If you're anything like me (and for the sake of your friends and family, I really hope you aren't), you know that dating is hard. And if Homer Simpson has taught me anything, it's that if something is hard to do then it's just not worth doing. So for most of the year I sit in a state I like to call 'not dating'. I fill this time mostly with processed cheese slices, lying on various surfaces around the house, and quiet sobbing between the hours of 11 pm to 2 am every night.
Every so often, however, the clouds part and a ray of misguided hope lights up my life. I think, 'My god, I'm not even that fat or ugly. I keep my facial hair shaved, my unibrow waxed and my parasitic twin fetus tastefully hidden under a jacket. Don't I deserve that happiness that has always evaded me?!' And at that moment, that moment of idiocy, the answer is always a resounding yes.
I've seen the eHarmony ads on TV, where the young Caucasian couples gush about how happy they are together amid shots of embracing on a beach and running through a field of flowers in slow motion. And I get into the spirit of online dating, I really do. I want to believe that Joe Wilkinson and Phyllis Hobrackenette found their soul mates in each other after exchanging a series of lewd messages over a computer. Why, online dating can actually work out, sometimes. I've done it before with varying results. Most of my relationships started out online, actually. Without revealing my number of girlfriends, I can safely say that 75 percent of her I met online.
As a seasoned, on again off again online date prowler, I can take you by the cold, sticky hand, and lead you through the pitfalls of online dating.
Lowering Your Expectations: the Power of Attitude
There is a misconception that the online dating pool is getting larger as it becomes more acceptable to turn to the Internet for love. Five years ago, you had to wade through twenty photos of equine-human hybrids. Right at the end of the page you'd see a reasonably normal looking person with an interesting profile, only to find that she has been MIA from the site since 1997.
You think to yourself, miserably, 'There aren't any cool or interesting people on this website at all! I feel so discouraged!' Well don't be. Remember, you're on the Internet now. You've already given up your chance to be picky. It's like that one time you came to the conference late and the only pizza left when you got there was the one with only onions on it and the box was sitting on the floor under the table and it had been flipped over by accident when someone kicked it and the dried out slices were lying all over the coffee stained carpet. But you ate that pizza, didn't you? Because if you don't eat the stale onion floor pizza, you don't eat at all.
What I'm saying is, you were late to the conference of life and the people on that website are the pieces of pizza that no one else wants. But you can have as much as you want, if you have the right attitude!
When Lying is Acceptable: The Profile Photo
Check our first post in this blog and you'll see our photos. They look okay, don't they? We look like reasonably attractive, fertile women. That's the beauty of the digital age, my friend. The ability for anyone to look fairly attractive in 'photo evidence'.
For instance, looking at Bronwyn's photo, you'd probably think she's your average attractive woman with albinism. You'd never know that Bronwyn ACTUALLY has a third translucent eyelid that goes horizontally over the surface of her eye and when she sleeps it looks like her eyes are open because she can close that translucent covering. That's the power of high contrast. And looking at Shelly's photo, you'd probably have never guessed that she's actually a rare Javan rhino. That's called working your best angle.
It's okay to lie a little when it comes to your profile photos. People say they're looking for more than looks but anyone who says that is a complete liar and you should immediately question everything they say. Everyone is browsing based on photos. They look at the photos first, before anything else. Sometimes they'll message you based on your photos alone. So instead of having them physically recoil from the monitor in disgust because you posted an "honest" photo, let him instead salivate over a photo of Christina Hendricks that you edited to give her the same eye colour as you.
Honestly, if you have to choose between one date or no dates, what's it gonna be?
Well I'm actually supposed to be doing something besides this so I'm going to tack on a 'TO BE CONTINUED' tag and resume this post in a part 2.
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