Picking a Target

Good Afternoon Readers! Today’s topic is Picking a Target aka Who Should I Message?
Maybe this topic should have come before writing your first message, but oh well! :)

I think the first bit of advice here is, don’t get hung up on any one particular person. If you come across a profile and they sound like you should be soul mates, that’s cool, but if you contact that person and they don’t respond, don’t fall into a deep emo-type despair. I think this can happen a lot; we geeks can get obsessive about pretty much anything and when you find someone who seems like a good match, we can start internet stalking them, showing their profile to all your friends, imaging where you’re going to live in the future (of course I’ve never done this… O_o) and then you message them and you don’t hear back. And then follows a deep funk and then a swearing off of all dating forever. Ok, maybe that’s just me, but yeah, don’t be like me!

First, a profile is only a hint of what a person is like. They might like all of the same things as you but when you meet there is no chemistry, or vice versa, someone can seem really different from you but somehow your personalities just click and things will be great, so not hearing back from one person should not be determining your future emotional health.

Second, there are a ton of people on internet dating sites. According to some not authoritative statistics on the internet, in 2007, 20 million people visited at least one internet dating site each month, and I would think that that number has only gone up since then. So keep trying, there are good people out there.


Look at all those fish out there!

Ok, next after not getting hung up on one person is, don’t be too picky. Pictures can be deceiving. We spent a lot of time talking about profile pictures so we know there are a lot of bad pictures out there. if the pictures aren’t great, it’s not a reason to discount them. If they’re pictures are ok, but they seem really cool, give them a message. A friend’s friend puts up picture of herself from when she was heavier b/c she wants people to message her for her personality, not because of how she looks. (I don’t necessarily recommend her method unless you get a lot of people messaging you for the wrong reasons.) A friend adds, “looks aren’t everything” and he’s a guy saying this!

I recommend making a list of things that you have to have in a partner and things that you really don’t want. Eharmony has an entire section dedicated to this idea called “must-haves” and “can’t stands”. Even if your service doesn’t have this part, you can keep a list of your own, so if can’t stand smokers, and are allergic to dogs, that need to be on your list. But things like, needs to drive a sports car and be 5’10 should not be on your list. Material things like that will only prevent you from meeting really great people. Also consider widening the age range and types of people you’ll date. If you limit yourself to certain races or ethnicities, maybe you’ll miss out on a really great “other” out there. :)

It’s Ok to Make Decisions Too

Greetings readers! Sorry about the late post today.

But continuing with our blog on online dating, I’m going to skip topics a bit and move to one very near and dear to my heart, It’s Ok to Make Decisions Too.

If you’re with someone else and you’re trying to come up with plans for later, and the other person asks you, “What do you want to do?” don’t respond with, “I dunno, what do you want to do?”

I think that a lot of geeks will respond with “I dunno” for a couple of reasons.

First, apathy, sometimes they really just don’t care, but you should because we want you to care. Or at least, pretend to care. But it’s best if you really care, b/c it shows you’re putting effort into the relationship.

Second, just don’t know. This geek does care but doesn’t have good ideas. Well, instead of just saying, “I dunno,” maybe say, “Let brainstorm some ideas” or something! If you’re looking for places to eat, try Yelp.com. It’s a good place to get recommendations for food. There are lots of resources that can give you good ideas for other things to do too and not all of them cost money either! A little creativity and research can go along way. Also, maybe keeping a list of things you’ve always wanted to do together could be useful. B/c you’ll encounter things where you’ll say, “oh that sounds cool, we should do that someday,” and if you keep a list of those things, those somedays could be a reality!


Third, trying to be accommodating. Sometimes geeks want to be nice and let the other person decide. Well, if the other person has already asked you for your opinion, they probably really want your opinion, otherwise, they would have said something like, “How about we go for Mexican food for dinner and then play video games after that?” As a friend put it, trying to be accommodating like this all the time, just makes you look super indecisive. So, state some opinions! The worst thing that will happen is you’ll be shot down. Sometimes too easy going is not a good thing.

This is advice that could really apply while in a relationship or for making first date plans.

So that’s the bit o’ info for today! I think tomorrow's will be on How To Choose People To Contact.

Writing the Introduction Message (part 3)

The final part of my thing on first messages.

The best kind of first messages are ones that show you have a sincere interest in the other person and not just their body. Try to mention any common hobbies or other similarities you have and why you like what you do without sounding like you’re copying their profile hobby for hobby. You want to sound friendly, conversational, and confident without being overbearing. Think of it as a marketing, you have a product (yourself) and you want the other person to “buy” it by making yourself look good and convincing us that it’s something that we should have an interest in.

I also wanted to tell you about the probably the worst possible thing you could possibly do in a first message. Threaten the girl. Which really did happen to me. I received three separate messages from a guy who obviously had a form message he was sending out to any girl on his match list. I deleted the messages which is a shame b/c here’s the gist of his messages, “Hi, My name is Blah. Message me back…or else.”



I did write back after the third message, and I said, “Welcome to my blocked list.” So ok, again use commonsense and don’t threaten people.

So in summary, don’t be a sleaze, don’t threaten, don’t use generic messages (you don’t use them for cover letters!), sound like you’re taking an genuine interest in the person, spellcheck, proofread, and sell yourself in a positive manner. Oh and don't let a little rejection or no replies get you down. The entire point of online dating is that you're trying to meet more people and so don't get fixated on one person. If you don't hear back from someone, reevaluate your situation, see if there's anything that you could have done better (but don't dwell on this, nerds can be dwellers) and move on.

Writing the Introduction Message (part 2)

Part 2 of a 3 part series on writing a first message.

We the recipients of your messages know you are probably messaging multiple people at one time but if you’re going to do it, do it right. We don’t want to feel like we’re one in a giant crowd that you’ve aimed your shotgun at. We want to feel like you’re genuinely interested in us as an individual.

Here’s an example of a better actual form letter:

Hi X!
So we finally made it through the preliminary questions. There are a thousand things I'd love to know about you but because this is our first email, I'll try to keep it from turning into the Inquisition. Still, there are a couple of questions I like to ask:
1. Do you like to sing in the car?
2. Do you ever lay out under the stars?
Hope to hear from you soon!
- Y
PS: you can also reach me at Z

I think this one is better b/c it’s not as obvious it’s a form letter, and the user knows the service that he’s on. Eharmony generally forces you through a series of steps before you can freely send messages back and forth. It assumes that you’ve already read their profile and answered specific questions getting to this stage and so a question that is not, “What do you typically do on weekends?” question could be seen as imaginative and a welcome change from the often meat-market mentality of dating websites.

Ok, here’s another example of a not great first message:

i was browsing to see who i can fall in love with and move away and then i came to ur profile. i am a capricorn i love hot wings and i have been skateboarding since i was 8 years old (i think). now that i have ur attention. please tell me about yourself

If the guy had read my OkCupid profile, which he obviously didn’t, he would have read that I’m already in a relationship plus my profile reads that I’m only looking for friends and networking (which is kind of a lie b/c I don’t need more friends and it’s hard to network with people who aren’t librarians, since I don’t sell anything at my job). So, again, read their profile. Capitalize. Use complete sentences or at least make your sentences sound decent. Don’t use textspeech (ur?!). And yes, you got my attention but in the bad way and now you will be mocked forever on the internet. Finally, “move away”? You’re going to fall in love and move away from me b/c long distance relationships are more romantic?! Dude, you make no sense. :P

Another real life example:

Subject: wanted to say hello

hello.

well i guess I said it. Success.

Hey, be honest. Did you go into library science because of Giles? or was it to have time for reading support material for your next 3.5 ed (or 4th ed) character?

are you a brown coat?

hope you are having a good day”

This guy obviously read my profile (or at least part of it) and is probably a really nice guy. But the impression I get is he’s so hesitant that I wouldn’t even want to be friends with him. It seems like he has no self esteem. (Maybe b/c girls never write him back, but technically I did write him back, but just nothing aside to say that, “yes I am a browncoat.”) Aside from things I said about the importance of proper punctuation, grammar blah blah, this is an example of shooting yourself in the foot. He’s obviously interested but this would have been a much better email if he had also talked about his interest in Buffy or D&D or Firefly, what he likes about those things, or his experiences with gaming, or really anything other than just throwing a bunch of questions at me. As he was writing this, I’m sure he was thinking stuff like, “I’m showing interest in HER, and I’m being witty, this is great,” but in text it comes across very flat.

(Text and how it flattens tone is part of the reason why I love !! and  and other emotes. I know it’s supposed to be not cool but I think that it’s one the ways that I show that I’m enthusiastic and interested in a conversation. My brother made fun of me b/c I once read over an email I was sending and the only change I made was to add a smiley at the end. He said, “You thought a happy face would perfect your email?” and I said, “yup.” I’m not saying use exclamation points and LOLs and :P all over your emails but to me, it helps me hear your voice better. Oh, also, don’t type in all caps ever. It looks like yelling and no one likes to get yelled at.)

Continued tomorrow!

Writing the Introduction Message (part 1)

Writing the Introduction Message

While choosing pictures and writing a profile are very important parts of successful online dating, I think the most stressful part is writing the first message. You’ve come across a profile and picture of someone you find interesting and now you would like to get to know them better. This first message is the truly hard part, what do you say to them? For some online dating services, the message may be the first impression of you. On OkCupid, messages are usually read before the reader clicks to the profile. On eharmony, the profile is what is sent first, so it’s important to understand the service you’re using.

If you still haven’t read it, go to OkCupid’s blog. This one in particular is about what kind of first messages were the most likely to elicit a reply. They have tips such as, what kind of greetings work better than others, don’t tell a girl that she’s pretty, hot, or sexy, stuff like that. My advice here will be a combination of what that blog post says plus my own experiences with messages b/c I don’t want to entirely duplicate what they already said.


First point (and honestly this should be common sense): Don’t be gross. Telling a girl that she’s like the hottest thing ever and you want to be on top of her is not a good way to get her attention. Remember in elementary school when they said there were good ways to get attention and bad ways? This is a very bad way. It is however probably a really good way to get on a lot of people’s blocked lists. I’m not sure if this kind of message any has any success rate, but I’m assuming that guys like this send out thousands of these spam-like messages over the internet hoping that they’ll find someone sleazy or desperate enough to reply. I do not recommend this method b/c sleazy people just make me hate people more.

Don’t write what is obviously a form letter. I know it’s a lot of work to think of something interesting to say to each individual person--you have to carefully read their profile (I do advise this otherwise you miss out in important facts like, “Hey, I’m dating someone else already”) and then think of something interesting to say. But you know, you have to spend the time b/c form letters (at least really obvious form letters) really really suck and in my opinion, if you can’t spend five minutes thinking of something new to say, how much effort are you going to put into the relationship?

Here’s an example of a real message that I received:

hello my name is XXX (not a porn, I’m just blocking out his name. :P). I am a chef and work for a couple of catering companys. I love to cook and bake.. I enjoy eating very good food.. I love to snowboard and being out doors.. Would love to know more about you.. ? hope to hear back from you..

Ok, kids, what’s wrong with this letter? A bunch of stuff. First of all, it’s obviously a form letter and if it’s not, it sucks enough and is generic enough to be a form letter and still falls under the same category of “not going to work”. Second, he could say, Hi/Hello/Hola/Yo (your name here) or other greeting. At least cut and paste my username into your first message so I know you read that much of my profile. Third, this guy should capitalize this message even if I don’t do it (it makes me charming…quiet from the peanut gallery!) but it seems like he put no effort into this letter. Couldn’t even bother to hit the shift key occasionally. I just looked at my Facebook profile and I capitalize here. I capitalize on my OkCupid and eHarmony pages. You know why? B/c it’s important to look more put together. (So if I don’t capitalize in my emails to you, then you’re not important…I kid, I kid!). It’s like dressing up for job interviews, you want to put your best foot out there. Even if you don’t normally capitalize, save that for later when you know each other better and can be a little more informal. Also, spellcheck! Spellcheck is your friend. And in my case, my friends are my friends and they catch my errors. :P Lastly, try to add in something personal. Not personal like your cat died last week or that you have a mysterious rash but personal like, “Hey do you like teaching?” if they’re a teacher or “What did you think of the most recent episode of Heroes?” if they watch Heroes. Don’t bring random things up if they don’t say it in their profile, again, it will seem like you aren’t paying attention.

Dude, I have to break this one up into three parts b/c it's really really long... sorry! But I'll have it post each morning for the next couple of days!

Crafting a Profile (part 2)

Hello readers and fellow geeks! This the second half of my post on Crafting a Profile. Which really sounds fancier than what it really is, which boils down to, don't sound like a douche. :P

I would also put a section of what you hope to be doing in the future if you’re looking for a long term relationship. If you’re still in school, talk about what kind of career you’re shooting for, what kind of lifestyle you’d like to have, where you might want to be living. If you’re working, then talk about what your career goals are--do you want to be CEO, want a job that allows you to travel a bunch, etc. I like eharmony b/c it includes a little box on if you want kids or not. Since that’s pretty important to me, I like preknowing b/c then I don’t end up dating some guy who doesn’t have the same life plan as me. Maybe that’s too much information, but I’m like the queen of TMI. :P That part is probably not as necessary but if you’re also on eharmony don’t check “maybe” you want kids if you mean “no”. Guys do things like that all the time b/c they don’t want to sound all rejecty but I don’t want to read “maybe” and hear a “yes” in my head when you really mean “no”. (There will be more on what yes/no/maybe means in a later article.)

For some examples of good profiles you can go to http://geeksdreamgirl.com/onlinedatinghelp/ and look at the different levels of services they provide b/c she has a “before” about me summary and an “after” about me summary in each level. You can look at those for examples. I’m not advocating that you pay someone to write your profile, in fact I actively discourage it b/c if I was a girl that was contacted with a profile that was not originally written by you and with her highest level of service, she’ll actually contact people for you, and I found out that it wasn’t you? I’d be really pissed, b/c I’d want to be contacted by the person who the profile is representing. And if you’re too busy to find someone, then I think you’re probably too busy to date too. Lastly on this point, this kinda thing has the been the plot of many movies and plays, (Cyrano de Bergerac/Roxanne, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, to name two) and they always fall in love with the author, not the profile (so if you want that person to fall in love with the lady on geeksdreamgirl, go ahead, it's your doom). So my point here, write your own profile and contact your own people. Sure get someone to read over your stuff, but like when you wrote essays in school, you need to initially write it and then you can ask people to fix things.


Final Tips:

• Be honest.

• Be not creepy (this may conflict with being honest but try).

• Spell check it and have a friend check for things spell check doesn’t catch and grammar too. This is super important. If you spell check a resume for a job, and this is arguably more important than a job, then you should definitely check your spelling here.

• Don’t use text speak. No one wants to read a profile that sounds like an illiterate teenager wrote it. Here’s an article about why text speak is so not cool anymore. (for some reason the link totally doesn't work, but go here: http://futurethinktank.com/2008/12/10/is-txt-spk-ovr/ )

• Don’t sound crazy intense. This is true for if you’re talking about yourself or hobbies. Here’s an excellent example of too intense. “Hopeless romantic in that when I love, I love with all I have. Like it says above, 110%. Not everyone can handle it, but I have proven myself to the ones who could. Some many times over.” It might be true, but you don’t want to come across as someone who will axe murder you if the relationship goes south.

• Don’t be too self-deprecating. I know we nerds like to mock ourselves, but in text, that kind of humor doesn’t translate well, and it sounds like we’re bitter and depressed. And basically if we can’t say anything positive about ourselves, why should they date us?

• Be a little witty and funny but don’t try too hard (sound confusing enough?). Also the written word is not a good vehicle for sarcasm. Sarcasm often ends up making the person sound like a jerk (trust me, I know this first hand.)

• And finally, I think it should sound a bit like a narrative. Sentences should flow, and ideas should not ram up against each other. If it sounds jarring, then you sound a bit crazy.


Also you all need to be reading OkCupid’s blog. (http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/about/) They talk about a lot of interesting topics, like response rates by race, religion, attractiveness. The topics aren’t always pretty to hear about, but the world isn’t always pretty.

Ok, that's all I currently have on writing your profile!

Crafting A Profile (part 1)

Welcome back readers! Today’s topic is, Crafting A Profile.

After your picture, the profile is probably the next thing a person is going to see. The profile has to convey several points, who you are, what you are looking for in a partner and relationship, and what your hopes and dreams are for the future. If your profile isn’t doing those things, then it could be harder to find someone since they can’t tell as much about you, and what you’re looking for. Maybe if you had mentioned that you love baking and the Food Network (I almost typed Foot Network, that’d be a weird station), she would have messaged. You don’t want to miss this opportunity to share who you are with another person.

Generally people start their profiles with a short “about me” paragraph. I think these are very tricky b/c you’re trying to represent yourself in just a few sentences. But you think, “I can’t possibly be described in five sentences, I’m a complex life form!” Well that’s true, but I think here is the time to look inside yourself and figure out who you are at the core. She doesn’t need to know that you collect legos at this time, but if you are a lego artist, you can share that you have an artistic soul, etc etc.

I think a lot of people fall into the trap of, “I am a student” or “I am an engineer” and that should somehow define you. I guess if you’re like a nun where your job is also your life, then that’s cool, use that, but I would hope that you are more than just what you do to earn money. (If you're a nun, why are you dating? Aren't you already married to God?)


Similarly people also list their hobbies. I don't think a giant list of hobbies is a great thing...despite the fact I do that in my profiles don't do it. I’m a geek girl so I have the luxury of being lazier than geek guys. This is an unfair but true fact. As geeks we often define ourselves by our particular brand of geek, Star Trek, Star Wars, Cosplay/Anime, Movie, Tolkein, Furry (oh god, don’t get me started on furries), Gamers of all shapes and colors, Comic Book, I could go on forever. And while this is a good way to communicate with other geeks, I think it’s important to describe ourselves in different terms. What is it about the hobby that you like? Do you like fantasy b/c of the classical archetypes found in legends? Do you play games for the competition and camaraderie? Do you get really cold so you need to wear giant bunny suits? I’m not saying, lie, I’m saying, you are more than a collection of interests. Also don’t sound too obsessive about your hobbies, even if you are. Now is not the time to share your love of Stormtrooper cosplay (unless you’re on a geek dating site, in which case that’s hot).

Another section of your profile should be about what kind of person you are looking for. But be realistic here. If you’re a shy homebody who likes to stay home and play video games on weekends, an outgoing hiker might not be your best match. Even if they sound exciting and fun. Be realistic about what kind of person you think would be a good match for who you are now, b/c dating someone exciting and fun doesn’t necessarily make you exciting and fun. (not that there’s anything wrong with being not exciting nor fun, b/c I am that giant homebody who’d rather play video games.) Don’t be afraid to state what you’re looking for in a person and in a relationship. Sometimes people are wishy-washy when they state what kind of partner they want like, “someone to laugh with”, well crap, that’s vague. How about something like, “I want a partner who will laugh at cheesy horror films with me.”

(Continued in tomorrow's post! A friend said they're too long and I should post more often. So I'm breaking this up into two parts!)