Ever the adventurer, I recently stepped out of my comfort zone and signed up for a few online dating sites and apps.
Over the last few years, I’ve found that it’s become harder and harder to connect with people in the real world. Walk into any coffee shop, bar or store and you’ll see a wall of men and women, old and young, with their backs hunched, necks craned, eyes glassy and oblivious—to everything but the small electronic god in their cramped hands.
Case in point: I was sitting at the counter in a café the other day—all the way over to one side, with three empty stools available—and a man came over and sat on the one right next to me, leaned one elbow on the counter, and proceeded to text. He was so close I could read his text messages. I stared at his back for a minute, wondering if I should comment on his digital conversation as a passive-aggressive way of letting him know he was in my personal space. “She sounds amazing, dude. Go for it!” Then I remembered that I was a mature adult, so I tapped him on his shoulder and asked him to move over a foot or five. And he looked at me like I was the rude one.
Anyway, I figured that if everyone was transfixed by their electronic devices and spending all their time in the virtual world, then that’s where I would go. Little did I know….
When it comes to online dating, here’s how to look like a moron: (so you can complain that all women are shallow and insincere because they don’t jump all over you)
- Make sure that your profile photo is blurry, contains multiple same-sex people, includes you groping a scantily-clad woman, or something is hiding your face (sunglasses, tightly-drawn hood, seemingly dead animal). A friend suggested that my standards were too high for the online dating world until I showed her the profile picture of a man with huge, round, coke-bottle glasses and a small squid hanging out of his mouth. Another choice photo was a completely nude man doing a handstand on a deserted beach. At least he could’ve had the decency to face the camera….
- Be the first one to reach out and message a woman to tell her that you like her profile description…and then disappear off the face of the earth. When you reappear, writing this note—“I’m seeking a sexy open minded woman. If you can twerk that’s a plus.”—will be sure to have women knocking on your door. Or you could attempt a brilliant introductory conversation like this:
Him: “hi”
Me: “Hello Mike, nice to meet you. I see that we both enjoy bananas. How are you?”
Him: “good”
Me: …….. Wow. Intriguing.
- Write that you’re looking for an actual relationship and are really interested in connecting with someone…and then send women only one-word messages: “hey,” “yo,” “saxy!” (Assuming he means “sexy” but maybe he’s hoping I’m a saxophone player.) When the woman asks you questions about yourself, ignore them. When she responds to your question, don’t acknowledge her answer. When she asks what you do for fun, say, “Fun? Explain.” or “Sex. Give me your phone number.” And if you respond to my message after three days, please don’t text anything other than “hey you.” I’m a cryptologist in training and I need the practice. Also, writing “I love to walk on the beach seeing the breeze” gives me two choices: either you have some kind of supersonic vision or you’re illiterate.
- If the initial messaging is going okay and you both decide to meet for coffee, be sure to make plans which you will then not follow through on. If you actually meet in person at a coffee shop and she excuses herself to go to the restroom, slip out the back door. Nothing makes a woman hornier than returning to a deserted table. Look, I’m not asking you to pledge allegiance to everyone right off the bat, but when you reach out first and you say how much you like her profile and you make plans, then don’t be a disappearing dick. Have the decency to say you’ve changed your mind. I totally get that everyone is casting a wide net in the hopes of actually getting a couple dates, but just remember that karma is a bitch. (No seriously, she’s this girl that I know who is really, really mean and she hates when her friends get treated poorly….)
- Make jokes that your buddies probably think are hilarious but that might get lost in translation via poorly-written texts to someone who doesn’t know you at all. And when she says, “Oh, that was a joke,” really ingratiate yourself by saying, “Are you one of those people who doesn’t have a sense of humor?” You can also showcase that funnybone of yours in the “facts” section of your profile by claiming that you are 6’12” and have narcolepsy. (Come to think of it, maybe the narcolepsy is true, but your math skills are still suspect.)
- Never spell words correctly under any circumstance. To really come across as a moron, don’t use capitalization or punctuation either. Examples: “oh well in new this dating scene,” “lets set ur diference aside,” and “i dont care what a woman likes r dislikes as far as she promise to love me for who i am.” I suspected that for some of these people, English might have been their second language, but under “Languages Spoken” nothing was listed except “Engrish.”
What I’m really perplexed about is the severely stunted skills these guys have regarding basic communication, because if you say you want a real relationship or connection, then at some point good, clear communication will be needed. And there seems to be no awareness of how you come across to others (if your profile pic is a photo looking out an airplane window at 10,000 feet, then you don’t get to complain that women don’t like you for who you are).
However, just to be extra sure that my standards weren’t impossibly high, I ran all these examples past a male friend of mine. His response: “What a bunch of dicks. They’re making us good dudes look bad.”
When you get past the idiocy of most of these examples, they’re actually pretty funny. Too bad I’m not a stand-up comic looking for material.
Selena Templeton is a blogger with JenningsWire Online Magazine. For more posts by Selena please visit here.
The online feature magazine, JenningsWire.com, is created by National PR Firm, Annie Jennings PR that specializes in providing book promotion services to self-published and traditionally published authors. Annie Jennings PR books authors, speakers and experts on major high impact radio talk interview shows, on local, regionally syndicated and national TV shows and on influential online media outlets and in prestigious print magazines and newspapers across the country.
