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A(n)nals of Online Dating

Jill

Anyone who has internet-dated knows the kinds of… characters… that you can come across. But the below message which was sent to a friend of mine may take the cake for Best (worst) Online Dating Message Ever:

hey,
I saw your profile ..and um…well, i thought i’ll write.
From your profile it seems like like making friends….anyhow, if you
are not keen on being friends…stop reading here and delete this
message! however, if you are keen on making friends, can you tell me
about yourself?? like…..

what is your greatest quality or trait?

If money wasnt an issue and you could visit any place , where would it
be and why?

which animal do you most relate to?

If you could acquire a certain skill without the risk of failure or
without putting any effort, what skilll would you acquire and why?

what movie or book do you like most?

whats your greatest passion in life?

ok..last question…..kinda weird, but what do you think of your
nose??!!………………….. lol…its good..i like it..seems to
give you a personality! anyhow…..

laters

YIKES. I think they call that “negging.”

Any other online dating horror stories in the house?

68 thoughts on A(n)nals of Online Dating

  1. I have not ventured far (yet) into the realm of online dating, so no horror stories (yet). I wouldn’t be *too* horrified to get an email like the one above (although highly unlikely to respond encouragingly) – hell, my university advisors regularly send me messages that are more incomprehensible and poorly typed/worded than that. The nose comment is a little far out there, but at least it’s not just thinly-veiled masturbation material. I’m more apprehensive about the, “Hey, my boyfriend and me are both really into hot chixxx” kind of messages that my friends sometimes get (and not even always on dating sites). Bleh.

  2. I once had a guy I’d met online write me an email after a horrible date where acted bored and stand-offish saying among other things, “my range of women I find attractive is large these days, but you’re within it.” So basically he’d lowered his standards to date me because of desperation (he confessed previously that he hadn’t had sex in a really long time, over a year).

  4. I’m trans, and I make a point of mentioning it in my dating profile. That wisdom is sorely tested, though, by the never-ending string of guys who have either chosen to message me without first looking at my profile (and who tend to never respond back once I’ve directed them to, although in one famous instance I got an “ewww, gross” before he signed off) or creepy guys who figure that because I’m trans feel it must be okay to lead off with graphic questions about preferred sexual positions and/or functionality in the bedroom. This isn’t an infrequent occurrence…it’s like 8 out of 10 guys who message me.

    The ones who actually make it to a first date are a whole other beast. They range from being closeted trans themselves trying to live vicariously through me, to nice guys who kiss me goodnight and then go home to have some kind of personal meltdown…texting me two weeks later to tell me they “just can’t handle it”, to the one guy who sexually assaulted me. There have been no second dates.

  5. My favorite was always when I had ads at times in my life when I specifically seeking women and I’d get dudes messaging me saying “Hey, you seem cool, I just wanna chat” whatever. And then when I would point out how inconsiderate and douchey it was for them to respond to an ad from a woman seeking only other women, they’d get all up in arms like I was being so unfair. “Jeez, I just thought we had stuff in common and could talk”. Yeah, uh-huh. You troll these sites just for coffee talk, eh? Do you message guys too?

    Fuckers. 😛

  6. First email was ok, polite and “hey I liked your profile” I checked his profile, he was 35 years older than me (55 vs 20) and lived 2000+ km away so I sent a short “thanks but no thanks, good luck on in your search (I was much more polite in those days).
    Second email
    “Would you relocate”
    Third email
    “Come be my live in slave, I could teach you so much” and they kept coming, in that kind of way.
    Now I often don’t rely because so many men see any communication as positive and well keep going until you block them.

  7. @Renee, I feel you. I am bi and genderqueer. Somehow, listing yourself as bi, mentioning that you are genderqueer, and outright making the word queer appear more than once in the first sentence of your profile still doesn’t stop the homophobes either. I haven’t gotten any of the genitals questions, luckily, but I suspect that might be because people don’t know what the word ‘genderqueer’ means. I haven’t actually gotten to the dating stage yet, though.

  8. “I saw your ad and was wondering if, by any chance, you and a lady friend of yours could watch as I take of my clothes and then perhaps make fun of my condition. I’d be willing to pay you money if needed.”

  9. For all the characters on online dating websites, there are some good ones too! It was too time consuming to find a man in a bar who met my standards (high-achieving, thinks women are people, my age, not allergic to cat, etc), so I signed up for OK Cupid. It required combing through a lot of inappropriate, ridiculous, or poorly written messages. I had one message from someone who was deeply offended that I had written that I preferred to meet someone who was in graduate school or on a professional career track. He accused me of being deeply elitist. For liking men who had a long-term plan (and this was 2006). Any message that would be inappropriate if said in person at noon on a Monday was deleted–that guy lacks tact. But I figured that was far less time consuming or risky than combing through men at a bar.

    I liked the ones that showed that he had read my profile and gone a step further to connect things in my profile to his interests to show why we should talk or meet. “Hi, my name is J—-. I read your profile, and I also like X and Y, and I’m in medical school and I see that you’re planning on going to law school, and I see that you share a similar view on Z, and I’ll be online Tuesday night if you want to chat then.”

    So that one is my husband now 🙂 I actually ignored his first message, but he was, thankfully, persistent.

  11. Being a veteran of online dating, I have many, but this is the most recent:

    “Wow you are actually quite good looking. So much for those untrue stories of feminists being women who can’t get men. 🙂 You should be on tv to dispute that ignorant view. :)”

    I didn’t reply.

  13. Let’s see. One of my good friends just accidentally emailed my ex. (She didn’t recognise him, and he responded because he doesn’t realise we’re actually quite good friends now. Even though the last time I saw him I told him she’d just had a baby and we were hanging out quite a bit.) She wished him luck in his search and backed away slowly.

    I could tell so many tales of bad internet dates and interactions.

    I actually met the above-mentioned ex online and we dated for five years. And it’s because of that relationship that I moved from Michigan to Australia, where I am now very happy. So I wonder if my internet dating success was just a once in a lifetime thing.

  14. I used to get dudes twice my age assuming that because I was/am kind of goth, I would automatically be into kinky stuff. I mean, I am, but it’s not appropriate to message somebody and ask about that before you speak to them about anything else.

    Well, it is sometimes, but not when you’re a)not on Craigslist and b)contacting someone who is the same age as your children.

  15. I got a lengthy reply that ended “if you are frigid and don’t really like men, don’t bother replying.” I love it when they weed themselves out without me having to actually meet them.

    Close runner up: “I’m married but my wife is very understanding.”

  16. My personal favorite was “hey — sex now bye”. That was the entire message. And he lived in a different state. Aside from that I haven’t gotten anything truly epic, just a lot of people who ignore the bolded sentence toward the top of my profile that says I won’t respond to people trying to sex me in the first message… and a few trying to be clever people who wait until the 2nd or 3rd message to try to get in my pants.

    That said, I also have made a lot of great friends through online dating. Some I ended up sleeping with, some I didn’t.

  17. I also got the guy who said that he couldn’t believe I was actually poly amorous because (paraphrasing), “you don’t look like you go to Ren Faire all the time.” I responded that I actually did go to Ren Faire all the time.

  18. Wish I could contribute, by my experiences with primarily small BDSM community sites simply lack the strangeness you get from a vanilla dating site (I guess the weirdness is just “baked in”?).

    About the best I’ve ever gotten have been responses/replies consisting of nothing but “send me pics” (sometimes upwards of ten unsolicited messages after first contact)

  19. I had put in the “seeking age range” box, 25-35. Then in my profile, after a billion wannbe sugar daddies, I had put, as an addendum to many positive, interesting hobbies and life experiences that men could engage with: “Please do not message me if born before x year” (chosen as it was a round number). At the time this would have been age 37. So I get an email from a guy whose profile said he was 41: “I see you’re an English major. Guess that’s why you are not much cop at math, lolol”, among other PUA crap. You know, the “negging” BS where they are trying to provoke you to defend yourself (what I meant was…) or apologize (silly me…) as it supposedly sets up some dynamic of them having power and authority and you submitting.

    I checked his profile and it said, “I would like to have the sort of first date you are still talking about in 40 years’ time.” So I replied, “It seems to be a bit rich for YOU to criticize MY math skills when, based on the average life expectancy for a white American man, you would like to be talking about your first date four years after you die.”

    I blocked him after that and stopped replying to jerks at all. But I did secretly check his profile a few days later and he had changed it to wanting to talk about his first date in “decades to come”. So clearly I hit a nerve.

  20. I recently had chatted with a guy on OKCupid and was planning to meet him in real life within the next week or so. Then I saw him make a “joke” in his facebook feed that included the sentence “invite girl over. rape her. profit.”

    Of course, given the fact that I had been intending to accept his invitation to meet in real life, I was terrified by this. On the other hand, we had chatted pretty extensively and I didn’t get any other misogyny vibes from him, so I hoped that this might be what we call a “teachable moment.” So the next time he chatted me I explained that as a woman who is dating, especially on the internet, rape is a real tangible fear. I gave him the statistics on how many women have been raped and how many men admit to having raped someone. Then I coopied the offending statement into the chat and explained that, given my currentrelationship to him, this it really f-ing scary to read.

    He seemed genuinely sorry and embarassed, but I also could not quite get him to understand that the problem wasn’t that I was OFFENDED, but rather that I was TERRIFIED. Lots of men who seemed cool at first have gone on to rape someone I thought maybe I really got through to him, but when I got up the next morning I found that he had unfriended me, so I guess I’ll never know.

  21. I’m on OKcupid at the moment. My profile is fairly new, so I am sure that I haven’t seen the depths yet. However, I have gotten annoyed at the guys who message me or email me and only say, ” Hi how r u?”
    Usually, the guy has hardly anything in his profile and no picture. When I ask why they messaged me, they say they like my picture and my profile….nice. Why don’t you have either one? There’s nothing there to respond to. Bye!
    I have had a couple very reasonable dates, but, I had one that reminded me thoroughly why coffee dates are recommended as a start. When he showed up at the coffee shop, he was a full head shorter than I, and shorter by at least 4 inches than his profile said, but, I could have been ok with that(though, giving a taller number in the profile does set off warning bells). However, several things were also wrong that wouldn’t have been detectable in a profile. He had Austin Powers bad teeth, bad breath, and when he leaned in for a hug, I discovered BO, too. I felt shallow, but, I started looking for an exit. Also, you know how some people have really beautiful voices? Josh Turner, Morgan Freeman, most broadcasters? He had the anti-broadcaster voice. He was hard to understand, and hard to listen to.
    He was polite, he listened as well as talked, but, I couldn’t deal. I felt like a shallow and bad person for not being able to see past the outside.

  22. Also, I state in the first paragraph of my profile that I am not interested in any advances from men who are not pro-choice.

    I am amazed by how many people either do not read that first “about me” paragraph or ignore it entirely. I also get a lot of contact from people saying “I think X on abortion, is that close enough for you?” or “why do you care so much about that?” As if I have any reason to want to explain myself to them.

  23. The most hilarious OkCupid message I have ever received was from a dude who was probably on speed. He wrote about a Word document page and a half of theories on Rock Band drumming (something I’m a total champ at, and mentioned in my profile at the time), and how he was sad that he knew no one else besides himself that truly UNDERSTOOD it.

    Ohhhh man.

  24. Heather Aurelia: What the hell?! Your nose? What does that have to do with anything?  

    Nothing. He was just pathetic enough to hope that she’d become insecure if he underhandedly insulted her nose, and that she’d stick around/reply to the message to see if it was really an compliment or an insult; he wanted to see if he could hurt her ego so she’d then feel the need to make him like her because (he thinks) it’s a blow to her confidence if he doesn’t. By throwing her into some fucked up disequilibrium, he’s hoping to make her vulnerable to his advances.

    I don’t know why guys still do this; you know something doesn’t work when even a woman who doesn’t date often all at, like me, knows your tactics.

    Immature and laughable.

  25. @ Jenna: Don’t feel shallow or bad at all for not feeling it with the coffee-shop guy. Attraction is a huge deal when trying to find a partner, and it’s what seperates friends from lovers. And I’m not just talking about physical attraction, which should be a part of what you factor in, but about your attraction towards that person’s personality. And even though coffee guy was polite and a good listener, it doesn’t mean your personalities would have meshed up, or even if they did end up meshing up, it doesn’t mean you’d ever be attracted enough to ever truly desire him. And that wouldn’t be fair for either one of you.

    Another reason you shouldn’t feel to bad is because all the things that turned you off about him may drive his future partner wild (ok, minus the bad breath and BO, but thankfully a little soap and Scope can fix that). Different strokes for different folks.

    And finally, I think too often women feel obligated to keep dating guys they’re really not into because the guy happens to be decent. And while I totally understand how painfully hard it can be to find a guy who isn’t an asshole, being a decent guy should be a pre-request for getting a date with you, not the only reason to continue dating you.

    So while its important to keep the other person’s feeling in consideration, at the end of the day, you (and this is assuming you’re looking for a long term relationship) want to find someone who makes you incredibly happy, someone you absolutely adore. In a way, you did coffee shop guy a favor by not leading him on and giving him false hope that this could turn into something real. No need to waste anyone’s time or get in too deep.

    Anyways, good luck Jenna, and all of you ladies, who are putting yourselves out there and dating. I hope you all find what your looking for!

  26. Another OK-Cupider…I’ve gotten the standard “hey how r u?” and the “u look cute lets chat” messages but a few days ago, I got the most interesting message so far. I was told to have no fear, because although he is one of the oldest people on the site, he just happened to accidentally check out the youngest people on the site to see if he had anything in common, and it just so happens that we do! We should get together and have coffee sometime.

    On his profile, he outlines the BMI range and preferred weight he would like his potential dates to fall within. He also makes it quite clear that women his age (80s?) are incredibly unattractive and that’s probably why they are single. He is also a good teacher and is very experienced with the female anatomy. (Seriously.)

  27. First of all, I’m a lesbian on these dating sites like OKCupid.

    First this gem: “You definatly look female. Shemales, transgender and Hermaphrodites that look like real females really turn me on. Keep up the good work!” He obviously didnt realize that I *am* female.

    Then I also participate in some aspects of BDSM, and got these missed instant messages while i was offline:
    i seek an elegant submissive girl. i am not incredibly kinky but my soft butch and dominant abilities (naveal officer) may be what you want. do you desire to kneel naked and at the foot of your domme in submission of mind and body?. naval officer got myself nervous . and your desire for now enlivens me. i mention quickly the kneeling because if i cn’t bring you to that freely and serenely I have failed as your Mistress. and yes, without you mentioning it in your profile for a dominant female … the “chocker” with the pink bow …(I had a gothy pic of me on my profile dressed up, and wearing a choker necklace.) it gave you away as a submissive seeking a collar. pretty look too. i appreciate your want of monogamy too

    My reply? “Yes, I want someone dominant, but I also need someone I can trust – and you talking about how you’d like me to kneel naked isnt exactly high up on the list. I dont play power games until at least I get a chance to get to know some one. Internet play is pretty harmless, but I’m a very touch-sensitive person and much of how I view the world is incomplete without feeling it for myself.”

    Her? “You answered perfectly, a reticent yes.”

    I stopped, because…she didn’t understand what a no sounded like.

    1. First this gem: “You definatly look female. Shemales, transgender and Hermaphrodites that look like real females really turn me on. Keep up the good work!” He obviously didnt realize that I *am* female.

      Um, well, all women are. There are no “real” women/females. The problem with the guy isn’t that he didn’t realize you’re cis instead of trans, but that he’s an asshole, degendering transphobe as well as a creepy, fetishizing chaser.

  28. I suppose I should have added that I met my fiance on OKC too, and long-term quasi-boyfriend. So it ain’t all bad….at least once I learned to go with my gut and not bother with anyone who causes me to red flag him.

  29. I’m sure if I were seeking to date a man then I’m sure I’d run into similar inquiries. I already gotten enough weird questions and/or requests like these made at gay bars. Although, this message seems more like a socially awkward dude trying a little too hard to be funny.

    Prior dating experiences seeking a woman, however, necessitated me almost always making the first move/contact. In life, as it is online. There are pros and cons with both of them.

  30. I’ve had great experiences over all – no ‘the one,’ but one of my closest friends, some promising relationships that didn’t work out but were great experiences with people I never would have met, and some great sex. I notice from these stories one lovely thing: the jerks seem to announce themselves outright! So if you weed those out with good humor, the folks you meet face to face are likely to be at least worth a cup of coffee.

    My horror story: On my profile I said that I don’t date Republicans and that I like debate politics got an email from a dude calling me a hypocrite for that (as if you can’t debate politics unless one is a democrat or republican) and called me ‘a spoiled brat from the suburbs who thinks she’s transgressive for living in a Latino neighborhood.’ Then he told me he was not a Republican but .. . .(can you guess) a libertarian. But he’s fair! He also supports putting some people in jail! Like, and this is a direct quote “wall street assholes but also black violent criminals.”

    I wrote a response thanking him for educating me that no white people are ever violent, ever, and commending him for being open minded enough, like so many young white male libertarians, to overlook his opposition to government long enough to support racist incarceration. I thought better before I sent it – thanks for the opportunity to unload!

  31. I did match.com and also found a great long-term bf there. Encountered quite a few odd birds along the way, though.

    I once got a first-time e-mail from a guy that was paragraph after paragraph describing “your perfect day.” It had every cheesy romantic thing in it – breakfast in bed, rose left on your steering wheel, etc. – then went on to talk about how I go to work on this “perfect day” and all the men flirt with me but I turn them down because I’m so in love with him, there is a section where we are making love, then it ends with “and it was the best 30th wedding anniversary you could imagine.”

    So he already had me having sex with him, flattering his ego by turning other men away, and marrying him, right in the first e-mail.

    I was tempted to reply, “If that is how my life is going to be in my 60s, put me out of my misery now.”

    But I just ignored him instead.

  33. Gack, internet dating has changed from the ye olden days I guess. Its been about errr 12 years or so but mainly I used to get these long pornographic messages about how the dude in question was going to have sex with me. I used to reply with gramatical corrections and notes on word choice/pacing.

    I rarely ever heard from them again. I guess constructive criticism=/=not sexy.

  34. The advantage of using a dating site like OKcupid is that you can block the ones you don’t like! They don’t have your real email, or anything else unless you reveal it on your profile or to them. In some ways it is easier than meeting someone in a bar or at an event, because even the creepiest won’t-take-no-for-an-answer person can be blocked or made invisible instead of you having to flee an event or have them kicked out, which isn’t always possible.

  35. I used to reply with gramatical corrections and notes on word choice/pacing.

    I think that just made my day.

  37. Another explanation is just that he was drunk. I know that I’ve come home hammered on many a Friday night and sent some incoherent messages.

  38. Cara:
    Um, well, all women are. There are no “real” women/females. The problem with the guy isn’t that he didn’t realize you’re cis instead of trans, but that he’s an asshole, degendering transphobe as well as a creepy, fetishizing chaser.  

    Cara, thanks for that. 🙂

  39. You think online dating is bad? Try hanging out a BDSM community site.
    Which essentially gave up one becaus eof all the crap that was flooding my mailbox, despite the fact that I clearly stated I wasn’t looking for anyone.

  40. @ Jenna
    OMG. I HATE when guys start with just “how r u?” or “hi”! I mean, if you wanna keep it short, ask me about something I wrote on my profile! Just because you said hi doesn’t mean I wanna talk with you!

    My worse email I received was from a Vietnamese guy who wanted enact his “private (white female) English teacher” fantasy. I thought I could safely ignore the email. Oh no, he wrote back 3 days later asking why I hadn’t responded. So, I wrote him back saying I wasn’t interested. Thankfully, that did the trick.

    After a lot of misses on OKcupid, I found my current boyfriend on there. So, you just gotta expect a lot of misses among some hits.

    @Comrade Kevin
    I’ve always waited for guys to “ask me out” online, but I find they rarely do! It’s like endless messaging! So, after awhile, I found that after I chat with a guy a little, I’ll throw my phone number out and then they’ll call me!
    It’s nice to have found my assertive self online, but it took some trial and error.

  41. This guy on this German bdsm platform IMed me just saying “hey, where are you from?”
    I’m from a small town, so I told him, because I thought he might know me from there, which would have amused me.
    His reply: “No, I meant like, Asia? Because you have such beautiful mysterious eyes”.
    Gag.
    And in my profile picture, I’m wearing a wifebeater and glaring into th camera. Which prompted a friend’s boyfriend to tell me I shouldn’t be surprised by the creepy messages if I “put my tits on display like that”. Even his girlfriend glared at him and asked him if any front view of a female was a tit picture to him.

  42. I joined OKCupid yesterday. So far, I’ve talked to an awesome girl a couple hours away, messaged back and forth with an interesting guy, and received this gem:
    “Another bisexual chic?!? I think the problem is that you all have never been with a real man. But I could be wrong as I’m not quite perfect……yet:)”
    Or… Mr. “Real Man”, the problem could simply be that you clearly wear your chapeau upon your derriere. Asshat.
    I refused to dignify that with a reply, just blocked him.

  43. I don’t know if this counts as I wasn’t on a dating site, but on fanfiction.net. I once got a weird message from a guy long back who was interested in “trying out the things I wrote” (I write a lot of smut fics, especially kink and BDSM centric ones) and making me his future wife and live-in slave. He apparently chose to ignore the part of my profile that said I was 15 at the time. *facepalm*

  44. Oooooh boy.

    Before I stated dating my husband, I experimented with dating websites. My profile listed my age (then 18) and that I am bisexual. It had a photo of me on there.

    I’ve always been undecided as to who the “winners” that sought my affections were. The candidates?

    1. The guy who told me via email that the fact I could pass for his daughter turned him on.

    2. The guy who sent me a message that was disturbingly graphic that ended with “itz hawt that u look like ur 12”

    3. The one that asked me to tell him his breast size, and if my boobs were smaller than C cups, if I would get implants for him, because he has Standards.

    *head desk*

  45. I’ve been on match four times (all four times for short periods, like 1-3 mos.) and okcupid once, (started in June, just pulled my profile). I married a guy from match, and then we split up (not blaming match), and now I’m dating an okc guy. I actually never got anything that bad on match, but I had some really funny ones from okc:

    -A guy who wanted to be my sugar daddy, and scanned in a picture of himself with a sharpie-drawn black bar over his eyes. Yeah, this guy, despite only being in his mid-forties, was apparently too inept to use photoshop. He messaged me despite the fact that my profile specified only long-term relationships. I wanted to tell him off, but didn’t, because he lives in a small (nice) city that I like to go hang out in. But then he messaged me again, and went into some detail about my profile, so I’m like, shit, he’s already paying a lot of attention to me. So I told him off. Lead to a funny exchange of emails where he accused me of being “hostile.” Umm, yeah, that was the point.

    -A guy who wrote me a message, I was out and so checked the message and his profile briefly on my phone, then went on with my evening, and he sent a follow-up message where he basically said it was creepy that I was looking without saying hi. Blocked.

    -A guy who wrote a long message explaining the history of his failed marriage, how he was going to be in town for business for three or four weeks, and was looking for teh sex, which he of course was good at, but I think he wanted some sort of mutual courtesan experience where we gazed doe-eyed at eachother over delicious food and an upscale restaurant, talked dirty, and decided to boink. My reply: Hi, my profile which you claim to have read does not state that I am looking for casual sex. Also, have you never heard of a euphemism? There is something to be said for hinting at sex in a first message, and then if she’s interested, getting all graphic. Ewww. I’m gonna go bleach my brain now.

  47. Emeryn: Oooooh boy.3. The one that asked me to tell him his breast size, and if my boobs were smaller than C cups, if I would get implants for him, because he has Standards.*head desk*  (Quote this comment?)

    He can screw himself. I am a 30B and I am DAMN PROUD of it! I love my size!

  48. Ha – longtime lurker who joined match.com a couple days ago. I’ve already had some real winners! I’m 35 and my age range is 32-45, but 75% of my messages so far have been from guys age 50+. Not only are they too old for me, but by contacting me despite my stated range (often several times) they’re sending a message that what I want doesn’t matter. That’s a GREAT basis for a relationship!

    I’ve also gotten creepy sex messages and a couple negs, including one guy who said he likes “traditional and feminine” women and hates women who “lie around in jeans and a t-shirt.” Which of course is what I’m wearing in my pic. And I get LOTS of dudes mansplaining that I’m wrong about not wanting to date a guy with kids, and/or about not wanting kids myself. Yes, nothing turns me on like a page-long message exhorting me not to be so “selfish” and instead embrace my “maternal instincts.” (Blocked!)

    I’m hoping that I’m just getting so many creeps because they contact all the women who have just signed up, having been rejected by everyone else. But if this keeps up, I’m going to give up on dating and just get a puppy!!

  49. AnotherKate,

    Yes, yes you are. So many of the guys are too old, that I just kind of stopped noticing them. In terms of, when I’m counting emails sent/received, I forget about all the mid-40 and 50- and 60- somethings.

  50. In my past of online dating i have been much too nice with stupid guys but recently i have been empowered by feminism to not let guys do whatever they want with me and online communities are perfect to practice that attitude.

    On a German college student community (actually not for dating) a guy wrote me a message where he obviously wanted to get to know me and was making me compliments about my looks. Usually I would have ignored that but he was calling me the german word for “little doll” (a rather unusual and sexist term for pretty girls, especially when you dont know that girl). My answer to that was a little bitchy but probably not bitchy enough even though i was mocking him. He answered happily that he liked my way of answering, didnt even say sorry for calling me a doll but reassured me that im a pretty lady before rambling about himself. That ticked me off and i wrote him sweet little 4 paragraphs about how rude that was, that i dont need a guy to reassure me of my looks and that because im a girl its not my job to make him feel good. Felt great 😀

    Wonder what he wrote back? “Fuck you” and another rambling and whining about his failed relationship, his emotional wounds and that i TOTALLY misunderstood him. Ahem….. didnt know i was a therapist and yet no apology for the rudeness.

  51. Wow, am I glad that I’m in a nice, steady, long-term relationship. It’s been years since I’ve done the personals thing, and I never had any TRUE horror stories (well, random dudez saying, hey, you’ve got a female AOL profile, wanna cyber?, but that’s almost quaint compared to these stories). Hadn’t need to try in over a decade, thankfully. The most horrifying (to me) example was a guy who thought we should chat b/c I was a scientist, and he was a scientist too! (And then made me GUESS – what the hell is up with that? Making a stranger guess something sets off WTF warnings in retrospect, I only see people playing that game IRL with people they know well enough to know that it’s either the first or last thing that they’d ever guess. In retrospect, I think it’s something along the lines of negging, ways of trying to force someone to interact with you on your terms.) Turned out to be political science. That hurt my poor geek brain, that someone who was so clearly in the social studies category (three main categories most schools seem to break their academics into, science/mathematics, social studies, fine arts) would claim to be in the science category for the purpose of getting an online date.

    No true horror stories here, but I have no problem believing any of them, based on the much more minor versions I encountered, in the early days of internet dating. (Ah, usenet personals, no search features or matching algorithms or profiles or or anything, those were the days. Not.) The main thing seems to be the lifting of the stigma of placing a personals ad has made it that much more of a standard slice of the dating public.

  52. Once a dude I ignored pretended to be a straight girl in order to get me to message him again. “She” tried to befriend me and tried to play matchmaker. So, if you’re using OKCupid, avoid LostNWilling and Raingrey.

  53. Hey, to whoever’s modding — I stupidly put my real email address in that comment where I also call out that dumb OKC dude by (screen)name, which probably wasn’t smart. Would you be cool with stripping out my email address? Feel free to delete this comment.

  54. I’ve had a series of misfires on OKCupid lately, and have just two days ago restored my profile there. What can I say, guess I’m a glutton for punishment? There were a few OK Cupid ineteractions that were genuinely charming. Coffee talk and the like, but living more than 40 minutes apart made for the lack of frequency being a problem. Then there were the “For a black guy you seem pretty interesting/sexy/etc” or the “I’m not usually into guys like you..but…” which…is one I’ve heard so often in my adult life I’d long since mistaken it for the mating call of the older gay white male.

    My most recent debacle wasn’t so bad. OK Cupid has a trend of pairing me with bisexual dudes who very rarely have explored the same-sex attraction aspect of themselves. The last guy was sweet, had a touch of aspbergers and was really fun to talk to. He just didn’t bother to tell me he was seeing other women while I was making an honest go of being exclusive. We tend to have tons in common and hit it off well, but the tenitiveness and kid gloves and the inevitable return to heteronormative behavior really has soured me on trying THAT again anytime soon. 🙁

  55. I feel you! You should have seen the message I got today- a man from italy ( i am located in the US) asking me to relocate and be his whore slave and prepare to be forced to breed. If that wasn’t enough, the groups he belonged to on the site were enough to freak me out and I’ve seen some weird shit.

    Its funny, I just deleted my ok cupid account after 3 days. 40 messages, most rude. I had some sort of epuhemism for fat in my profile, since euphemism were the only option. I got several “how big?” messages and some “too bad you are curvy/thick, you have such a pretty face”. I can go on, but it only gets worse.

    UnFit: You think online dating is bad? Try hanging out a BDSM community site.
    Whichessentially gave up one becaus eof all the crap that was flooding my mailbox, despite the fact that I clearly stated I wasn’t looking for anyone.  

  56. Really, the one thing I can recommend is hanging out communities. That do not group around sexual orientations or inclinations.
    My last long-term relationship, the current one who may well be the love of my life and several rather pleasant affairs all came from BME and similar body mod communities.
    I’m absolutely convinced that it could have been a foodie network or a virtual book club – anything where people actually have to approach you as a human being first.

  57. Question for those of you with more experience of internet dating – if your profile says you’re a young female in an open relationship looking for something casual and fun (e.g. good conversation and a little action), are 99.99% of respondents assholes or are my chances better than that?

  58. I’m on OK Cupid, and love it. Have met quite a few great people there. My partner and I are both listed as “bisexual/available” because we’re currently looking for other people for casual sex play, friendship, etc.

    Scariest thing I’ve ever received was someone who threatened to kidnap and rape me (to remind me that women need MEN) and kill my “fag” boyfriend because that’s so disgusting.

    It was not cool.

  59. Lex, I’m on OKCupid I’m listed as “available” (i.e. in a relationship but still into dating/sex/whatev) and while there was a minor uptic in dudes asking for sex in 1 line messages right after I switched from “single” to “available”, it’s probably about the same now. There’s always going to be douchebags and assholes but usually they’re just a minor annoyance (and at least in my experience, no where near 99% of all your messages) and you can ignore them for the great potential partners out there.

    Like I mentioned in an earlier comment, I’ve made some great, long term friends and sex buddies off of OKC… one of them happens to be the first person who messaged me on the site! Good luck on whatever you decide. And if you happen to be in or around Houston I can probably point you in some places to go.

  60. My worst OkCupid experience went like this:
    Got message from dude who was holding a gun in his profile pic. Ignored as hard as I could. Got second and third messages asking why I wasn’t writing back. Got a little concerned. Got fourth message, using my first name, which was NOT public anywhere on my profile (so he had to have done some horrible creepy stalking move in order to find it out at all). FREAKED OUT. Got fifth message saying, “well I guess you don’t like me” in a slightly aggressive tone, and just about called the cops or something. Then I met my current boyfriend and deleted my profile.

  61. OK, it’s not my story, it’s a friend of mine. This guy messaged her an asked if she’d like to get to know him–and his mother. She thought it was a prank because she had told some friends that she was on match.com. So she responded to the message very positively, telling him she and her stuffed replica of an e. coli microbe (she’s an infectious disease specialist) would love to get to know him and his mother. After a few emails that she assumed were jokes, they decided to meet for a movie. She was excited to see which of her friends it was (she had asked around and nobody admitted it, but she was sure it was a joke) and so she went to the movie. It was not a joke. The guy from the picture was not a random picture found online, he was real, and he brought his mother.

  62. Oh man, the popular one around where I live is Plenty of Fish. At the time I had literally at 2000 word essay about myself in my profile, most of it was me making really silly jokes and stuff. So I got a message from this one man who wrote a very generic paragraph. It was like…the kind you go and copy/paste to several people who you like to see who responds. Considering I wrote an essay about myself, he couldn’t think of anything to ask me about, despite the ton of information I gave him?

    So I replied with something along the lines of “This looks like a generic message that you send to several women. You don’t ask me any details about my personality or interests.”

    Then he replied and told me that it seemed he wasted both his and my time, and that it was clear that I was too high maintenance for him. It was too funny!

  64. you haven’t experienced the true horrors of horny douchebags until you’ve been an out trans woman on okcupid. I’m clearly in the beginning stages of transition and my profile is clearly directed towards feminist-y queers, yet I get at least one message a day either asking about my genitals or whether I would be ok with some kind of DL sex.

  65. I don’t actually think that email is that bad; in a ‘hey, I want to get to know you but I am also kooky!’ kind of way. The worst I ever had was a dude whose profile talked a lot about his ‘understanding of the mysteries of sex’ and who also said ‘i am particularly interested in dating twins’. er, no thanks.

  66. I’m an online-dater since I broke up with my bf last year… and I’ve never seen anything like that! 🙂
    btw, I’m currently using flirtmaps: really fine and people are really smart… if you don’t messages like this, I think it’s a good resource!
    bye

  67. I feel about 80% confident the message in the original post was written by someone under the age of 16. (did the associated profile convincingly demonstrate otherwise?)
    People forget how many kids there are on the internet.

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