“Ok Cupid, now what?”
Normally I would feel less than confident with that dude as a wing man
I’m on Ok Cupid right now. It’s open one tab away and I’m wondering what a “hornivore” is as I write this. I’m currently in the midst of watching, listening, and reading everything I have ever come across about Raekwon and a bunch of stuff I missed the first time around too. That might not seem like it has anything to do with this post’s premise but it actually has everything to do with it. During research there comes a point where I feel like I’m just hearing the same things over and over again. I stop putting pieces together and seeing gaps that are inviting questions because I start to summarize and classify based on similarity. Critical thinking just shuts down for a little while. When that happens there are quite a few things I like to do for breaks (my break to work ratio is quite generous in favor of breaks) but one of them is signing up for services online. It’s why I have a Virb account I’ve visited about twice. It’s why I have about a gillion different forum identities that I’ve forgotten about and it’s why I’ve kicked the tires on numerous game betas. It’s why the favorites on my Suicide Girls account change, and so on and so on. There’s something about getting asked a bunch of questions about yourself (or games) and trying to really think about them and what that snapshot of yourself looks like to outsiders that snaps me back onto intellectual side of trying to format an interview. It’s like you’re interviewing yourself to figure out how questions illicit responses.
The path that led me to Ok Cupid was a relatively strange one all things considered; i.e. that I’m not really looking to date. If I were, I’ve met a couple of girls recently who are interesting and funny and lots of other desirable qualities. But the fact is, I’m still moving from here soon and it just seems like a bad idea. That said, looking is always fun in a kind of excitingly depressing way, “wow this person is great and… oh yeah it’s not going to happen because I’m leaving.” My trips home tend to be fraught with these. Anyway, Back to how I ended up here. I sat down at my computer to watch Rock The Bells, checked Twitterfox and saw a tweet about Ok Cupid being “FTW.” Then I remembered that a friend of mine has been using it for a long time (less as something for a real relationship but more to find decent company for dinner dates) to general success. This in turn made me think about the girl that jogged down my street this evening while I was walking my dog who was just one of those people you feel you’d like to have dinner with. Next thing you know, I’m on Ok Cupid’s FAQ which was surprisingly interesting.
I’ve never tried an online dating site before because I like to think that there is some serendipity involved. (I am, however, a firm believer in the internet’s supporting role in relationships. See the kernel of my ill fated long distance flirting site idea. The online friendships or relationships I do have have all developed the same way my real life ones have; common interest of some sort that facilitated talking about a topic which in turn led to a personal connection. The best example I guess would be Suicide Girls which you’d have to be a fool to think of in terms of dating. I’m sure people have met boyfriends or girlfriends, probably even eventual spouses, on SG but you’d have to be pretty misguided to go in thinking that’s how it was going to work for you. Everyone I’ve seen on any regional group that came in with that attitude has been quickly set straight and they tend to disappear without much noise. What SG has going for it is that it is smartly divvied up into forums or groups based on interests and lifestyles etc with no limit to how many you can belong. Then there’s a feed like your Facebook feed (even more so after the last revamp) which keeps kept you updated on the discussions going on in your groups as well as your friends’ activity. If you’re not really friends with someone yet you can bookmark their profile so if they make a blog post you’ll see it and you can check it out and comment and build a relationship. I guess the real world equivalent would be stalking, but I like to think of it in a more generous light as just taking notice of what people around you are doing. Like, maybe you sit next to someone at school and haven’t really talked to them but one day you notice they’re drawing your favorite band’s logo on their notebook, then you go talk to them. Maybe you notice a regular at a comic store picking up a book you’d just read and strike up a conversation. I call that organic socializing and I think it’s an impressively simple and sensible way to get things going on a site. But let’s just say I’m totally missing out on something. Maybe I haven’t been looking around enough or maybe it’s just my luck that the class an hour ahead of me is stacked with 20 people that are all drawing the same logo I am and my class has none? Do I need a computer to look out for me?
Initial Experience. Warning: stream of consciousness ahead.
Now, you don’t have to sign up to use Ok Cupid but I figure I’ll do the thing the whole way. I’m one click in before I have to pause. First problem, user name. I haven’t taken a look at how seriously people are taking this. User name generation used to take up the bulk of my time on these things until I started using Spladow for everything. Should I make some witty reference here? This is a break, although now it’s turning into a lengthy post, so I’m just going to go with Spladow. Once through I see a girl with the user name LemurwithFemurs and feel OK with my choice. I’m also intrigued. I’ve listed myself as interested in everything but long term dating, including pen pals. Maybe we will have to correspond.
I have to choose three adjectives about myself. The first that come to mind are “indie” (I’ve just looked at pictures of myself you see) “curious” and “nonsense.” Nonsense may not be an adjective in a traditional sense but I think it’s an active part of my personality. Plus it shows that I’m a rebel. Rebels are sexy. If the transitive property holds true, I have just set myself up for a pretty successful evening of online flirting. Transitive property aside, I have my doubts about how useful these descriptors will be for matchmaking, but things like “music” and “Los Angeles” would be a million times worse.
It’s funny I mentioned stalkers earlier because OK Cupid has an actual stalkers category. (After 7 minutes I already have 7. That’s one per minute and I’m feeling good about that considering that I have no real profile yet.)
Part of the problem I’m seeing develop in my answers and compatibility is the same as in my real life. Things aren’t that important to me. So far everything has been “somewhat important to me” and I’m probably being generous there.
Ah, we’ve gotten into a bit more controversial topics and thoughts on gay rights and religion seems to have brought out the decisive in me. As have hygiene questions. I’m pretty sure these are to wipe out the dingy hipsters Bike Snob is always talking about.
The evening’s results:
I don’t know what to think. So far the people with the most attractive profiles have been quick matches with sub 85% match scores as opposed the the 98%’s I’ve been getting with regular matches. Either that means that we just can’t quantify sense of humor and certain sensibilities, or it means that I’d meet these people and have 15% more likelihood of disagreeing over crucial issues?
I’ve had way more fun doing this than I expected, the quizzes and questions were pretty funny and, at times, surprisingly blunt to the point that they seemed like they’d be pretty effective in breaking apart the field. I think I might actually go back to this.
Tags: ok cupid, online dating