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

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)

re: the question upthread about ppl having same taste in books/music/whatever

I guess it shouldn't matter, but most of my friends have different tastes from me re: books/music/tv, and I've started to want to have people to talk about books with--this desire has become superimposed onto OK cupid, though maybe I should reconsider.

does "hip whit" srsly strike ppl as self-congratulatory??

The less taste issues I have in common w someone, the less time I'd want to spend with them, because I would need to set aside time from my life to do things I possibly wouldn't enjoy, for their sake, and I don't have time to be into someone else's shit and get my shit done, too.

So it's not that I'm opposed to not having a lot of cultural consumption etc areas in common, it's just inconvenient...or maybe convenient, if we're both busy and see each oth less often.

lol oops i have murakami listed in my profile

oh noez

i have never read murakami, i didn't like sedaris based on the book + handful of pieces i've read

hee. my own profile is littered with pretentious authors.

(i like murakami, if not his fans)

haha yeah, i shouldn't talk (*cough*witoldgombrowicz*cough*)

most of the taste stuff is kind of silly (ayn rand aside). if someone *reads*, i don't really care too much if their fave authors are too popular or too abstruse. but i guess when you're wading through hundreds of ppl you know nothing about, you've got to draw some pretty arbitrary lines.

I am way behind all the book-reading folks. I should probably stay home and read books for weeks and weeks to catch up. Bye ilx, bye OKCupid, bye freelance music critic writing, bye exercise...

I mean I read some, but have missed out on a fair amount

does "hip whit" srsly strike ppl as self-congratulatory??

Haven't looked at the context on okcupid, but the impression you gave here was that it was more of a moniker you readily adopted and enjoyed as a term of praise than as a slight slam against you that you accepted as a nickname. The best nicknames in that vein are the ones that are slightly negative to begin with, or dished out sarcastically, and grudgingly adopted as acknowledgment that we all need to be reminded of our own hubris.

ZS thought I was referencing Tori Amos, when in fact I was referencing the Velvet Underground.(Oh, I just realized TA covered New Age, I have to change that part.)

Typical Friday Night: "Waiting for the phone to ring, lipstick on my neck and shoulder." I think I will change it to "Interpretative dancing to Kate Bush, with my imaginary cat."

Murakami's not bad in itself, but it doesn't distinguish you in any way from everyone else who likes Murakami.

very true re: murakami

"i like murakami because he writes about food."
"i like dostoevsky because he is super depressing and seems crazy."
etcetc.

mh can i read your prof, i forget your name on okc

How about I update it asap and then send it on? :)

This is kind of hilarious in that I have spent untold minutes talking to a friend and on ilx about the ins-and-outs of okc and how I should do something, and had offers to do profile workshopping. In reality, I've been talking to people who are not from the internet and haven't looked at it much lately.

I mean I read some, but have missed out on a fair amount

I said that sheepishly. Behind on movies too.

what are people's positions on being up front about your politics, or letting this come out in the course of getting to know someone?

Either is fine. I assume that anyone I have anything in common with is going to be a lefty, but I don't write anything about that. I don't like it when people say they don't like Republicans or Fox news and the like, because, seriously? Who does?

I'm kinda apolitical, so i'd never thought about it

(I do appreciate it when people write about being hard-core activists, because, probably, I'm not going to get along with such strident types.)

do they say "i am a hard core activist" or is this something you discern from the way they talk about politics?

for about a week i mentioned under "what i am doing w/my life" that "a lot of my energy lately goes into my role as part of the media team of Occupy DC," in the interest of full disclosure, but then i got rid of that.

Re "hard core activist": I usually discern it from the way they talk about veganism and/or exercise.

(my last question was just out of curiosity--i stopped browsing for profiles a long time ago, so i don't have an accurate view of what's out there. i should start looking again.)

hoos, any reason you got rid of it?

Ha, no, maybe they just mention somewhere stuff about fighting injustices and the like.

hoos, any reason you got rid of it?

― rayuela, Friday, November 4, 2011 8:14 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i feel like there are still too many people who don't know what we're really about & consequently would get so turned off by it that it'd overwhelm any interest.

good point

I kind of disagree--I think if you're passionate about something, it's a good filter.

Local Garda, I like your profile, but we are only a 70% match. I would suggest putting something different in the 'you should message me' part. Something funny or specific.

I think the specificity rule is a really good one: it's like how when you get certified in CPR, one of the things you have to learn is to single a SPECIFIC PERSON out of the crowd and tell THAT PERSON to call 911. Because if you just say "Someone call 911!!", some horrifying percentage of people assume that someone else will do it.

In the same way, people are more likely to feel personally invited/indicated by your profile cues if you include a specific quality, no matter how facetious.

kinda disappointed that nobody's ever msgd me saying 'i, too, have been a member of communist parties'

Awww! Hahaha.

I mean that's like 50 people total in a territory defined as "east of the Mississippi", what are the odds.