Oh my gosh, I am not answering all those personal questions on okcupid. I saw one guy that answered over 900 questions. Some of them are much too personal. My neighbors don’t need to know all my little quirks.
Your answers aren’t public unless you choose to make them so. If you want to seriously use the site, it’s worth it to answer as many as you can.
You can skip the personal ones, or answer them privately. I think you can also set your profile up to be only viewable to other OKCupid members, which reduces the chances of your neighbours finding out about you!
Said follow-up conversation took place Saturday night: turns out that his communication skills aren’t the greatest, and what he said wasn’t really what he meant. We’re good (again) now. 
As Robot Arm has said, it’s that determining whether someone is “life mate” potential is nearly impossible to do long-distance. At least, for some of us. Emails and IMs and phone calls – even Skype sessions – only get you so far: there is no “test” for chemistry other than being the same room together, and that shouldn’t take an act of Congress. Likewise, the most reliable way to get to know someone is to physically spend time with them in as many different situations as possible, which to me includes some ability to be spontaneous (e.g., deciding on a whim to meet for coffee one morning).
OkC profile finally produced something other than an uncomfortable first date. Been chatting with this guy (300 miles away, but smart and funny) for a few hours now. RL has gotten a bit complicated (talking to two guys, but both have made it clear they don’t want anything serious, and one’s leaving town in a few weeks), so it’s nice just to chat about music with a guy who’s into sci-fi and flirting.
Never mind. Actually he has serious self-esteem issues and got rejected by some girl and he knows women don’t find him attractive and he’s so sorry he bothered me and on and on.
Jeez. Why do I always end up as the therapist?
Why do you think you always end up as the therapist?
Ding.
It’s not someone who’s seeking therapy in the dating world, or even validation. Unfortunately, it’s human nature to offer up tales of how much we’ve been hurt as a way of saying “please don’t hurt me.” Unfortunately it’s also human nature to react to this by rejecting the person, adding to their hurt.
cite: Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, to paraphrase its point: if we see someone with a broken leg, we help them. If we see someone with a broken heart, we avoid them.
That is why the old saw. “Just be yourself!” is terrible advice, not just in online dating but in life at large. Unless you are by nature happy, optimistic, outgoing, self-confident and all the other adjectives repeated ad nauseum in dating profiles, “just being yourself” is not going to get many dates. If you are depressed, pessimistic, shy, self-doubting or any of the human frailties the rest of us struggle with, you had better adopt a persona that conceals those shortcomings, or you are wasting your time dating. Or looking for a job, or doing anything that requires human interaction.
“Just be yourself”, unless you are a real person. Otherwise, be whatever others want you to be.
This is a rather glaring fallacy-of-the-excluded-middle argument.
The idea behind the advice of “just be yourself” is to prevent you from presenting a persona that is actually different from who you actually are, which will result in disaster down the road.
Being optimistic is in everyone’s nature at least some of the time, unless you are actually clinically depressed. Presenting an optimistic attitude when dating is no less “being yourself” than being respectfully serious at a funeral or avoiding swearing at a business meeting; it’s just being appropriate to the occasion. It’s not dishonest or not being “yourself.”
You aren’t lying to anyone when you wear a business suit to a job interview and act professional. You WOULD be lying if you put stuff on your resume that was untrue. It works for dating; if you show up to a date wearing slightly nicer clothes than you usually do and you’re happy and optimistic, that’s not dishonest, it’s just showing you’re not an idiot. If you went on a date and put on a show of being a manly car-fixin’ guy who loves football when, in fact, you’re a bicycle-riding eco-nut who hates football but loves skiing, that’s a lie. That’s not being yourself.
If you are depressed, pessimistic, or self-doubting, you had better GET HELP.
Dating is a privilege, not a right.
This, because if you do this:
…then eventually that’s going to crack, and the poor bastard you’re dating will realize s/he has been duped.
This reminds me of something a woman I dated off OkC told me. She said that the impression she got of me from my profile and me IRL were very different, although she liked both. She said I was presenting who I wanted to be, rather than who I am. I countered that everything in my profile is true. I didn’t add that she blatantly lies in her profile questions about her religion– she says she’s an atheist when she’s not.
Confirming many a depressed person’s nightmare, they deserve loneliness. They are unworthy of being loved. (That’s how a depressed person would interpret that.)
I agree that this is how criticism is often interpreted, but I don’t think anyone can do more than offer gentle prodding interspersed with honest compliments. If someone’s best efforts are met with a defensive or just unerringly pessimistic attitude, what obligation does that person have to invest more time and energy in that potential relationship than they would if their conversation partner were agressive or boring?
I’ve been in relationships with men who have a depressive streak, and it wasn’t a dealbreaker, but I guess I wonder if a guy can’t hold himself together for a few hours’ worth of conversation, how functional is he in the rest of his life?
Nobody deserves to flat broke, but if you go into an interview and say “I’m not very good at this work, I’ve failed every time I’ve done it because I as far as I can tell everyone in this industry is an asshole, and frankly I don’t really think I’m that great of a person. Let me tell you some more about my shortcomings…” you are not going to get hired.
Strangers are not particularly concerned about you or being the vehicle of some kind of karmic balance. Everyone- from dates to bosses to friends- is asking, “How can you add value to my life.” That’s just how it is.
You can’t in practical terms, add emotional value to people’s lives until you have your emotions under control and are in a good place with them. This has nothing to do with your value as a human being. For example, someone who just experienced a messy divorce almost certainly shouldn’t date until it’s all a bit less raw. Even if the are the nicest, most loving, most amazing person in the world, you can’t be an equal partner until you are on an emotionally even keel.
Exactly. So you polish that turd and put the best face on what you do have. Just don’t be yourself.
I again ask why putting on your best face isn’t being yourself.
Yes. There’s Happy Me, Manic Me, Quiet Me, Angry Me, Clingy Me, Geeky Me, Depressed Me, etc. There’s simply no reason Clingy Me or Angry Me or Depressed Me should be coming out on a first date, and if I can’t prevent them from doing so, I need to look into why. I like Happy Me and Geeky Me, and they’re my best faces, but they’re me just as much as Depressed Me is.
It’s witholding information. It’s only part of yourself.