Pet peeves about online dating sites

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

OK, I’ve gone through a stretch of being single: relationship ended a year ago, and I’ve been otherwise busy with changing jobs/moving/life-stuff to do any dating. Now I’ve actively begun looking for a new relationship (not hookups). Of course, among other things, I have been using dating apps like Tinder or OKCupid again. But having I’ve noticed several distinct trends which I find baffling, and thought I’d throw out for the sake of discussion.

(FTR, I am a man in search of other men. Some of these points may only apply to gay men, not sure if there are ‘straight’ versions of these “tropes” for lack of a better term.)

  1. A gay man’s profile where most, if not all, his pictures depict him hugging, even kissing, cuddling, or just getting very close to women. Or even several women. This is strangely common. Some guys (presumably gay since I am seeing their pics) have nothing but pictures in which they are getting VERY close with females. I can understand posting a picture with your friends, but if you are looking for that significant other GUY in your life, why are advertising yourself practically groping your “Grace”, Will?

  2. The puckered, kissy-lip face. Ugh. This is also weirdly common: a close-up picture of the guy making puckered lips like Betty Boop. Why oh why oh WHY do so many guys think that looks attractive? Just smile!

  3. The ubiquitous starting line on almost every profile: “I hate writing about myself, I never know what to say, I find it awkward…” Yeah, I realize that it’s awkward and uncomfortable to have to write about yourself, because you see I DID IT TOO. But I try to write my self-appraisal without a lot of whining and moaning about it.

  4. A main profile picture depicting two or more men in the picture, so that the viewer can’t tell whose profile this is. Again, I can see the point of posting a gallery picture or two of you with your friends, just to show that you do have a social life. But not as the main profile picture. I don’t want to have to figure out which person of, say, four guys, I am supposed to be checking out before I swipe left or right.

  5. “I am spoken for, in a relationship with a wonderful guy, I’m just checking this scene out.” Yeah. OK. You’re happily coupled, but you’re posting your picture on a DATING SITE to check out who’s out there?? You never heard of meetup.com?

  6. Photos that are OBVIOUSLY from a long time ago. If, for example, your profile looks like a grainy, blurry photo that you took with a regular camera and uploaded via a scanner, and you’re rocking an Eddie Vedder mane, wearing cargo pants and a plaid shirt, while standing in a dorm room that has a land-line and a “Reservoir Dogs” poster, then don’t act offended if I ask if I can see a photo of you from this century!

Those are my main pet peeves about dating sites. What are yours?

2

I’m straight and I’ve seen most of your list exhibited by women. With a few odd changes.

  1. Last Dude obviously cut out or blurred, I always get the impression that this pic is meant for Last Dude.

  2. Writing “blah blah blah, all you care about it the picture” or the cat walking across keyboard string of lettters.

  3. Women who don’t seem to realize that I can tell the photos age ffrom the 80’s do.

For some reason finding out gay men also do number two makes me sad.

I will add

  1. Let me open my profile by teling you how much I hate guys, and I think you’re all dogs.
3

How about the ones with the long disclaimer that their pictures cannot be copied or used in any way according to federal law 123.456.789 etc.

I’m always tempted to IM them and say “Check out your pics on my website!”

4

It’s been over ten years since I’ve looked at one of those sites, but back then the thing that most appalled me were these:

Women’s descriptions listing a below-poverty level income who described the men they were looking for as having 200K+/year salaries. Gold dig much?

(I’m hetero but occasionally searched on women in my area to see what my competition was. It was… eye opening.)

5

My cousin has been on a few. Seems as though the only thing that the men she ran into wants to hook up but do it in a deceiving way. One of the signals that tell that they want sex is that they are “adventurous” Otherwise every man she has looked at have a very busy sports life…or busy whatever. Lies. Hard to find someone who just wants to talk at first. They claim they do but no.

6

I feel like Tinder is nothing more than a glorified Facebook that people use to feel attractive and validated. People seem to like to collect “matches” with absolutely no intention of chatting, much less actually meeting.