State of the Nation, Dating

How are we doing? Is dating working for you? Is dating being real, or could it use a stint in rehab?

My working philosophy is that meeting and uncovering new people is more complicated than ever. Like the cereal aisle in the supermarket (or the dry pasta aisle, or the juice department for that matter) choices abound. What is not in abundance is reliable information on how to discern between boxes of cereal, or indeed how to decide between them. What works for me might give you gas by lunchtime, and a third person might be better served by eating eggs for breakfast.

We all suffer - not too strong a word IMO - from the Hollywood notion of dating. They take us from quirky but cute meeting to satisfying ending by way of a challenging interlude in ninety minutes of flawless Technicolor. Of course we're all smart enough to differentiate fantasy from reality, but still, at some level a precedent so created creates room for disappointment.

Dating can be about disappointment, or it can be about discovery. As I have written previously, dating is a string of failures with one success if you want to look at it that way. Or it can be an around-the-world series of moments with different people, the ultimate prize being self-discovery and the treasure of finding The One. X marks the spot, after following a few red-herring clues.

But the greatest need is the map on which the location of X is shown. And for that, dear friends, I'm sorry to say that only you can provide the document. For everything else we have Google and blogs.





Bottoms Up, Pirate Treasure Hunters.

Take It Like A Man

Thesedays, my precious darlings, dating runs in two rivers.

The first river is the old-fashioned kind, a river like, say, the Colorado. It starts in the Rocky Mountains as snow-melt and spring bubbler, gradually turning into Lake Mead by way of the Grand Canyon. Eventually it keeps LA alive...a dubious prospect but nonetheless the fact of 1,400 miles of downhill adventure.

The second river is newer, much shorter and without any of the history or variety. It would be like a glacial river in Iceland: short, sharp and to the point. A thoroughly modern river. A great ride.

You can see where I'm meandering to with this metaphor. Long-form relationships and their precursors - by which I mean formal dating and marriage - are like the Colorado. Although the flow might start with a rush, time and terrain change the river's direction and temperament. Dams create reservoirs and calm, but also tail water and froth. Flat land slows the river down, and steep terrain does the opposite. Rocks make rapids. And eventually it turns out that we have to give it all to Hollywood...but it was one helluva ride.

Our Icelandic river is more of a day-trip flow. Anyone can hop on for the short ride, all we need do is hold hands and jump in together. It'll be fun and breathless for a while, then the ride ends. You can start back at the top again (because it's only a short hike) with or without the same partner. It's an amusement park outing.

Trouble arises (because you knew there had to be a downside) when one or other of the participants in the River Party forget which ride they signed up for. I see this when women think they are in the Icelandic way of things, but as soon as they get wet decide they need the guy to be more of a riverboat captain. The guy who thought he was in for nothing more than a quickie, or multiple quickies in a row, suddenly finds himself being expected to pitch riverbank tents and create fires and text "good morning" every day.

Huh? I thought that by her active participation as an equal that Icelandic Rules applied here, not Red River Rules. There are no tents in Iceland; we go to the bar, drink, and decide in the morning if we want to go swimming again.

That's it. Unless you want to try the Colorado. That changes everything.




Bottoms Up, My Beautiful High Country Trout.

Online Dating Profiles: A Different View

Which would you prefer: pay twenty dollars for a new book that looks okay, or go on a date with a person who looks okay?

Online dating profiles share much in common with the novels in your favourite bookstore. There's no knowing what's actually behind the glossy dust-jacket, other than the blurb on the back or a few dubious online reviews. [Talking about books here :-) ]The author might hit your magic intellectual spot, or maybe not. Familiarity is the reason we return to books by the same writer once we know they're to our taste. (And as I think of it, this applies to people we date too.)

If you want to know whether the book by an unknown writer is to your taste, you're obliged to buy the damned thing. And so it is with dating. To discover what lies beyond the dopey profile of that spunky online hottie, you have to step out in public with the individual. At least once. Email, phone calls and IM work to a point, but everyone behaves like their own PR firm for as long as they can. Spinning ourselves in a favourable fashion is what we do.

Dispiriting, no? The twenty (or more) you pay to buy the book is down the drain if it turns out to be a snooze. At least if you go on the date you have a story to tell. But just how many first dates can one person take before they become more jaded than Chinese costume jewelry?

Which is why I propose a different approach to online profiles. Instead of all the argle-bargle generalizations and boilerplate, try to focus as closely as possible on one aspect of your life. Describe your ideal Sunday morning, for instance. Relate a little story about the way you like your coffee. Or outline the best hour of vacation you've ever had - yes, hour. The whole idea is to escape the realm of the big-picture BS and wind the lens down to find the smallest objects in our lives.

My thesis is that we communicate more by describing how we feel about ONE footstep on the beach than all the hot air about walking on the beach in general. Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain are optional.



Bottoms Up, Caribbean Lovers.

Online Dating Goes Offline

Online dating runs on a kind of dreamlike fantasy. Folks live in hope that the right person will pop into their search criteria, and, perhaps after a few mis-steps and poor choices, everything will work out just right. And if it isn't working like that, just one more date will do the trick.

Surely this is a special form of self-punishment? In my experience, people I met online needed to start with a negative two or three date handicap compared to people I've met in real life. In other words, it takes me a couple of face-to-face meetings before I'm even convinced they're vaguely who they say they are online. Call me cynical if you like, but I think it's smart to be skeptical.

I think it's worse for women, by the way. Online dating sites are chock full of guys pretending to be someone they think you want them to be -  not who they really are. If it isn't clear to you by now, online dating attracts sociopaths (and probably psychopaths) like Lindsay Lohan attracts traffic charges. Women could do worse than to use my handicapping system.

But I smell a change in the air. I haven't been on Match for a long time, but I noticed recently that they now conduct (host?) real life gatherings for their customers. Bravo. This is a step in the right direction, not least because groups of onliners can check out not only their chosen person of interest, but everyone else too. Just like people used to meet.

Another service I really like is How About We... I discovered them on a business video, where the two principals talked about how and why they started. To me, this is the perfect blend of online and offline dating. The idea, as I understand it, is to get into the real world as quickly as possible, to begin live dating ASAP. To that end, they facilitate the sometimes fraught process of finding, choosing and agreeing on a place to go, or activity to share. Brilliant.

I've not been paid or contacted by the How About We people to write this; I simply think it's a great idea. If anyone has experienced their service, I'd love to hear about it.



Bottoms Up, Offliners.

Who Is This Girl Next Door?

A cursory glance at some online dating profiles - the generalist sites, not those catering to, ahem, specialist tastes - shows that many women self-describe as "the girl next door".

Clearly, none of their childhoods were blessed with the Stannaford family as neighbors. Tanya and Lindy were...how shall I put this...adventuresome, and I don't mean in the building a tree-house sense. Tanya was my age, Lindy a few years older, and they were both scary in that way that wordly girls intimidate innocent young boys. For a start, they had bodies with curves, and boyfriends with attitude. They were fascinating and mystifying in equal measure. I spent a lot of time pondering them.

But I can only realistically assume that my model of girls next door is the exception. The mature woman of today looking for a date online obviously believes men are attracted to the memory of someone from their own childhood. Thought of like that, there's a not altogether wholesome infantilist tone to all this. What mental image are these women trying to send to attract men? Do they think we're looking for the playmate from twenty years ago all grown up and now with makeup and stockings?

I think I've inadvertently struck upon the magic word here, which is 'wholesome'. The archetypal GND is a wholesome gal who understands your background and the culture that raised you. You'll be able to connect on a familiar level, and talk a common language. Or, if you get lucky, you'll find Lindy Stannaford and have a really good time.


Bottoms Up, Neighbors.

Friday Fluffer - No, Of Course It's Not Prostitution

Ah, Las Vegas, Nevada. Home to moral rectitude in every form, although I think they draw the line at farm animals.

Here's a link that fits neatly into the Friday Fluffer mould - a dating website where "generous users" (men) bid for the single-date affections of  "attractive users" (women). Highly recommend reading this...



Article on Whatsyourprice.com dating website. Safe for work.

And the actual site. 


Bottoms Up, Capitalist Honeys. 

Online Dating Will Win

Online dating will win, to the cost of the rest of us.

When Ray Kroc bought the McDonald brothers' hamburger stands in the 1950s, he saw the future. He saw the  way to commoditize a fragmented business to tap an underserved market. It's a formula that works time and again, most recently in Silicon Valley.

Don Valentine, one of the most successful venture capitalists in the Valley funds only businesses with the following:

A unique product.

A competitive advantage ie: barriers to entry.

A monster market.


I know I'm bouncing back and forth between burgers and bytes, but they're the same example from different eras. In the fifties and sixties, the concept of fast food fulfilled all of Don Valentine's requirements. After World War II, folks in the US were discovering their appetites. Televisions, refrigerators, air-conditioning, cars - all these things filled the tracts of new suburban America.

Then came the appetites for food. Once your house is full of humming machines and you have a car for all occasions, it's time to look outside. When you no longer have to brown-bag it to work, businesses that provide lunch win.

McDonalds won because it catered to the taste of the country at the right price. What kept it at the top was the ability to precisely replicate the formula; the food, the stores and the service. But lots of other folks noticed the fast-food trend and followed. Once you find a successful concept, subtle changes to individual elements will create something new and different enough to separate yourself from the rest. Add a growing and wealthy population, and riches are yours.This idea still works today: think Chipotle.

So the road to changing a society is well understood; examine the desires of a population and cater to that. If you find a way to reach a giant audience cheaply and then replicate the concept you will win. That's where the confluence of:

Widespread high-speed internet,

Cheap computing and...

Horniness

...have found us, here at the rise of internet dating. In terms of monster markets, there is none bigger.

It's all pretty easy, at least in retrospect. You want to find a special someone - or just a someone - find yourself a dating website. Contact, communicate, meet, and yada yada, whatever you both want. And from the business point of view, there's almost nothing to it. Some servers, a software front end, a back end, and a credit-card processing facility. (Or ads, like Plenty Of Fish.) You don't even need to add content because your users do so. In a way, it's the smartest business model ever - there's infinite supply for a huge demand that finds you.

It must have been like this with the first one hundred McDonalds. Suddenly, the dollars can't be counted fast enough.

But there is a downside. A fast food nation is an obese nation. Unless you exercise a lot, all that fried food will eventually take its toll, because our bodies aren't designed for those processed meals. Notwithstanding, fast food is and will remain hugely popular.

It's the same with internet dating. It's easy, accessible and provides almost instant gratification. Sometimes it might even work to find the love of someone's life. In the long term though, this is not the way we were designed to find people. Just as fast food adds to our waistlines, so internet dating will subtract from our social skills and, in the end, society.


To me, that's not a win.




Bottoms Up, Big Macs.

Online Dating Secret Sauce

Judging by my spambox, online dating push-marketing overtook Canadian drugs and Nigerian "lottery" scams a while ago. Every day it seems a new website matching singles in progressively smaller niches is born.

At this rate, the dating demographic will be so atomized that by next Christmas every one of us will be running our own dating sites, all with the same photos, profiles and secret-sauce matching algorithms. Each one will guarantee a connection with your dreamboat, or your money back. Here are some of our success stories...

...et cetera.

I've never been convinced of either the value or the longevity of even the best online sites. They always looked to be the answer to a question that no-one was asking, namely; how can I effortlessly find a decent mate? Effortlessly in the sense that by inputting our vital details and a few photos, the cleverness of computers combined with the awesomeness of the internet should spit out the right person in less time than it takes to order up a pizza.

Can our biology and instinct be so easily circumvented? Is this the experience of discovery we want?

After we found that hardly anyone pairs off instantly, the online dating model morphed slightly to reflect the notion that browsing lots of profiles and meeting lots of people would up the odds of finding #1. Note the sites' subtle change of emphasis to...

Here's a bunch of people who say they're single: good luck. 

Unfortunately, widening the dating river didn't necessarily deepen it, and some backwaters normally cut off were suddenly re-connected to the mainstream. Heaven for the previously high and dry, not so much for everyone else - there was a reason they'd been abandoned.

From this thin gruel of self-selectors, one could choose at one's leisure the most likely candidates to date and then figure out if they were suitable.

I don't buy it. And apparently I'm not alone, because this article in New York magazine asks:

Has the Online Dating Backlash Arrived?

(Worth the time to read.)

NB: Of course there will be many successes in the online dating world, but it's way more fun arguing an almost indefensible position.

Bottoms Up, In Your Facers.

Dating Ideas

If you have found and fancy a new person, let's think about some better dating techniques. Not that you're horrid at dating, of course, but as with any skill a little forethought will improve the outcome. Here are three ideas.

Give Your Brain Time

Number one on my list is that if this truly is a new person in your life - not an acquaintance morphing into something else - it will take time for your brain to absorb all the new information they provide. Dating is only partially about physically being with the person. Processing what you see and hear is just as important.
 
Think of it this way: we sleep not for our body, but for our mind. Sleep is its sorting and filing time. As powerful as the human brain is, it turns out that connecting the internal dots takes a while. In an arena as complex as romance, where sexuality, family, morality, money and putting out the trash are involved, discovering how the newbie fits into your abstract internal life will take a few moons. Allow that to happen.

The takeaway: Time. Take some.


Allow For Upsides and Downsides

No-one's perfect. And no-one is perfect for you. Compromise is realistic. Finding the right person is about knowing what your absolute must-have's are, what the nice-to-have's are, and what doesn't matter. If you love dogs and couldn't imagine a life without them, don't contemplate someone who only likes cats. If you're happy dancing to Sinatra at home on a Saturday night, don't pretend a club-hound will suit you. Filtering is good; filtering is the essence of dating.

The takeaway: Prioritize your needs and desires.


Dates Need a Beginning and an End

Dating is an extended job interview, at least initially. Have you ever been to a thirty-minute job interview and ended up hanging out with the gang for the night? No, you haven't. So let's structure our dates in a similar fashion, with some concrete activity - even if it's simply meeting for coffee - and a specific end time, which you communicate to your date.

This will be as easy as:  

Great, let's have lunch, but I'll have to leave at 2:00 because I have an astrophysics tutorial to give.

And make sure you leave at 2:00.

Two thoughts on this. First, it tells the other person that you have a life; that finding the right person isn't the Holy Grail of your happiness. It removes any desperation factor (or the appearance of such.)

Secondly, you're giving both of you room to breathe, always a good plan.

The takeaway: Ending a date promptly might seem counter-intuitive. Give it a shot.



Bottoms Up, Dating Masterminds.

The David Copperfield Moment

Reading online profiles is engaging sport. By looking at the photos and comparing the narrative with the headline I try to put together a general abstract of the woman and what she's thinking.

You need to be an amateur cryptologist to do this, because no-one displays their complete self in a personal ad. Once you've spent enough time puzzling over a lot of these things, patterns become clear. Successful decryption begins with finding repeated words and phrases. These commonalities, repeated in many separate profiles, form the starting point from which entire messages can be cracked.

What is interesting is how few profiles stand out from the crowd. A lot of the time it's like reading the equivalent of - sorry to say this - a whole bunch of classifieds. This is not criticism, merely observation. Revealing telling insights with a coupla snaps and two-hundred words isn't normal, with good reason. Self-protection is a valuable instinct.

Near the top of my 'memorables' list is a woman who posted a confident, breezy profile with some likewise upbeat photos. One pic, of her standing beside an F-250 in jeans and heels, had the following caption:


Me and my truck - when I'm wearing a skirt you will probably want to help me up! ;-) 


Wombat Decode Report:

1. I understand that if ever you're my boyfriend, you'll be interested in my body.

2. I'm good with that.




Bottoms Up, Magicians.  

Sexy is as Sexy Does

 Catherine Bell's cleavage credit.

Be advised that anything I write about online dating refers to women only. Although you would think that checking out the opposition [read: other guys hawking their fork] a smart strategy, doing so is beyond me. Comfort with one's sexuality is one thing - deliberately investigating dudes is quite another.

Can't. Tell. Internet. I. Want. To. Look. At. Men.

So I rely on you, dear reader, to tell stories of male profile quirks.

Spectacular as bulk online Lady Catalogues are, my interest is in the detail. One popular specific self-descriptor is that of "sexy", as in:

"...I'm a sexy, giving, mother of two looking to find a real man..."

I see. A cynic might translate this as:

"...I like sex (a lot) but will be restricted by these damn kids and your own dick's reliability..."

But I'm not a cynic. I'm a realist, and therefore think that sexiness lies in the eye of the beholder.  Surely I get to determine if you're sexy?...And your very presence online contraindicates.

Hmmm. Perhaps I am a cynic.




Bottoms Up, Self- Assessors.

Plenty of Cheap

Shannon Corey's pic credit.

I log into Plentyoffish and head for the search page. I complete the fields - male seeking female, input an appropriate age range, supply my locale - and here's what pops up;


SEARCH RESULTS - Pages 0 to 9 out of 600+ results are shown below.

Six-hundred-plus women.

Six-hundred.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of my arguments against online dating is that it encourages viewing people as a commodity. It's the Walmart Syndrome:

Well, I'm looking for a beach towel, so I can spend twenty-five dollars for one that's well-made and long-lasting, or I can go to Walmart and buy five that are ugly and won't last the summer.

About which one can only say  - yep, it's a low-rent world 'coz everyone wants it cheap.





Bottoms Up Cost Firsters.

Top Ten Lies Heard On a First Date

+ Wow. That's fascinating!

+ Abstinence works for me.

+ Teacup chihuahua - my favourite dog.

+ I agree. Mini-breaks at romantic bed and breakfasts are FUN.

+ Tell me again about how you found your shoes.

+ I want to settle down too.

+ I've always wanted to learn all about fantasy football.

+ You're right: Love is everything.

+ Of course. I'm having a great time.

+ I'm wondering why I haven't met you before.






Bottoms Up, Honest Injuns.

IRL v Online Dating

Photo credit.

Serendipitously, my media maven friend Annalis Clint sent me a link to a very good article about the virtues (or not) of online dating.

I have never been a fan. If for no other reason, paid onling dating sites are a rip-off:


Marcus Frind, CEO of PlentyofFish.com, crunched the stats on his blog and found that 1 in 1,369 dates leads to marriage on Match.com. That’s $83,000 in subscription revenue for every marriage. If someone told you those odds at the beginning, would you still want to sign up? Considering the ratio of marriages to revenue, we think most people would expect a higher delivery rate.


Mr Frind is hardly a disinterested observer, but doubtless the numbers are representative.

In any case, I heartily recommend you read the article. Online dating does not work.



Late edit: In news just unearthed, it seems the online dating experience deserves a lawsuit. My, my.

LA Woman Sues Match.com




Bottoms Up, Real Lifers.

Inquiring Minds

Evan Rachel Wood photo credit.

First dates are a stressful beast, best avoided. All very well, but unless you're already with someone or have taken a vow of celibacy, skipping the Big Number One is impossible.

Oh, we could try some word-play, by calling it "meeting for coffee" or "getting together for a cocktail" but we all know a first date by any name is still a first date: in essence, it's a job interview.

Separating the first date from merely meeting someone is the unspoken fact that sex is on the table. Perhaps not immediately, but at some point, both parties are sizing up the other as not only a potential day-to-day partner, but a sexual partner as well. Let's say that if sex isn't on the table, it's certainly lurking under the table.

Subtext. Sex is the subtext on all first dates. Which is a pity, because we all know that thinking about sex - even peripherally - leads to dumbing down the rest of our thought process. When Mr Penis or Misses Ovaries take over, deep thought is deep-sixed. That's my experience.

In any case, I'm trying to re-formulate the First Date, thinking of ways to make it less charged, and more like two people spending time in new company. If you have any ideas about the kind of questions you would like to ask, or would like asked of you on such a date, I'd be keen to know.

How can we connect and communicate better?





Bottoms Up, Thinkers.

New Date Types - Wombatgram #15

Words don't always describe the kind of date your friends want to know ALL about.

Herewith, my suggestions.

Click on Wombatgram for biggah pictuh.



Bottoms Up New Age Daters.

First Date Filtering - Wombatgram #12

For a better Wombatgram view, click to enlarge.




Bottoms Up, Filterers!

Love, Sex and Deception

I review books in a particular way. Firstly, I avoid introductions and prefaces; if the book's any good I figure I should be able to begin at chapter one and proceed to the end without explanatory notes. Any half-decent book will stand on the text alone.

Explanatory notes are for after digesting the complete book meal, if you'll forgive the unbalanced metaphor. I like to think of them as a nice fig or a spoonful of tiramisu, a sweet syntactical end-point.

Secondly, I refrain from reading any kind of cover blurb. Actual negative comments are as rare as dodos, and for the same reason - reviewers who disparage a book or its author are dead as far as book publishers and PR people are concerned.

All of which is a somewhat ironic introduction to my review of a book called Love, Sex and Deception: The Chronicles of Online Dating. The photograph, above, is of the co-authors, a mother-and-daughter duo who created this opus, Lisa Hultin and Claire Hultin.

The trouble, in my opinion, begins with the sub-title: The Chronicles of Online Dating. I've been around dating blogs and books for five years now, so to imply that this book has any kind of rank in the world of writing about online dating is risible. Talented, smart, creative people are out there every day blogging about the dating game. Anyone can relate a story - the brilliance lies in interpretation and dissection. Fortunately, we're living in an age of surfeit in this area.

I should explain that the book is a series of chapters containing a series of tales from alleged online daters. The chapters group similar experiences (Disaster Dates From Hell, Navigating Through A Jungle) punctuated with advice from the authors;

"Unfortunately, the Internet is a mysterious medium popular with predators looking for opportunity. Even a mafia gofer will eventually find a willing participant. I once had a lady admit she made a vast majority of her sales by networking online dates. If you run into a con, report and abuse or block them from contact."

Wise. Good. But for whom is this advice intended? Surely anyone who has ever been on a regular date understands not all people are truthful with their intentions? Why would online dating be different?

Which highlights my overall ill-will towards this book - it feels more like a kids' edition than anything an adult could use. There's no insight, no intelligent deconstruction, nothing to make you go Ah-Ha! More than that, a depressing quality surrounds all the dating tales. Either the person dating is a dope, or the people they meet are mopes, or they're both both. Uplifting thoughts are rare.

My own personal view of online dating is clear - I am opposed. But the fact is that every day people find their significant other, and hundreds of them marry. Obviously, I am wrong. For some folks the electronic dating scene is the best thing that ever happened, which makes me happy to be wrong.

Obviously, I'm not recommending this book unless you have a ten-year-old you are trying to keep away from dating. For that purpose, it's a great buy. Otherwise, spend time to find good blogs about real-life online dating and read them. You'll be infinitely more entertained.

In keeping with my policy, here's the first paragraph of the introduction, quoted verbatim:

"We are a mother and daughter that (sic) have dated online, compared notes, collected hundreds of hilarious dating stories from around the country, and decided to write a trendy little lit (sic) concerning research, short stories, tips and tricks that are related to personal internet dating experiences. Part of the impetus for doing the book-and the rational (sic) for the title: Love, Sex, and Deception: The Chronicles of Online Dating is that throughout dating, everyone has either expressed finding true love, to great sex, or has at least been deceived once or twice."

If I'd read this first, I wouldn't have wasted all that time actually reading the infernal thing.

Grade: F

Reproduced here [link]




Bottoms Up, You Quality Bloggers, You!

Change Gears

Repulsion and attraction rest upon the smallest particles. Loving a woman can be about the way she tilts their head. Loathing a woman can be about the way she closes a door. It's ridiculous when placed on a plinth like that, but all my observations and experience tell me it's true.

A lot of the stuff that we might label 'small' is right on the edge of consciousness, too, in my opinion. I don't know exactly what it is I like about her...I just know. Detachment and self-examination are needed to figure out what our brain is filtering out, and what it's including. The answer is there, but we need to point the flashlight at the edges of how we think, towards the less obvious nooks and crannies of our personality.

This is the reason I dislike the standard online dating architecture. The profiles are all about big-picture things, painted with a large brush. Unfortunately, the paint is water-based, and washes away with the first exposure to rain. Yes, I like sailing and martinis, just like you, but where's the hook in that? I have just described about a billion people. Small is special and big is...well, it's just big.

The real point I want to make about this is that because my attraction for you is about the small stuff, you are entirely unlikely to know ahead of time what those small stuffs are. That's why it is such a waste of time to spend time thinking about your shortcomings - as, remember, you see them, not anyone else - to the detriment of being the best you can.

I have discovered this, thousands of years late, but it's worth repeating: change what you want to and accept the rest. Oh, and don't worry about what other people find attractive or repulsive. You have no control over that.

Martini, anyone?

Bottoms Up.




Woman contemplating from this man [link]

Easy, Like Sunday Morning.

Finding new ways to weed out possible Mrs Wombats has become a sort of hobby of mine. Dating websites all do this more-or-less the same way, with written profiles and canned questions. I dislike dating websites.

To my mind shoe-horning the individual into these boxes cannot meaningfully tell us that much about them. Most people find writing about themselves difficult. That part of their profile then becomes an exercise in satisfying the minimum word-count, with commensurate usefulness. Asking me whether I'm black or white or hispanic is meaningless, in my opinion. My star-sign? Yeah, whatever.

So I have tried to create a series of questions that ask about stuff that I think will tell me something about the other person, in relation to me. Make sense? Maybe not. Here's an example, which you might care to answer.

What does your ideal Sunday morning look like? And if it's different, what do you actually do?






Pic from here [link]