I think it’s disheartening when you are taking the whole online dating thing very seriously. . . and then face what is perhaps the worst of the worst in interpersonal communication. Me? I’ve accepted that the messages are going to be 98% offensive and that if I meet someone nice, it’s going to be a total fluke.
Saturday, before I shut down my OKCupid profile, I met Bruce* for lunch at a local farmer’s market. Right before we went into the market, Bruce asks me if we can walk to a place around the corner because moments before, he’d seen his boss go in and since his boss as requested him to do overtime that day, and Bruce had told him he had plans, Bruce thought it might look bad to show up at the farmer’s market with a hot chick (that would be me.) So, I agree, and we go around the corner to this swanky downtown little bistro for lunch.
We’re looking over the menu, when Bruce says to me, “I can’t believe they wouldn’t put the price of the food on their menu.” At first, I think he’s kidding, but no, he’s serious, and I politely tell him that the numbers below the description of each item is the price.
I order a salad and he orders the BBQ pork sandwich with sides and we each have a Coke. The bill comes to $28 with tip–yeah, it’s a bit expensive, but I could add it up by looking at the menu. Bruce pays with cash, and we leave and head back to the farmer’s market. By now, I don’t care if the boss is still there, I want to go to the farmer’s market. We go, and there’s no sign of the boss, and for about 45 minutes, we cruise the aisles of the market and I buy a few things. I then tell Bruce I have to go, that I have someone picking up something I’m selling off of Craigslist (true), and I give him my email address and we part ways.
Sunday I get an email from him, saying that he had a nice time, and would I be interested in doing something again with him? Sure, I respond.
Today I get another email from him. This one asks me if I can recall how much my salad cost on Saturday because he’s pretty sure they overcharged him for the lunch on Saturday. (I’m pretty sure they didn’t.) I don’t respond to this email, but I’m dying to know what his response would have been if I’d said, “Yeah, my salad was only $4” (it was more than that). Would he have gone back and demanded a refund? He obviously didn’t have the itemized receipt–he paid cash, so I don’t know if he had ANY receipt.
So, I think I’ve come to the end of the dating path, and perhaps the end of the gene pool.
*No names have been changed for this story because I don’t give a shit if he reads it or not. Bruce is his real name.
I’ve dated many non-crazy people from both POF and OKC (a few crazies too–LOL); all in, online dating success probably closely mirrors “offline” dating success. What can’t be denied is that there is at least a screening device that doesn’t exist “in real life”–e.g., if I see a woman in a bar, I have no idea whether:
- her husband/bf is meeting her there, or is in the bathroom
- she’s straight/gay/bi/asexual
- she has any interest in meeting ANYONE
Sure, there may be some crazies online, but most people on there are looking to meet someone (and they specify what they’re looking for). That’s a good head start.
To be fair, you don’t know those things about the people on dating sites either. There’s plenty of people on OKC who clearly aren’t interested in meeting people, who might be testing the waters of a different orientation or are just setting up a jealous husband for some drama.
I did say “most.” And I’m sure those “plenty of people on OKC. . .” that you are referring to are probably doing the same stuff offline, i.e., in bars, supermarkets, at work, etc.. The bottom line is that the world is full of jerks, cheaters, liars and confused people, etc. (both sexes)–whether you first encounter them online or in person doesn’t change that fact. I still maintain that it’s a good screening tool–by time I meet the people I’ve met from OKC, I have a good idea where they’re coming from.
That is a little odd, but compared to some of the horror stories I’ve heard about online dating, Bruce sounds like a catch.
This is very true. I have contacted two women recently who fit this. The first one flat out said she only created a profile to stalk her ex, but I was welcome to send her e-mails if I liked (I didn’t). The second one after 2 weeks of e-mails and a setting up of an in-person meeting, suddenly canceled and had to care for her sick mother who just had a procedure done and would not be unreachable for 12 weeks. Yet her profile has said “online now” a couple times since.
Random OKCupid question. So I’m using the quickmatch feature to rate profiles, where it’ll give their match percentage with you and show you their profile. Now I know everyone who’s a 90%+ match with me, I’ve seen all their profiles. In the quickmatch, I came across someone who’s a 92% match for me, but they definitely don’t come up in my search.
What would cause that?
I’m not sure if some of their searches are exhaustive or repeatable. You can set up the parameters of sex, age, distance, etc., and then sort by “special blend” (ugh) and get a list of results. You can do it again the next day and get a completely different set of results.
I don’t honestly know the algorithm it uses. Maybe it leaves people out of the search results if they haven’t accessed their account for a few days, but includes them in the quickmatch. Maybe it speeds up their database to generate ‘good enough’ results without having to run an exhaustive search. Maybe they throw in a little randomness just to be clever.
You found this profile eventually. That seems to be what matters.
“Special blend” reorders the results in a weird way, but if you sort by match percentage, you get the same results every time. At least for some reasonable number of results, like if you’re only searching locally. If you search across the country for your top match, it’ll change every time you refresh it. But within 25 miles, sorted by top match percentage, is consistent and repeatable.
I’m entering into this thread to say one thing. If you ever find someone on OKC who is your 99% match, meet that person. The results are interesting, to say the least.
All of mine are over 6 hours by car. Interesting “wow we should procreate,” or interesting “XOMG WHY ARE YOU MURDERING THAT CLOWN?”
Wait, what was that last part?
Some guys say nasty shit to women, in order to make them have sex with them. I’ve seen this paradoxical approach work before at bars, but never online.
Thank you.
As always, there is an XKCD comic about this.
Definitely more the first one. Unless you’re into murdering clowns, in which case the second one might come up too.
What’s funny is that our first date wasn’t spectacular. No awkward silences, and I definitely liked him and wanted a second date, but I wasn’t sure if there were any real sparks. Then we went to a happy hour for date two, and when I checked my phone in the bathroom it was suddenly 9:30, and then five minutes later when I looked at the clock again it was somehow 10:30, and that’s when I knew I was in trouble.
It’s a bit bizarre to talk to someone who has entirely similar viewpoints as you (we have yet to disagree on ANYTHING), but our backgrounds are completely different, so it somehow works.
Got an exam at 10:00:00 AM EDT, and then another one on 12:15:00 PM…both are two hours long, however the second one will probably not take longer than an hour and a half. It’s Spanish and Orchestra.
Also, today is like the official start-of-summer in CT. It’s not going under 80 degrees F for the next few days (it was still only going up to 60-70 degrees F for most days as a high). Oh, and it started right on the longest day of the year!
Mr. Sequitor? Mr. Non Sequitor? You have a call on Line 3?..
