Internet dating *or* grasping for love at end of one's rope

[Riot]

Belinda could you address Merk's concerns about the wings in this thread viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3943&start=165

Thank you.

[Fluffyumpkins]

[Merk]

The issue has already been addressed. Banned for life.

[belindashort]

Belinda could you address Merk's concerns about the wings in this thread viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3943&start=165

Thank you.

Done, lol.

[belindashort]

Belinda could you address Merk's concerns about the wings in this thread viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3943&start=165

Thank you.

Done, lol.

I don't think the term is literal, Belinda.

I'm just stating that quoting a long post and then stating 'tl;dr' is bannable on most forums I frequent.

[SoDeepPolaris]

Belinda could you address Merk's concerns about the wings in this thread viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3943&start=165

Thank you.

Done, lol.

I don't think the term is literal, Belinda.

I'm just stating that quoting a long post and then stating 'tl;dr' is bannable on most forums I frequent.

Yeah, but...no.

I just wanted people to be able to read it twice.

[Potter]

I'll copypasta my blogpost about this:

"Shitty dating/site 101"

Most people do this thing. Its not a secret, and this isn't some sort of revelation, but what people do, they cripple any chances they have at a real honest relationship with anyone, whether its on a 'dating' site, here, or even in the real world.

You join a dating site, or you just start chatting someone up:

Facade time. Put on your best face. Tell people a few 'bad' things about yourself but don't make it seem too bad, like a job interview manipulation. Turn some of the worst things about yourself into something 'cute'.

"Yeah, my last boyfriend left me screaming and running, but that was just because he wasn't ~~~adventurous~~~ enough! I'm too much woman for him to handle I guess" (In reality, he left running and screaming because he was sick of your bullshit drama and watching you cry over a bowl of cereal every morning just wasn't his type of adventure).

You write a bunch of things about yourself that you want other people to see. If they have 'test' you answer the test the way that you want another person to think that you answered it, as opposed to being truthful, whether with yourself or the test, even if the test explicitly states not to. You aren't REALLY out to find a soul mate, you just want to seem like the least creepy girl or guy on the site or in the club. (Obligatory repeat of 'in the club' dances)

You find someone you have something mildly in common with. You start pretending to be interested in things you give no shits about. You start to google these things so that you can feign interest in these hobbies or interests to make yourself seem to have a higher stock, or you talk about things you know a few things about as if you taught them in college.

"Oh yeah, I used to do that all the time, just don't let the jelly get away from you, you never know what sort of spores you might release into the troposphere!' smug

What you don't do - Tell them anything meaningful, whatsoever. That probably won't come until you both decide to meet up for the third or fourth time and get trashed, and start to actually talk, but by then, your bullshit facade has eaten its way past someone's trust zone. (This of course goes both ways).

You tell yourself you really like the person, and vice versa. You end up in the throes of NRE. Again, even less of a chance now that you will build ANYTHING even remotely substantial, but its fun right? I don't see anyone getting hurt, I really LIKE this person!

Now you're dating, maybe you've even had monkey sex a few times, but you still don't know each other. You both have your secrets, and now you are at the point that you will fight to keep them. You begin planning the future, and even planning how you will hide these things that you have managed to thus far keep hidden.

What if she finds out about the sodomized my little pony sculpture I have hidden in storage? What if he wants to meet my family and realizes that I was fabricated entirely out of self-replicating silicate nanites, but I just want to be human?

Its too late. Any semblance of a real relationship is shattered, because at some point, you have to rewind to get to the truth. You will never be able to have a meaningful relationship with this person, no matter how much you care for them because you won't be able to be honest with them. You'll be starting over the moment you start being truly honest.

Obviously I know everyone does not do this, but a lot of people think that they do not do this, and it is practically their M.O.

To put something personal on this:

I don't have a lot of close friends. If I have someone really close to me, it means that I let them in, and they didn't fuck with my trust. The other reason I don't have many friends is because when I meet people, they get a very intense version of me that I don't have any way to filter. Its not necessarily dramatic, but it is me, down to my worst habits if that comes up.

The reason I do this is because of the above. I don't want fake friendships, or fake relationships, and I don't want anyone to end up not being my friend because they just 'found out' that I suck my thumb, or that my family is crazy, or that I am poly, or that I don't want kids. These things are bound to come up in our FIRST conversation. Yes, my hobbies and interests will come up too, but I won't be wearing them like a badge that says 'you know you want me lolz'

I want real relationships, friendships, lovers. I have a deep intimate connection to people I am close to, and I keep people close to me that I care about. And I want them to have that from me.

I know my rant seems silly, maybe even misplaced or some regurgitation of things that people already know but don't care about. I want everyone to have real, intimate, trusting relationships. I want people to KNOW each other, inside and out. Stop hiding, who you are is probably better anyway, and you'll never know if you don't give someone else a chance to actually know you anyway.

tl;dr


OKCupid gets me laid.

[letshavetea]

Oh, sup guys.

So to respond to Belinda's book.

I think the big issue that you're seeing come up there is that you feel that everyone has their own little problems that they don't want getting out. Which to me says that everyone is insecure in themselves. Which is sad. I used to be like that, but then said fuck it and stopped doing the whole "Oh, I'm going to act like X around X people, and I'm going to act like Y around Y people" bullshit. Why? Because I like ME. If they don't like ME then why the hell am I even wasting my time with these people? I don't need their approval to make me happy, all I need is to know that I think that I'm a pretty solid guy.

Now I know that kinda comes off as sounding self centered and somewhat egotistical, but instead I'll say it's realizing that YOU are the most important person in the world to YOU. If you're not then you're doing something wrong. Plus it shows confidence. I like ME. If I don't like me, then if I'm trying to go into a relationship why would I expect that other person to like who I am? That's why you have to put yourself first before others, especially while dating, which to me sounds backwards from what I thought growing up.

I've never given the internet dating thing a shot, and who knows if I ever will. But basically the same rules of just normal dating applies to it. To me the idea of internet dating... the only difference between that and walking up to a girl at the bar is that you pretty much have something guaranteed that she's not going to just be a complete and total bitch to you when you say "Hello!" to him/her. The rest of the stuff related to dating and falling in love are still all the same, it's just that it's a somewhat different style of "hello".

tl;dr, Love yourself before trying to make someone else give a shit about you, because if you don't think you're awesome... then they have no reason to.

[Fluffyumpkins]

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▄ ▄ ▄ ▌ ▐ █ █ ▌ █ ░♥ .░ who don't need no man ░░░░░ ♥ ░ ...░░▐
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[Merk]

I did a search for "Pop'n" on OKC to see how many pedophiles I could spot but all I got was three nerds and a bunch of black people with quotes such as:

"Partian , wrkn or tryna get sometin popn "

"BIG THINGS POPn! "

"And at the end of the day i still enjoy lightn a fire in the fire place and popn in a movie and popn a bottle of wine and just kickn it relaxed style, one of my favorites. "

[Merk]

HI I'M 26 YEARS OLD AND I LIKE VAMPIRES, ART, TATTOOS, PIERCINGS, AND NOT TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY LIFE. I AM STILL AT THE SAME MATURITY LEVEL AS WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL.

[Amp Divorax]

HI I'M 26 YEARS OLD AND I LIKE VAMPIRES, ART, TATTOOS, PIERCINGS, AND NOT TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY LIFE. I AM STILL AT THE SAME MATURITY LEVEL AS WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL.

So essentially she lives in Muncie.

[Merk]

This is me:



I think this is actually pretty accurate truth be told.

[Pokebis]

Wait, do you want them to be less literate or less bookworm?

[Merk]

nonononono. You see, a critical part of any dating site is to have users answer a bunch of multiple-choice situational/opinion questions and based on your answers the site spits out what kind of personality you have and determines how good of a "match" you are with other users.

Let's use an example!

Which is more important: a person's opinion or how they arrived at their opinion?
[ ] A person's opinion.
[x] How they arrived at their opinion.
[ ] Neither is important.

Answers I’ll accept…
[ ] A person's opinion.
[x] How they arrived at their opinion.
[ ] Neither is important.

This question is…
[ ] Irrelevant
[x] A little important
[ ] Somewhat important
[ ] Very important
[ ] Mandatory

The little 'x' in the brackets are my answers. So, I personally believe how someone comes to their opinion is more important than the actual opinion itself and my ideal match would think the same way as I do. However, this particular issue isn't a huge deal to me so I marked that it is only "A little important."

Now how I answer this question shows some facet of my personality. Users are never told exactly what it changes (Literary, Wealthy, Optimistic, all the shit that you see in the picture in my previous post) but based on the subject matter of the question you can kind of figure it out. The "More literary" or "Less literary" is determined by comparing my answers to the average answers of other dudes on this site; apparently I am less well-read than the average man on the internet. Obviously, more than one question is used to determine how literary I am so it's not something that's completely binary.

Finally, the emphasis I put on the question determines the effect someone's answer to this exact same question has on their "Match %" to me. So for example:



This young lady has answered all her questions in such a way that she would be a pretty strong match for me (ie. Her answers oftentimes fall into the "Answers I'll accept" category). The emphasis, as you can imagine, determines how any given question impacts the Match % - if I were to go and change the importance level on all the questions I've answered thus far then this particular person would probably have a vastly different Match % with me.

For the curious, Friend % disregards my emphasis on a question. In other words, it just checks to see if someone has answered in a way that I prefer. Enemy % is determined by accounting for my emphasis on questions where someone does not answer in a way I would like.

In all cases, Match/Friend/Enemy % will not be identical for me and someone else since we both more than likely put a different importance level for each question. While in this example the young lady is a 91% match to me, I am probably like a 60% to her or something terrible like that. I can never know exactly how I match to her unless I ask her or something.




AND THAT IS HOW INTERNET DATING WORKS.