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

I am actually this close >< to deleting my whole account after that. :-(

I've disabled my account. I'm going on holiday next week anyway, so I won't be able to actually meet up with anyone anyway. I'm sorry, but I am actually a bit shaken by all this.

wow. uh. whoa.

I get the impression you’d be the kind of woman who would feel obliged to comment on everything just because you can, and not because the situation calls for it.

pot, kettle..?

He's quite right, that I don't KNOW what I want in a relationship. Really, I'd like to meet a person I have a spark with and who I'm compatible with, and then go from there.

Jesus, Karen. That's frightening. Don't blame you for being shook.

Yeah, it's like... I dunno. This is like my very very worst tendencies, when I'm in a bad mood and got my back up, to misread a word or a phrase and go on an ILX rant about sexism or something. Sure, if someone uses a word about me that I don't like, I'll try and explain carefully how that word is *inaccurate* or if that fails go on a bit of a rant about how it's a Bad Word. But like...

See what I mean about control? Rather than deconstruct it with questionable phraseology, you simply could have laughed.

Pot, kettle, doctor heal thyself?

I thought I made it clear in my profile that I'm a bit of a contrarian, that I enjoy debating and deconstructing things, that it is just a bit of fun because, well, I'm an ILX0r, that's how we roll.

I think I must have struck some kind of nerve, hence the scree, but seriously. There's quite obviously someone who "simply could have laughed" here and for once, it's not me.

any questions about what he was like were brushed off with "Oh, stop asking so many questions and trying to work out reasons the relationship wouldn't work, let's just dive in!"

Regardless of the rest, I'm afraid I think he's OTM here. You do not analyse a relationship with someone you've known for five minutes. You just don't.

Allow me to paste a quote a respected friend of mine said that even gave me pause:

"sometimes i think i'm a traitor to my gender, but honestly who wants to talk about their feelings after a first date?! crazies, that's who. first dates should be about sneaky glances, accidental touching, tummy butterflies and sparks. take your feelings and fuck off. sheesh." - bronte lee

Now, i'm not excusing asking general "what do you do?" questions here. I'm talking about "where will this go and what are our goals?" questions.

Theyre for later. Initial dates are for fun and letting go. Not for working out one's future.

Except, erm, I wasn't? I simply wanted to make sure he didn't have any girlfriends in Mongolia or Manitoba? That was the only thing I really wanted to make sure before I met him?

And also, like, a basic nutter check, which I think he's just failed.

He's the one who has sent me half a dozen 1500 word emails so far?

I'm trying to remember the rest of what I said, something along the lines of "I will find these qualities both endearing and infuriating" - like, this is a description of all the people I'm closest to?

Oh and massive caveat K: PLEASE do not focus on the word "crazies" in that quote, because I find that word harsh and unnessescary. The point remains, however. And I say this as a person who is a dreadful analyst myself. And it has COST ME.

ok well if you genuinely only asked him general questions, then yeah hes a prick.

In this case, to be honest, Trayce, I am quite glad that I did analyse because, from the basis of that email quoted above, I don't think this is someone I really would like to spend more than five minutes with, let alone a lifetime. (And note, *he* is the person bringing up the "lifetime" stuff, not me. I was thinking, like, dating, getting to know one another first.)

I should also note that after sending my initial one-liner "is there anyone in there?" email, I received not one but three emails in a row from him going on about how amazing he found my profile and how I'm the woman of his dreams or something because I have red hair, I'm a vegetarian and my name is Kate. It's just the volume and disproportionate reaction to stuff that is, as you point out, really early days yet that makes me think - no, KNOW - that this is not what I want to be getting into.

Yeah I get that, and it is a bit alarming.

Jesus christ, I just don't think I have the stomach for dating any more.

And also, like, a basic nutter check, which I think he's just failed.

Yes. Kate you dodged a bullet big time. That person is obviously unstable. Damn.

god I sincerely hope I don't end up like that guy - if I do you have my express permission to shoot me

also that's a fucking horrible thing to have to read

god I sincerely hope I don't end up like that guy - if I do you have my express permission to shoot me

i felt that drawing a comparison between you and this dude would have been too mean even for me

Louis, I know I'm not often particularly nice to you, but you are a prince by comparison.

(Also, L, you are a prime example of someone who *is* both infuriating and endearing in equal measure, in a way that makes it actually entertaining and fun to spend time in a pub with you - and why I'm convinced that my comment was *not* the insult this nutjob seems to think it was.)

yeah I'd have been all lol you think THAT'S pretentious have you heard my music *link*

The letter certainly explains why he's failed creatively, if it makes you feel any better, K.

I actually really enjoy spending time with slightly pretentious people - if they are *aware* that they are pretentious and able to have a bit of a laugh about it. As always, it's the lack of self knowledge that is the problem, not the pretention.

I know I'm just playing sour grapes here (but after having that email blasted at me, I think I'm allowed) but honestly. If you are going to freak out that much at being accused or being pretentious, or view being a little pretentious as THAT awful and horrible and bad and negative a thing then you are going to HATE my friends and honestly, I can't be doing with a boyfriend that hates my friends?

Well, maybe it shouldn't have been posted here at all, being part of a private conversation? It did remind me of LJ a bit, though, ha.

Yeah, OK, maybe I shouldn't have posted it here in its entirety but it's one of those things that is just so o_0 that quoting little bits of it for effect really wouldn't have conveyed the full horror.

Also, I did strip out any identifying names and details.

It reminded me of myself at my most humourless, desperate and overanalytical - the parts of me I dislike, in essence. I can see how these parts might be nurtured by bitterness, disenchantment and a growing sense of non-achievement. Please let the dice not fall that way. I can make them not fall that way.

Really, it kind of confirms a lot of suspicions about people and dating - i.e. people who can fall in love *that* quickly, i.e. they are professing their undying affection after just READING YOUR PROFILE and not even talking to you - they can fall *OUT* of love that quickly.

And when they're throwing a bunch of accusations at you, they're not actually talking to you at all, but this projection they built up in their mind of what they thought you were.

i'm okcupid, you're not okcupid.

Estela, <3 So much <3

<3 back and i'm glad you're shot of that scold.

Don't worry, LJ, ilx will look after you and puncture all your bombast.

Just to contradict myself and both read and comment on someone's private correspondence, I don't think this guy sounds like a psycho or anything, just a rather pompous dude who has obviously been called pretentious many many times and instead of embracing it has retreated into defensiveness.

This on its own, however, is enough to be damning: I get the impression you’d be the kind of woman who would feel obliged to comment on everything just because you can, and not because the situation calls for it.

It totally smacks of underlying misogyny, or at least a desire to be the alpha that I can't imagine K standing for.

seen and not heard amirite fellas

Most of the bits in isolation have a point (although there are still a couple of o_O money-shots, such as the one emil.y restates, and "Perhaps now you’ll suggest that I am precious", the bits where he's really going for you sight unseen, building his own terrible projection) but together, expressed the way they are, and in this context, they're awful.

No, what smacks to me of underlying misogyny is the whole I mentioned the litany of troubled and quite unbearable women who have all but drained any faith I have in internet dating, not to step on your auto-sorority nerve, as I possibly might have done

That really ticks some of my warning signs there, that "oh noes, the sorority is out to get me" reflex, rather than recognising that an individual woman might be cautious of a man who sneers at other individual women, en masse, in an email to an effective stranger.

ah yeah that too - it's disdainful in an unsavoury way

L-Jagz I just tried to use the ILX email function to message you off board and it didn't work. (I've been having this problem a bit lately.)

um you can email me maybe? name dot name at gmail...

Will do, this afternoon, L-Jagz.

Also, I think I need to stop now because emil.y has a point, that it isn't really fair to deconstruct the email of someone who isn't here to defend himself.

I am just very very o_0 at this email, and I'm glad that other people share my reaction because this morning I was feeling very very rattled by it.

I thought 'auto-sorority nerve' was quite a clever turn of phrase. 'Troubled and quite unbearable' is a more dickish move, I think, as it takes any and all blame away from his obviously saintly self. Although if you shared your story about Mongolia-girlfriend man, I could totally see why he might be perplexed at your dislike of him sharing his own terrible date stories.

But YES, we should stop, this really isn't fair.

out of the ash
i rise with my red hair,
and i eat vegetables like air.

'AUTO-sorority' implies that Kate has no control over her impulses or beliefs imho

OMG estela <3

I didn't share the story, I just said that my reason for not wanting to "dive straight in" was that I wanted to check that he wasn't married and didn't have a girlfriend in Mongolia, or Kent, or even Canada as ha ha, that has actually, unbelievably happened to me quite recently.

I did not expect, in return, a *detailed* date post-morten of the last eight women he had gone on dates with (including sexual proclivities) followed by another kick at his ex wife (in addition to the two pointed swipes he takes at his ex wife on his profile.) This really went beyond "ha ha, here is a funny story" and into the realm of "I either have some serious issues with women in general" or "I think it's really amusing to mock other people for the entertainment of others"

And yes, I realise that this thread is turning into both post mortem of a date that didn't happen and mocking or at least o_0 of a person for the entertainment of others.

I don't find it a clever turn of phrase because I've just heard too many times before, men blaming "oh noes, the Feminist Sorority is what turns women against me, rather than my actual behaviour being in any way questionable, ever."

I meant "Kent, or Canada, or even Mongolia, ha ha, that has just happened" in point of fact. I'm riled.

x-post estela, you are so great, you have just made me laugh so hard I want that for my screen name.

And so it shall be.

DAMN

Does this fit?

lol xp