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

I have no idea why I'm looking at that stupid site again. After my (OKC-originated) relationship blew up in my face last year, I've felt increasingly-convinced that I just need to come seriously to terms with being alone. Seeing my current OKC matches (none of which even break 90%), I think I've probably been on the right track. </bitter>

(I should point out, btw, that OKC is only one of the venues within which my bad dating luck has played out in recent years.)

laurel, how'd the date go on sat??

did it get snowed in?

It got flued out, annoyingly. After I got all nervous and everything. Trying to reched but we have opposite schedules.

earlier tonight, when i was ending the thing with the okc girl...

― your pain is probably equal (Z S), Friday, November 18, 2011 7:22 PM (2 months ago)

holy shit, i'm STILL trying to end things with okc girl. uuuuugh. i mean, things did sorta end, but then about 3-4 weeks later we ended up seeing each other again, and then.

uuuuugh

My date never called back to resched. Back to square #1.

I know this isn't helping you ZS, but the phrase "okc girl" keeps reminding me of the snorg girl.

Not helping at all I presume.

i will note that adam schefter's use of GAAAAAH on the snorg girl thread is incorrect. GAAAAAH is when you have the lovey doveys

that is true actually. Godspeed ZS, move on beyond her and flame on!

My date never called back to resched. Back to square #1.

boo.

i've remained on okc out of laziness but i've been told i should check out match

the more time you put into it, the more response you get. This is both because people want to see who looked at them and because OKC tries to keep you engaged so it routs people to you

I looked at the profiles of a handful of people I could be interested in, some of them multiple times, but apparently they either never looked back at me (hidden browsing, I assume) or didn't like my prof enough to write. Kind of feel like writing to them now would be desperate pestering. Kind of meh about whole thing if the dudes I like the sound of aren't interested.

i also would not like to belong to any club etc

yeah i know the more i do, the more response i get. i think my not having logged on is my subconscious telling me that i need a break. i'm tired of seeing the same people in my list of high matches.

also laurel if they're browsing privately, i think they can't see that you've looked at them.

it's only since i've come to this thread that i learned the value of openly browsing.

Oh, that's a good point, I forgot you can't see others if you go hidden. I should write to some dudes, I guess.

I kind of have this issue where I'm sort of unenthusiastic about dating and hoping someone else's enthusiasm for me will pull me into it without my having to work hard to convince some stranger that I'm cool enough for him to want to meet. Toootally irresponsible and one-sided, I know.

Still dating someone I met on OKC in November.

i've remained on okc out of laziness but i've been told i should check out match

― rayuela, Friday, February 3, 2012 7:45 PM

Eh, my experience with Match.com was most of the folks were just boring professionals without any unique qualities. Others on there seemed obsessed with exercise and triathalons too, if that's your thing (or maybe that's just the W. DC area).

i'm running an experiment and trying to diversify my samples. okc will be the control group, match will be the variable.

That makes sense.

does Nerve even exist anymore?

There was or is what I thought was an offshoot of it called "fastcupid" which was not bad, but just had few participants.

Nerve.com was the Spring Street Network or whatever. It's probably in a few different places?

man friggin exercise and triathlon people

I have a friend who isn't really one of these people (and doesn't enjoy running while she's actually running( but keeps doing it because it is a thing that keeps her from going insane

Date arranged for Sunday 4pm. My profile doesn't say I'm a Britisher, but I think I outed myself by scheduling for Superbowl Sunday just before the game. Wrote back to offer to change the time/day when I realised, but he says he doesn't mind.

Sounds like a decent early litmus test! Which he passed! Hope that you have a good time.

Thanks krakow! The date started with a sinking feeling that this was a terrible idea, not sure why, and he seemed pretty nervous. It was impossible not to watch his face twitch, which I was trying really hard *not* to watch. Then he got more relaxed, and there was a sudden sharp upturn where I started to think 'you are a very interesting person'. Immediately followed by a nervous realization that he reminds me in certain ways of my ex. But the good things, rather than the bad things. He gave me a ride back to the metro. I sort of flubbed the end of the date when we I said 'stay in touch' and he said 'we must do this again sometime' and I started babbling about the superbowl instead of saying 'yes, we must'. Up for a second date, at least.

woohoo!

question: is there any way to block your okc profile from being seen by someone? i ask because i recently ended things with someone i met on ok cupid, and i was kind of itching to get back on there and try my luck again, but i know she'll see it and bla bla bla

there is, i've definitely blocked people before. don't know the parameters but assume it means you won't show up in their searches etc.

I've never found it. You can 'hide' people from searches but they can still find you. Imo just create a fake profile with nothing in it to use for browsing for now, then go back to your real one after a decent interval. But 'decent' isn't very long in your case I think - a couple of weeks? Really, if you wanted to dive straight back in now I would say that was ok. It was a couple of months tops with a break in the middle, right?

yep. i dunno, i just feel bad. it's weird to imagine what your profile looks like to someone before they first date you, after, and then after you end up breaking up.

Ok I went in to investigate how I've done it in the past. If you go to a message you've exchanged w/the person, there is an option on the right hand side to block them. I guess you can't block someone you've not exchanged messages with.

yeah, i think blocking them just makes it easier to ignore them, but what i'm looking for is something to make myself invisible to her.

looking at what i just typed, maybe this is all deeply fucked up and i should just go on living life and not stress out too much about if someone sees my profile and hates my guts now.

my last sentence otm. that's what i'm going to do.

"fuck it"

otm

but i'm also going to wait a couple weeks before getting back on.

stay tuned next week, as i think about whether or not to do my laundry or go the coffee shop and document the thought process on ILX!

Since my wary return, I've only received messages from women who are in no conceivable way good matches for me. Like, messages that don't seem to indicate that they've given my profile even a cursory once-over. I can't tell if it's spam or if some people really are that desperate...? Is this a thing anyone else has experienced much of?

At any rate, I'm beginning to think I may have moved past this online dating thing, for better or worse.

if someone's going to be all judgey about you going out and looking for a date after breaking up, then they can go ahead and think "he's a jerk who would go out and immediately try to find someone else" and it'll stop them from being hung up on you

wanting an ex to think you're not interested in other people is like a "he would rather be alone than be with me, or maybe I can get it back together" enabler

^^^ otm and ZS has the right to get immediately back out there. But all logic aside, when someone who broke up with you is immediately back on without a day's break, it can be upsetting: pride (not logic) demands that even though they weren't into you, they're at least mildly sad enough to want to have a short pause. Why not indulge this and help the other person get back into their stride?

Two weeks is plenty in your circs though, ZS.

Now I have to work out whether I flubbed the last past enough to mean that he doesn't realise I was interested in a second date. Guess I should just email him. Tomorrow.

do it now!

Should I revive my okc account? Its given me nothing but embarrasment and disappointment.

xp - nah, I'm so crap at game-playing in my own interests as relationships progress that I might as well play this one game of waiting one day

Trayce, I vote revive for the hell of it, but that's because I had a good date today; I'll let you know when I change my mind after some appalling rendezvous like the one where I realized at the end I hadn't asked the guy's real name because I was so keen to get away

OKC guy I just "broke up with" was adamant he wanted us to remain good friends. Then promptly stopped talking to me. I'm a bundle of FUCK EVERYTHING ASSHOLES right now.

and I havent even emailed/bugged him at all or anything! (which normally I'm a horror for)

Could he be thinking he'd like to be good friends but maybe it's best to back off for a short while?

and if you've not bugged him maybe he thinks you need time etc. etc. etc. PURE SPECULATION FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

Nah I made one breif "miss you" comment and got a rather patronising "oh dont dwell, you'll get lonely" reply. He probably meant well, but from him everything sounds so fucking pompous.

WHY AM I MAD ABOUT THIS GOD. *flails*

*ahem* anyway so yeah, maybe not a good idea to hop back on the wagon just yet ;)