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

(when i started reading that, i just assumed it was laurel's post)

yeah, i feel that.

A suggestion? If you ever have to go to the ER with him and he starts a fight with the security guards and is thrown out still shirtless and shoe-less and untreated, and calls 911 for another ambulance from outside the first hospital, and that's the CALM AND RATIONAL part of the evening, may I suggest being busy the next time he calls? Like forever?

yeah it was certainly not a good portent of things to come. mostly based on your experiences with that guy. i know it seems shitty to completely write someone off because of something like this, but its really frustrating to deal with someone who gets defensive/resistant when they are getting into a state. my co-worker does this weekly with his diabetes and almost puts himself in a coma and is the meanest person ever when i am trying to convince him to drink some juice to get his blood sugar up, and i don't think i could deal with managing yet another person's disease for them.

it doesn't seem shitty tbh; seems like the point of dating

Agreed. Learning stuff is the point of dating. My feeling, just from experience, is that if you have a medical issue and you don't manage it, you have a reason...either the treatment is worse than the disease or you're in denial about something in which case may I recommend not dating until you've completed at least 2 years of therapy? Or possibly the drama of being struck by your condition is part of how you INFLICT YOUR NEED FOR MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF ATTENTION ON OTHER PEOPLE.

I can't remember if it was on ilx or somewhere else where someone was recently talking about a couple where the woman got really awful when she had low blood sugar and the guy learned to keep a few power bars on him just in case they got in a situation where they weren't going to eat soon, and I thought... why the fuck is the GUY carrying those instead of the person who actually has this issue?

grumble grumble

maybe he loves her

codependence

bleh. yeah. i am just feeling kind of lonely, it's one of those days. all the fun pictures of coupled up people on facebook of the fun stuff they did together this weekend is making me feel a bit down.

Haha yes, that was my story about the energy bars and I caught your objection. The simple answer is that she doesn't always notice that she's hungry, it makes her muddle-headed and short-tempered for a while before she stops what she's doing enough to notice it.

TO put sudden illness on a first date into another equally depressing persepective: veganguy I dated last year told me a story recently about how he went on an OKCC date and halfway thru it said lady said she was very ill and had to go home. He was of course very concerned, she'd seemed unwell.

Later that night she posted a pic of herself on FB in party clothes, then much later that night pics from her at a karaoke bar she'd gone to that same evening.

She had karaoke fever! It's deadly if untreated.

Hahah :)

This is half being totally new to all this and half being totally insecure anyways, but can I be so audacious as to ask for feedback on my profile (.d.d.b.c.l. without any periods)? I constantly check it because I always suddenly think its horribly off-putting or it reeks of try-hardism, but I can never tell when reading it over, which I end up doing a lot.

Its an interesting way to start out a profile thats for sure! Certainly eye grabbingly honest hehe :) I tink it reads fine, to me. Doesnt seem to clever-clever. And you can spell and write a decent sentence. Believe me, thats rarer on there than it should be.

Thanks!

O the irony of my mispelling on that post.

Just looked at your profile; I don't think you need to mention your lack of sexual experience, btw.

Also might want to cut brooding loneliness. I love brooders but most people like to pretend they like positive, outgoing people (even if they don't, really).

I'd also probably give your profile a once over without a message due to the non-monogamy mention, but perhaps that's just me and due to my bad experiences with polyamorists.

PS I just realized I also described myself as brooding. Oops.

I also describe myself as brooding (specifically as 'a moody, brooding goofball', in the hope that at least one person will hear that in Werner Herzog's voice, a la Julien Donkey-Boy). And even though that's probably not most people's cup of tea, I prefer to be upfront about it rather than misrepresent myself and wind up dating someone who has no time for my shit, y'know?

Heh, I guess this is also where subtle sarcasm doesn't come across in text.

The sexual inexperience thing would possibly put some people off, but as you mentioned above, it could also be a turn-on for people - mentioning it is down to whether you want that to be a 'thing', I guess. You certainly wouldn't be deceiving anyone if you choose not to mention it.

I love brooding! I pursued someone because he looked so dark and brooding in his picture, but when I met him he was perfectly well adjusted, youthful and not brooding at all. He was fun though. I think he was the most functional, non-needy person I met off the site. Needless to say, I never saw him again.

haha i have been known to brood, but have attempted to obscure this fact somewhat. obviously i have no idea what the market demands.

how much straight-up lying do you think there is?

i haven't searched other men, but i've heard stories about shirtless bros and 45-year-olds with an upper limit of 32. i have certainly seen women who list themselves as 10 years younger and then admit as much in their profiles -- and others who surely don't. it is such a weird thing all around

I was tempted to lie abt my age on mine. But whats the point.

I dont know why I think it is THAT giving me the problem when age diffs have not, ever, been the source of the bullshit Ive gone thru in my last 3 ot 4 dating situs.

i can confirm that most dudes lie about their height.

As a 6'2" man, I have no idea why anyone would.

the littler they are, the more inches they add. once they get above 6 ft the actual height and okc height start to approach the same value.

I suspect some ppl honestly misestimate their height as well!

As a 5'7" guy, I understand why men would be be tempted to lie about that (distaste towards shortness is really one of the most pervasively shallow prejudices I've encountered from women). But really...how long can you really hope to pull off that particular subterfuge?

the women who list their age as younger and admit as much in the comments say they're doing so to merely appear in ppl's searches, not to trick anyone

which makes some sense, but also highlights the weirdness of the whole enterprise

or maybe that part is me

I believe I am fr real 5'10", it is totally average man height, my posture may have shaved a little over the years...

As a shortarse Ive never cared less for a guys height, it is extremely unlikely I'm gonna meet a guy who is less than 5'4 tall.

i read on the okcblog that literally everyone under 6' on okc lies about their height by 1 or 2 inches. if i'm 5'10" and say so, are people gonna assume i'm actually 5'7 or something? same with my age, i mean it didn't even really occur to me to lie about it, but what if people assume i did and think i'm actually 50? my real age is 44 but i look younger. so probably everyone assumes all my pics are from ~12 years ago too?

i should put one in where i'm reading today's newspaper in a very up-to-the-minute fashionable outfit. perhaps next to measuring tape.

or maybe me holding a clearly labelled box of the update to mountain lion?

I keep being told I look about 30 (lol, i dont think so but whatev). Temptation to lie abt age is so strong. Even if just to see if it chages anything.

TBH saying Im a smoker is prob the worst dealbreaker for a large potential pool. Maynbe I should delete that.

no, don't! i just quit smoking 6 months ago and i need to know that about someone. also, i mean, do you *want* to hang around with some anti-smoker type going "<fake lil coughing fit> oh, no, you go ahead, i'm just a little bit allergic to carcinogens is all. no, please, don't stop on my account!" etc etc

Yeah, not at all haha. I dunno I guess I should quit, but getting a date is not something worth being the only factor.

plus if you quit you couldn't go out with smokers any more! it's a catch-22

Wow, this is starting to feel like one of those things where I go into it with the good faith of total honesty and disclosure and end up myself swept into some sort of underworld of deceit. That said I am legit 6'2.

Thanks for all advice, people!

I'm 6"3 and it's done me very little good. I probably seem even taller in half the shoes I own.

I went out with someone who listed himself as 5'9" but was clearly 5'7" (I'm 5'8"). Then I went out with another 5'9"er who was actually telling the truth and as a result he seemed so tall!

I feel like you could make a sitcom episode out of this where someone goes on this great date and ends up getting arrested, but because the chemistry is so good the date accompanies him to the police station, but ultimately leaves when he's getting mugshots taken because it turns out he's 2 inches shorter than he said.

I just got a "You seem as messed up as me!" message from a lady who seems pretty cool and who has a humorously (and refreshingly) blunt profile. I acknowledged long ago that I pretty much need to exclusively date from the 'idiosyncratic' pool, so I'd prefer to find people whose idiosyncrasies are up-front and seem to be compatible with my own rather than the norm, wherein tamped-down idiosyncrasies of a much less palatable nature start bubbling to the surface somewhere down the road.

This may be overly-reductive, but it seems like the golden rule can be pretty easily applied here. Do you want to be lied to in a profile? Do you want someone to misrepresent themselves and try to hide their tics and neuroses from you? I'm genuinely curious. Maybe some people do. I just don't understand why. It's clear that I've honed my profile to the point where it's actively off-putting to anyone who's looking for some well-adjusted, traditional, alpha male, but I have to say it feels good to get the occasional message from somebody who seems to get and appreciate me, y'know?

I just changed my summary to something rly honest, on that front. I really dont care anymore, if you like who I come over as then hey, go for it.

But there's honesty, and then there's "ew why did you SAY that". Which Ive seen a little of. PUA's mostly.

5'7" is not really short for a guy imo.

It's not "short for a guy" so much as it's "shorter than me" which is the criticism?

Not really one I recognise, given that Thom Yorke is 5'4" and is sex on legs. Little, stubby, adorably short, little-boy legs, but still. Sex on legs.