

I tried to translate and he wrote back 'jajajajaja' <3 <3 <3

Aw that's either really refreshing or incredibly annoying!

The person I am currently accepting texts from puts one or two words in Ital or Fr, but I think he's just showing off. I suppose I'm suitably impressed on some level.

xp: It CRACKS ME UP when people say "jajajajaj"!

YES! Even better is when there is a facebook post that says ¡jajajaja! and below is a link offering to translate

"¡jajajaja!" is straight up adorable, but so is Crabbits so it fits.

I was thinking "jajaja..." as German and thought it kinda weird, but I guess it's laughter En Espanol, which is cute.

Yes!! I read it as German jajaja for a long time before I realized it was spanish for hahaha. It made so much more sense once I realized that.

Jumped back on board. Messaged a guy. He turns out to represent me in the local branch of my union.

you have nothing to lose but your chains

I like it when Greek people say "xaxaxa".

Not that I have been OKCupiding with any Greeks, you understand. Just wandering through chatrooms.

OK someone pls pep talk me into getting back onto this horse.

I just read so many nightmare stories on this thread that I don't even want to sign back up for it. And my ego has got bashed down so little again I can't take any more rejection.

And yet I feel like the only way to stop bloody obsessing over OfficeBoy is to MEET MORE PEOPLE and maybe meet someone who is, actually, into me, and yet that just feels impossible right now. I don't feel like that sort of person is out there any more. And it's really hard to try to establish something with someone when there is just this unspeakable lust for an unattainable person just bulldozing every other emotion. And yet I don't think this obsession is going to go away until I, y'know, have sex with someone else. Except just wanting to have sex is pretty much the worst reason ever to go on a dating site, right?

Or tell me to just give up and go away. That, too. :-/