There is a site, it’s called, www.Okcupid.com that has lots of fun tests (not as fun as the ones on Blogthings though!) but it is also a dating/social networking site. It’s very creepy. I’ve been getting messages from guys that are 25+ on there that are very straight forward and they’re like, “Before we hang out, I wanna know…”. And I’m thinking, “Who said anything about hanging out? Who said anything about me even LOOKING for someone? Especially someone 12 years older than me?”

It’s weird. I mean, yeah, blame me for signing up. But I thought it was only about quizzes. When I realized it wasn’t like that, I wasn’t too freaked out cause tickle.com was also a dating site that had quizzes and I never got a creepy message like that. I don’t know…strange, isn’t it?

And it’s almost as if they don’t even read on the little details thing below my face that I am 18. It says 18/F/single. Yes, it means legal, but it also means…ugh. I don’t know what it means. I see why I’m getting messages now. Well, I still blame them – most 18 year old girls don’t feel comfortable about dating a 28 year old guy. Geez. I should change my status for “not looking, never will look, shut up.”

Sigh…but I humor them. I answer their stupid questions, like, “Do you like to ride beach cruisers?” Sometimes I realize that’s why those people are on dating sites. They’re looking for all the wrong things. Doesn’t it matter more if they’re loyal, intelligent, attentive? They ask insignificant things. And if you answer one question wrong (God forbid!!) – BAM! – they stop replying to your messages. Funny world. It doesn’t require you to put much effort in the person you want as your one and only companion. Except, most of those guys probably are for polygamy, so, never mind.

I’m not innately a misogynist, but I think most American women are seriously defective, for probably cultural reasons. I’m going to establish one of the reasons why in this post. Let’s look at an OkCupid study that has recieved a lot of attention: Your Looks and Your Inbox. Not surprisingly, it shows that women are focused as strongly on appearance as men are. Surprise? Not really. Cause for moral outrage? No. Everyone knows that looks are a substantial component of the dating process, and most of us accept this. Thankfully, not everyone’s appraisal of attractiveness is the same. A few of us are attractive to most people; most of us are attractive to some people. Given enough tries, we find one that likes us; life goes on. The real shocker is this: women on OkCupid have rated 80% of the men as unattractive, including four demonstrably average-looking men (OkCupid staff). It’s quite possible that this reflects only on the women who chose to give ratings– e.g. that bitchy women rate men, the rest don’t. However, although it is far from a scientific analysis, this publication contradicts much of what society prefers to believe about women: that they are kind, less shallow than men, and relatively accepting of the average man’s appearance.

The average man, based on the histogram, appears to have been rated at about 1.4 stars (out of 5) by women. That’s a D, on an A-F scale. Let me explain just how bad that is. A general rule in survey design is that ratings of anything will be inflated compared to the respondent’s actual opinion. If 100 viewers watch a television show and their ratings of it average 3.7 stars, on a 1-to-5 scale, that’s not a “good” rating. The show sucked! The same goes for performance reviews. A ubiquitious constant in such surveys is the “real average” of 4.3– a product rated below this by the public, on a 1-5 scale, is generally below-average. (Expert raters and critics are more conservative in their grading; a 3-star film, according to Ebert, is not being rated as mediocre.) And what is the average GPA at Ivy League colleges (where there are few poor students who must be given failing grades)? It’s about 3.3. It’s the same principle.

People seem to be much more candid when rating the physical attractiveness of strangers, so this rating inflation may not apply, but I’d still contend that a luke-warm rating– say, 3 stars– is not a good sign. In any case, the graph of male ratings of women shows absolutely no inflation. The distribution of attractiveness ratings seems to show a symmetric, bell-shaped curve. This is what we’d expect, and I posted on this matter in October. An average woman is sexually attractive to about 45% of men; an 85th-percentile woman is physically acceptable for about 71%, and a 15th-percentile woman is acceptable to about 23 percent. It’s fairly close to a normal distribution. For men, the story is different, and for those who lack the skills to project sociosexual confidence (e.g. “Game”), quite dismal.

Now consider the distribution of attractiveness ratings given by women to men on OkCupid, which exhibits severe skew in the fugly direction. Of seven categories, a quarter of men fall into the “least attractive” category, while almost none fall into the “most attractive” category. The median male is generally given terrible ratings, with only a few men in the thin rightward tail rated well. This occurred, one should note, in an environment of passive rating, where “Game” is almost certainly not a major factor. It’s likely, then, that these men were rated under the assumption that they have average (e.g. almost none) game.

Men on online dating sites are assumed to have poor game, and to be single, two severe attraction killers. As defined in my October analysis, a man with “7″ looks (84th percentile) and “4″ game (43rd percentile) is sexually attractive to only 2.7% of women. Of course, posting to an online dating site is suggestive of weak game, to the extent that this trait is tacitly assumed by most women. This, in my opinion, explains why the men were rated so badly– and, yes, 1.4 stars is not merely below-average, but abysmal, keeping in mind what I said about rating inflation. I would argue that the cutoff for a “good” average is probably in the mid-3 range (this is someone who is substantially attractive to a few women). Yet less than 10% of men are rated so highly.

What is “game”, again? I defined it as sociosexual confidence, but its root is preselection. Men with “game” are those who adopt the mannerisms of the sexually experienced and somewhat callous. They’ve adopting a set of behaviors to suggest preselection. Registering on an online dating site has the opposite effect– it indicates that a man is single, and eager enough in his search for a partner to invest time in an online profile.

Single men are really in a sandtrap– assumed, because they are unattached, to be awkward, unattractive, and undesirable. It’s inconsistent with the norms of the rest of society; for example, an unemployed man is expected to look for work– that’s normal, and people worry about him if he doesn’t– and yet a single man has absolutely no way of maintaining face while looking, even very casually, for a girlfriend. Simply put, he shouldn’t search. No paying for a stranger to have a nice dinner, no online profiles, no face lighting up when introduced to a pretty girl at a party– none of these can do a man any good.

This all comes down to preselection– women want what is not available to them. Fuck it. I agree with others who’ve called it “the root of all evil”, and it’s a trait that I advocate forcing out of the human species through any means possible– even eugenics, re-education, and aggressive social engineering.

On that note, my guess is that the OkCupid developers, rated as unattractive by their site’s women, posted pictures of themselves next to attractive women, they’d get ratings in the 3-4 range, not the abysmal scores that these average-plus men were given.

Ok. I’m done getting riled up and angry. I need a drink. Over-and-out.

I’m currently sat on a train, en route to the parents’ house for Bird Day.

Have a happy Thanksgiving and we’ll see you back next week for more Double Blind Experiments in Dating!

- Dr. Jane

Kit just joined okcupid this weekend, and she’s having a great time shopping for boys on the internet.  She’s about to on her first okcupid date tomorrow! Everyone cross your fingers for a good hair day and a pretty boy!

She emailed me this:

This may be my favorite way I’ve ever been asked out:

him: way to use the word  ‘anthropomorphize’… you set the bar high…

him: here i was trying to come up with a witty way to compliment you again, then ask you out, and you just shut me down.

him: your loss

Clearly, the obvious conclusion is to go out with him. So we’re going for dinner tomorrow after work! What to wear??

It’s me again. She’s wearing the pretty yellow shirt from H&M. I can’t wait to find out what happens.

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): Well his profile looks a bit like Stalin. Or Lenin. Or this guy:

But I don’t think he’s Russian or angry. We haven’t talked too much yet, so I don’t have a lot to go on. Should be interesting!

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• Turns out he used to be in real estate, then the market tanked. So he went into something to do with marketing and demographics. But hated it. So now he’s back in commercial real estate.
• He suggested Pete’s coffee out in BFE, and I politely said KEEP DREAMING. My best friend raves about this other coffee place that has approximately zero locations anywhere near myself or my regular commutes, so I’m venturing every so slightly outside my comfort zone to go see this Subject

Procedures (omg what happened???): Can I see myself ever dating this guy? No. He’s really cute, easy to get along with (kinda scrawny), and super nice. Can I see myself becoming a business partner with this man? Absofreakinglutely!

Seriously people, this Subject is bidness-oriented like whoa. I didn’t feel like I was on a job interview, so much I was with a recruiter who felt confident that he had plenty of jobs for me, and I only had to pick the one I liked best. Which, as it were, I wish he had been, because my job pays me in compliments and miniscule amounts of attention.

We talked a lot about politics and how he had worked on a Democratic local election campaign. And we talked about trends in online media and the way marketing and demographic information can be researched and to what purpose such information can be used to drive business. We talked about the City community on a local level and the complexities of hyper-localization. I felt like I was using everything I learned in my undergrad Econ classes with this man, and it made me feel smart in a non-geeky way. Wow!

But most importantly, this was the ABSOLUTE most amazing coffee I’ve ever had. Let me tell you about this place: They don’t make lattes or mochas. No, they have phenomenal coffee. You pick which kind you want out of several buckets of freshly roasted beans, and they grind it to the finest possible grind, Turkish. Then they stick it in this little filter-station-thing. So there’s a paper filter over what looks like something out of Bill Nye’s lab, and they pour 190 degree water over it. Once all the water has seeped through, they grab the beaker-thing and pour it into a paper cup from like 3 feet in the air. Then they pour it back into the beaker from like 3 feet, and back and forth until everything’s all blended and there’s this adorable froth on top of the brew. Amazing. Only problem was, after the experiment ended, I had to walk up a fairly decent incline, and the INTENSE caffeine that I had previously drank combined with mild resistance produced a heart rate of easily 360. Seriously. I thought my cardiovascular system was going to jump out of my body and go for a jog without me.

By the end of the Experiment I was starving, having not eaten since lunch. Also, I felt a bit like the squirrel in the scene from Over the Hedge where he drinks some caffeine:

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): I felt totally comfortable talking to this Subject. And he gave me some really sound advice about job hunting, which I’m inclined to try. I almost wish I had a slightly more entrepreneurial attitude so he and I could start the next best Fortune 500 company. DBEID FTW?

Conclusion (overall rating): Great coffee, stimulating conversation. Pretty cute looking dude, too. Nothing at all like a somber communist from the ’50s. I give it a 7.5.

While perusing the interwebs for a picture for Friday’s post, I came across this image:

And immediately I thought to myself, “Self, what is this blog about? So I pointed good ol’ IE7 to http://50baddates.com and nearly collapsed in horror when the page finally loaded. Is it possible that someone has the exact same blog concept as me?!?!

So I read the most recent post, and immediately felt better because HOMEGIRL CAN’T WRITE FOR SHIT.* But still, the concept was the important thing to me. So I jumped to her Welcome page, and felt a twinge of panic when I saw that our blogs are, so it would seem, very similar. Yet I was thrown off by the last paragraph, which states that her dates start in Spring 2003. Is this a typo? Has this girl really been dating for six years and only has fifteen dates to show for it? Because that would just be sad.

Lo, after reading the first date, I discovered that this woman is not going on dates and writing about it. No, no. She is WHINING about dates she’s had in the past. Date number one was posted in October of 2009, but it took place sometime around when Head of State came out. A quick consult with my faithful imdb.com reports that this was, in fact, in 2003. Really? I mean, I could talk about the time that I fell asleep with a date and he woke me up at 3:15 am because he had to go to his girlfriend’s house, lest he be in trouble. Yes, we had been on a DATE, and yes we went back to his place and made out before falling asleep. That happened, and it’s entertaining (…in retrospect - I certainly wasn’t laughing at the time…). Or the time a man told me he was in love with me (and meant it!) the same day we met. Oh Midori and hot tubs! But those stories are neither here nor there. Know where they are? IN THE PAST. Where they belong. And if I dredged them up, I’d call my blog 50baddates and assume that every Experiment I conducted would be inherently awful. And guess what, Bad Date Lady: If you’re looking for love and you want to blog about it, I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts you ain’t gonna find it. I say good day, madam.

Maybe our concepts are vaguely similar. You could say that this idea’s time has come, and soon enough we may see tons of other blogs sprouting up with a similar theme to them. Just remember: those fools are just bitching about dating. I, too, am bitching about dating, but – AND THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART – I am conducting pseudo-scientific Experiments that have structure and purpose. So while Bad Dates McGilicutty is wandering aimlessly in the blogosphere, wondering why True Love won’t just fall into her lap so she can give up her silly, poorly-written internet memoire, Dr. Jane will be locking up Subjects and becoming a veritable EXPERT in first dates and first impressions.

*Seriously folks, this girl can’t write. Below is a conversation I had in the gchats with one of my very dear friends:

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): This guy is obviously insecure. I kind of already feel bad for him. I have every reason to believe that he will be shy and awkward because it is so obvious that he’s insecure.

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• I ascertained while on the date that he’s in management training at a bus manufacturing company. He likes football, and we like the same team.
• We’re going to a sort of divey sports restaurant that’s just off the tourist strip for some beers and maybe an appetizer.

Procedures (omg what happened???): So let’s not beat around the bush and cut straight to the chase: he was awkward. Not like I-want-to-get-up-from-the-table-and-throw-myself-into-the-ocean awkward, but there was a lot of “SOOO, what do you do?….. SOOOO, where are you from…. SOOOOOOOO, is this date over yet?”

He was twenty minutes late (perhaps this was karma for me being 30 minutes late for Experiment #9?), but I cut him a break because he did drive one and a half hours to get to the date. He said he’d figured I would have left, and he has NO idea how close he was to being correct. I mean, I wasn’t really in the mood to play nice, and it was severely chilly out, so the ONLY reason I stuck around in because I texted my roomie and asked what the appropriate time to wait was, and she said one hour. Sir, you can thank my pretty roomie for the opportunity to enjoy my company and buy me beers.

So we had Sierra Nevadas on tap (which, btw, are significantly better than Sierra Nevadas in the bottle) and some buffalo wings that were scrumptious! I haven’t found any other place in this City that serves ’em quite like that. HOWEVER, two drawbacks: First, he was eating obnoxiously slow, and I always try to match pace with my date. I mean, do you really need to take ten minutes to consume a CHICKEN WING??? Please. I can put one of those things down in 3 seconds flat. And I mean pick the bones CLEAN. Second, at one point I touched my chest and noticed I had bleu cheese sauce dripped on my collar. And he didn’t tell me! I know what you’re thinking: I didn’t tell the Bloody Mess when he smeared sanguine fluids all over his chin, so how can I get upset about this Subject not telling me about a little dipping sauce? Simple. All this Subject had to say way, “Whoops, you dripped a little sauce just there…” and if he was a smooth mover he may have even grabbed his napkin and helped me wipe it up because it wasn’t in an inappropriate place. For me to tell the Bloody Mess about his dribble, I would have to say “OMG YOU’RE BLEEDING! WTF HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE?!?” And that, ladies and gentlemen, would have been horribly awkward for the both of us.

You know, if you're judging on pictures alone, you'd probably think this was a food blog. Related: mmmm chicken wings!

I know, I know, I haven’t really talked about this guy much. And that’s because I don’t really have too much to tell about him. I can tell you he goes to bed very early because he has to be at work at 4:00am every morning. That sounds exciting! And I can tell you I’m getting tired of telling the same stories about myself over and over. Our conversations were very getting-to-know-you, by the book. No entertaining stories even! However… there was one über exciting/disappointing moment for me: He invited me to an NFL game where my FAVORITE TEAM OF ALL TIME was playing. And because I have a firm no second dates rule, I had to decline. Sad face.

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): Nothing about this guy interested me. Nothing. Ok, he likes my favorite team, but so do Madridillions (I can’t decide if that’s a number or a noun for someone who is from Madrid) of other people. That’s not a good enough reason to warrant a second date, even if I didn’t have a standing rule against such activities.

Conclusion (overall rating): Seriously, the wings are going to earn him an extra point on this one. I’m going back for more of those tasty little devils soon. But I would much rather have gone to this quirky little sports bar with my homegirls during Monday Night Football than with this boring, boring man. I give it a 5.

Oh, faithful readers, Thanksgiving so rapidly approaches! Then next thing you know it’s Christmastime and you will soon be able to find me single and fabulous, and eating an entire pumpkin pie by myself while watching Love Actually (again) and downing a bottle of Charles Shaw Chardonnay alone (again). Oh how good it is to be an independent woman in the City!

Tomorrow you can expect Experiment # 10, and next week you’ll read about #11, but the following week I’ll have no Experiments to post since I am going HOME to my wonderful parents for T-giving. That said, stay tuned because the week after Turkey Day I will have a very special theme of enticing posts for your reading pleaseure. (OMG What does Dr. Jane have planned?!? It could literally be anything!)

As always, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for exciting posts to come!

I have officially been on ten dates, posted twenty-one blog entries, and been approached by one up-and-coming dating service about my readership. So how do I think it’s going so far?

It’s up and down. I’m loving getting to know my City, one experiment at a time. But it’s also a lot of work talking to all these mens and conducting all these Experiments. If I go on 2-3 dates a week, and each date lasts about 2-½ hours, that’s upward of five hours right there. PLUS all the endless online messages I send. I’m getting sick of typing the same thing over and over, and in fact I’m thinking of setting up a spreadsheet that I can just copy-and-paste from. Is that awful? It could look like this:

Ok, that last one is NOT how I end things with the Subjects… but I can’t divulge all my magical methods to you people!

Some of the Subjects have been a lot of fun, and some have been pretty awful, but most have just been regular guys who are looking for love in an online date. Do I judge them for this? Nah. I still think it isn’t for me, but who am I to say that it’s wrong? I mean, My very dear friends Adrien and Toni got married after they met through a dating site.* But I can’t help but wonder about every guy I meet, why are you here? What brought you to the place where you decided the best way for you to find love is through a dating service? After all, matchmaking may be new in the Internet age, but it’s actually a tradition that goes back farther than any date I could find. It used to be the primary form of coupling in some cultures, and I expect it might still be in places where young people don’t have as much romantic freedom of expression. I digress…

When I started this project, I said I’d keep doing these Experiments until they stopped being fun, and I am not even close to there yet. I am excited to have things slow down a bit as the Holidays approach. But I look forward to sharing more of my dating escapades with you!

*That’s not exactly how they met. Toni signed up for the dating site and started dating one of Adrien’s friends. When things didn’t work out between Toni and the friend, and it was apparent Adrien and Toni had mad chemistry, he swooped in and married the girl. They’re one of my favorite couples.

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): I don’t really know too much about this Subject, but he seems nice and he’s interested in some of the things I’m most interested in: wine and football. I expect this will be a fairly amicable albeit chemistry-less date.

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• He works in the wine industry as some kind of analyst. It’s hard for me to keep them straight at this point, because there are a few guys in wine that I’m talking to, and they almost always work in distribution, marketing, or as an “analyst,” whatever that means.
• We’re going to a place my roommate recommended that has a great wine list.

Procedures (omg what happened???): When I showed up to the restaurant, he was standing outside, and told me he’d been waiting for an hour. WHAT?! I am never late by more than a minute or two. Turns out he got there half an hour early and I had thought the Experiment was scheduled for 7:30, not 7:00, so between the two of us we managed to leave him alone at the bar for an hour. Not too big of a deal though, since at 6:30 there was an hour wait and I only had to bide a few minutes with him before we were seated. Creepy moment: As I was apologizing profusely for my misunderstanding, he said “You’re a lot cuter than I expected, so you get a pass.” Now the phrase itself wasn’t creepy. It was the way he looked at me like he was undressing me with his eyes while he said it. I just got the heebee jeebees again thinking about it.

This man is your typical yup. Let’s discuss a few things about him that were classic yuppie behavior:

-         After asking me about my apartment in the City, he informed me that he has a sixty-six hundred square foot house in the suburbs, complete with a large and stocked wine cellar.

-         He told me that the night following the Experiment, he had two excellently seated tickets to a “rock” concert that comprised one flagrantly and one ambiguously gay performer, both of whom I like marginally at best. But he asked me to go with him and I had no problem saying I was busy.

-         Having worked in the wine industry and majored in something-something-wine-something in college, he had heard that Robert Mondavi was “famously accessible” (he said that), so he got a meeting with the man.

-         Best quote: “To tell you how ingrained I am in the wine industry – if this is some kind of measure that can prove it to you – I am friends with Charles Shaw on facebook.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with cheap wine, Charles Shaw is the brand sold by Trader Joe’s that is commonly referred to as Two Buck Chuck.

-         At one point I told him my dad is a bourbon guy, and he said “well he’s going to want to keep me around then.” Glad to know we’re already ready to meet each other’s parents!

I can personally assure you that my vague online social networking connection with a marginally significant player within my industry secures my credibility within said industry.

Before he was a wine major he wanted to be a sportscaster, so he knows all about sports. When we talked about football he was almost condescending in his discussion with me. Like every time I’d bring something up, he’d counter it with some crazy-obscure fact, making himself sound pretentious. But the whole night was literally football, then wine, then football, then wine, then football… you get the idea… peppered with awkward silences and creepy stares that made me feel unclean.

For dinner we had a plate of prosciutto to start, then we split this decadent pumpkin gnocchi, paired with an Italian wine that I had never had, could not pronounce, and cannot remember now. Then we finished with this chocolate lava cake that was sprinkled with salt and drizzled with olive oil. The components of this paragraph were by far my favorite part of the date.

Two fun wine stories from this Subject:

1)      When he met Robert Mondavi, he said the man looks like a mafia gangster with a polyester suit and deep raspy voice, but he’s very friendly and at the end of their private meeting he gave the Subject a bottle of some vintage reserve wine that was meant to impress me.

2)      I had heard that the way the “Two Buck Chuck” brand came about is that when Charles Shaw divorced his wife, the settlement was structured so that she got the profits form that brand, so he priced it with a very low profit margin to screw her. According to the Subject (who is friends with the man on facebook), this is not true. His version goes like this: Charles Shaw used to be a winery with a fair amount of class, and the winemaker pursued some varietal that never really caught on. Then when he divorced Lucy (I love how he refers to her by her first name like he knows her), she got the rights and sold them to Franzia of Slap-That-Bag vineyards.

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): He made me uncomfortable. He really did. Between the awkward stares and the patronizing conversations about wine and football – both of which he knew much more about than me – I was genuinely put off by this Subject.

Conclusion (overall rating): The food was fantastic, the wine was a new experience but not inspiring. The guy was self-obsessed and remarkably unattractive.  I’d give it a 5, with heavy emphasis on the pumpkin-cheese and chocolate-olive oil combinations.

The things Jen does for us.

So on the OKCupid profiles one of the questions you fill out is “You should message me if ___________.”   I wrote, “You should message me if you communicate only in song“  because I thought it was funny.

Boys from the internet usually respond to that with youtube videos of someone else’s music.  Three of them were brave and wrote me poems.  Settle into your favorite yoga position, ’cause I’d like to share with you that poetry.

–

#1

would i were not so busy
(pretend this is a song)
we would walk through the rain
dance in puddles
stare into the sun, no the moon
clap
and hold hands
and feed each other blueberries
and juggle balloons
and drink mead
dive naked into streams, laugh
tire ourselves from laughing
listen to angular dusky sounds
and calm, and conform
through the cool night

unfortunately, i’m so busy.
you dress yourself in a modesty that is becoming
if this were a real world, not a virtual one
you would be hearing me say this all the same
only you’d be able to respond
and it wouldn’t be so silly
well maybe still silly
and i’d have to invent a tune

anyway, jennifer,
you are great. i can tell. sincerity cannot be masked.

so you have my name
[blueberry boy]

–

#2

Subj: Self Respect and A Great Haircut
that is the first thing I thought when I saw your pictures, which I viewed before reading your profile, of course. I don’t know how it can be argued that someone has the look of self respect, but that’s what came to mind.

but now I have read your whole profile. only in song, hmm?

alright. here goes.

Dear jennifer the one one five
I’ll leave a ‘one’ out for myself
and keep it close while I’m alive
besides the photos on the shelf

the ones that feature our years spent
the wedding, fu-ner-als and births
the one-bedroom where we split rent
a holiday popcorned with mirth

a snap of you exhausted, white
dageurrotypes of me in spats
a glossy shot of the new years night
when I asked, and that was that

I keep one one out of your name
imagining a life with you
inviting you to do the same
…..(unfinished)

this has to stop. where were we?

And then he continued in normal letter writing prose for a while. And then he asked me what adjectives I would use to describe my perfect match.  I said I only knew one and it was ‘tall.’

He is 5′8”.

I am 5′9”

Oh well.  He was a little old for me and sporting green hair in one of his pictures.

–

#3

Subj: Song
I really want to compose a song for you, but I’m short on time. Here’s a limerick instead. It’s so much easier.

This multilingual girl from the city
Prefers that we write her a ditty
At a loss for words
I’ll try out this verse
Will it be enough to impress one so pretty?

Nope. It’s not. But nice try!

It’s me again. I double dare you to write poetry (or a song) to try and impress Jen. No pressure, just for fun.  Email  your literary lovin’ to iwantapanda at gmail dot com, and I’ll post them! Let me know if you want credit or a pseudonym.

Yes, I go out with guys and refer to them as Subjects. Yes, they almost always pay for the dates, which I refer to as Experiments. But truth be told, my methods and rules are just as much for the guys I date as they are for my own protection and preservation of sanity. I wrote an entire post about why I will not go on second dates with my Experimental Subjects. But something’s just happened that I would like to offer as scientific evidence that my intentions in writing this blog are (mostly) honorable.

I love football. A lot. I have a favorite team in the NFL, and I have a team that I absolutely hate with the kind of passion that is generally reserved by most psychopathic homicidal maniacs. I’m currently communicating with a potential Subject who has season tickets for the team I loathe but – let’s be honest – free tickets to a professional football game are way outside mu budget, and I’ll take it so long as I can root for the other team. This potential Subject wants to take me to a gaaammmmeeeee!!! And I wanna gooooo!!!! But here’s my dilemma: I have a very dear friend in town this weekend, and the weekend following is Thanksgiving. As such, I wouldn’t be able to go with him until they play at home again, which is weeks from now. So no, I will not lead him on for weeks in hopes that I get a little pigskin time out of it.

I realize that the very premise of this blog is to take advantage of guys, and I concede there is a certain level of  moral ambiguity required on my behalf to be able to do this, but in my defense I only go out with them once for the purpose of sharing my stories. There are girls who do the same thing, only theylead men on at great lengths while emptying their wallets and souls. I’m exchanging a few hours of my charming wit and playful banter for some delicious calories, then I move along without breaking anyone’s heart or bank account.

So no NFL games or Tiffany bracelets for me, thank you. I’ll stick with my Amstel draft and dignity.

NTKOG #61: The kind of girl who — you all knew this one was coming — meets someone through an online dating service.

I am: pretty happy being single, and, that aside, difficult for guys to favorably impress at the best of times.

I am not: terribly lucky when it comes to meeting guys on purpose. The only formative and positive relationships of my life have come during times when I was specifically not looking for anyone.

The Scene: OkCupid. I’ve heard great things about sites like eHarmony and Match.com, but at the end of the day, OkCupid is funny, it attracts a younger demographic, and — big point in its favor — it’s free. When I first made my profile, I was totally thrilled: not thousands, sure, but quite a few guys messaged me. Some of them wrote really clever and charming things! And I wrote them back equally clever and charming things! And then … they kept messaging?

After about a week on OkCupid, I realized online dating is way too much work for this girl. It was like having a keychain full of Tamagotchis: cute on the ride home from the store, but then they keep friggin’ wanting you to pay attention to them. I was bored yet flustered and about ready to call it a day, when I got a message from a guy who fulfilled, on paper, every single absurdly specific requirement I have for a man:

Over six feet fall. Culturally Jewish. Well-read. Into wordplay. A PHYSICIST.

I mean, holy shit, right? It’s like someone went through my bizarrely detailed personal want ad and checked every box. I was giddy for days. We messaged back and forth a bit, then started chatting on AIM, and soon we’d set up a date at (sigh!) the Museum of Science.

The day of the date, however, I was hit hard with my standard pre-event ennui. Still, I put on a decent outfit — four-inch heels, no less — and got on the T. Then somewhere along the way, it occurred to me: I haven’t had a first date with anyone since I was 18 years old. I’m … I’m not good at dating. A quick peek into my bag confirmed this. Inside, I was carrying two copies of Oprah Magazine, a blonde wig (explanatory post later), and a circa 1965 single-girl cookbook with the subtitle: “Dazzling Bachelor-Bait Recipes!” Good thing I wasn’t taking in a set of knives to get sharpened, or else I’d probably end up on a national registry somewhere.

When I got to the venerable museum (half an hour late — I hate the green line) and the guy and I met, my terrible-at-dating streak continued. He seemed very nice and we both pretty enthusedly went through the exhibits. But my first-date patter was Lifetime Movie bad. I mean, I kind of came off as a crazy person? Some truly stellar things I revealed within the first hour that I am commemorating here only as advice to you lovely people not to ever use them as first-date ice-breakers:

• I have a thing about people. I don’t like to stand near them, in case they accidentally touch me. (Deals with the first-date kiss dilemma, anyway.)
• I learned to read as a kid by going through my father’s joke books. I know the punchline of every joke ever and I will stop you if I’ve heard it.
• Upon looking at an exhibit of vehicle engines: “I like looking at machines because they animate without any sort of governing magic. So they’re kind of like humans, but at the same time really sort of underscore the patent weirdness of the human experience. Our, y’know, awareness of. Said experience.”
• When I’m trying to do something that you can’t do as well if you’re concentrating on it, I mentally repeat the US presidents in chronological order repeatedly until I am done.
• I’m intensely afraid of fish. And thank god he didn’t want to see the butterfly exhibit so we didn’t have to broach that one as well.

Um, I’ll take “Shit That Makes You Sound Totally Crazy” for $1000, Alex. This would have been much more normal if I had been nervously word-vomming or totally flustered, but I really wasn’t. I was totally confident. I just — I guess I feel like I was trying to throw the fight for some reason. Like, frontloading this hurricane of neuroses to push him away.

Anyway, he wasn’t totally scared away, weirdly. After going through the exhibits, we hung out and chatted for about an hour, and the conversation was nice. He asked if there was anything about him I wasn’t expecting, based on his profile, and I said I thought six feet was a bit taller, then instead of asking him back, I just told him: “I talk more than you thought I would and I’m crazier, right?” To which he replied: “You talk about as much as I thought you would. About different things, though.”

Near the end of the date, I was checking my watch to see if I would make it to a Flip Your Wig pub crawl on time, then told him, “Look, let’s make this an event for the first-date hall of fame — do you mind?” So he held my coat while I went into the ladies’ room and reemerged with a headful of shiny-synthetic cascading blonde curls, then waved goodbye from the foyer (NO TOUCHING!) and dashed out into the rain.

I’m memorable, at least.

The Verdict: Online dating? I take away everything I’ve ever said about it. It seems like a perfectly safe, perfectly pleasant way to meet people whom you already know you have something in common with. As with all dating, just because you have a lot in common with someone obviously doesn’t mean there will be a love connection, but I guess it at least improves your odds. I would online date again. But I wouldn’t do it soon.

I spent yesterday, the day after the date, plunged in a weird quagmire of semi-depression, and not all of it can be blamed on the weirdly muggly coldness eating Boston right now. I realized I was completely terrible on the date because — this is probably a big surprise only to me — I’m not ready to start dating yet. I know I’m only three months out of a very happy four-year relationship, but I thought I was totally healed. I was weirdly, amazingly, inhumanly fine during the break-up. The Ex and I knew we were going to break up for the last six months we lived together, but things never got weird, we stayed in love, and I didn’t cry. Not even once. Not even when I was alone or on the phone with my mother or listening to Postal Service. I was eerily happy the whole time. The only tears I shed throughout the whole demise of my four-year relationship were after dropping him off at the airport on our very last night. Then I took my heartache and put it in a box and forgot about it.

And now, of course, it occurs to me that said box was shipped with the rest of my junk to Boston and very probably it would be in my best interest to unpack it. Not that the break-up itself was so very tempestuous or difficult, but it wasn’t nothing. My zero-tolerance policy for personal weakness (just my own; I’m okay with yours) might be a bit overbearing.

It’s not the break-up, or not just and concretely the break-up. I’m fine with The Ex and I going our separate ways, and I’m happy to be on my own. But when I think about it, I spent four years falling, every day, more in love with the same wonderful man. And he was just one (one very wonderful!) in a series. There has not been a single goddamn minute of my life the past ten years, maybe more, when I have not been or thought I was in love with someone. My adult life has been a sustained hysteria of want. And right now, what I want is not to want anything that requires anybody else.

Which … is a pretty heavy reaction to a single pretty-okay date. So maybe physicist would be right to assume I’m a total crazy person? (Also, ladies who have online dated, what is the protocol for telling someone you’re probably not in a good place for a second date? Do you have to facebook defriend? Why has the internet made etiquette so hard?! Share your thoughts, please!)

Happy Friday everyone!

- First, how excited are you that I managed to post THREE experiments in one week, two of which were back-to-back?! Well, whatever, because I’M really excited that I pulled that off.

- I’m starting to really get into this blind dating thing. It turns out there are tons of people out there who have opinions and advice about match making and blind dating. My aim in sharing my experiences with you people is to let you form your own conclusions from my incredibly biased accounts of what happens on each blind date. Why is that? you may ask. And the answer is that I am honestly incapable of drawing any conclusions of my own. I don’t know what the greater meaning to my research could possibly be, or if there even is one. All I know is that I am having a lot of fun meeting new people and going new places. If you can extract some all-compassing truth or wisdom from that, then you are likely much smarter than me.

- That said, I’ve been having some internal struggle and external shit-taking from friends and family about Subject #8. I am resolute in my decision regarding my no second dates rule, but I’m curious: what do you, my readers, think about my policy? Submit the poll, and feel free to leave any comments! Your feedback is much appreciated.

As awlays, thanks for reading and have a fantastic weekend! See you back here next week for some more Double Blind Experiments in Dating!

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): I think I’m going to like this Subject. We haven’t had really in-depth conversations, but I can tell we are a lot alike for some reason. We’ll see if I’m right…

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• He’s a graphic designer who moved to the City a few months ago from Cleveland. When I first started communicating with this Subject, I really liked him. He’s been in Seattle for the past two weeks on business, so this is our first chance to get together for the first time. I know already that he will look very little like his picture, because his main picture looks so unlike the rest of the pictures he’s posted – namely that he’s a lot thinner in his main photo than in the rest of the gallery. That said, he’s still pretty cute, and I’ve typically gone for burlier guys over the scrawny anyway.
• He was having difficulty making a decision about where we should meet up, so I gave him two options: go to the excessively touristy spot in town and get the signature dish while enjoying the sights, or go to the restaurant in town that is owned by a former Top Chef contestant. He chose the latter.

Procedures (omg what happened???): I’m struggling to know where to start with describing this Experiment, so I guess I’ll start two nights before.

I had an aggressive two days prior with all my single ladies. We went out really big two nights in a row, and by the time dinner rolled around with this Subject the following day, I wanted to just crawl into bed with some Gatorade and sleep for a solid ten hours. Had it been anyone else, I may have rescheduled. But as I said, I was actually really looking forward to meeting him. So I put on my pretty face and my plastic smile and headed out to dinner, ready to fake polite conversation.

When I got to the restaurant, he was in a very similar state! He had been drinking beer all day with one of his friends, then took a nap and showered and came out to meet me. So yeah, we were both out of sorts, but I almost think that made it easier for both of us. This dynamic produces several long silences, but I didn’t feel like they were awkward, or that the conversation that broke said silence was forced.

As we looked over the menu, it seemed he was refusing to make a decision. I made a joke about him being indecisive, and he told me that the message I had sent him that poked at him for being indecisive was so spot on, and he couldn’t believe I already pinned him down through a few casual online messages. *Magic Moment!* Then it got real…

He looked at me and said, “Ok, so here’s the thing…” And I immediately start freaking out internally. He could literally say ANYTHING after those words! The conversation we had had directly before talking about being indecisive was our reasons for joining IWantToGetMarriedSoBadlyICanTASTEIt.com – a conversation I have never had with any of the Subjects. So my mind came up with several possibilities in the infinitely-long three seconds the he took to pause before continuing:

The next words out of his mouth were “I used to be engaged…” AND THEN THE G.D. WAITER WALKED UP AND ASKED FOR OUR ORDER!!! So now my mind is racing EVEN MORE!!!

Ninety minutes, three small heart attacks and a possible aneurysm later, the waiter left to retrieve some seared tuna empanadas, and the Subject continued his point. Apparently his ex-fiancé was incredibly indecisive, to the point that he felt like she had no participation in the relationship. As a consequence, he doesn’t like making decisions. At that point, I looked him square in the eye and said “It’s just dinner, [Subject]. It’s ok. It’s not a big deal.” And I think we both felt a spark. GAH!

In talking to him, I realized he has followed a very similar path as my roommate: always been in a long-term relationship, got engaged, broke it off, moved to this City immediately after. It was uncanny how they had lived in similar places and had family that was so similar.  But it occurred to me that he is VERY recently single after the broken engagement, and having talked with my roomie about this, I feel there is no possible way he’s done healing from that, and he’s looking for his next girlfriend because he’s incapable of being alone.

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): I was genuinely conflicted about this Subject after I left the Experiment. At the end of the day, the reasons I’ve decided to stick with my no second dates rule are many: First, I’m not looking to take advantage of this guy. Second, it is so apparent to me that he’s still recovering from the termination of his engagement, and not only do I want to avoid adding to his romantic discomfort, but also on a very selfish level, I don’t want that kind of baggage either. I don’t think this Subject is very happy, what with breaking off his engagement, moving to a new City where he doesn’t know many people, living alone, and traveling a lot with work. And I’m not the girl you can nab to replace what you’ve built up with someone else – I’m the girl you start from scratch with.

Did I mention he is by far the best looking Subject I’ve gone out with? Oh, he is. Totally my type.

Conclusion (overall rating): I give this Experiment an 8 because in another place and another time I could actually see myself dating this Subject long-term. As I write this, there is a new message from him in my inbox, and I had to refuse to read it until I wrote up this Lab. My final conclusion: ladies, this Experiment proved to me that it is possible to find someone online whom you can truly hit it off with, so long as you are open to doing so and you don’t have ulterior motives for meeting said person (like writing a blog about blind dating).

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): This is actually one of the first men I started talking to when I first signed up for MyLifeIsOverIfIDon’tGetMarriedNextYear.com, but he’s had friends in town so we’ve been asking each other random post-apocalyptic hypotheticals for the past two weeks leading up to the big first meet. I see this guy being a big geek. I expect he loves authors like Terry Pratchett, but I also think he’ll be kind of quiet and maybe reserved.

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• It’s interesting, because this Subject already reminds me a lot of one of my favorite cousins. During our correspondence he mentioned that he really doesn’t follow sports, and do I see this as being an issue in getting to know each other. Aww how cute! And if we’re telling truth, yes it is. But I assured him that I don’t need to have 100% in common with everyone I meet in order to like them. In reality, I do need any guy I date to love the pigskin, even if it’s the team I like the least detest the most.
• We are going to a bar that is right down the street from where I live to enjoy a few beers together before I split off to meet up with all my single ladies.

Procedures (omg what happened???): Huge shock: I arrived to the bar and instantly started to pretend to text someone, and nearly fell over when he walked up to me and touched my arm, because he looked ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like his profile picture. I’ve ranted about this before, but this Subject takes the cake for choosing a picture that doesn’t even remotely resemble his likeness.

Oh, we talked about the Large Hadron Collider. Of course we did. How could we not? I mean, we’d exhausted robotics small talk and techniques for building biomedical equipment without even the most rudimentary CAD program. So really once we moved past geostationary satellites, DARPA and CERN, the only thing left to talk about was the Large Hadron Collider.

You are so cute! I want to take you home with me and ask you trivia quesitons when Jeopardy! is on...

Appearance aside, this man truly impressed me. He and his dad are building a house together down in a small coastal town south of the City. He lives in the City, in the house he grew up in with his sister, but they never really speak because the residence has been split into a duplex. He works for a pretty big and fancy-schmancy lab, building biomedical equipment for their experiments. He likes beer, which surprised me, because he had trouble making eye contact with the pretty girl across the table from him, even though she was trying so hard to relate to everything he was saying. Did you hear me?!? He couldn’t even look me in the eye for most of the date because he is so geeky-shy.

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): Yes, I was right – he is a big nerd. I mean, he’s obviously a smart guy, and I had no trouble relating to him because I am very in touch with my inner geek. That said, this was the first time I felt a twinge of guilt (guilt? Pity. Pity? Indigestion? Possibly indegestion.) because I had a realization about this adorable and slightly dweeby man: I can relate to him on so many levels; but I’ll never be attracted to him because he can barely relate to me. I can talk about computers and gadgets and sci-fi all day, but he’s never taken a keg stand or asked someone their name after kissing them square on the mouth (not that I’ve ever done that… I just tend to be attracted to the kind of guys who have). He’s not a social person, he doesn’t have a big personality to match my big personality, and he knows nothing about celebrity gossip.

Conclusion (overall rating): He’s like the kid in your junior high class who would be cute if he would grow a little confidence, but who would let you copy his answers while you did your homework in class together because he’s just so nice, and that made you think he was adorable, but you’d never date him because he’s really just too awkward. But the bar had a bunch of home brew beer that was good (as long it wasn’t IPA), and I really enjoyed not being the biggest nerd in the room for an hour and a half. He gets a 6.5 because beer and geeks are both high on my list of likes.

(4:56:26 pm)ftfd36:hey:)
(4:57:08 pm)ME:hi
(4:57:13 pm)ftfd36:whats up
(4:57:23 pm)ME:nothing you
(4:57:32 pm)ftfd36:bored
(5:00:23 pm)ME:same
(5:00:35 pm)ftfd36:what u lookign for on here
(5:00:52 pm)ME:i think i put that in my profile
(5:00:55 pm)ME:pretty clearly
(5:01:43 pm)ftfd36:no sex
(5:02:46 pm)ME:I’m sorry, what?
(5:02:54 pm)ftfd36:no sex
(5:04:10 pm)ME:no sex what
(5:04:37 pm)ftfd36:u dont want sex
(5:04:51 pm)ME:Not with strangers no
(5:05:07 pm)ftfd36:whit who?
(5:05:26 pm)ME:What are you trying to find out here?
(5:05:32 pm)ME:so we don’t go in circles
(5:06:32 pm)ftfd36:if we can have sex if we get to know eachother … i want to make love to a black chick
(5:07:14 pm)ME:NO
(5:07:23 pm)ftfd36:ko
(5:07:37 pm)ME:I dont want friends with benefits
(5:07:42 pm)ME:i put that in my profile very clearly
(5:07:49 pm)ME:and I am not out ot be someone’s fetish
(5:07:51 pm)ftfd36:i know
(5:08:00 pm)ME:So then what the fuck why did you ask
(5:08:13 pm)ftfd36: maybe it could have been more
(5:08:13 pm)ftfd36:…
(5:08:23 pm)ME:I’m not going to start out having sex with you
(5:08:27 pm)ME:because that’s friends with benefits
(5:08:35 pm)ME:if you just want to fuck some black person find a hooker
(5:08:45 pm)ME:I’m more than just my race asshole
(5:08:46 pm)ftfd36:nooo

here’s a big FUCK YOU to all the people in the world who fetishize black woman and come to me like im some fucking sex toy.

I AM TIRED OF THE OBJECTIFICATION

But ladies, you can go SPEEDDATING with him!! I know you’re relieved to still have the opportunity.

Let me be your blurry slave

(11:43:02 pm)Proumpire60:good evening princess

(12:19:34 am)me :you cannot be serious

(1:16:20 am)Proumpire60:y

(1:17:00 am)Proumpire60:i know my place in this world is to serve a beautiful goddess like you

(1:18:27 am)Proumpire60:please

(1:44:27 am) me ::ahahahahahaahaha

(4:32:10 am)Proumpire60:please

(4:32:14 am)Proumpire60:ill spoil you rotten

(4:50:04 am) me: ahahaahahahahahahahaha

(9:51:45 pm)Proumpire60:may i serve you

(9:57:58 pm) me: no

(9:58:26 pm)Proumpire60:you are beautiful

(9:59:40 pm)Proumpire60:ill pay u to use me

(10:01:02 pm)Proumpire60 k ill just go away a worthelss white bitch OK WHOA NOW IT’S NOT FUNNY.

(10:06:47 pm) me: can’t you troll someone else

(10:07:07 pm)Proumpire60:im worthless im sorry

(10:10:07 pm)me :You should be

(10:11:02 pm)Proumpire60:i am…. you are just os beautiful and i woudl love to be ur lil sissy btch

GODDAMNIT I AM TIRED OF WHITE MEN CONTACTING ME AND UNNECESSARILY BRINGING UP RACE.

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): This Subject has been rather unremarkable to communicate with. He’s cordial and appropriate, but nothing about him stands out to me. I expect this Experiment to go like any other meet-and-greet between two young urban professionals (read: zero chemistry, flirtation or semblance of romance).

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• He works for a medical company as a sales rep. He lives in this City and covers territories that are very local.
• Two words: TAPAS and SUSHI. I am beyond excited about a fusion of sushi and tapas, two of my absolute most favorite types of food!!!

Procedures (omg what happened???): I’m seriously struggling to remember anything noteworthy from this Experiment, aside from the fact that the subject looked exactly like his profile picture. That’s a first! And a welcome one, since he wasn’t unattractive.

At this point I’ll take a break from recalling anything he said and focus on the food, because let’s face it: I love food and I know you people are into it too. The restaurant is BRAND new. Like, as we were leaving they gave us fliers to the grand opening that was being held the coming Saturday. So we were the only two customers there for the entire meal. Surprisingly, I was really excited for some Latin/Asian fusion, but that isn’t at all how the restaurant is set up. One side of the menu is tapas, the other side is sushi. And both were excellent. The tapas were very authentic Spanish, as opposed to some of the Cuban or South American tapas places I’ve visited. And the fish was fresh and melted in your mouth. Ok, now I’m hungry…

Most memorable part of the Experiment. Maybe I should be a restaurant review blogger instead of a blind date blogger?

Things I vaguely remember about the subject: He likes to golf, he likes the same football team as me, I think he has a sister, and I know he has a dad (does that count as paying attention, knowing he has a dad?), he knows a lot about babies and their poo since that’s his area of work. In fact, the junkies that hang around the Planned Parenthood in town want some of his product because it’s a white powder that they can cut with their junk, according to him. Oh! And he’s traveled a lot on his own, just like Subject#1. He’s been all over Europe and parts of South America, including – of course – Costa Rica.

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): It’s almost embarrassing how underwhelmed I was by this guy. He’s definitely nice and all, but completely undeserving of a second thought. The restaurant, however, is someplace I will be going again the next time I am conflicted between whether I want sushi or tapas. Let’s have both!

Conclusion (overall rating): This date is making me consider switching from being a blind date researcher to being a food critic. Seriously, I hope you weren’t as bored reading about this experiment as I was while on it. And I hope you aren’t as STARVING as I am writing about the yumminess of my favorite types of food! I give the date 4, with 3 of those points going for the restaurant.