Shorter than I expected

Yesterday I took down both my profiles because I've decided to make a go of it with Swain #4, who has come in and swept me off my feet.

Thanks for sharing the horror and excitement with me, Internet!

A benediction

I could take this in doses large enough to kill.

God bless the Internet.

Butt-sniff #4

These posts are easier to write when the date doesn't work out as well.

Butt-sniff number four was quite promising.  He came to my panel discussion and sat tolerantly through the whole of it.  We had originally planned to get a drink afterwards, but he sussed out that I'd not had dinner and steered us towards food instead.  He is handsomer in person than his photos, he smelled nice, and he is just as tall as he says he is online (which bodes well for the other things he's said about himself online).  And that means that I can wear my 4" orange platforms and still look up to him, just a bit.  At one point he said, "Yes, I think we both can be a little pedantic."  He offered the burgers and beer, and when I quibbled, said that I could leave the tip.  He walked me to my car, and asked my permission before kissing me lightly at the evening's end.

HE USED "PEDANTIC" ON OUR FIRST DATE!

We have a second date scheduled for tomorrow lunch.

The side effects of online dating

There've been a few side effects that I've noticed in the past two weeks of this process.  One of the weirdest is that now that I've got an online profile, I'm checking out all the guys around me and wondering what their online profile looks like, and whether they recognize me from mine.  And of course, the flip side of that coin is running across the profiles of people I know (or even funnier, having the algorithm suggest them to me).  I'd like a way to say, "Way to go, Staff Robot, you're on the right track, but not him, I know him, and he's not for me because..."

The fickle finger of fate

Remember swain number two?  In retrospect, he looked like he couldn't believe his luck when I showed up.  Yesterday he pressed his luck, and it didn't hold.

Good bye, swain number two.  Next contestant!

Butt-sniff #3: Reporting

We met for a drink after work.  A very nice gent, picked up the tab for beers and small plates.  We talked for nearly four hours and he cracked me up a lot.  Works the helpdesk at the client's office for an end-to-end resource management software implementation project.  At the end of the evening he said he'd like to see me again and I agreed.  Not sure if he's a fully qualified swain but a pretty great guy all told.  Wicked smart, wicked funny, well-adjusted.

Now I can say I've had dates with seven guys in two years, a 60% increase since last Sunday.

Rejection is a dish best served lukewarm

Thank goodness that someone out there somewhere has had my exact same problem, which means that someone has written this helpful article: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/online-dating-dilemma-dishing-out-rejection.html

Stranger danger

All of my butt-sniffing candidates get this, if they don't pony up first with some details, or if I can't use the details they've provided in their profiles and correspondence to find them on the internet:

Hey [name], I made my sainted Ma a pinkie promise (a sacred oath in my household) that I wouldn't meet any strange men I met on the internet without knowing something more about them. I'm not saying you're strange, but I'm asking for a bit more than your nickname. And I'm happy to go first. I exist in the real world: [here I link to my linkedin profile]. Do you?

Filled with hope,

A possible match

Butt-sniffing report

Another nice guy, a computer geek.  He looked delighted when I showed up, offered the tacos.  Has five kids, ranging from old enough to be on OKC themselves to elementary school.  Was lamenting that he couldn't find anyone to take all the spare computer parts that he has, and was delighted to learn that the middle school robotics programs would probably be very interested.  Conversation ebbed and flowed, but there were decidedly dead spots.  I gave him a lift home (he has no car) and during the ride he confided that he'd had three OKC dates, two of which had been horrific, and counseled me to be wary of anyone who appears to be a perfect algorithmic match.  Actually, his exact words were, "Run screaming away."  Also asked if he could call me again.  He's probably not a good fit; his photo is 40 from pounds ago.

We will wait and see.

Experience economy

From a fellow online dater:

"Online dating frequently fails to meet user expectations because people, unlike many commodities available for purchase online, are experience goods: Daters wish to screen potential romantic partners by experiential attributes (such as sense of humor or rapport), but online dating Web sites force them to screen by searchable attributes (such as income or religion). ... Search goods—detergent, dog food, and vitamins—are goods that vary along objective, tangible attributes, and choice among options can be construed as an attempt to maximize expected performance along these measurable dimensions. Experience goods, in contrast, are judged by the feelings they evoke, rather than the functions they perform. Examples include movies, perfume, puppies, and restaurant meals—goods defined by attributes that are subjective, aesthetic, holistic, emotive, and tied to the production of sensation. Most importantly, people must be present to evaluate them; they cannot be judged secondhand because indirect experience can be misleading, causing people to mispredict their satisfaction when they encounter that choice." ---- Frost, Chance, Norton and Ariely, "People Are Experience Goods," Journal of Interactive Marketing, 22(1): 51-61.

Men connect through competition; women through conversation

There is no perfume more effective than the stink of another man, worn with an air of indifference and satisfaction.

You're datageeks too, you tell me

Did I miss anything?

Reporting

This morning's buttsniffing was a good start.  He looked happy to see me when I pulled up in my weekend ride and he offered the coffee.  Nice eyes, a nice smile, his kid sounds like one of us and he has his own private elevator.  Conversation never lagged.

Waiting and seeing.

Give them something to dislike

Just a word of advice to sellers: if you're putting up a photo of your merch, be sure that yours is the best looking merch in the photos.

Because dude?  I want you to introduce me to your friend, that one, the guy on the left.

Junior member

Dear New Member David,
I am old enough to be your grandmother no I will not go out with you why do you even ask?  Oh.  Right.  You're eighteen.

Yours in Christ,
Not a good match

P. S. Don't call me Darling darling.

everybody's working for the weekend

Interesting dating site metric observation: The trolls look for a Friday night hookup starting about 4:30 on Friday afternoon.  I've gotten bupkis outta match.com since I signed up for it on Sunday and in fifty minutes this afternoon I've gotten an entire week's worth of pings.  Lots of traffic to my profile too.  The OKCupid traffic, which was pretty steady all week long, has tapered off on Friday afternoon.  I take this as a sign that the OKCupid crowd got their dates all lined up during the week and are now headed out on those dates.

Two buttsniffing coffee meetings this weekend.  Stay tuned for the terrifying details.

Coals to Newcastle

It's amazing how many people offer to set you up with someone once they learn you've joined an online dating site.

WHERE WERE YOU $150 AGO?

On the internet we CAN tell you're a dog

Dear potential "Quiver" match,

If you send me a message and I reply gently that I think we're not a good match and wish you luck, do you REALLY need to respond with "Thanks, that frees me up to devote my time to someone who's compassionate and kind"?  I mean, OKCupid said "Y'all got issues" and had you looked at my profile beyond the smokin' hot photos I've posted, you'd see that while you believe that burning a flag is the greater crime, I believe that burning a book is, and while you favor faith over science, I am the polar opposite and that both of those issues are dealbreakers for both of us.  And sheesh, at least I had the decency to respond.  And I was respectful of your time; who wants to drive from Simi Valley for a first date that's so obviously not going to work out?

Of course, OK Cupid served me up to you as a potential mate, but I'm not one to just blindly accept the recommendations of an algorithm.  You know, as a believer in the importance of science over faith.

Thanks so much for confirming my decision, too.  No butt-sniffing for you!

Yours in Christ,
Not a good match

P.S. Finding me on the other dating site and winking and favoriting my profile there only validates my impression.

A good dating site UX...

...would filter this out of my 'specially chosen for you' match queue

because it undermines my faith in their recommendations.

an observation

Must they all have motorcycles?

Benchmarking and measurable objectives

So, what's the dataset for a prospective beau look like?  Because the only way I'm going to be able to keep track of this is with a spreadsheet.

A fellow datageek just advised me that I will need a column for siblings because that is one of the hardest things to keep track of.

OK cupid OK go!

After talking with the other single ladies at pizza night, I'm forging into OK Cupid too.  I have to say that the UX is a bazillion times better already, and a lot more fun to fill out than Match.com.  I looked at a guy's profile and on the right was a column of others ("more like him") but with little descriptors as to how they were different.

• more compassionate
• more modern
• more attentive
• more desiring of sex
• more socially conservative

I can't wait until they roll out the feature that Hipmunk.com has, so I can sort the gents by agony.

Metadata matters

The UX of online dating seems to be very similar to that of eBay:

• buyers need to mark items with different levels of interest and privacy
• buyers need to be able to filter, reduce, or increase a set
• both sellers and buyers need an accurate and enticing description with appropriate nomenclature and shared references
• both sellers and buyers need a lot of good photos demonstrating the features of the item on the block
• sellers need the ability to minimize or describe with euphemisms any shortcomings or damage
• both sellers and buyers need a protected forum in which to build trust
• the experience itself is a huge time suck (or can be)
• wading through the sea of possibilities is a daunting task
• you end up looking at a lot of the same shit after a few days

boolean AND NOT

Terms in a profile that will cause me to dismiss it from the queue immediately:

• clean and sober
• god-fearing
• little lady
• classy lady
• traditional values
• looking for a good time
• Fox News
• any form of the word "endowed"
• monster trucks

truth in advertising

Yes, I am that woman who uses the word "Luddite" in her online dating profile.

select user id: AJAXonSTEROIDS [user id is available]

The user experience of this site is a thing of horror and wonder.  There are forty-eleven different ways to find guys, and a dozen or so different ways you can mark them or interact with them or somehow signal intent or interest or danger.  The pages are very interaction-heavy, so they're sort of AJAX on steroids and not in a good way, taking about a week to download.  You can delete profiles from your various queues, but the pages update each time, and usually the deleted fellow remains in your field of vision, sort of like a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole.

In desperation of a way to tag guys I thought I wanted to look at, I opened a new browser window and have dumped a bunch of their profile tabs into it.  At least this way the only metadata they get on me is that I viewed their profiles.  Anything else seems to generate a signal on the other end that the site trumpets at you, "He indicated he's interested!"

spam spam spam spam! spam glorious spam!

Had to revive an old Yahoo! email account just to keep all the notifications and emails contained.  There is a whole arcana to their system, with winks and interests, but mostly I want to know how the hell can I just save them for later for myself, without letting them know I've done so?  Because I like to watch a guy from across the room for a bit in the real world, and guess what, on the internet we CAN tell you're a dog.

Death defying indeed

Today I signed up for match.com.  The first response to my profile was from a gent whose user ID was AmSoEndowed011111.

Really sets the tone, and the bar, quite low.   Well.  Defiance of death comes in many forms.  This year, it's online dating.  Stay tuned for more adventures on the mean streets of Los Angeles.

Until tomorrow...