dating do’s and don’t's part 4: online dating

Ah, the Internet. A relatively new invention in the grand scheme of time, it’s given us so many wonderful things. The ability to connect and communicate with people around the world at the click of a button. A quick, convenient way to access information from all of the world’s sources. This: And of course, online dating, the popularity and pervasiveness of which has reached such epic proportions that for many people, it’s impossible to imagine a time when relationships actually started by people meeting, you know, in person. While online dating may seem like an easy way to find true love, as anyone who’s ever tried it knows, it’s like the Wild Wild West with no discernible rules or etiquette. So here are a few tips:

1. Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation in your online profile. If you write like a five-year-old, most girls will assume you have the intelligence and maturity of a five-year-old.
2. Don’t write LOL after every statement in your profile.  Better yet, don’t write LOL at all within your profile.
3. A profile shouldn’t be a novel, but it should also provide enough information for a girl to make an informed decision about whether or not you’re right for each other, and should highlight what is unique about you. So you like movies, going out to eat, and hanging out with friends? Congratulations, you’ve just described every man on the planet age 10 to death.
4. Don’t contradict yourself in your profile. For example, if you say you don’t smoke, and there’s a photo of you with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth, it won’t take long for a girl to figure out you’re full of shit.
5. If you send an e-mail to a girl and she doesn’t reply within a week, it means she’s not interested and you should move on. If she doesn’t respond positively the first time, do you really think the fifth message is going to make her sit up and say, “Yes, this person is my true love!” ?
6. A message saying “Hey baby gurl, what’s up?” is not as much of a turn on as you think.
7. Posting a full body shot is fine.  Posting a half body shot where the focus is your junk is not fine.
8. Pictures of yourself that you shouldn’t post on your profile: pictures in which you are passed out over a toilet, wearing a Santa costumes (or any costume, for that matter), clearly inebriated, clearly sleeping, looking cozy with another girl, are in a bathroom taking the picture in the mirror with your camera phone, or from when you were five years younger and 20 pounds lighter.
9. If the girl has to be the one to buy the alcohol for your dates, purely for the reason that you legally can’t, you probably shouldn’t message her.
10. Remember what you learned in kindergarten – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. If you read a girl’s profile and think she sounds boring, crazy, high-maintenance, stupid, conceited, etc., just close her page and move on. Girls overlook stupid shit all the time, you should too.

speed bump

Today I was thinking about Microsoft’s recently launched search engine, Bing.com, not only because I don’t know what the hell the difference is between that and any other search engine, but because of the tagline that’s been used in the Bing.com commercials – “What has search overload done to us?”

I thought of that slogan because lately I’ve been asking myself a similar question regarding technology and relationships – “What has living in a world of instant gratification done to us?”

This thought had been forming in my head for some time, but it really crystallized Sunday night during my phone conversation with Ang. We were talking about how, thanks to social networking and dating web sites like Facebook and Match and Twitter, we expect to know everything about everyone and their lives– before we even meet them. It’s like the process of getting to know someone has been reversed; nowadays, we want to be able to get the skinny on people (what they like and dislike, what kind of job they have, what they’re doing), and decide based on that if they’re actually worthy of our time, rather than meet someone spontaneously, and go through the process of getting to know him or her little by little, through conversation and spending time together. Imagine that!

Not to mention the fact that, when you come right down to it, no one in our generation has any patience. How could we? We came of age in an era of instant gratification, with everything at our fingertips. The Internet and 24-hour news stations brought the world right to our homes or classrooms; we watch news and history as it happens. Cell phones, e-mail, BlackBerrys, laptops and netbooks mean we are never more than a click away from communicating, from a friend or loved one, from an answer to a question. And it pisses us off to no end when getting that news or making that connection takes longer than that. Think about it – how many times have you cursed at your computer or closed a tab because a web page was taking too long to load, or asked yourself, “Why hasn’t so-and-so texted me back yet? I sent them a message like, five minutes ago.”

I’ve begun to wonder if this addiction to and expectation of instant gratification has leaked into our personal lives, based on the way people tend to, or at least try to, zoom through relationships at top speed. We are so used to getting everything instantly, I think we’re starting to believe relationships work the same way. I’ve heard tell of a bygone era in which people took the time to really get to know each other before committing to an exclusive relationship or engagement or marriage, rather than agreeing to be boyfriend and girlfriend .5 seconds after meeting each other (exaggeration added for effect).

I understand that mutual attraction is a powerful force and plays a large role in the quick stone-hopping from strangers to lovers. Trust me – I know from experience; when you meet someone with whom you have chemistry so palpable you can practically bathe in it, it’s hard to pump the brakes instead of going full-steam ahead. We’ve all been there, and sometimes, it actually works out, and the couple finds out that there is something more substantial underneath that initial, knee-jerk attraction.

What I’m talking about here, I suppose, is the expectation that so many people seem to have that every relationship should be that way, and the pressure – intentional or not – that it puts on others. The concept of taking it slow, and letting a relationship develop organically at its own pace seems to have gone out the window. Nowadays, relationships have a shelf-life, and it’s shorter than an ice cream cone on a hot day. It seems like, if two people are dating, it’s not long at all before one of them starts checking the clock, wondering when it’s time to make a commitment, or make a break for it, and move on to the next one (the prevalence of ADD, real or imagined, in our generation has something to do with this as well, I imagine.)

If I sound like I’m being condescending and judgmental, I’m not, because I’m just as guilty of these habits as anyone. What I’m concerned with is changing these habits, if that’s even possible. It would be nice not to have to feel the pressure to decide if I want someone to be my boyfriend after two dates, or to put that kind of pressure on someone else. And I would think it would be in everyone’s best interest to actually get to know people before we commit to them, and get emotionally involved and wind up engaged or married, only to wake up one morning and realize, “Wow…I really, really don’t like you.” Maybe if we all took a break from our instant gratification fixation, slowed down and gave ourselves time to think things through and process them, we’d stop getting what we think we want, and start getting what we really want.

Just a thought.