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

I'm trying to think of who that other band. It was another case of, This should be doable, but it seems it hasn't been.

science proves that dudes emailing girls from dating sites "u r vry pretty" are perceived as crepey

I've written a few messages in the past and I felt creepy no matter what I said. I always feel creepy when I ask a girl out - it's happened so few times since 9th grade, really about four times of directly asking a girl out, and I think of the four said yes, and of those three none of them gave a crap (or were really worth giving a crap about, to be real).

loool @ 'band' being the highest

http://cdn.okcimg.com/blog/how_to_get_replies_2/interests-chart.png

Although that is probably the best way, that rush you get from face-to-face contact and saying, "I saw you and I think you're cute. Would you like to go out sometime?" And then they say yes. In a way, totally worth the not going anywhere.

Literature lowest? Jaysus.

How's it going is an unusual greeting?

xxp - or even on the phone, when you can get something of a read on someone ...

Yeah, yeah, but then you need a phone number . . .

Awkward, sorry, apologize, kinda, and probably all made male messages more successful,

Yeah, I wanted to say something about what the keywords implied, but everything I could think of seemed kind of misogynistic.

I mean, from all of the different charts. They made the process seem as silly as a lot of the profiles do.

I cannot take up Ian's advice and talk to two girls a week. I think I am going more deeply into my shell.

I've never used a dating site, so I have no idea

I mean real life.

He did, too.

Oh, I was saying I have no idea what the profiles are like ...

sarahel basically it is like a world of possibilities, 99.9% of which will not come true, it is ever so fantastical

and yeah I will reply to those emails when I am not shattered after a night out XD

possibilities in that these people get one's hopes up, or the profiles are largely products of delusionality?

both

how depressing.

the former more so. profiles are just whatever information the owner wants to transmit, therefore they represent a true reflection of what the owner WANTS to look like, which is often just as good as an objective portrait

i wonder if anyone gets any mileage out of totally fake profiles ... like presenting yourself as a zombie or something.

There are a few people I've seen who pull that sort of thing off really well. Most don't.

i think KBP tried the zombie thing

what a disaster for zombies.

I actually did a fake Ric Flair profile and zinged Dom Passantino's profile.

I'm still kinda surprised Facebook hasn't come out with some sort of super-scientific dating site that combined common interests, mutual friends, et al. It'd be better than the average because, it being your facebook and not some OK cupid profile you cooked up in two minutes at some sinful hour of the evening, it'd force people into being less creepy and more low-key. You could even have friends set you up. So much sleaze could be lost.

Frankly, facebook already has so much private information, it'd be a little scary for them to even consider this idea. and if it's opt-in, people will change their info accordingly to be sleazy and/or deceptive, defeating the purpose... At least on a dedicated dating site you know everyone is creepy and lying!

They do have a lot of info, but I think that with any site that has to do with meeting relative strangers the key is feeling like you're getting an authentic look at the other person. What gave facebook an early leg up as a social networking site what that you had to be legitimized via school e-mail. You couldn't fake the account early on - and everybody only could make one. Certain incentives for honesty and non-creepiness are essentially for dating sites.

Whatever happened to creepy and telling the truth?

That's called craigslist casual encounters.

I cannot take up Ian's advice and talk to two girls a week. I think I am going more deeply into my shell

How do men who approach women decide whether she's approachable? I've been advised to just make eye contact and smile if I might be interested and that will get an approach, but that feels like such a direct come-on.

I've been advised to just make eye contact and smile if I might be interested and that will get an approach, but that feels like such a direct come-on.

That totally works though. I have a friend who, while she's def not unattractive, gets a disproportionate amount of attention from guys. It always mystified me until I was out with her one day and noticed that she basically makes eye contact and smiles at every man she sees. I really think that's at least half of the reason ppl fawn all over her - it makes her seem approachable. I think I've always been the opposite - not because I don't like smiling but just because I'm usually too lost in my own world to think about smiling at strangers. Years ago I had a conversation with a bunch of ppl and these guys were saying that I was intimidating and not approachable when in reality I don't think I'm actually like that at all it just never really occurred to me to do the smile/eye contact thing.

smiling! eye contact! argh! what are you trying to do to us? make us engage with *reality* ?

Seriously but if this girl is anything to go by (and I really think she is given what I've observed) it really works.

But I'm against reality! I think it should be banned!

I spend my life in fear that strangers will talk to me!

Oh wait, this isn't very condusive to Meeting People, is it?

This is England, though, smiling and making eye contact with random strangers is enough to guarantee you'll be sectioned.

like drawn and quartered?

Worse than that.

http://www.britsattheirbest.com/images/cr_hogarth_rake_in_bedlam_f.jpg

(sorry, this is probably very good advice that ENBB is giving and I am being overly neurotic)

haha one of the early posters on this thread showed up on my okc suggested matches the other day

Bah, smiling or talking to people results in spirit-crushing displays of "oh christ, that fat ugly woman, like, WANTS me (well obviously), which is disgusting, and also she is clearly crazy and delusional to show any kind of basic human interest or emotion in public, I will blank her very obviously and then tell my mates how crazy and ugly she is, possibly while she is within earshot".

Much better to remain sullenly alone in the corner and delude yourself intermittently worry yrself sick over the possibility that you've only been lonely these past many years because you're not talking to them any more than they're talking to you and plus you look like a bit of a grump.

...It's ok, I like books and cats and being the crazy lady on the internet.

Ha ha, that first paragraph is totally and completely OTM.

I quit Okcupid a while ago, but about two weeks ago I made a new name and filled out my profile with honest, thoughtful answers - it existed for two full days before I deleted it again. I just couldn't risk rumors being started that I am honest and thoughtful. And also: I hate people.

aw! well like i say, okc has been good to me thus far. i think the key is to be light-hearted about as much as you can, and to engage with people of a similar bent

So update. Some girl in a not particularly close beach town looked at my profile and I was all like, Whatever, she's cute and she has an interesting profile, so I sent her a note saying we have stuff in common, would you want to discuss that? And she wrote back, Do we? Your profile is vague. Discuss. And then a smiley emoticon. And I wrote back saying what it was I thought we had in common, like all these bands she listed and books and movies and stuff, superficial stuff, and, you know, just left what I hope was a nice little note. But I guess not, because she didn't reply and so I let it and the not particularly close beach town drop.

Huh.

What is your approximate stalk-to-approach ratio?

And also: I hate people.

me too. hence no profile.

I've met an awesome girl on OKC.

Ridiculous!

Met her IRL?

Not yet but we're talking three or four hours per night on MSN, spoke for a few hours on the phone late Saturday night, send each other lads of txts on the phone and e-mails from work. And she works across the street, bizarrely. We've made plans to meet this weekend!!