When I got back from Europe and decided to start living my adult life in earnest, I started an aggressive dating campaign. I updated my long-dormant okcupid profile and made a decision that I would keep the bar to going out with someone low. Pretty much anything that wasn't along the lines of "hey beautiful" was a-go. The theory is that talking to someone online is a great way to get to know someone. But seeing someone in person is a good way to filter out the people that you just don't want to go out with. Also going on a lot of dates would be a good way of meeting new people and doing cool things because City is a great place full of cool things and Roommates don't always have the time for it.
I rewrote my new profile to be more current in terms of reflecting what I do now and the current pop culture. I found my old profile to be a little pretentious and was embarrassed of the bits where I started waxing poetic. With the new profile I made a conscious effort to sound as person-like as possible. Like I was a real normal person with quirks and a bit of a nerdy side. I also took care to mention my goals (meeting cool people and doing cool things) and a light-hearted warning that I'm quiet. I felt that was only polite.
Profile complete, I let the messages roll in. I had enough coming in that I didn't actually feel the need to initiate any conversations. Looking people up is a lot of work and it was hard enough keeping up with the conversations I had going. I feel like maybe this is a bad thing but I also feel like I'm not a great judge of compatibility for me. I think mostly I'm like "this person seems really cool" or "I wish I was this person" which does not necessarily translate to "I want to date this person". I think that maybe I feel that way for everybody and actually need to meet the person to decide, so that's another reason for a low bar to getting a first date.
Here's a side note about talking to people on okcupid: It's weird. You're not friends. If someone can't think of a response to you, and therefore do not respond to you, YOU WILL NEVER TALK AGAIN. Perhaps friendship is when you just want to say a thing to a person without needing to respond to something they said. Perhaps best friendship is when you want to say something to a person and don't even care if they respond. Hm. Anyway. You get these conversations of extended smalltalk with the pressure to not drop the conversation. I would often drop the conversation. I'm bad like that. Talking to people is stressful. Anyway, it seems like all these conversations are about who you are, what you do, and what media you like to consume. It makes sense. These are like the only things you have to talk about. But it's not that interesting.
Oh, and another thing. Of the messages I received, many were of the "hey beautiful" variety and these were immediately ignored. Many were also of the "I love Korra!" variety. In fact, almost all initial references to media were about Korra. At first I responded to these because I too love Korra, but eventually started to ignore them and then later removed references to Korra from my profile. Many were also miscellaneous, low effort references to my profile, these were again initially responded to but eventually ignored. These things did not result in interesting conversations. I think also that forming a bond over a tv show is not an awesome way to start a relationship and indeed I have come to the conclusion that by looking at shared interests in terms of media you are filtering for social circles and taste rather than actual compatibility.
My campaign resulted in 4 dates from okcupid and 2 from mutual friends. Let's review them and see what we can learn..
Date1: Conversation was about what Date1 does (phd thesis- economics), what I do (software), what I like (fringe theater), and media (Korra). I was going to look at Date1's profile to recall more about him, but it turns out that it was deleted! Perhaps Date1 has f ound love! I recall that my pre-date impressions of this person was that I liked them less than Date2. I think I might have also thought that they were kind of dumb, but I can't remember why. We talked for about 2 weeks before meeting. I picked the date. It was dinner at a ramen place where they grade you. It seemed like a good time. I was a little late to our date because I'm bad at biking, but that seemed fine. Our conversation was a little awkward and stilted but I guess that's the expectation for a first date. I had a much better time with the schtick of the place than he did. Maybe he would have had a better time if he finished his ramen. In retrospect, he had kind of a negative attitude that wasn't great. Afterward we walked around a little bit and talked about graphic novels or some shit. It turns out dating people is good for getting recommendations to places and media and things. We parted ways shortly thereafter. I told them that I had a good time but I think there was an unspoken agreement that we would not meet again. Of all 6 first dates of my campaign, I believe this one was the worst.
Unrelated to this date, I later went to drink and play games with some friends and then later fell off my bike and cut myself up a bit and hit my head a little and also someone laughed at me. So in all and eventful but not amazing night.
Date2: This conversation was a little different. Conversation was about a lot of things and resulted in some rather long messages, starting with some meta discussion about my profile, thing I like (fibonacci numbers), thing they like (philosophy), thing I did (bike across Europe), thing I'm doing (learning to cook), thing I do (software), thing they do (law), place I'm from (Homestate), things people enjoy (board games, movies, etc.), things happening in life (fun shit like escape the room), and date ideas. Going back, it was really hard to make a summary of all things. Many words. much messaging. We talked for about 3 weeks before meeting in person. My initial impressions pre-date were that I liked them more than Date1 and that they seemed nice and interested in things. I did have concerns that maybe they were also kind of dumb because liberal arts major and because I thought their thesis was dumb. I also picked this date, though I think Date2 picked the theme (board games). We went to a cafe and played cribbage. This date went way better than the one with Date1. I think maybe board games are the ideal first date material. It's a fun thing that's also a conversation piece but doesn't get in the way of other conversation. It went super well we walked around places and got dinner at a place and made plans for another date pretty much immediately after. Of the six dates, this was the best. Coincidentally, we are continuing to date some two months hence, so well done Date2. For those wondering, I no longer think they're dumb but I still think Date2's thesis is dumb, but I don't hold it against them.
Date3: Conversation about thing we both like (Joey Comeau). We talked for about a week before meeting. My initial impressions prior to meeting them was that they were good looking but maybe a little bit arrogant, which is something that I think is kind of attractive anyway, which is not a good trait of mine but whatever. They picked this date. It was live-band karaoke at a pub. Apparently they do it pretty regularly. They were pretty good. I was not. Conversation was a little awkward and halting. Date3 was a little arrogant. Interestingly, I had created a whole mental narrative for them that suited my desires (nice grad student from Nice Tech School) much more than they actually fulfilled them (some person working in IT who wishes they could be a software developer). I had a good time. But it wasn't great. I considered asking if they wanted to make out with the full knowledge that I would never have to see them again. I did not. Date3 comes in at 5/6, which is to say second-worst.
Date4: Conversation felt very much like the shallow and mildly strained conversation of people who don't know each other very well. Discussed things to do in Local Area, basic background, and current activities. We talked for about 2.5 weeks before meeting. My pre-date impressions were that they seemed nice but i found it hard to really connect with them. I chose the date for this one. It was a chocolate and beer and cheese tasting event at a chocolate factory. Much chocolate was eaten. conversation was pretty good and only kind of awkward sometimes. We walked around a bit after. At the end I suggested that we might see each other again but that never happened. I don't know if they expected it to. It was a good time but again not great. And meeting in person pretty much confirmed pre-date impressions. 4/6.
Date5: This one I met at party, a birthday party for someone I didn't know. The story of us dating is kind of cute. They were talking about their kind of technical a job and I thought they were pretty cute cute but suspected that maybe they were already with someone. That someone later talked about some future dating plans of theirs, which ruled out that idea. Unfortunately, I left the party without attempting to get this person;s number or anything. I did mention to Roommate that I met a cute person and neglected to do anything about it. Roommate knows Birthday Boy but did not go to the party with me. Roommate suggested that I ask Birthday Boy for their info. I declined to do so. I was later hanging out with Birthday Boy (though it was no longer his birthday) and others and mentioned my dating campaign. It turns out that Date5 had mentioned me to Birthday Boy which then lead to Birthday Boy putting us in touch. This came with a suggested date of going to a burlesque, something that I mentioned wanting to do but being told that it was not an appropriate first date. Birthday Boy assured me that Date5 would be down. Thus it came to pass that we got dinner together and went to a burlesque show. It was an interesting experience. And funny and entertaining. Conversation was pretty good too. Other than Date2, Date5 is the only other person that I went on a second date with and continue to talk to occasionally. 2/6.
Date6: This is one of Roommate's co-workers. One that she had long thought would be a good fit for me in terms of being good-looking and well-adjusted and not very emotions. I had originally planned for this date to occur on the day of the date with Date5, but then I was exhausted from the days previous and pushed it back. We went to a bar and talked. Date6 claimed that this bar had games, but mostly it had Scrabble and that was pretty much it. so that was a little disappointing. But the rest of the date was pretty okay. I might have seen him again if I wasn't already seeing people that I like more. After seeing Date6, (or maybe slightly before) I decided to no longer accept new applications to the dating pool. 3/6.
The trends we see here are that my impressions prior to meeting a person were pretty consistent to my impressions afterword. The most successful date involved rather a lot of conversation, though the success of the remaining dates were not well correlated with the amount of conversation. I think this just indicates that a lot of conversation online helps translate to a lot of conversation in person which would tend to result in a better date. Also, I'm not sure if this is an artifact of me getting better at dates or not, but I think that dates gotten through mutual friends tend to be better than one gotten through okcupid (though this is not universally the case).
One aspect of my dating campaign was to try a triangle-shaped pattern in which I would date may people casually and as I became more serious dating people the number of people would drop. This would be à la the alt-text of http://xkcd.com/761/. I thought there was an actual comic about this, but I couldn't find anything else. I found it kind of exhausting. Meeting new people is exhausting. Maybe if the dating were very casual and I only saw a person every couple of weeks it might have worked. I also found it difficult to figure out how much I like people given how well I knew them. By the time I went on my second date with Date5, I already rather liked Date2, so it didn't seem quite fair to compare them.
I should say that with both Date2 and Date5, I tried to be very clear about my intentions with regards to my dating around and my feelings regarding them. Neither of them were especially happy about it but both accepted it. Communicating clearly with them both was very important to me and I think it helped a lot. I remain on good terms with the both of them so that's nice.
Should I feel the need to embark on another dating campaign in the future, I will take a more serial approach and make no references to any specific media. While I have bonded with many a person over my love of a tv show made for children, I don't especially want to start my friendship based on that. I really don't care if you like the tv that I like or not. I think I would also not answer anything initial messages less than a short paragraph and I would make more of an effort to initialize conversations, not writing any messages less than a paragraph myself.
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