Breaking down targets

Right, I’ve done it – I’ve emailed my target of six boys for the month. It was a bit scary, but not as scary as the mountain of work that I was expected to do last night when I got home, so I thought I would embrace procrastination for a while and try to feel like I was being at least slightly constructive at the same time.

            Having spent a while working through the endless list of potential boys (pretty much ignoring all the site suggestions or who I might like and who would be a perfect match), I selected my six victims, and I have to admit, they all look pretty much exactly the same. Well, apart from the potentially gay Personality Twin, but I actually had things I wanted to ask him, so that’s different.

            I can tell you now, a fair few hours since my email flurry, four of the six messages have been read and two of the four have responded, one of them complaining about technology and asking me out for a drink. Interesting developments in the world of fairly hesitant online dating. It looks like I might have just caught my first proper fish. 

NEWS FLASH

Having actually branched out and finally paid to join Guardian Soulmates whilst also signing up to freebie OkCupid - just on the off chance that there might be more / better people lurking over there, I have realised that people can actually see how well liked you are and how you use your online account.

This takes stalking and responding to people to a whole new level because you are therefore forced to wear your popularity and politeness on your sleeve – as if it wasn’t bad enough that you have a photo dominated profile with ridiculous questions that are supposed to help the site match you to a suitable partner.

            On Guardian Soulmates you can see who’s looked at or liked your profile, and if you then choose to send them a message, a decision that will no doubt be influenced by the “match” score you receive on account of the types of food you like and whether you want to spend your retirement writing a novel or sailing the seven seas (this is one of their non-compulsory-but-strongly-advised multiple choice questions that they use to match you with other ‘potential soulmates’) then you can even see if the recipient has read the message. I can tell you, when that little pink envelope turns grey and there is no reply the next day, the temptation to send a follow up email to ask where abouts you went wrong in profile presentation and message construction is almost too much to rein in.

            As for OkCupid, that’s even worse – the calibre of question that they think you need to answer to be successfully matched astounded me – Do you agree or disagree that in the right light, nuclear war might be kind of exciting? Really? Nothing is quite so shaming as the little tabs that appear under your name when people are running generic profile searches. Each profile has a little box that either says: “Replies regularly”, “Replies selectively” or “No one has contacted them this week”. People can see when you’ve had absolutely no interest all week! Good God, this thing is horrific!

The Super Supportive Dreamer

I don’t want to just spend all my time mocking boys and not actually utilising the my now paid for online dating account, because let’s be honest, I could go to the pub and do that just as easily and for free, but every so often, a classic pops up that is just too tempting to ignore!

This boy, who I am never going to meet or even reply to, but who I think deserves a nickname, so I’d like to call him The Super Supportive Dreamer, apparently put me in his ‘Favourites” list (something that still utterly baffles me), and I have no idea why.

To say that we’re different would be a complete and utter understatement. As you can probably tell from both this blog and HopelessInHeels, touchy-feely isn’t really my thing, so could you imagine the disastrous effects of me dating someone with a profile like this:

“Hi! I’m just a cheeky, warm and affectionate guy who likes the idea of building something magical out of nothing. I belive in true romance, laughing together like children and just feeling as though anything’s possible. Being a bit of a dreamer myself, I always try to support and encourage other people’s dreams too. I must admit, I don’t climb mountains every weekend or lead an action hero lifestyle, but I do have a happy, healthy life filled with its own fun little adventrures – it would be wonderful to share it with someone special. You should know at this point that I really love baking in my free time (yes that’s right it’s not a typo…croissants, triple chocolate fudge cakes, meringues, macaroons, buttercream frosting).”

I would willingly put money on him crying within the first five minutes of us meeting. Plus, he would expect me to share kitchen ownership with him by the looks of it.

            Absolutely not – I would (almost) be more tempted by this guy:

“I have a massively pretentious double-barrelled surname, work in the City and drive aggressively on the road to assert my alpha male status. I also have a tattoo to retain some edginess, despite being a dangerously square corporate lawyer.”

            Hmm, on second thoughts…maybe not!

I'm sorry, what?

I’m all for the new kids in town making friends online, why the hell shouldn’t they? But I have to admit that despite having a hot enough picture to almost win it back, I have absolutely no idea what the lovely Giovanni is trying to tell me. He’s defs one for the message bin I’m afraid:

“hello

how are u

i would like to get in touch with you.

The my fb

Giovanni *** (I’m not giving you his full name, if you want to go on a date with this particular hottie, you’re going to have to do your own leg work!)

I am looking nice friends to date, have fun, i am open to most thing WHEN THERE is genuine interest to make a good contact, good connection, begining from genuine friendship.

Obioysly I am loking for friendship, hope same for you.”

So, yeah. He seems nice enough, although I am fairly confident that he opted to capitalise the wrong words in that sentence, but I still have no idea what he was talking about – although he is obviously looking for friendship. Poor Giovanni. He’s needs a nice dim girl with a face as pretty as his but with a few less brain cells I think. 

Miss Fifi Update 1

Having cast my rod into the "plenty of fish" pool (the potential for POF related puns is apparently limitless!), I've now survived one whole week playing this internet dating game. Despite strictly adhering to The Sausage Hunter's warnings to militantly screen potential messengers, I've had the anticipated mix of the mildly humorous, quite sweet and downright disturbing emails. However, the most horrifying aspect of the whole thing, was undoubtedly creating THE PROFILE.

Hmm, the profile - the million dollar question being what you write without sounding like a massive douche?! From mine you'll discover I live in Clapham, like seeing my friends and have been travelling. How very novel! When at my house for an almost daily pondering of "wtf are we doing?" Sugar M persuaded me to show her my profile and reacted with absolute horror.

"What is that photo about?!" she demanded, pointing at the main picture depicting me standing in a pretty mountain scene (New Zealand, actually!).

"I think it tells people that I'm outdoorsy and not too precious to go outside!" I said a bit huffily, desperately trying to defend my picture choice...and lets be honest, my assertion of myself as outdoorsy.

            With one eyebrow raised at my pathetic justification, she whipped the lap-top out of my hands and switched the offending mountain photo for a super close-up shot where I'm wearing more make up than the entire cast of TOWIE put together.

            "You'll get more messages if you look a bit more slutty!", she explained as she worked her dating magic. As she is officially the most successful of the SSC so far having one date under her belt, who was I to argue?  

Well, it worked. Within a day, I was sitting on my sofa reading about 30 messages (99% total weirdos) - from nice young lads in pink shirts, to scary looking boxers and men bedecked in baseball caps and all things Burberry. Beginning to fear I was treating the whole experience like some sort of correspondence club, where I only email rather than actually date any dapper young men, I panic-bought and asked two of them out for drinks. 

            My victims sounded like down to earth lads with a sense of humour. What more does a girl want?

Lets see what happens next - I think I'm rather getting the swing of this now!

Personality Twin

Is it wrong that I have found a practical mirror image of my personality online? And to make it worse, he’s admitted to all the things that I deliberately trimmed out of my profile for fear of sounding, well, take a look –St Martin’s in the Field is amazing, but it would never have made it onto my ‘Look at me, Look at me” details. Maybe I ought to reconsider…my profile that is, not the boy!

            Here’s a little (fairly heavily edited / abbreviated) flavour of my new life twin (ok, ok, I know I’m taking it too far really!):

“Likes: Music, singing, cricket, history, reading, museums, journeying to new parts of London, St Martin in the Fields, lazy Saturday mornings involving newspapers and hearty breakfasts, wine and cheese, good food, wine, cooking.

Dislikes: slow walkers, indecision, being at work after 7pm, engineering works, spending all holiday on the beach, the gym.

Ambitions: To continue to discover new nooks and crannies of London, to get to the Proms this year, to get Olympic tickets by hook or crook (or hopefully through the company ballot!) to polish off Jamie Oliver’s cook book.”

My family would hate him – that’s normally a sure sign that he’s ‘my type’.

You might be wondering how he came to my attention, and whether my stalking is finally starting to pay off. The answer is no. He ‘liked’ me. Maybe I should take back my constant slagging off of this function. I shall consider myself TOLD!

Biting the bullet

Right, enough is enough. I’ve moped about, hating pretty much everything about the idea of online dating for long enough – it’s time to bite the bullet, pay the subscription fee to open up the final part of my profile and actually get involved in this vile game.

            I had a slight wobble about doing this when I walked past the worlds most attractive solider on my way to work this morning and thought for a split second that maybe I ought to be one of those awful girls that sign up to Uniform Dating despite the fact that I often wear jeans to work, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.          

            So, I’ve paid my fee, finished my profile, and sent out three, yes three (check me out) messages to strangers. Admittedly, they all look pretty much the same (to be honest, they all look a bit like the solider I saw earlier), but regardless, I feel like I’ve jumped in now, and seeing as I’ve paid and everything there is surely only one thing for it – doing it whole heartedly. I hate wasting experiences, so I suppose that I might as well get my hands well and truly dirty and see how I do.

            That said, I do have to admit that I only signed up for one month rather than one of their bargain 3 or 6 month deals. Regardless of what happens, I am pretty sure this is going to last me through February and then I’ll be on my own again for Mad March. I love Mad March!