Dating Websites
On a whim, I decided to join an online dating website. The experience has been... interesting.
You learn a lot about yourself when you sign up for these websites. One of the first sections of your profile is a "Self-Summary." The cursor sat blinking in that empty text box for probably 45 minutes. How do you sum yourself up? Not only was it difficult to summarize myself, it was difficult to summarize myself in a way that I thought would be desirable or even reflective of the actual package someone would be confronted with. While my self-confidence is generally high (bordering on hubris), imagining that I would stand out from a crowd of competitors when it comes to the boyfriend department is not one of them. "Good listener, financially stable, non-violent, and plays video games daily." Yeah, me and 500,000 other dudes.
The reverse effect took place when I started browsing other peoples' profiles too. The site I'm on is OKCupid, which is not likely the best one for my particular brand of nonsense. But even still, it was fascinating monitoring my own emotions when I would read an interesting profile, see that they were attractive, and then come across a "deal breaker" amongst one of the survey questions. "Oh, she's a 95% Match, but she wouldn't date someone who plays video games." "Hrm, she's a socially conservative evangelical Christian." "She's perfect... oh, but doesn't want to have kids." It's "fascinating" specifically because I don't think any of my actual, real-world relationships would have happened if we had to rely on these same website criteria. On the one hand, that's encouraging. On the other hand, it's also pretty confidence-undermining given how we started an incompatible relationship based on the convenience of geography and availability.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with two people making compromises in relationships to make things work, sure. But as your pool of available matches broadens - as they do on dating websites - you naturally start to become more selective. Because why not, you know? But then you realize that it works the other way too.
The other thing I discovered about myself, or re-discovered really, is that... I'm not actually sure that I want to bother with the nonsense. Absolutely none of my real-world relationships started out on a dating level; we were either already friends, or we somehow rocketed past the whole first date (etc) part due to circumstances. Just trying to imagine where I would take someone for a first date or what we'd talk about makes me want to do something else. I might still be basking in the post-relationship free-time stage, but I am not entirely convinced that is the case. A nice date, to me, is watching Netflix on the couch with her. But that seems to be skipping half a dozen chores that must be completed before it becomes on option. Or maybe I need to find someone who feels the same way? Okay... but who in their right mind is going to let a stranger jump right into that level of comfort from a dating website?
Overall, the experience has been remarkably similar to job hunting while unemployed. Which makes perfect sense, I suppose. But just like with job hunting, I am finding that it ends up making me feel worse about future prospects rather than better. Part of the fantasy bit with going to Japan was finding someone over there. What is there to make me feel like that sort of thing would be more likely than finding someone over here? Right off the bat, they would need to be into foreigners, interracial dating, and understand English, on top of whatever other qualities they value.
I mean, I guess people just make it work somehow in the offline world all the time. I do still think getting all of your cards on the table before even sitting down to play the game (so to speak) is more efficient. But it certainly comes with some costs.
You learn a lot about yourself when you sign up for these websites. One of the first sections of your profile is a "Self-Summary." The cursor sat blinking in that empty text box for probably 45 minutes. How do you sum yourself up? Not only was it difficult to summarize myself, it was difficult to summarize myself in a way that I thought would be desirable or even reflective of the actual package someone would be confronted with. While my self-confidence is generally high (bordering on hubris), imagining that I would stand out from a crowd of competitors when it comes to the boyfriend department is not one of them. "Good listener, financially stable, non-violent, and plays video games daily." Yeah, me and 500,000 other dudes.
The reverse effect took place when I started browsing other peoples' profiles too. The site I'm on is OKCupid, which is not likely the best one for my particular brand of nonsense. But even still, it was fascinating monitoring my own emotions when I would read an interesting profile, see that they were attractive, and then come across a "deal breaker" amongst one of the survey questions. "Oh, she's a 95% Match, but she wouldn't date someone who plays video games." "Hrm, she's a socially conservative evangelical Christian." "She's perfect... oh, but doesn't want to have kids." It's "fascinating" specifically because I don't think any of my actual, real-world relationships would have happened if we had to rely on these same website criteria. On the one hand, that's encouraging. On the other hand, it's also pretty confidence-undermining given how we started an incompatible relationship based on the convenience of geography and availability.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with two people making compromises in relationships to make things work, sure. But as your pool of available matches broadens - as they do on dating websites - you naturally start to become more selective. Because why not, you know? But then you realize that it works the other way too.
The other thing I discovered about myself, or re-discovered really, is that... I'm not actually sure that I want to bother with the nonsense. Absolutely none of my real-world relationships started out on a dating level; we were either already friends, or we somehow rocketed past the whole first date (etc) part due to circumstances. Just trying to imagine where I would take someone for a first date or what we'd talk about makes me want to do something else. I might still be basking in the post-relationship free-time stage, but I am not entirely convinced that is the case. A nice date, to me, is watching Netflix on the couch with her. But that seems to be skipping half a dozen chores that must be completed before it becomes on option. Or maybe I need to find someone who feels the same way? Okay... but who in their right mind is going to let a stranger jump right into that level of comfort from a dating website?
Overall, the experience has been remarkably similar to job hunting while unemployed. Which makes perfect sense, I suppose. But just like with job hunting, I am finding that it ends up making me feel worse about future prospects rather than better. Part of the fantasy bit with going to Japan was finding someone over there. What is there to make me feel like that sort of thing would be more likely than finding someone over here? Right off the bat, they would need to be into foreigners, interracial dating, and understand English, on top of whatever other qualities they value.
I mean, I guess people just make it work somehow in the offline world all the time. I do still think getting all of your cards on the table before even sitting down to play the game (so to speak) is more efficient. But it certainly comes with some costs.