The time: 6:55 AM
The place: My bedroom
The alarm clock activates my iPod, which begins playing the song “Elsewhere” by Sarah McLachlan.
Me (thinking): Hey, I love this song. That’s nice. I think I’ll just lie here for a while and listen to it and then drift slowly back to sleep.
The time: 6:56 AM
The setting: My bedroom
The song is still playing. I’m still in bed, but there’s a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that the music isn’t just some random occurrence.
Me: Aw crap.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I started my day.
I’d taken some Tylenol PM before going to bed because I wasn’t feeling terribly sleepy and I was suffering from the various aches and pains that have, in recent years, become an increasingly pervasive presence in my life.
Unfortunately, the sleepiness-inducing effects of the pills decided not to kick in until after I actually – finally – fell asleep, leading to a general grogginess that lasted for the better part of the morning.
On Sunday evening I was sitting at my computer doing whatever it is I do while spending the majority of my time sitting at my computer when I heard someone knocking on my door.
The hell?
I headed downstairs and took a peek and saw what looked to be my neighbor. I turned on the light, opened the door, and confirmed this. He’d come by to tell me that my dome light was on in my car.
That meant that it’d been on for roughly six hours by that point.
D’oh.
I went to the car and found that the seatbelt was caught in the door, holding it slightly ajar.
I removed the seatbelt and properly closed the door, deciding that if there were problems with the battery I would deal with them the next day.
Yesterday afternoon I went out to the car, put the key in the ignition, and it started right up, so I figured I was good.
This morning? Not so much.
It came very close to starting a couple of times, but didn’t quite make it.
I stepped away from it for a few minutes, went back into the house and packed up some snacks for work, and then was going to knock on the neighbors’ door to see if they had jumper cables and would be willing to give me a boost.
Before doing that, though, I decided to try again.
It started up with no hesitation. Guess it just needed to warm up a little. Hopefully there won’t be any issues tomorrow morning.
It Really Is A Small World After All Department:
So every few days OK Cupid puts some “matches” in my “Quiver.” Basically there’s a search bot that scours the member profiles in search of someone who matches the search criteria I’ve selected.
Unlike other dating sites, you can’t get terribly specific with your search criteria. You’re pretty much limited to selecting an age range, whether you’re looking for a man or a woman, whether you want them to be looking for a man or a woman, and setting an acceptable distance from your location.
With sites like match.com you can also specify race, body type, hair color, language, religious beliefs, smoking/drinking preferences, etc.
Presumably that sort of stuff is covered by the personality profile that OK Cupid creates based on how you answer questions. At least, I’m assuming that’s why you can’t specify them in your search.
In any case, for distance from my location, my choice is 25 miles, which is the shortest distance you can select.
So today I got an e-mail telling me that there were new “matches” in my Quiver. I said, “This should be good for a mirthless laugh,” and clicked on the instant login link.
I was surprised to see that one of them was actually kind of cute. I looked to see where she was located and noted that it said “Loudoun.” I thought, “Loudoun? Where in Loudoun?”
(Loudoun is the name of the county I live in)
Then I looked more closely. It didn’t say Loudoun, it said “London.”
I know they moved the London Bridge to Arizona years ago, but when did they move London itself to within 25 miles of Leesburg?
Oh wait; they didn’t. OK Cupid is just dumb.
And I thought that the “match” from over 70 miles away that I got the other day was bad.
I mean, seriously, it wasn’t even London, Ontario. Being off by 50 miles is one thing, but to match me with someone who lives on another continent entirely?
I can’t decide if it’s better or worse than matching me with someone who requires that potential matches DO NOT have a penis.
Showing posts with label dating sites suck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dating sites suck. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Hopefully This VD Won't Require Antibiotics
So we’ve got VD once again. Here’s hoping that everyone has a wonderful, romantic time, and that no one chokes on engagement rings hidden in champagne glasses, that the unfaithful manage to successfully double (or triple, or quadruple…) book themselves, and that no one thinks that “going to Jared” involves the guy who lost a bunch of weight eating Subway sandwiches.
As for me, it’s been a typical Saturday involving getting up, getting showered and dressed, heading to the comic shop, gassing up the car, and going grocery shopping and failing to get everything I needed because the human obstacle course was just too damned annoying.
Ah, romance…
Speaking of which, so far OK Cupid continues to be a terrible archer. Among its greatest misses have been a transgendered – but still functionally male – woman, a lesbian, a woman who lives more than 70 miles away, despite the fact that I limited the search to within 25, a lesbian, and a bisexual woman who states that potential matches should contact her only if they DO NOT (all caps hers) have a penis.
A blind, retarded, drunk howler monkey would probably be a better shot than OK Cupid.
But at least it’s free…
Yesterday found me spending too much damned time in front of the TV, catching up on the episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report sitting on my DVR, and actually watching some live TV, as last night saw the return of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
That was followed by the new series Dollhouse, which I’ve been kind of ambivalent about, but figured I might as well watch it once my ass was already planted in the recliner.
It was okay, and Eliza Dushku was as hot as always, so I figure I’ll probably give it another shot. It’s not like I have to worry about it being a long-term commitment; it’s a science fiction show on Fox. There’s almost no chance that it’ll survive.
Hell, moving The Sarah Connor Chronicles to Friday nights is essentially Fox moving it to death row, and the miracle that actually led the show to have a second season is bound to run out of steam.
In the promos for Dollhouse they mentioned that it was from “Joss Whedon, Creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Oddly enough, they didn’t add “and that other show that we stuck in a deadly Friday night time slot and then canceled right away.”
After Dollhouse I watched Numb3rs, and then it was time for Battlestar Galactica. I’m patient enough to let it record during Numb3rs so that I can watch it commercial-free, but not patient enough to not watch it immediately afterwards.
The same can’t be said for Heroes, which has been sitting unwatched on my DVR since Monday.
When I got home from my grocery shopping I thought about making some sort of lunch but decided to just eat some yogurt and then take a nap.
During my nap I dreamed that I was going to a party with actress Katherine Heigl, who was, for some reason, driving a very old, rusted, and trash-filled car – with, I think, Jack Black in the backseat – and she was complaining to me that I don’t draw pictures of her nearly as often as she thinks I ought to, and wouldn’t listen when I explained that most of the pictures I have of her are too much of a pain in the ass, involving entirely too much lace and complex transparency.
She kept changing her position on what it meant that we were going to this party together. Sometimes it was as friends, other times it was as something rather more, then it was as friends, but with an unspoken understanding that there was more to it than that, but which we weren’t going to discuss, and then it was just that she was giving me a ride and I’d better keep away from her during the party, but maybe she didn’t really mean it and she wanted me to figure that out on my own and this was all some sort of test.
The whole thing was utterly baffling, and shortly after we arrived at the party I woke up and thought, “That was weird,” and went back to sleep and started dreaming that it was the day after the party and I’d gone back to the house in search of something that I’d lost while I was at the party (I think it was my contact case, though why I’d bring that to a party is beyond me, but it makes about as much sense as anything else in the dreams).
Then I got up, watched Wednesday night’s Law & Order on my DVR, sat around for a while, and started writing this.
For the curious among you, the picture I posted yesterday is a drawing of Starro the Conqueror, an old Justice League of America villain. In fact, if I recall correctly, Starro was the first JLA villain, the one whose efforts to conquer the world brought the heroes together in their first team venture.
(Yep. Just actually looked at the Wikipedia entry.)
I typically don’t have a lot to do on Friday afternoons, so I took the opportunity to quickly draw a picture of Starro on the whiteboard in my cubicle. The whiteboard that other cube-dwellers use to keep track of projects and deadlines and whatnot, but which I decided would be put to better use by having a picture of an obscure (and utterly ridiculous) comic book character drawn on it.
It’s my intention to have Starro say something different every day, and it’s my hope that other people on my floor will join in the fun by writing their own communiqués from the Star Conqueror.
Over the years I’ve actually thought about getting a tattoo of Starro, and there’s a blog post that I’ve been planning to write for a while in which Starro will have a prominent role. So there’s that to – eventually – look forward to, or to dread. Whichever.
As for me, it’s been a typical Saturday involving getting up, getting showered and dressed, heading to the comic shop, gassing up the car, and going grocery shopping and failing to get everything I needed because the human obstacle course was just too damned annoying.
Ah, romance…
Speaking of which, so far OK Cupid continues to be a terrible archer. Among its greatest misses have been a transgendered – but still functionally male – woman, a lesbian, a woman who lives more than 70 miles away, despite the fact that I limited the search to within 25, a lesbian, and a bisexual woman who states that potential matches should contact her only if they DO NOT (all caps hers) have a penis.
A blind, retarded, drunk howler monkey would probably be a better shot than OK Cupid.
But at least it’s free…
Yesterday found me spending too much damned time in front of the TV, catching up on the episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report sitting on my DVR, and actually watching some live TV, as last night saw the return of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
That was followed by the new series Dollhouse, which I’ve been kind of ambivalent about, but figured I might as well watch it once my ass was already planted in the recliner.
It was okay, and Eliza Dushku was as hot as always, so I figure I’ll probably give it another shot. It’s not like I have to worry about it being a long-term commitment; it’s a science fiction show on Fox. There’s almost no chance that it’ll survive.
Hell, moving The Sarah Connor Chronicles to Friday nights is essentially Fox moving it to death row, and the miracle that actually led the show to have a second season is bound to run out of steam.
In the promos for Dollhouse they mentioned that it was from “Joss Whedon, Creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Oddly enough, they didn’t add “and that other show that we stuck in a deadly Friday night time slot and then canceled right away.”
After Dollhouse I watched Numb3rs, and then it was time for Battlestar Galactica. I’m patient enough to let it record during Numb3rs so that I can watch it commercial-free, but not patient enough to not watch it immediately afterwards.
The same can’t be said for Heroes, which has been sitting unwatched on my DVR since Monday.
When I got home from my grocery shopping I thought about making some sort of lunch but decided to just eat some yogurt and then take a nap.
During my nap I dreamed that I was going to a party with actress Katherine Heigl, who was, for some reason, driving a very old, rusted, and trash-filled car – with, I think, Jack Black in the backseat – and she was complaining to me that I don’t draw pictures of her nearly as often as she thinks I ought to, and wouldn’t listen when I explained that most of the pictures I have of her are too much of a pain in the ass, involving entirely too much lace and complex transparency.
She kept changing her position on what it meant that we were going to this party together. Sometimes it was as friends, other times it was as something rather more, then it was as friends, but with an unspoken understanding that there was more to it than that, but which we weren’t going to discuss, and then it was just that she was giving me a ride and I’d better keep away from her during the party, but maybe she didn’t really mean it and she wanted me to figure that out on my own and this was all some sort of test.
The whole thing was utterly baffling, and shortly after we arrived at the party I woke up and thought, “That was weird,” and went back to sleep and started dreaming that it was the day after the party and I’d gone back to the house in search of something that I’d lost while I was at the party (I think it was my contact case, though why I’d bring that to a party is beyond me, but it makes about as much sense as anything else in the dreams).
Then I got up, watched Wednesday night’s Law & Order on my DVR, sat around for a while, and started writing this.
For the curious among you, the picture I posted yesterday is a drawing of Starro the Conqueror, an old Justice League of America villain. In fact, if I recall correctly, Starro was the first JLA villain, the one whose efforts to conquer the world brought the heroes together in their first team venture.
(Yep. Just actually looked at the Wikipedia entry.)
I typically don’t have a lot to do on Friday afternoons, so I took the opportunity to quickly draw a picture of Starro on the whiteboard in my cubicle. The whiteboard that other cube-dwellers use to keep track of projects and deadlines and whatnot, but which I decided would be put to better use by having a picture of an obscure (and utterly ridiculous) comic book character drawn on it.
It’s my intention to have Starro say something different every day, and it’s my hope that other people on my floor will join in the fun by writing their own communiqués from the Star Conqueror.
Over the years I’ve actually thought about getting a tattoo of Starro, and there’s a blog post that I’ve been planning to write for a while in which Starro will have a prominent role. So there’s that to – eventually – look forward to, or to dread. Whichever.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
OK, Stupid, I Mean, Cupid (Epilogue)
…or “To the Beat of the Algorithm of the Night.”
In looking through the “matches” that have turned up for me so far at OK Cupid, I’ve been trying to determine where the flaw in the matching methodology lies.
It hasn’t really been easy to pinpoint, as there are a lot of variables, and some obvious limitations to the matching process.
Presumably the matches are based on some sort of algorithm that takes information provided by my answers to the various questions and tests, but it’s unclear whether or not it takes into account the information I provided for the basic “about you” kind of questions – age, race, sex, height, etc. – or if that information is simply provided for the benefit of any matches that the algorithm finds based on my answers to the personality questions.
I have to think that it doesn’t take that basic information into account, given the number of matches who own pets, despite the fact that in setting my profile up I chose “doesn’t like cats” and “doesn’t like dogs.”
Obviously the information that members write about themselves can’t really be accounted for in the algorithm, as those measures of personality are far too subjective to easily translate into any sort of mathematical variable.
So, if the only place I indicated that I don’t like pets had been in the Self Summary, it would be understandable that it would match me up with people who have contrary opinions, though that is not the case; I’ve made it abundantly clear in my answers to the questions it does look at.
It also makes sense that I might be matched up with people who say in their self summaries that they are only interested in men taller than six feet, or that, as a recovering alcoholic who prefers to stay in I might be matched up with someone whose idea of fun is going out to clubs and getting hammered 24x7 (an 89% match).
So the matching algorithm itself is incomplete – most likely by design to allow for the “human factor;” that is, someone might not appear to be a matched based on the numbers, but there might be something in his or her self summary that makes up for that – from at least one regard, and seems suspect in another.
Beyond that, there’s the fact that I’ve answered 1,000+ questions, giving the algorithm a lot of data points to work from, whereas many other members – the ones who apparently have lives, which leads me to wonder what they’re doing on a dating site – haven’t provided nearly as much information.
So that serves as another barrier to accuracy.
However, I think that the biggest problem is that my personality is inconsistent, contradictory, and just plain weird.
I know, for example, that the Amazon.com recommendation engine would hate me if such a thing were possible. It’s constantly making recommendations for things that I have no interest in, but which, by all rights, I ought to.
“This Jon guy loves Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, and Liz Phair, so why the hell doesn’t he like Alanis Morissette or Sheryl Crow?”
(It would be funny if, like some hoary old science-fiction cliché, I could get the Amazon.com recommendation engine stuck in some sort of logic loop that makes it explode. “Error! Error! Does not compute!”)
This isn’t to say that I’m so complicated and mysterious that I can’t be pinned down, it’s just that I don’t make sense.
Consider the “Outcast Genius” result of that test. Clearly I have nerdy, geeky, and dorky leanings, but I defy easy categorization.
And honestly, to pick one example, I’m not a very good nerd. Or rather, I’m not an especially promiscuous nerd, or a nerd who works at his nerdiness.
My range of interests is fairly limited and inconsistent.
For example, I like computers, but have no interest in video games. I like science fiction and fantasy, but I’ve never seen a complete episode of Dr. Who in my life, and I can best describe the experience of reading Tolkien as “traumatizing.”
I don’t collect toys.
I’ve never been to any sort of con.
I love comics and animation, but I hate manga and anime.
So it’s really no wonder that OK Cupid can’t find suitable matches for me. It’s not even as simple as trying to fit a square peg into a round hole; it’s more like trying to grab hold of an amorphous, prickly mass that won’t retain any shape and refuses to be placed anywhere.
In any case, that wraps up my three-day look at OK Cupid and what appears to be the utter hopelessness of any efforts to find a suitable mate. I’ll get back to the regular nonsense tomorrow, which is to say that I’ll probably be too lazy to post anything…
In looking through the “matches” that have turned up for me so far at OK Cupid, I’ve been trying to determine where the flaw in the matching methodology lies.
It hasn’t really been easy to pinpoint, as there are a lot of variables, and some obvious limitations to the matching process.
Presumably the matches are based on some sort of algorithm that takes information provided by my answers to the various questions and tests, but it’s unclear whether or not it takes into account the information I provided for the basic “about you” kind of questions – age, race, sex, height, etc. – or if that information is simply provided for the benefit of any matches that the algorithm finds based on my answers to the personality questions.
I have to think that it doesn’t take that basic information into account, given the number of matches who own pets, despite the fact that in setting my profile up I chose “doesn’t like cats” and “doesn’t like dogs.”
Obviously the information that members write about themselves can’t really be accounted for in the algorithm, as those measures of personality are far too subjective to easily translate into any sort of mathematical variable.
So, if the only place I indicated that I don’t like pets had been in the Self Summary, it would be understandable that it would match me up with people who have contrary opinions, though that is not the case; I’ve made it abundantly clear in my answers to the questions it does look at.
It also makes sense that I might be matched up with people who say in their self summaries that they are only interested in men taller than six feet, or that, as a recovering alcoholic who prefers to stay in I might be matched up with someone whose idea of fun is going out to clubs and getting hammered 24x7 (an 89% match).
So the matching algorithm itself is incomplete – most likely by design to allow for the “human factor;” that is, someone might not appear to be a matched based on the numbers, but there might be something in his or her self summary that makes up for that – from at least one regard, and seems suspect in another.
Beyond that, there’s the fact that I’ve answered 1,000+ questions, giving the algorithm a lot of data points to work from, whereas many other members – the ones who apparently have lives, which leads me to wonder what they’re doing on a dating site – haven’t provided nearly as much information.
So that serves as another barrier to accuracy.
However, I think that the biggest problem is that my personality is inconsistent, contradictory, and just plain weird.
I know, for example, that the Amazon.com recommendation engine would hate me if such a thing were possible. It’s constantly making recommendations for things that I have no interest in, but which, by all rights, I ought to.
“This Jon guy loves Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, and Liz Phair, so why the hell doesn’t he like Alanis Morissette or Sheryl Crow?”
(It would be funny if, like some hoary old science-fiction cliché, I could get the Amazon.com recommendation engine stuck in some sort of logic loop that makes it explode. “Error! Error! Does not compute!”)
This isn’t to say that I’m so complicated and mysterious that I can’t be pinned down, it’s just that I don’t make sense.
Consider the “Outcast Genius” result of that test. Clearly I have nerdy, geeky, and dorky leanings, but I defy easy categorization.
And honestly, to pick one example, I’m not a very good nerd. Or rather, I’m not an especially promiscuous nerd, or a nerd who works at his nerdiness.
My range of interests is fairly limited and inconsistent.
For example, I like computers, but have no interest in video games. I like science fiction and fantasy, but I’ve never seen a complete episode of Dr. Who in my life, and I can best describe the experience of reading Tolkien as “traumatizing.”
I don’t collect toys.
I’ve never been to any sort of con.
I love comics and animation, but I hate manga and anime.
So it’s really no wonder that OK Cupid can’t find suitable matches for me. It’s not even as simple as trying to fit a square peg into a round hole; it’s more like trying to grab hold of an amorphous, prickly mass that won’t retain any shape and refuses to be placed anywhere.
In any case, that wraps up my three-day look at OK Cupid and what appears to be the utter hopelessness of any efforts to find a suitable mate. I’ll get back to the regular nonsense tomorrow, which is to say that I’ll probably be too lazy to post anything…
Saturday, February 07, 2009
OK, Stupid, I Mean, Cupid (Part Two)
In Part One I ended the post by mentioning that I’d gone through all of the profile setup and personality evaluation at OK Cupid, and was ready to take a look at what the search for matches would find.
The results?
Well, my question is “What part of ‘I don’t like pets…at all’ and ‘I don’t want kids, whether they exist now or in some potential future’ do you not understand?”
I don’t care if the other person matches me perfectly in every other regard: someone who mentions her cats early and often in her profile is not an 89% match for me.
I know that seems silly and shallow and too picky or whatever, but the fact of the matter is that my strong opposition to owning/violent allergies to pets is going to be a major problem in any potential relationship with a pet owner. And not just from my perspective.
Look, I don’t like pets. I think they’re a waste of time and money. I can’t see any way in which they could add enough value to my life to make up for all that they would take away from it. I understand that this makes me some kind of weird iconoclast or heartless monster who has horrible slimy worms where his soul ought to be, because only some demon from the pit could not love those cute widdle fuzzy wuzzy darlings, and I’ve come to terms with that. I’m not telling you not to own pets if you want to, or not to love your pets, or not to think that they’re worth any amount of money, time, or effort. Pets make you happy. Huzzah, and go you. You want to be the crazy cat person with 100 cats, all named after the characters in Little Women, I’m not going to stop you, tell you that you shouldn’t, or even judge you in any meaningful way. Some people like the smell of potpourri or scented candles, some people like the smell of cat piss. Different strokes and blah blah blah.
I’ve ranted about pets here in the past – with a lot more venom than I really intended; it was meant to be funny but came off as vitriolic, spiteful, and just plain mean, and I sort of regret most of what I said – and it actually cost me a friendship (even if it was a virtual friendship that was already pretty tenuous and wasn’t really adding anything to either of our lives), so I’m not trying to repeat those points now, just trying to give some perspective on my view of why pets are such an obstacle to any potential relationship.
See, I know that people love their pets. I get that. I’ve personally loved pets that I’ve had in the past, but I kind of view it as a phase that I grew out of. The idea of a boy and his dog is a pervasive one in many societies, and not without cause. But I’m not a boy anymore, and I just don’t feel the need for the kind of companionship that a dog, or any kind of pet, can offer.
So people love their pets, and while it’s a feeling I don’t share, I can understand it, and I get how important it can be.
I used to own a 1989 Mazda MX 6. I loved that car. However, from the perspective of an objective observer it could easily be seen as having been far more trouble than it was worth. It had all kinds of mechanical and electrical problems, such as a tendency to get stuck in gear. The driver side window, once rolled down, couldn’t be rolled back up without cracking open the control panel and arcing an electrical spark across a wire. Somewhere along the line the passenger side door stopped opening. The moon roof constantly popped open. I sunk thousands of dollars into repairing the transmission multiple times, replacing the tires, and even replacing the gas tank. Huge pain in the ass, and clearly not worth the trouble.
But I still loved that car, and to this day I miss it.
So as I say, I understand loving something that may very well have more cons than pros.
Which leads back to the pet problem when it comes to relationships.
In order for me to be romantically involved with someone who owns a pet, there are a couple of ways it could go.
While I don’t have any personal interest in owning a pet, I could deal with the presence of one – I’d probably never love it, but I could tolerate it – if not for my severe allergies, which would mean that I would have to just suffer with the itchiness and congestion, as most over the counter allergy medications serve only to lessen the effects of exposure to pet dander, not eliminate them.
Or, alternatively, I could dump a bunch of time, bother, and money into seeing an allergist to receive treatment to, eventually, overcome the allergy. In theory, at least.
What I couldn’t do is ask the person in question to give up her pet, because, as I say, I do understand the perspective of someone who loves a pet. It would be unfair for me to ask that, and I would have difficulty accepting the offer (which I don’t imagine would be forthcoming; I don’t like my odds in a Jon vs. pet competition).
And it would be unfair of someone to ask me to suffer through the allergic reactions or the expense and investment of time involved in being treated for the allergies, which, for the most part aren’t an issue for me in my curren daily life.
I suppose you could argue that by eliminating/lessening the allergic reaction I’d be improving my life, but at present those allergies don’t have all that much of an impact on my life, so I can’t really see that as making an improvement to my life. Besides, the allergies aren’t the biggest problem – though they are a big problem – because the most insurmountable one is that even if they didn’t make me sneeze and itch, I still wouldn’t much care for animals, and my grudging, reluctant acceptance of their existence probably wouldn’t be good enough for someone who does love animals.
Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe I could meet someone who I’m so crazy about that I could put up with the sneezing and the hives. Maybe I could meet someone so crazy about me that she’d happily find a new home for her beloved pet.
But that’s an awful lot of maybes, and it seems easier to me to just avoid the issue entirely.
Except that, you know, it’s apparently impossible to avoid because evidently every damn available woman in the world has a dog or a cat.
*Sigh*
And then there’s the whole kid thing…
Anyway, while my musings on my experience with this latest online dating service – and the perils and pitfalls of dating for me in general – has gone on too long already, it occurs to me that there should be a Part Three, or at least something of an epilogue, so come back tomorrow for that.
The results?
Well, my question is “What part of ‘I don’t like pets…at all’ and ‘I don’t want kids, whether they exist now or in some potential future’ do you not understand?”
I don’t care if the other person matches me perfectly in every other regard: someone who mentions her cats early and often in her profile is not an 89% match for me.
I know that seems silly and shallow and too picky or whatever, but the fact of the matter is that my strong opposition to owning/violent allergies to pets is going to be a major problem in any potential relationship with a pet owner. And not just from my perspective.
Look, I don’t like pets. I think they’re a waste of time and money. I can’t see any way in which they could add enough value to my life to make up for all that they would take away from it. I understand that this makes me some kind of weird iconoclast or heartless monster who has horrible slimy worms where his soul ought to be, because only some demon from the pit could not love those cute widdle fuzzy wuzzy darlings, and I’ve come to terms with that. I’m not telling you not to own pets if you want to, or not to love your pets, or not to think that they’re worth any amount of money, time, or effort. Pets make you happy. Huzzah, and go you. You want to be the crazy cat person with 100 cats, all named after the characters in Little Women, I’m not going to stop you, tell you that you shouldn’t, or even judge you in any meaningful way. Some people like the smell of potpourri or scented candles, some people like the smell of cat piss. Different strokes and blah blah blah.
I’ve ranted about pets here in the past – with a lot more venom than I really intended; it was meant to be funny but came off as vitriolic, spiteful, and just plain mean, and I sort of regret most of what I said – and it actually cost me a friendship (even if it was a virtual friendship that was already pretty tenuous and wasn’t really adding anything to either of our lives), so I’m not trying to repeat those points now, just trying to give some perspective on my view of why pets are such an obstacle to any potential relationship.
See, I know that people love their pets. I get that. I’ve personally loved pets that I’ve had in the past, but I kind of view it as a phase that I grew out of. The idea of a boy and his dog is a pervasive one in many societies, and not without cause. But I’m not a boy anymore, and I just don’t feel the need for the kind of companionship that a dog, or any kind of pet, can offer.
So people love their pets, and while it’s a feeling I don’t share, I can understand it, and I get how important it can be.
I used to own a 1989 Mazda MX 6. I loved that car. However, from the perspective of an objective observer it could easily be seen as having been far more trouble than it was worth. It had all kinds of mechanical and electrical problems, such as a tendency to get stuck in gear. The driver side window, once rolled down, couldn’t be rolled back up without cracking open the control panel and arcing an electrical spark across a wire. Somewhere along the line the passenger side door stopped opening. The moon roof constantly popped open. I sunk thousands of dollars into repairing the transmission multiple times, replacing the tires, and even replacing the gas tank. Huge pain in the ass, and clearly not worth the trouble.
But I still loved that car, and to this day I miss it.
So as I say, I understand loving something that may very well have more cons than pros.
Which leads back to the pet problem when it comes to relationships.
In order for me to be romantically involved with someone who owns a pet, there are a couple of ways it could go.
While I don’t have any personal interest in owning a pet, I could deal with the presence of one – I’d probably never love it, but I could tolerate it – if not for my severe allergies, which would mean that I would have to just suffer with the itchiness and congestion, as most over the counter allergy medications serve only to lessen the effects of exposure to pet dander, not eliminate them.
Or, alternatively, I could dump a bunch of time, bother, and money into seeing an allergist to receive treatment to, eventually, overcome the allergy. In theory, at least.
What I couldn’t do is ask the person in question to give up her pet, because, as I say, I do understand the perspective of someone who loves a pet. It would be unfair for me to ask that, and I would have difficulty accepting the offer (which I don’t imagine would be forthcoming; I don’t like my odds in a Jon vs. pet competition).
And it would be unfair of someone to ask me to suffer through the allergic reactions or the expense and investment of time involved in being treated for the allergies, which, for the most part aren’t an issue for me in my curren daily life.
I suppose you could argue that by eliminating/lessening the allergic reaction I’d be improving my life, but at present those allergies don’t have all that much of an impact on my life, so I can’t really see that as making an improvement to my life. Besides, the allergies aren’t the biggest problem – though they are a big problem – because the most insurmountable one is that even if they didn’t make me sneeze and itch, I still wouldn’t much care for animals, and my grudging, reluctant acceptance of their existence probably wouldn’t be good enough for someone who does love animals.
Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe I could meet someone who I’m so crazy about that I could put up with the sneezing and the hives. Maybe I could meet someone so crazy about me that she’d happily find a new home for her beloved pet.
But that’s an awful lot of maybes, and it seems easier to me to just avoid the issue entirely.
Except that, you know, it’s apparently impossible to avoid because evidently every damn available woman in the world has a dog or a cat.
*Sigh*
And then there’s the whole kid thing…
Anyway, while my musings on my experience with this latest online dating service – and the perils and pitfalls of dating for me in general – has gone on too long already, it occurs to me that there should be a Part Three, or at least something of an epilogue, so come back tomorrow for that.
Friday, February 06, 2009
OK, Stupid, I Mean, Cupid (Part One)
I was supposed to get my annual review done this afternoon, but my boss was too busy so it’s been put off until Monday.
I suspect it will go something like, “You suck. You should pay us a bonus for the privilege of working here.”
Okay, probably not. I’m assuming it will go pretty well…unless my boss has been harboring secret complaints and has just been lying to me when she’s said that I’m doing well and makes complimentary remarks about my performance.
A while back in a Slacktivist comment thread a couple of people had positive things to say about an online dating service called OK Cupid, mentioning that they’d met some really interesting people through the site, despite the fact that, on paper – or rather, on LCD or CRT – they might not necessarily come across as “catches” from the average person’s perspective, and, best of all, it’s totally free.
So I thought about it and decided to take a look.
Initially I wasn’t terribly impressed, but that was mostly due to technical issues.
As I wanted to look around a little before registering and going through the pain in the ass process of creating a profile, I clicked on the “Not ready to join? Search for singles” link that would allow me to get a representative sample before committing to signing up.
This resulted in the expected behavior, taking me to a page on which I could enter my search criteria. However, clicking on the “Update Matches” button did not result in the expected behavior. In fact, it resulted in one of three things:
In Internet Explorer clicking the button did absolutely nothing
or
It caused the browser to totally lock up
In Firefox, it caused my entire system to completely lock up
I decided that perhaps it was a sign (I’m sure some people would say that yes, it was a sign to switch to Linux/Mac. I think you know my canned response to that.) that I should just forget the whole thing.
After all, I’m really not all that desperate.
I mean, yeah, from one perspective, I am. Obviously nothing I’ve done over the years (which is only slightly more than nothing) has helped me land a girlfriend, so in that sense, yes, I’m desperate, as I don’t have a lot of options available to me.
But in another sense, while I do get lonely on occasion, and it seems to me that having sex again sometime before I die – preferably while I’m still young enough to remember doing so – would be awfully nice, and sure, emotional and physical intimacy is often made of win, but being alone hasn’t killed me so far, and overall I’m relatively content with my life as is.
Besides, I go through phases with regard to the whole relationship/dating thing that range from reallyfuckingdesperate to ambivalent, and honestly, of late I’ve been leaning more towards the ambivalent end of the spectrum.
The other day when I was talking to my mother she mentioned that my nephew Jeremy was opining that having a girlfriend hasn’t really lived up to his expectations. “I didn’t know you had to be doing stuff all the time,” he said.
Right now, I’m with you, kid.
After all, while there are obvious advantages to being in a relationship, being on your own has a lot to offer as well, even if it’s the kind of action-free bachelorhood that many would consider an utter waste of being single that I exemplify.
I can go where I want whenever I want (that I don’t want to go anywhere is neither here nor there), spend my money however I feel like, watch what I want, listen to what I want, eat what I want, and I never have to deal with someone else’s various dramas, or put up with this sort of nonsense:
So sometimes I think that maybe I’m better off the way things are*.
But on the other hand – [tasteless joke about what the other hand is doing redacted] – there is that whole sex thing, which doesn’t respond to well-reasoned arguments in favor of the status quo, and considering that I don’t have many options, so I decided to take another look at the site and see if there was a way to get around the technical difficulties.
(As an aside, I will admit that – out of simple curiosity, I swear, and no, I’m not protesting too much – I did browse through the “Erotic Services” section of Craigslist. I had no intention of actually seeking out those services, as I’m too cheap and prefer to spend my money on non-erotic electronic devices, and with the way The Universe works I would either A. End up getting arrested in some sort of vice sting or B. End up getting robbed and/or murdered. Oh yeah, and also because it’s “wrong.” I mean, of course the fact that it’s “wrong” would be a major obstacle. I did look at the “Casual Encounters” section as well, but my BS Meter prevented me from taking any of that too seriously.)
I decided that maybe if I signed up I’d be able to actually search without crashing my browser and/or computer, and, since it was free, there was no real harm.
So I went through the bullshit hassle of creating a profile and went through over a thousand questions, including personality tests like the one I posted the results from earlier, and looked to see what sort of matches their personality-matching algorithm could come up with.
I’ve decided to split this up into two entries, as the whole story ended up being far too long for one post. Come back tomorrow for Part Two.
*Beyond the advantages of flying solo, there’s also the rustiness factor. It’s been so long since I’ve been in a relationship that I’m not sure I’d know how to be in one anymore.
Fiona Apple has a song called “The Way Things Are” that, while not wholly applicable to my life, has some lines that are pretty much dead-on if we assume that the “you” refers to The Universe, Fate, Life, or whatever, rather than, as is the case in the song, an actual person with whom she once had a relationship:
I wouldn’t know what to do with another chance
If you gave it to me
I couldn’t take the embrace of a real romance
It’d race right through me
I’m much better off the way things are
Much, much better off, better by far, by far
I wouldn’t know what to say to a gentle voice
It’d roll right past me
And if you chalk it up you’ll see
I don’t really have a choice
So don’t even ask me
I’m much better off, the way things are
Much, much better off, better by far
I suspect it will go something like, “You suck. You should pay us a bonus for the privilege of working here.”
Okay, probably not. I’m assuming it will go pretty well…unless my boss has been harboring secret complaints and has just been lying to me when she’s said that I’m doing well and makes complimentary remarks about my performance.
A while back in a Slacktivist comment thread a couple of people had positive things to say about an online dating service called OK Cupid, mentioning that they’d met some really interesting people through the site, despite the fact that, on paper – or rather, on LCD or CRT – they might not necessarily come across as “catches” from the average person’s perspective, and, best of all, it’s totally free.
So I thought about it and decided to take a look.
Initially I wasn’t terribly impressed, but that was mostly due to technical issues.
As I wanted to look around a little before registering and going through the pain in the ass process of creating a profile, I clicked on the “Not ready to join? Search for singles” link that would allow me to get a representative sample before committing to signing up.
This resulted in the expected behavior, taking me to a page on which I could enter my search criteria. However, clicking on the “Update Matches” button did not result in the expected behavior. In fact, it resulted in one of three things:
In Internet Explorer clicking the button did absolutely nothing
or
It caused the browser to totally lock up
In Firefox, it caused my entire system to completely lock up
I decided that perhaps it was a sign (I’m sure some people would say that yes, it was a sign to switch to Linux/Mac. I think you know my canned response to that.) that I should just forget the whole thing.
After all, I’m really not all that desperate.
I mean, yeah, from one perspective, I am. Obviously nothing I’ve done over the years (which is only slightly more than nothing) has helped me land a girlfriend, so in that sense, yes, I’m desperate, as I don’t have a lot of options available to me.
But in another sense, while I do get lonely on occasion, and it seems to me that having sex again sometime before I die – preferably while I’m still young enough to remember doing so – would be awfully nice, and sure, emotional and physical intimacy is often made of win, but being alone hasn’t killed me so far, and overall I’m relatively content with my life as is.
Besides, I go through phases with regard to the whole relationship/dating thing that range from reallyfuckingdesperate to ambivalent, and honestly, of late I’ve been leaning more towards the ambivalent end of the spectrum.
The other day when I was talking to my mother she mentioned that my nephew Jeremy was opining that having a girlfriend hasn’t really lived up to his expectations. “I didn’t know you had to be doing stuff all the time,” he said.
Right now, I’m with you, kid.
After all, while there are obvious advantages to being in a relationship, being on your own has a lot to offer as well, even if it’s the kind of action-free bachelorhood that many would consider an utter waste of being single that I exemplify.
I can go where I want whenever I want (that I don’t want to go anywhere is neither here nor there), spend my money however I feel like, watch what I want, listen to what I want, eat what I want, and I never have to deal with someone else’s various dramas, or put up with this sort of nonsense:
So sometimes I think that maybe I’m better off the way things are*.
But on the other hand – [tasteless joke about what the other hand is doing redacted] – there is that whole sex thing, which doesn’t respond to well-reasoned arguments in favor of the status quo, and considering that I don’t have many options, so I decided to take another look at the site and see if there was a way to get around the technical difficulties.
(As an aside, I will admit that – out of simple curiosity, I swear, and no, I’m not protesting too much – I did browse through the “Erotic Services” section of Craigslist. I had no intention of actually seeking out those services, as I’m too cheap and prefer to spend my money on non-erotic electronic devices, and with the way The Universe works I would either A. End up getting arrested in some sort of vice sting or B. End up getting robbed and/or murdered. Oh yeah, and also because it’s “wrong.” I mean, of course the fact that it’s “wrong” would be a major obstacle. I did look at the “Casual Encounters” section as well, but my BS Meter prevented me from taking any of that too seriously.)
I decided that maybe if I signed up I’d be able to actually search without crashing my browser and/or computer, and, since it was free, there was no real harm.
So I went through the bullshit hassle of creating a profile and went through over a thousand questions, including personality tests like the one I posted the results from earlier, and looked to see what sort of matches their personality-matching algorithm could come up with.
I’ve decided to split this up into two entries, as the whole story ended up being far too long for one post. Come back tomorrow for Part Two.
*Beyond the advantages of flying solo, there’s also the rustiness factor. It’s been so long since I’ve been in a relationship that I’m not sure I’d know how to be in one anymore.
Fiona Apple has a song called “The Way Things Are” that, while not wholly applicable to my life, has some lines that are pretty much dead-on if we assume that the “you” refers to The Universe, Fate, Life, or whatever, rather than, as is the case in the song, an actual person with whom she once had a relationship:
I wouldn’t know what to do with another chance
If you gave it to me
I couldn’t take the embrace of a real romance
It’d race right through me
I’m much better off the way things are
Much, much better off, better by far, by far
I wouldn’t know what to say to a gentle voice
It’d roll right past me
And if you chalk it up you’ll see
I don’t really have a choice
So don’t even ask me
I’m much better off, the way things are
Much, much better off, better by far
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Yes, Despite My Charm And Poise, I DO Often Enjoy Solitude
Even by my standards it’s been a pretty boring weekend.
Yesterday I sat around not doing much of anything – and not wanting to do much of anything – before finally deciding sometime in the afternoon that I should do something and get out of the house for a little while, even though I really couldn’t think of anywhere to go.
So I got into my car and headed out on Route 7 with no particular destination, ultimately deciding to stop at Circuit City. Why there? Why not?
I wandered around the store aimlessly, unable to find anything to buy, then walked over to the nearby Office Depot to do more of the same, and then over to the Target next door to repeat the process.
Eventually I noticed that it was after 3 and I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything since the waffles I’d had a bit before 10 and decided I should do something about that, choosing to stop at Burger King.
From there I headed home, stopping at the Best Buy in Leesburg, where I continued the tradition I’d started at Circuit City.
And that’s pretty much all I’ve done for the entire weekend, beyond watching some TV, including two movies that I was never particularly interested in seeing but which I recorded simply because they were on.
One was The Tailor of Panama, which I watched last night, and which was actually pretty entertaining, featuring as it did Pierce Brosnan playing a role that was essentially James Bond minus any of the redeeming characteristics of Bond.
The other, which I watched today, was Original Sin. I’d never had any real interest in seeing that until, as now, the option of seeing Angelina Jolie’s boobs in HD became available.
While Angelina’s HD boobs were a wonder to behold, the movie itself was only okay, and I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in the fairly cheesy ending.
There are a couple of other “might as well record it” movies that have been sitting on my DVR for a while, but I don’t feel up to watching them.
Basically the problem this weekend was, as it usually is, that I have nothing to do at home that I really want to do – there are plenty of things I could do around the house – and not being able to conceive of anything that I would want to do outside the house.
(Take note of that important condition: something that I would want to do. There are plenty of things that I could conceive of doing outside the house, but imagining myself wanting to do them, or enjoying doing them? Not so much.)
Without wanting to sound like I’m complaining about the friends I have, because I most assuredly am not, it does sort of make me wish I had friends I could call up to invite to do some spur of the moment thing, or who might call me up for the same.
Kathleen is always running around doing something or other, so she’s not really an option for spur of the moment stuff most of the time, and I tend to just leave it up to her to contact me if she wants to do something, as it’s just easier that way.
And of course Scott has his family life, and really, the only spur of the moment thing I could think of would be to ask him if he wants to see a movie, and there’s not really anything out right now that’s not rated R that I want to see (and nothing that’s rated R that I want to see sufficiently to head to the movies by myself), and unlike with Kathleen, there’s the distance factor, what with him all the way down in Manassas.
After writing the last paragraph, I paused to check out some of the online dating sites, taking the time to create a profile and taking the time to do the “chemistry profile” at chemistry.com.
Unlike eHarmony, chemistry.com was able to provide me with matches, or rather, a match. However, the very first sentence of her profile showed that this was a false positive: “I like to take my dog for walks in the park.”
I think that overall the profile of me that it created was accurate(ish), but I think their methodology for interpreting the implications of my profile is off.
For example:
You have executive social skills, easily picking up the gestures, facial expressions and speech patterns of others. You are intuitive; you generally understand people, and your sympathetic nature makes you pliant, adaptable and likeable.
Okay, yes, I can read people and understand them pretty well.
But does this really make me pliant, adaptable, and likeable? Hmm…
Then there was this:
Yet despite your charm and poise in large social situations, you often enjoy solitude or intense conversations with just one individual or a few close friends.
Umm…my what and what in large social situations?
In any case, I don’t foresee chemistry.com reaching into my wallet and pulling out the required $26-$50 a month (depending on whether you sign up for a month-to-month subscription – which is $50 – or for six months.).
In any case, I suppose that I should set aside some time to figure out what I’m going to do about feeding myself, as I neither ordered groceries via PeaPod, nor went grocery shopping at any point in the last couple of days.
Yesterday I sat around not doing much of anything – and not wanting to do much of anything – before finally deciding sometime in the afternoon that I should do something and get out of the house for a little while, even though I really couldn’t think of anywhere to go.
So I got into my car and headed out on Route 7 with no particular destination, ultimately deciding to stop at Circuit City. Why there? Why not?
I wandered around the store aimlessly, unable to find anything to buy, then walked over to the nearby Office Depot to do more of the same, and then over to the Target next door to repeat the process.
Eventually I noticed that it was after 3 and I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything since the waffles I’d had a bit before 10 and decided I should do something about that, choosing to stop at Burger King.
From there I headed home, stopping at the Best Buy in Leesburg, where I continued the tradition I’d started at Circuit City.
And that’s pretty much all I’ve done for the entire weekend, beyond watching some TV, including two movies that I was never particularly interested in seeing but which I recorded simply because they were on.
One was The Tailor of Panama, which I watched last night, and which was actually pretty entertaining, featuring as it did Pierce Brosnan playing a role that was essentially James Bond minus any of the redeeming characteristics of Bond.
The other, which I watched today, was Original Sin. I’d never had any real interest in seeing that until, as now, the option of seeing Angelina Jolie’s boobs in HD became available.
While Angelina’s HD boobs were a wonder to behold, the movie itself was only okay, and I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in the fairly cheesy ending.
There are a couple of other “might as well record it” movies that have been sitting on my DVR for a while, but I don’t feel up to watching them.
Basically the problem this weekend was, as it usually is, that I have nothing to do at home that I really want to do – there are plenty of things I could do around the house – and not being able to conceive of anything that I would want to do outside the house.
(Take note of that important condition: something that I would want to do. There are plenty of things that I could conceive of doing outside the house, but imagining myself wanting to do them, or enjoying doing them? Not so much.)
Without wanting to sound like I’m complaining about the friends I have, because I most assuredly am not, it does sort of make me wish I had friends I could call up to invite to do some spur of the moment thing, or who might call me up for the same.
Kathleen is always running around doing something or other, so she’s not really an option for spur of the moment stuff most of the time, and I tend to just leave it up to her to contact me if she wants to do something, as it’s just easier that way.
And of course Scott has his family life, and really, the only spur of the moment thing I could think of would be to ask him if he wants to see a movie, and there’s not really anything out right now that’s not rated R that I want to see (and nothing that’s rated R that I want to see sufficiently to head to the movies by myself), and unlike with Kathleen, there’s the distance factor, what with him all the way down in Manassas.
After writing the last paragraph, I paused to check out some of the online dating sites, taking the time to create a profile and taking the time to do the “chemistry profile” at chemistry.com.
Unlike eHarmony, chemistry.com was able to provide me with matches, or rather, a match. However, the very first sentence of her profile showed that this was a false positive: “I like to take my dog for walks in the park.”
I think that overall the profile of me that it created was accurate(ish), but I think their methodology for interpreting the implications of my profile is off.
For example:
You have executive social skills, easily picking up the gestures, facial expressions and speech patterns of others. You are intuitive; you generally understand people, and your sympathetic nature makes you pliant, adaptable and likeable.
Okay, yes, I can read people and understand them pretty well.
But does this really make me pliant, adaptable, and likeable? Hmm…
Then there was this:
Yet despite your charm and poise in large social situations, you often enjoy solitude or intense conversations with just one individual or a few close friends.
Umm…my what and what in large social situations?
In any case, I don’t foresee chemistry.com reaching into my wallet and pulling out the required $26-$50 a month (depending on whether you sign up for a month-to-month subscription – which is $50 – or for six months.).
In any case, I suppose that I should set aside some time to figure out what I’m going to do about feeding myself, as I neither ordered groceries via PeaPod, nor went grocery shopping at any point in the last couple of days.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
