Message Monday – Nonsensical Questions

Happy Monday everyone!! A few notes before we get to this week’s featured message.

  • I have to confess that I was horrified when I read L’s most recent post about transition lenses. But not for the reasons that she and our lovely readers who commented were. I was horrified because I have always wanted transition lenses. I have atrocious vision. I got glasses in the 2nd grade (tragically enormous glasses), and my eyes haven’t stopped getting worse since. I’ve never lived in a world where I can just walk outside and throw on sunglasses. I have to either have prescription sunglasses made, or I have to be wearing contacts already. When I first saw transition lenses, I immediately wanted them. They’re so effortless. I walk out into the sun, and I’ve got sunglasses on! I walk back inside, I’ve got regular glasses on! But sadly, transition lenses have never been in the cards for me. My prescription is a) already very expensive, and b) apparently doesn’t lend itself well to transition lenses. This now seems to be a blessing in disguise, seeing as what a date repellent they seem to be. But a dream of mine has now died. Thank you L for enlightening me and all the other poor souls out there who hoped to someday get transition lenses.
  • I wish I could attribute my absence lately to all the dates I’m going on. The truth is that I haven’t been on a date since I moved back to New York. So we’re still working on that front. The good news is that, now that I finally have a job that I like and I’m not miserable for 10 hours every day, I’m a much more agreeable person (as much as I can be at least – I still generally hate people). So I’m hoping that that positive is going to rub off on the rest of my life.
  • A new bar opened up in my town last weekend, and I went to the opening. It was more of a high school reunion that I expected, which was overwhelming. I need to figure out where to go to meet people who aren’t the guy I married (and subsequently divorced because he wanted kids and I didn’t) for a high school economics assignment senior year. That’s proving more difficult that I anticipated.

Moving on. This past week I received the below in my inbox:

nonsensical question

Can anyone tell me what the hell he’s talking about? Literally anyone? Because I have no idea. I took a screenshot and sent it to S and L with the caption “Another day, another nonsensical message from a guy.” I mean, setting aside the myriad grammatical errors, how did I find what out? I don’t even understand the question.

Also, why is this a thing that I’ve now been asked not once, but twice? Do I unknowingly possess secrets of the universe or something?

PSA to all the self-proclaimed “nice guys” out there

Well hello there! This former MOH is back, and man does she have a ton of posts to catch up on. While I work on all of those, I thought I’d do the world a favor and issue this little PSA for all the “nice guys” out there looking for “no drama.” Lest you think this PSA is to tell all those guys to cut those cliched lines out of their profiles, I actually want them to leave them in. Because I see those seemingly positive tag lines pop up, and I don’t think to myself: “FINALLY! A nice, drama free guy!” I am jaded, such that now I immediately think: “Mentally ill, move on.” So I encourage those guys to keep on keeping on broadcasting their baggage for all the world to see. But I’d also like to explain to them why I reject them when they message me. Because if I had a nickel for every time some guy with those lines in his profile wrote to me, I turned him down, and then he lost his shit on me, I bet I could make my student loans disappear. Now I can just refer them to this post and wipe my hands of it.

This past Sunday night, as I was returning home from my MOH duties in DC, I got a message from one such guy.


judgemental nice guy 1

I was in the middle of wrangling my bags to the cab stand, which was made more difficult by the fact that I was carrying around a to go box, in addition to all my other crap. If you’re ever in the vicinity of Dulles airport and need food, I suggest getting the Alehouse Mac and Cheese at Dogfish Head Alehouse. It’s so good, it’s worth carrying back from VA to MA for lunch at work the next day. Anywho, I was juggling too many things, and forgot to check him out and respond until Tuesday. I was fairly certain I was going to respond with a “thanks but no thanks” based on the fact that he called me sweetie, but I still checked him out just in case. And sure enough, I was not interested.

Back to the sweetie thing for a minute, while we’re doing PSAs. Why the fuck is this such a popular move by men? I get it all the time. It’s gross. You’re a stranger. Sweetie is an affectionate pet name my mother and great-aunts are allowed to call me, and no one else. I don’t like it in general, but it also just sounds skeevy coming from a stranger. Just stop.

Ok – back to the message. Stupidly, I responded to this guy. And immediately, he began to further profess his “nice guy” status. 

judgemental nice guy 1

Ugh. I get it, you’re awesome but girls always go for the hot, bad boy right? And that’s not you, so you’re left in the dust all alone like a little wounded bambi. Blah. Blah. Blah.

There was no reason to respond further, so I just let it go. Until 8 1/2 hours later, when I was arriving home, and found that he had some more things to say to me. I’ve gotten this before, and I’m sure I’ll get it in the future too. I typically don’t respond, because there’s no point, but I was so annoyed this time that I just snapped. 

judgemental nice guy 2

I was furious. I had in fact made some judgments about him based on his profile, but a) I didn’t share any of them with him because that would make me an asshole, and b) ironically enough he’s actually a decently good looking guy and none of my judgments related to his looks. Which is the only judgment he assumed I made. I wanted so badly to tell him all of the things that I actually had judged him on, but I am socially aware enough to know that it’s mean to tell a stranger all of things you think are wrong with them. So instead, I’m going to tell you guys. Cause that somehow makes it less mean. Right? Good, glad you agree.

First, a couple screen shots from his profile:

judgemental nice guy 3

judgemental nice guy 4

  • Though I’m not actually judging you for having a child, I’m not interested in dating someone with a kid. 
  • Although I too am ultimately looking for a long term relationship, I’m not necessarily looking for that with every guy I go on a date with. Some people are fun to date just for a little bit. If you’re announcing that all you’re looking for is a long term relationship, that just seems desperate to me. I’m afraid that if you like me even just a little bit, you’re going to attach yourself to me and suffocate me. Figuratively, and potentially literally, based on your insane behavior messaging me.
  • If you have to say you don’t want drama or games, that means that you’re either a) extremely damaged from such antics in the past, or b) that you’re actually the one causing the drama and/or games. Either way, no thanks. Also, while I’m certainly not interested in playing games, I can’t promise no drama. It’s in my blood. I mean, I recently thought I was going to die of a blood clot. Apropos of nothing but a little bit of leg pain.
  • “I am not a typical type of guy I AM NOT LOOKING FOR SEX , There is much more too a relationship then just sex.” This is true, but Jesus christ buddy. You are a hot mess. You know who does like sex? (Avert your eyes mom). ME. Is that all I want? No (ehh, sometimes – looking at you Wallet Chain). But broadcasting, in the internet equivalent of screaming, that you’re not looking for sex, raises so many red flags about the amount of baggage you’re carrying around on your back, that I don’t want to touch you with a 100 foot pole. And it worries me that we would never have sex. That’s not a life I want to live.
  • “there is nothing like taking a nice walk on the beach.” The trifecta of the nice guy mantra. “Nice guys finish last, don’t want any drama, love walks on the beach.” 
  • I applaud your general grasp of how to use a period, but that seems to be where the punctuation ends. No apostrophes on the contractions, and weird, random capitalization in the middle of sentences. NO. THANKS. 
  • To v. Too. It’s not even just that he gets the two (HA) mixed up, it’s that he seemingly doesn’t know that “to” exists at all. He exclusively uses “too” in his profile. And he did it in his messages to me too. <—– RIGHT THERE IS A GREAT EXAMPLE OF HOW TO USE TO AND TOO. 
  • If you’re going to accuse me of being judgmental, at least spell it properly.

Those judgments aside, his insane behavior and obnoxious judgment of me is extremely typical of the kinds of things that “nice guys” routinely say and do. There are lots of nice guys out there. It’s the ones who are constantly professing that they’re nice guys that have serious hangups, and actually aren’t that nice.

So, there you have it “nice guys.” The reason that you continue to have no success in the dating world is because you can’t let go of the past, or acknowledge that some girls just won’t be interested, no matter how nice you actually might be. That’s the nature of life. So keep on professing your “nice guy” status – it makes it so much easier to know who to avoid.

The Art of Messaging

Here is an exhaustive list of the messages I have received in the last 48 hours:

lovely

hi

hi how are you

jamaica soul sister

The first three messages are useless for obvious reasons.

That last message came from a guy IN Jamaica. And while it’s flattering he thinks I’m a soul sister, I can only assume that assessment is based solely on our mutual love of baking, since our profiles make it pretty clear that we have exactly nothing else in common. I already bake plenty of treats, without even factoring in my habit of stress-baking (which reached an all time high in late October/early November, 2012 when bar results were imminent). The last thing I need in my life is another baker. Also, I do not live in Jamaica, so there’s that.

I will refrain from launching into another diatribe about the sad decline of grammar, but I will say that the explosion in the number of available emoticons leaves me deeply disappointed in the world. I mean, why do we need an emoticon for waving?

jamaica soul sister 2

se

*Don’t forget to enter our Worst Date Ever contest! We’ve already received some hilarious submissions and there’s still time if you have a horror story to share with us (and the rest of the internet). We’re even going to extend the deadline, because we’ve received a number of requests to include regular dates in the contest. So if you’ve had a non-online dating disaster, go ahead and send it our way, we don’t discriminate! E-mail your entries to stucublog@gmail.com by midnight on December 1st.

Why D quit POF

My POF days are over. I deleted my profile and account. I had originally joined it because I figured it couldn’t hurt to have a profile up on another dating site. Twice the exposure, twice the possibilities right? WRONG. POF yielded me exactly 0 dates. And I think this message that I recently received from the creator of POF sums up why:

POF creator's message

I have a few comments regarding this message. 

1.  Either “2% of men started to use POF as more of a hookup site” is a gross understatement, or I only received messages from that 2% during my tenure on the site. I was propositioned a LOT.

2.  Intimate Encounters.

POF - intimate encounters

If you wanted the website to be about Relationships (note the capital R he uses), then why did Intimate Encounters exist in the first place?

3.  “Intimate Encounters on POF can be summed up as a bunch of horny men talking to a bunch of horny men pretending to be women.” Ahhhh. Well, I’m no longer curious as to why I was so unsuccessful on this site…

I had pretty much already decided to quit POF before I received this message, and the above was just the last nail in POF’s coffin. I previously chronicled some of the other things that contributed to me saying goodbye to the site, like the decline of good grammar and the guy who stole his cousin’s nylons.

Now, before you go and say, “But D, if you didn’t like the quality of the messages you were receiving, why didn’t you initiate conversations with guys whose profiles you liked?”, please know that I did. When I found a profile that interested me, I shot the guy a message. Some didn’t respond, and most fizzled out after a few messages back and forth. Like this guy, who pretty much insulted where I live 4 messages into our conversation:

Somerville sucks

First of all, I hate Home Depot with a passion. When I was a kid running errands with my father, I quickly learned that “we just need to stop at Home Depot for 1 thing” really meant “kiss the next 2 hours of your life goodbye and then wait here with our 4 carts while I pull the truck around so we can load all this senseless crap.” When you say Home Depot, all I hear is “TORTURE.” So even though he admittedly had no way of knowing it, things had just taken a turn for the worse with the mere mention of Home Depot. Second of all, you’ve only been to the Home Depot in Somerville, but you’re judging it anyway? The Home Depot is sandwiched between I-93 and some MBTA tracks. Of course you didn’t see anything awesome. Somerville has a lot of cool and fun things to offer, like our movie theater that serves beer and wine. But I’m not going to defend it to some asshat who admits he hasn’t spent much time in the city I chose to live in and then insults it anyway.

The message that finally sent me over the edge was received a few hours before I got Markus’ terrifying message relaying the truth about Intimate Encounters. The sender? One of those 2% Markus mentioned. A JT and/or Ashton wannabe. (I would like to note that I have not actually seen either of these movies, despite my girl crush on Mila and my deep affection for Natalie’s emotional turn in Where the Heart Is. I have a very discerning taste when it comes to chick flicks, what can I say? But I’m pretty sure we all know how they ended – opposite from the reality of most who try to pull this kind of thing off…) Anyway, Mr. Emotionally Unavailable sent this my way:

friends with benefits

This was not the reason I started online dating. I’m not looking to settle down yesterday or jump into a serious relationship with every guy I exchange a message with, but I’m not looking to sleep around either.

And finally, though the ads that are featured at the top of the site weren’t a reason I deleted my profile, they certainly didn’t help POF’s cause:

ads on POF

So, I quit POF. And bit the bullet by joining a paid site in its place: Match. I’m keeping my OKC account because it’s free and not nearly as creepy as POF was. In theory, the people who shell out money to be on a site are probably more in line with what I’m hoping to get out of online dating. Which, spoiler alert, does not include contracting a VD after a one night stand or wondering why all my tights keep disappearing.

Pic of the Week: Inspirational Messages

First, a little introduction to OKC’s sad cousin, POF. As far as I can tell from my experience on the site, POF is good for three things: harboring fetishists, providing generic and useless advice about healthy relationships, and eschewing basic principles of sentence construction. You post a few pictures, provide some demographic info, answer a few yes or no questions (do you do drugs? do you have children? etc.), and fill in as much or as little personal info as you’d like in an “about me” section. If I had to make a rough estimate of how many of those “about me” sections are just one giant stream-of-consciousness run-on sentence, I would say 93%. At the risk of sounding like my (former English teacher) mother (love you Mom!), what is happening to this world? Real life examples of people who have contacted me: 

stream-of-consciousness run on sentence

stream-of-consciousness run on sentence 2

stream-of-consciousness run on sentence 3

Maybe I’m being picky, but I’d like to date someone who understands, at the very least, where to place commas and periods. Bonus points for the use of the oxford comma. Want to really make me weak in the knees? Use apostrophes properly (or just at all, we can start there). The trifecta? Don’t senselessly abbreviate words, especially “and” down to just “n”. Three letter words do not need to be shortened. If POF is any indication, this is a sharply-declining population.*

POF is proving to be pretty useless, to be honest. But it did provide today’s Pic of the Week, so there’s at least a little value there… This 31 year old gentleman on POF had six pictures on his profile. NONE of which were of him. ALL of which featured delightfully healthy thoughts/quotes about relationships. Behold:

crazy POF profile guy - profile pic 1

Let’s look at these individually, shall we? First up:

Dear-females

single

These “girls never go for good guys” rants are pretty standard actually. Guys just usually put them in their own words, instead of google imaging “the plight of the self-proclaimed nice guy” and posting the results as profile pictures. So kudos to him for creativity?

crazy POF profile guy - profile pic 3

It’s true, when I picture my ideal relationship I’m always peacefully napping on the back of a shiny-skinned, muscle-clad man whose sole purpose in life is to stare at the ground all day whilst carrying me and providing for me. Who wants to be in a relationship where you both consider each other as an equal? It’s way better to be perceived as a weak female who is dependent on the men in her life.

crazy POF profile guy - profile pic 4

If I’m too busy to call you or check on you, chances are pretty good I don’t love you. So you probably shouldn’t love me, stop being so understanding. You say “I’ll understand.” What you really mean is “I’m a spineless doormat.” (Tardiness isn’t a very good indication of my affections though, I’m late to things on a daily basis. So I will actually need someone to be understanding on that topic).

crazy POF profile guy - profile pic 5

In a certain way, I can actually relate to this one. I’m a total catch, yes, but I’m also a complete lunatic (which is part of my charm). So every potential relationship for me involves a delicate balancing act between a) exposing some of the crazy in an endearing, adorable way, and b) hiding the majority of the crazy until he’s already fallen for me. Obviously this balancing act isn’t perfected yet, as I’m still single. It’s hard to be me.

how to save your heart

He doesn’t seem like the kind who just goes with the flow and stays happy. He seems PRETTY paranoid, unhappy, and affected. Just the type of traits that I’m looking for in a guy.

This guy has either never dated at all, or only dated crazy bitches. My baggage is the size of a little wristlet compared to what this guy is carrying around.

a

*I had planned to provide just a brief description of POF as a lead-in to this post. I didn’t even realize what a tangent/rant I had gone off on until I previewed the finished draft. Apparently, I have strong feelings about good grammar. Sorry for taking you along on that ride. Except I’m not sorry, because the only thing that makes the dating population less soul-crushing is this blog.