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

You never know, I dated someone who took me to meet his parents and then a month later said he was surprised I thought he was my boyfriend.

so two irl (female) friends who use okcupid have told me that they never message first because they are 'traditionalists'

so maybe I have to start being more of a 'traditionalist' and start being a first messenger?

you basically just have to send out a bunch of messages and expect to not get any replies

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/dd/Newtraditionalists.jpg/220px-Newtraditionalists.jpg

It's time to seek out new traditions
We know where the old ones took us
And now we are all here together

gotta keep fulfilling that genetic imperative

Question for teh ladeez: when you look at a guy's profile, do you intend to message him if he look intersting, or wait for him to message you first? I assume the former?

one woman I notice has visited my profile like three or four times now and I did wonder if it was some sort "hey, message me you dolt" thing. eros apophenia I guess.

leee & f. hazel - from a guys perspective, i've gotten messaged by a ladeez maybe 3 times in as many years, but have been on way more okcupid dates than that. in other words, i'm pretty sure you're supposed to message first if you're a guy.

i just took this test:

http://www.okcupid.com/the-dating-persona-test

the results were spookily accurate. i like how the 'cupe makes setting up your profile sort of a fun game, then uses the results to help you figure out if you'd get along romantically with someone

Oh I'll always msg a guy if I really like the look of him. Ive learnt not just on OKC but in lyfe that sitting waiting is crap and pointless. Get in there.

personally i think the world would be a better place if more ladies thought like you trayce, but if you're a dude you'd probably be better off not waiting around for someone to message you, you might be holding your breath for a very very long time

This is very embarrassing, but in the past I've tended to wait for guys to message, because of a vague sense that if they were interested, they'd message first. I have messaged first, though, and resolved to do it way more this time around on the site. I messaged that union guy first last week. (It was one of the most boring dates I've had via OKC).

Yeah I had someone check out my profile several times without a message. Eventually I bit and messaged her. We ended up going out a handful of times and I found out, yes, it was a "message me you dolt" situation. She probably wouldn't have sent me a message first.

Account: disabled. I figured it was only fair after my date ended at 7.45am (again).

found a 95% enemy today

Do they have a unibrow, or at least a menacing goatee?

Mookie in my quickmatch! Very cheering :D Five stars obv.

I feel like I get a lot of 90% matches only because I hardman the liberal-bait questions (Q: "would you ever date somebody with a gun?" A: "NO" ANSWERS YOU WILL ACCEPT: NO, MANDATORY), and then I end up having nothing else in common with them

i'm my own 95% enemy.

so i'm about to head to america for a month and doing my yearly "what the hell i'll send out a few okcupid messages and see if i can't go out with an american girl again for a change" thing. as usual i start out skewing my messaging to ladies in my own age range, but once again it seems only the 25-and-under-crowd (if 2 responses makes a crowd) are even remotely interested in dating someone who isn't marriage material (ie. at least lives in the same friggin country)

i'm not really complaining i guess, but 30-somethings, where's your sense of adventure already? couldn't we just hit up some art galleries and hang out for a few weekends? does it always have to lead to a long-term-relationship?

i suppose my profile could just look better to the younger crowd, what with all the surfing and djing and not saying what my income is and stuff. or maybe it's something else?

People are just so busy... at least I am....

If I had more time to hang out with people who are not in fact romantically available, I'd have gone on a bike ride with Ian on Sunday, an invitation I had to turn down because of beef short ribs thawing in my kitchen. ;___;

Sense of ADVENTURE? Stop wasting people's time or use a site that sets you up with people for specific activities.

Hahaha, not to pile on, but why not hang out with 24-year-old American girls while you are in America? They'll want to do stuff, which presumably you also want to do while travelling. Your lack of responsibility while visiting another country kind of makes you an honorary twentysomething.

Everyone wants to do stuff--I love doing stuff! But my life is full of people I actually care about to do stuff with, is what I'm saying. If you're not romantically or geographically available for more than a one-off weekend, that's asking a lot.

On a dating website, to be clear. Presumably not on some website that had as its basis "Tourists temporarily in area to do stuff with."

Exactly! I spent a lot of time with twentysomethings when I lived in Argentina because they had more time to do whatever... the older folks had rather full lives to attend to.

Sense of ADVENTURE? Stop wasting people's time or use a site that sets you up with people for specific activities.

that's an awesome idea actually, i've heard of such things but never tried one. meetups.com or whatever is really anemic in bali unfortunately, but i'd totally try that in the states. so what's a site that sets me up with people for specific activities - did you mean meetup or is there another one you're thinking of? i googled "site that sets you up with people for specific activities" but didn't get a thing.

ps. for the record i'm in the states for 5 weekends not 1, and you guys might have noticed okcupid has options for "short term dating", "pen pals", and "casual sex" - these are the profiles i write to. also, if i've read "i travel a lot and i'd love to meet someone who can show me around a foreign country" i've read it a million times. perhaps there's a nice lady out there dying to visit the tropics but doesn't actually know anyone in indonesia?

also, i mean sorry to get defensive but i am actually feeling a wee bit piled on here so i'll go ahead and mention that okcupid introduced me to someone nice last visit home and we had a good time together - unfortunately she has a serious boyfriend now but i think i was a pleasant reboundy diversion for her right when she needed it, and everyone involved was cool with my temporary resident status.

i'm just finding that i'm not getting any responses from people my own age, and i wish i was. what, i'm not allowed to vent like everyone else on here?

you're allowed to vent

everyone else is allowed to respond

actually meetup.com looks pretty promising, thanks for the suggestion in orbit!

as a non-user i quite liked this piece on using okcupid http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n20/emily-witt/diary . maybe i'll start using. i feel i've long been on the verge but i don't know what it would take to tip me over.

That piece is pretty OTM.
The last guy I met from this, I think we're pretty much of a thing now. Weird because I told myself I would be a jet-setting single gal forever. Everyone probably gets that pretense for a while sometimes.

an ilxor suggested that I drop my [VERY PRESTIGIOUS, COMPLETELY MINDBLOWING] academic credentials somewhere in my profile. yay or nay? my instinct is nay because who would want to mess with someone who chose you based solely on that? but idk.

I vote no. If you can convey your excitement about your subject, that's fine, but 'credentials'?....

There is an OKC question that's just "do you have a degree from an Ivy or [couple other schools]" Y/N, prob at least some people in larger cities have that set on "accept only Y answers pls."

I quit okcupid!! Not because I found a boyfriend, though. It was just depressing me.

Quit quit or disabled your profile?

I'm finding checking OkCupid has become really useful and even fulfilling because it leaves me feeling really content with my involuntary celibacy. Like, I might be feeling lonely, but half an hour of checking profiles later and I feel totally reassured.

Left unsaid: you were browsing ilxors' profiles.

Stream of consciousness self debating! Great first date (she mentioned wanting to go to sold out gig), mediocre second date, horrible follow up phone call. Now I actually got two passes for the gig, do I tell her one of them has her name on it? What if she already got in as well?

Bad idea? Admit chances are low, probably gonna be so awkward even if she says yes.

Sure, just float it out to her as an option, all casual-like. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If she acts weird, move on.

Are you interested in her? If so, offer. If not, don't. If she turns up at the same place when you haven't offered, who cares? If you're not interested, you're not interested.

Well I got my first-ever IM today. To ask about a quote on my profile. So that at least answers the question "is this thing on?"

Well I'm off to meet my destiny. On a Sunday morning at a John Cage conference no less.

I was outside my home late last nite cleaning the gutters and drains in preparation for the hurricane that hits today, when an attractive young woman walked up to me and struck up a conversation - she lived down my street but I didn't know her. About five minutes later she gets a phone call, tells the caller she'll be right there, and then bolted away. I sure hope this wasn't one of those fake-call things they have to give ppl excuses to break off a real-life convo.

so did she want help cleaning her gutters and drains or what

that was the first thing i asked her, since she first wanted to know if i was the maintenance guy (the landlord all but ignores the place). She didn't want help.

My okc luck is holding, the one I thought was a long shot is the best thing I have ever had going. No clue how that happened, it certainly wasn't my doing.

Next date: Wednesday. Got that 'no clue who you are' feeling, but he's a 95% match or something and didn't actively piss me off in his profile.

It's a start.