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

while people are doing honest criticisms/recommendations for profiles i am open to some as well! one of my friends already read it and made me take out that i spent my typical friday nights listening to kate bush and doing an interpretive dance with my cat, but she didn't really give me any other changes. i'm am guess i come off as bitter.

i also need more flattering pictures of myself, but it is hard to make those materialize out of thin air.

i am guess = i am guessing

I would so message a guy if they had the Kate Bush/dancing cat thing in their profile

when i do message someone, it's like 2-4 sentences

pouncing up that hill

xp

btw the comments are helpful! keep em coming, if there is more. i can reciprocate on the weekend (with the caveat that I am typically a horrible judge of profiles and what that says abt ppl, if my past experiences are anything to go by.)

one of my friends already read it and made me take out that i spent my typical friday nights listening to kate bush and doing an interpretive dance with my cat

I mean, knowing you, this would be my favorite part of the prof. But you aren't writing them for people you already know. ;_;

I joined Match and the people on here are the most boring alive

I'm getting the sense that the reason these dudes can't find a girlfriend is that they spend all their time working and working out

xxxxxp Because finding the interpretive dance part just totally awesome and endearing would require knowing that you are normally reserved in public and that your schtick is to be kind of constrained and not that expressive except in quick bursts which you then look slightly embarrassed by. You are not some over-emoting theatre student or self-consciously arty person or cat woman (I refuse to use "crazy" because I get super annoyed lately at how often crazy is applied to women for various things).

WELCOME HOME (TO LONELYVILLE, POPULATION: YOU AND A BUNCH OF OTHER PEOPLE YOU PROBABLY DON'T LIKE)

This was hysterical.

xpost

i also don't REALLY spend my typical friday nights doing that and it was supposed to be a joke! (though i'm not going to lie, it may have happened once or twice.) i'm pretty much a cat lady, though.

I started with one or two sentences but now I'm up to a paragraph or so (lightly engaging with something in their profile.) Maybe more if I'm inspired. But it's always very light and friendly.

Everyone reads the same "important" books and sees the same arthouse movies,

Not the profiles I look at it. Too many women in my 45 to 55 bracket do the opposite--they're so non-specific and have no vibe--
Their profiles don't convey their personality,values, or interests.

Maybe that's more the women on Match than on okcupid

hoos hoos hoos. You should know better than this, boo.

So, question: is it important for you guys that someone you date like the same things as you? Books, movies, shows, etc? Or is that of little or no importance?

it's not the most important thing but i do take it somewhat into consideration. for example, ayn rand is an automatic BZZZZZZZZZZZT NEXT (even tho gays LOVE her)

Ok, I'm looking at these in reverse order. ZS, your pics are adorable. Personally, your profile sounds kind of too upbeat and well-adjusted for me, so I wouldn't contact you, but if you contacted me I would definitely respond. Hint, hint (j/k). One thing I would suggest, instead of saying that you're fun to hang out with...show it...tell a story about the kind of things you like to do with friends, for example. Also, I'd kill the part about 'i don't like to brag'--it's hard to make that sound sincere in this forum. If you want to talk about playing drums I would just talk about it. But maybe say what you do with it, you're in a band? Or what kind of music you play, or something? I like your 'spend a lot if time thinking about' section, cause it's concrete and gives me specific information about you.

See, I thought ZS's profile was the best out of all of y'alls so far.

(Women like upbeat, well-adjusted men... on the whole)

hoos you are bragging in this prof, and you gotta kill that, man. The "hip Whit" thing is pure shameless self-congratulation and kinda oogs me out tbh. Also where you said "I like poetry, blah blah blah, Thai food, and you" you gotta kill the "and you" part of this, it's cheesy in a not-good way.

between this thread and the sunlight streaming into our offices and the fact that it's friday and my boss left for the day, i'm really not getting any work done.

I kinda feel like I am not on the same page with any of you on what a good profile entails! Am I from a different planet?

IS THIS AN EAST COAST THING?

idgi

haha, i have no idea either. there's also this fundamental question of how SERIOUS to be with stuff. like, i just was looking at this girl's profile who is totally a babe and looks like she'd be a blast to hang with, but the style of my prof is so different from hers that i think i'd come across as a dad or something

ZS and i are a 94% match! ZS - i predict you will clean up on this site.

idgi either! Maybe the uh "market" is just saturated here with a ton of the same kind of "type"? I'm sure they all really really mean it but there are just so many.

You know what else there are so many of? Goddamn beards.

ZS's profile was good . . . I just thought it could be a a bit better, by showcasing some more specific things about him and showing, not telling.

Just because I don't personally like happy and upbeat doesn't mean that it's not a good profile.

Rayuela, welcome (again) to ilx. The best place to not get any work done ever.

ZS and I are 90%. Yes, kduos, ZS for not having any beards. Brooklyn is Beard County.

Someone wrote to me and asked if he could plagiarize one of the lines from my profile...but maybe he says that to all the girls.

It's funny, there was immense social pressure this month to grow a moustache. A few of my friends are doing Movember for charity, and they wanted me to join the "team". Unfortunately, even though I'm 28 and my dad and grandpa both have/had huge beards and moustaches, I am only capable of growing the teen-stache and didn't want to look like an asshole all month, especially when this is like the first month that i'm back into the dating scene.

Oh, books, movies, shows...no, they do not have to like the same things as I do, but I am hoping that they are going to show some sort of good (or at least) individual (or hopefully) considered taste in this section. NAGL: David Sedaris and/or Haruki Murakami. Definitely skip: AYN RAND. I would rather someone didn't read at all than list their favorite author as the same favorite author of everyone else.

i have never read a haruki murakami book specifically because it is every single internet person's favorite author, going back to nerve.com in 2001 and continuing through the present day. i feel kind of bad that i've avoided him for such a petty reason...

ayn rand is like the dealbreaker to end all dealbreakers.

I read 1 Murakami when some cheap floozy left it at my house. Still have it, just noticed that the other day and thought about putting it out on the street.

I've never looked at another dude's profile. Maybe I should to get an idea of how men present themselves?

Again, still spinning ideas. Haven't actually gone to the site in weeeeeks, outside of looking at some stuff on my phone to kill time when I get emails.

Going to try for new representative attitudes & pics asap

I like Murakami, wonder if I have that on my profile.

yeah. someone messaged me earlier today and actually seemed kind of cool and then down there in the books she dropped an Ayn Rand bomb. i politely replied so i don't get a "never ever replies to messages" rating.

speaking of, what's everyone's view on that? does it come off pathetic if you reply to everything? is it more mysterious and appealing if someone "selectively replies"?

OkC is like this whole other...world...dude

*bong rip*

Some people don't know any better about the Ayn Rand thing, I think? It'd be hard to meet up with someone knowing that some day we might have to have "the discussion."

I'm not sure what I am, but it's probably 'selectively replies.' I used to reply to everyone, even folks who were trying to get into a debate about something in my profile, and it just became not worth the effort. I feel like it puts some potentially interesting folks off from messaging me, if it seems like I'm not responsive, but oh well...

You know what else there are so many of? Goddamn beards.

Yes, kduos, ZS for not having any beards.

:(

You know what else there are so many of? Goddamn beards.

hush

pop quiz: when you send a message to someone, the average length is

- one sentence
- two sentences
- three to five sentences
- 2 paragraphs
- 3 or more full paragraphs

― double whooooaaaaa! (Z S), Friday, November 4, 2011 5:07 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my general template is

-[srs question about something they say they care about]
-[silly question about something they mention]
-[silly question with enticing self-revealing detail]
-[concrete question about a place they mention (where's the best x you've found in this town?)]

^ before people call me creepy again yes i am overselling the mechaniziation

I keep getting shit from my friends that a couple pictures on notional social networking sites (can't even remember: foursquare, linkedin?) do not look at me because I have somewhat of a beard in the pic. It was from early this year and I normally have a stubble thing going on! You'd think that I looked completely different in them.

Not to give this thread a complex, but I feel like people who reply to all messages look way, way too nice, possibly verging on desperate. Maybe that's more of a thing for women, because so many of the messages we get are STUPID or even offensive, and the system doesn't count how many of those are in your total, which would seem to lower the average # of messages you might even WANT to reply to.

Personally I'd rather be "replies selectively" and I feel more probable toward people on the same lev.

I'm a fan of facial hair. My coworker let his facial hair grow out after a breakup and he looked great! though sad.

i pretty much don't like how i look clean-shaven

I feel really happy when I get a message too stupid to reply to, because then I have some faith that it is not just the males of the species who are capable of undignified twaddle

literally got a msg today that said "hi :)" and it was just like cmon yall

like that's actually kinda cute in its way but no-content msgs that leave the profile to do all the heavy lifting don't do a lot for me

I am "replies selectively." I think most women are that or "replies very selectively." When I see a woman who "replies often" I assume she is just a very methodical person who replies to everyone with a "thanks, but no thanks."

If men reply often, I think that's cool. If they don't reply often, I don't get excited and feel like it will be a challenge to get them to reply to me. One guy I met told me he liked to write to women who reply selectively because it seems like more of a challenge.

lol results:

rayuela 95%
hoos: 94%
bene_gesserit 93%
ljubljana 89%
Virginia Plain 88%
ZS 86%
Laurel 76%
homo II 72% (narrowly avoiding 'y'all got issues')
zora (no user found)