As a guy I barely know once said, dating is a great reflecting pool for yourself.
That's true, most often, but it's also great because collecting the stories is much, much more gratifying than whatever it was we collected as kids in the '80s (what comes to mind are those plastic charm necklaces, Garbage Pail Kids cards, cute stationery and what I called 'special' pens and pencils. I also had a thing for unicorns, now that I think about it).
It's not the reason I got in the water in the first place, but it seems to be the reason I keep treading it.
I've learned a few things about myself, some unexpected, and I've learned a few more about the grievances I have with recurring factors of online dating. Loosely, they have informed what you might call my Rules.
1) I can't do tall. I'm 5'2". Why are most of the men filtering through to me 6' and 6'2"?
I tried, I went ahead and met someone a whole foot taller than me, and it was odd and rapidly awkward. Really nice guy. Really too tall. Really not for me.
2) You can have my phone number if I've met you and I want you to have it.
You can't have my phone number just because you ask for it online and don't even offer your own.
3) Re-branding is a fair marketing strategy. I see men periodically reinvent themselves with new profile names, new written profile information, but the SAME photos.
As if this makes them unrecognizable. Re-branding is probably a pretty good idea after some amount of time, but it doesn't really change the first impressions that have been made, especially when you come lurking at my profile all over again.
4) "Instead of trying to talk on here, can I have your number?"
Almost always, no. Because I don't really want you to send me photos of your body parts.
Pro-tip: offer yours first and you might dupe me.
5) The jury is still out on Space Camp. This shows up in a lot of men's profiles. I really wanted to go to NASA Space Camp when I was a kid. As I understand it, there's the Space Camp we all wanted to go to when we were kids that cost a fortune, and there's a contemporary version for adults. I don't know anything about that one. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems really surprising that all these guys in Portland, Oregon are characterized by having been to NASA Space Camp. Right?
6) Lying on your profile and then admitting you've lied on a first or second date is ... off-putting.
Sure, lying to get a different kind of attention works. But don't most people value honesty pretty highly, or is that just my unique adult behavior? Why lie about your age, smoking and drinking? Most of it belies itself.
7) Dating profiles have provided me with new vocabulary. I'm still not convinced sapiosexual is a thing.
I probably won't be interested in meeting you on the merit of you claiming this, because let's face it, I like to like what I see.
8) I'm sad for the people that use or respond to any version of this: "You're too beautiful to be single."
It's probably supposed to be a compliment, I know. This kind of sentence makes me want to shake my head violently and cry all at the same time. Please give me something better to work with than some kind of a comment suggesting something is wrong with single.
9) "Native Portlanders Rock. We're the unicorns of the Pacific Northwest."
It's hard to say the right thing. It really is.
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