Other sites

*ily has encouraged me to move beyond my current site and try elsewhere, namely Craigslist, if nothing else for the shock value. Just for kicks I decided to do just that. Here are the first six listings that came up for me when I visited the "men seeking women" section of my local Craigslist (spelling, punctuation, and formatting just as written):

• Operation Girlfriend Rescue! - 26
• This ad asks for someone who can "excite" him with all sorts of "stories and adventures" and it says that if you take him on a road trip he "opens up" and "likes the feeling of being free." He closes by requesting that one, "send me your pic, not from down there, your face first!"
• LATE IM CHAT WITH A COOL, PAMPERING & GOODLOOKING GUY…- 34
• He just got home from work and isn't tired so he wants to chat with a cool and special woman and put a smile on her face. He's willing to send a photo…
  
• chat ? - 33
• He just got home from hanging out and wants to chat.
  
• I Would Love to Gently Shave You
• I wouldn't feel good about posting this guy's entire post verbatim, and I really can't do it justice. Let's just say that he feels shaving a woman's "private area" can be "arousing and a truly beautiful experience."
• Snuggle and Fall Asleep in My Arms
• This is a single guy who is looking for someone to snuggle and hold in his arms. I like snuggling, a lot, perhaps more than the average person; however, I am not about to call someone up sheerly because of this one shared desire.
  
• Am I the only normal one here? Please prove me wrong - 28
• He says he feels strange about posting on CL, but that his friend had success so he thought he'd try it out. Then he goes on to list some of his physical attributes and say that his, "ideal situation is something between dating and a casual encounter." To him I reply: and how is that really any different from what most of these other guys want?

Very interesting. I don't know about this, *ily. Perhaps 2:30 on a Friday/Saturday night isn't the best time to be perusing the CL personals given what I'm looking for, but it was amusing all the same.

A new resolution

A couple of days ago, about the time I realized I'd been on the dating site for six months, I decided I needed to stop sitting around waiting for guys to e-mail me and go ahead and write them myself. Don't get me wrong, I've taken the first step before (as some of you may remember from earlier posts), but this is a little different.

Backing up a bit: Usually, when I have a decision to make that involves some degree of risk, be it financial, romantic, or otherwise, I wait it out. For example, there is a purse that I really want, but it is a lot of money. Do I need the purse? No. Do I want it? Yes. How badly do I want it? Ah, there is the essential question. In order to determine this, I put the purse on hold (well, in my Amazon.com shopping cart, actually, but same difference) and see how long I can go before purchasing it. If I really want it, eventually I'll break down and buy it. If, however, I decide that it's not something I really need or want, it will fade from memory, and, at some point, I'll get around to taking it out of my cart.

For all intents and purposes, that's what I've been doing so far with online dating. If I see a guy's profile that sounds good, I leave it open, checking it frequently to make sure he's still interesting, and then, after a week or so, if I still find him intriguing, I might, maybe, message him. A few times this has worked out, but more often than not, I never get anything back.

Such is the case with the current guy. I've been looking at his profile on and off for two weeks—the longer I look, the more interested I truly am, for I don't want to mess it up—and I finally worked up the nerve to message him two nights ago. So far, I've heard nothing. Before the message, we'd been looking at each others' profiles fairly regularly; since then, nothing from him. Too bad… he sounded great.

Onwards and upwards, though. I've decided to quit stalling and message guys who sound appealing. Hopefully, I can keep this resolution. Of course, you'll be the first to know whether I do or I don't.

It's been six months

To the day since I started this online dating adventure. In that time I've learned a few things:

1. If someone has only posted one picture, that's a bad sign—especially if he is reluctant/outright refuses to post another photo. He's likely not the person he says he is.

2. If your match percentage is below 65% with someone, that is probably for a reason. Trust your gut and your reading of his profile, and spare yourself the painfully horrid date that is likely to ensue should you ignore the bad feelings.

3. If you are at all like me, the people you are looking to attract on the site are likely as shy as you. Therefore, you simply cannot sit back and wait for a message. If you want to get to know someone better, step up and do it.

4. Only leave your instant message feature active at night if you are interested in receiving sketchy propositions from near and far. I've gotten messages in all sorts of variations on the English language from guys in my hometown as well as people in the Middle East, Asia, Europe—basically anywhere where there is a member of this site—who are interested in a simple chat, or a web chat. Urg.

5. Finally, don't be afraid to frequently edit your profile. The better it reflects you and your true interests and personality, the better. Since beginning thrice-weekly updates (give or take) on my profile, I've been receiving significantly more profile views and messages.

Here's to another six months! Who knows what lies in store for me?

School's out! I'm back!

The school year is over which means I now have almost three months of paid vacation to do whatever I please. The timing is good too, as I've been getting a lot of profile views and a number of messages (including a few promising ones) in the last two weeks.

For example, last night I received an invitation to a concert. I'd never messaged with this guy before, but he read my profile and thought I might be interested in going. I am—except that I've already got non-negotiable plans for that night. However, he's been on Jeopardy and sounds really cool; therefore, I hope he and I can hang out at some other time. A Jeopardy contestant? How cool is that?

I was also messaged by a nice sounding guy who's right here in the City. Convenient.

Then there's the guy I wrote about a few months ago, the cocky one, remember? Anyway, he keeps IM-ing me when I'm not near the computer. Finally, he just sent me a restaurant rec, since he recognized my Foodie-tendencies from my profile.

Anyway, these are definitely promising possibilities and there are more out there. Yay vacation!

Apparently Bahrain is near California…

Each week I get an e-mail from the dating site letting me know about new users in my area; I usually ignore them as I am on the site so often that I generally know about newbies. This week, however, I decided to check it out. Imagine my surprise when the first of the five people listed is someone from Bahrain. Yes, the small island nation in the Persian Gulf. Strange…

In other news, I've messaged a few guys and have heard back from a couple. Unfortunately, I've been too busy to actually e-mail them back. I plan to soon though, as I have the whole summer off from work and would like to try the dating thing when I have the time.

More soon… promise.

What's with the messages all of a sudden?

So first it was Florida, then it was a bunch of other random guys—mostly from here, but a few farther flung. Then there's the guy who's from Denmark but of Turkish ancestry who's now living in my hometown. Regardless of location, however, they all seem keen on getting to know me. Which is great except for one thing:

I have no time right now. I am so busy with work, concerts (singing in them), standardized tests, and oodles of other things, that I can barely remember to contact my parents, let alone a new guy who sounds vaguely appealing. And that's just it. None of these guys has been someone I had previously found attractive on the site. Perhaps that's a good thing. Fresh blood, that sort of thing. The fact of the matter is, however, that none of them has sounded good enough for me to want to compose something witty and interesting in response. Perhaps at the end of next week, when things have settled down a little bit, I'll be more inclined to get to know one or more of these guys. Until then, they—and you, dear readers—should not expect much from me.

Greetings from Florida

I've been super busy lately and have had little time to even check in on the dating site, let alone message anyone or check out new profiles. However, I have received a number of messages, profile-views, and "woos", which are the cop-out way of telling someone you like them. It's like poking on facebook. Pointless except for the fact that it lets a person know you've shown some interest. If you're going to bother, go ahead and a send a real message, even if it's short. At least there's something to go off of.

Of the messages sent my way, a few have been real losers, a couple have piqued my interest, but most just sound sort of blah. Unfortunately, the one that sounds most intriguing and compatible is in Florida. Apparently he was recently in my area and decided to check out girls here to see if there were any good ones. He seems to think I fit in this category as he's sent me one message and 4 IMs in the last week. Normally, I stop considering a guy if he's more than 15 miles away. Why should I even think about someone who is 2496 miles away? I suppose we could talk online, do the long-distance pen-pal thing, but that really hasn't worked too well for me so far (I've not heard from either Zeke or Dan in more than a month, and they were only 60 miles away), and I'm not really sure I want to invest the time and energy in it. One thing is for certain though: I will write him back, at least so I can acknowledge him and show that I'm not a complete jerk for ignoring him (I have been really busy).

Have you ever started a relationship this way (i.e. communicating electronically over vast distances)?

Edit: In the five minutes since I wrote the above, Florida IMed me again. I guess I have to give him points for his persistence.

It seems we have a fetishist in our midst

I've recently had a number of profile views by this guy in Rhode Island. I frequently get views from people in other states or even countries, but they never look more than once. I usually chalk this up to the fact that I've written a geography test on the site, and I figure that these people have taken the test and have decided to look at my profile so as to determine what kind of person would write such a thing. However, multiple views from a guy in RI? I decided to look at his profile to investigate.

As it turns out, we have a fairly high match-percentage and a number of things in common. I messaged him yesterday, asking if he'd be up for a long-distance pen-pal. It was only after pressing send that I noticed he has a thing about liking attractive feet on his profile. Here's where it gets weirder: On my profile, in the section about what people first notice about me, I list that I have green eyes. It seems like three out of four people comment on them first over anything else. Then I go on to say that the thing I'm most surprised people don't notice is the fact that I have disproportionately large feet.

Could this be it? Does this guy search for profiles that mention feet? I haven't gotten a message back from him—which is probably a good thing—but I'm still curious. Was it my random comment about my feet that has caused him to view my profile so many times?

Sent a message—got nothing back

I messaged I guy two days ago who's new to the site and has a really high match-percentage with me. Strange user name (TizzyTool), but his profile was amusing and interesting and I thought I would give it a shot. Unfortunately, I've heard nothing from him. This is not at all uncommon in the world of online dating—I've received many messages to which I've never responded—but since I haven't been corresponding with anyone for a while, I was hoping for something.

I've known ever since I joined (and before that too, of course) that I am not comfortable dating someone who does drugs. Therefore, anytime I come across a guy who's profile sounds great, I always check the sidebar to see if he does drugs. If he says he does, I immediately block him so that I'm not tempted by his profile again. Last night, after being messaged by someone who says he "sometimes" does drugs on his profile, I added this to the "you should message me if" box on my own profile:

(You should message me if…) "you don't do drugs. That may sound simplistic, but, after four months on this site, I've realized that I really have no tolerance for people who do drugs. It's a lifestyle choice I really do not understand and cannot support. Therefore, if you do any, no matter how infrequently, don't bother."

Update to previous post

I just went back to the dating site and looked at Cocky Guy's profile. Wow. Bad. He spells music "muzaq" and, frankly, is really not attractive in any of his four photos. The impressions I got from his first e-mail—that he's very concerned with all things trendy and his style of writing is so cocky that I can't even think straight—are beyond true when looking at his full profile. Sorry, Superquail and *ily, I think I'm going to not think any more about this guy.


Oh, and I haven't heard from Zeke in quite a while. I was the last to send a message, so I think I'm going to give up on that front too.