jchrisobrien | four days running

four days running

I deleted my OKCupid account today, after what must be the fiftieth woman messaged me that I would never go out with. I don't need this kind of negative reinforcement, thanks.
Facebook and Myspace are on the cusp too. One I never really use, and the other is just a duplicate for almost everyone I know (except for one person I have no business talking to ever).
Livejournal stays, because I've been here forever, and I'm not limited to 140 characters per post (you go to hell, twitter.)

History tells me there is a light at the end of the tunnel. So I will listen to history, and not my head, even though this tunnel is black as pitch. There are things crawling in it.

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I take no pride in those numbers. What I take is reinforcement of the idea that "these are the only people that are going to be interested in you. Either suck it up and date them, or be alone forever." Each person who does that adds more weight to the argument.

Perhaps your experience is different. Were you flattered when people you were unattracted to made their interest known? Or did you cringe?

Are they unattractive but nice? Or unattractive and crazy/jerks?

I'd take a 5 who is a knight over a 10 who is a psycho, fool, or bully.

OTOH, its the internet, so who can really tell, even with good photos?

I am not attracted to nice. I have a bazillion nice friends, I have so many friends I can't schedule enough time to see them all on a regular basis. The last thing I need are more friends. Unless, I start ignoring the ones I have in favor of new ones.

We are looking for different things.

Well, true, since, I'm not even looking. ;P

Though if I were looking, I would agree with you that OKCupid is not the way to go. Doesn't seem like the right platform to me.

I've always been flattered, to be honest. The cringing came with people who's eyes told me they were thinking disgusting dirty thoughts before they even knew my name, REGARDLESS of whether they were physically attractive or not.

And, I've actually dated a few people who I wasn't initially attracted to because I thought they were interesting and we seemed to have compatibilities in important areas. The attraction came as I got to know a number of them (yes, by that I mean I was physically attracted to them when I wasn't before). A few of them even ended up being really important relationships in my life.

Just sayin'

I have dated some people like that too. It usually led to them thinking everying was great and rosey and awesome, and I wanted to scrub my face every time after I gave them a kiss, or felt like apologizing to my friends afterwards for introducing them to my "date".

I don't want to give someone false hope and them crush them. I want what most of my friend have or have had: actual, god honest lust, weak in the knees, being EXICTED to see the other person. I want chemistry.

But sometimes that chemistry develops over time! It really does! I have had more relationships that came from later-developing chemistry than relationships that came from instant attraction.

This.

Frankly, I'm unwilling to put that much time into a relationship with a bunch of forty-something single moms. I don't want to go through the motions with some boring, uninteresting person just be cause the "winked" at me. I want to have what all of my other friends have had, who pursued what they wanted and got it.

I'll allow that chemistry can develop over time. I'm almost forty. I've wasetd a good twenty years of my life being single, because I haven't had the guts to ask for what I want or been so poor at making choices or spineless that no one wanted what was offered. I don't have the TIME to date someone I'm not passionate about for six months on the off chance something comes of it.

Well, by all means if you aren't interested in dating someone with kids, don't waste your time and theirs (but couldn't you put that bit in your profile to avoid getting messaged by moms in the first place?)

But I'm sure no one is suggesting you should date someone for 6 months while feeling no attraction to them. I thought people were suggesting giving these women a chance, at least - like a date or two. Who knows if you might have a great time in person, even if they don't grab you immediately online? Right? You seem like you're dismissing them out of hand with almost no information.

OkCupid is bullshit. For people like silas7 and I, all we get are 40+ year old single moms with kids. If we find someone we find interesting, then _maybe_ we get one email response back if we're lucky.

After a year of trying out OkCupid, I had _zero_ dates. On top of it, I came across multiple instances of copy-and-pasted profile information.

Fuck that noise.

I didn't mention anything about single mom's because it wasn't really an issue. In fact, I did send an e-mail to woman, 37, who was a single mom. Why? Because I thought she was attractive and interestintg. Also, she picked me as someone who was a 4-5 (out of 5) for looks/interests.

I never heard back from her. Even though SHE initiated the contact.

Sexual attractivness is the deal breaker, it's what separates a friend from a lover. It is not the only quality that I look for: kindness, intelligence, humor. All these things are great and essential for someone I want to date seriously. I can get these from any number of my current female friends. What's lacking is intimacy.

You'll just have to take my word for it that I haven't wanted intimacy with the vast majority of the people who've messaged me. Those where I'd consider it, I've had one or two exchanges of email, and then nothing. I haven't turned every single of of them down. I also done reaching out and messaging people. 1 in 10 have responded at all. I've had a sum total of two physical interactions (dates) with people, and I've never heard back from them.

Now, add to that frustration seeing a bunch of your married friends flirting heavily with other couples, or dating couples all hanging over couples at a "swinger's lite" party, while you can't bring yourself to even hug someone w/out fear of rejection. That's about where I'm at. I'm Jip, w/out the Lulu (remember Human Traffic? see how I can still add a little levity to things?)

Also with internet romance, there is another factor involved:

The more attractive the person (this includes descriptions as well as photos), the less they themselves tend to be the instigators or aggressors in many cases, especially online. If you are a 10, you are too busy deleting messages from others to bother seeking out anyone on your own. And vice versa can also be true. Women, especially, are bombarded by so many guys online if they have a good photo that they are far less likely than men as a whole to initiate contact.

So the fact that 50 women you don't want are contacting you, means that you are in fact higher on the hottie scale than they are. Quite a bit higher, if you add the hesitation of many women to initiate or continue contact online.

I'm sure that women get innundated with requests, so I'm not surprised that I don't get any responses back. That still leaves "average" looking people who have cool interests. I don't hear from them either.

I take no pride in being higher on the "hot" scale then they are. I can be the hottest single guy in Boston, and still the lonliest (in the not dating sense, I have no lack of friends).

Cringe? That seems harsh unless they are being jerks. I have cringed at some things, but not just because I wasn't interested - only when there was some behavior I thought was deeply unattractive/offensive in some way. Is that what you're getting? It sounds like you're the person doing the rejecting here, so I'm not sure why it feels like such a negative. What's wrong with these people?

There's nothing "wrong" with them, they aren't defective. I'm just not interested in them. It feels like a negative because the only people I'm attracting are people I'm not interested in.

Maybe this is just the Universe's way of saying: "Look, forget about all your other interests. These are the people you should be looking at." In which case the Universe can get stuffed.

It sounds more like the Universe saying: "OKCupid is not the right medium. Try another angle."

Does anyone still use Nerve? I only got as far as a couple of hand-shake ending dates, but I have other friends who met their spouses there.

Frankly, Chemistry is an issue for *anyone* and on *any* online dating site. No matter how hot or how much in common two people have in profiles, meeting in person is a different story altogether. But I will say that online dating gave me the perspective and cahones to open my mind to people outside my comfort zone, which led to finding exactly what I wanted so much faster (though not online).

Good luck in wherever the search takes you next.

crap. that was me. sorry, lj is being isnane today!

Of all the people I was interested in, or messaged with, NONE of them were Gothy types. So the entire experinece with OKCupid involved me "broadening" my horizons. The fire spinning community was the same way. Nothing panned out there either.

It really feels like the Universe is saying. "Settle. Put aside your pride and take what you can get."

As I said, I did know what you were getting at.

If people I'm unattracted to make known their interest in me, I don't think it affects my sense of who I am, even before I was in a long term committed relationship and still looking. The only thing that made/makes me uncomfortable is when somebody is persistent after I've communicated my lack of interest/unavailability, but that's their problem, not the result of anything I did or am.

"It doesn't affect my sense of who I am."

That is where you and I are different.

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