OKCupid noodling

[firecat]

Heck has frozen over—the OH has actually joined a social networking site. OKCupid no less. So I have been playing with my account over there a bit more (firecat). It gives me a sense I'm not sure I want about how fucked up and/or out of the mainstream, depending on how you look at it, I am when it comes to forming potentially romantic relationships.

I have occasionally sent people messages about something they said on their profile, and either they don't reply, or they reply saying "I'm not interested," which I find offensive. (In these messages I don't propose anything to which it makes sense to reply "I'm not interested." I just say I like something on their profile.)

Both responses make me think that a lot of people assume a private message is an expression of potential romantic interest. And of course, the way OKC is set up encourages such thinking, so I shouldn't be surprised. But to my way of thinking, people's profiles on OKC tend to have more conversation-starters than the profiles people post on LJ and other social networking sites I frequent. (I think it's the "I spend a lot of time thinking about..." field that does it.) So I find it frustrating that I haven't been able to start conversations.

They have this feature called "quiver" (as in a container for arrows, I guess) that sends you matches whether you want them or not, and it sits up at the top of the browser window with a little "3" in it. As I am a bit of an obsessive, that drives me crazy. So I feel obligated to send those people messages or click "No thanks" to make the number go away. And it keeps sending me people I know in real life. Some of them are people I like well enough but with whom I haven't felt the urge to initiate "I'm attracted to you" or "I'd like to get to know you better" communications. I feel like if I tell OKC I'm not interested in them, that will mess up OKC's match algorithm. I suppose it doesn't matter.

I know that some folks spend a lot of time having conversations using the blogging feature, but I haven't figured out how to follow such conversations easily.

Comments

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

I've said before, my main association with OKCupid is seeing the unintentionally-funny messages from there lcohen gets and occasionally posts that make it look more like OKCluelessToTheExtreme.

So does this mean it's Lynx-friendly?

[firecat]

I get those too. I think a lot of them are spam.

Nope it's not particularly lynx-friendly. Like I said, heck has frozen.

He is, however, using it with images turned off.

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

I'm just starting to decide that OKcupid is never going to help me do anything worthwhile. In the same way that LJ "friends" is an unfortunate choice for subscriptions, all the forms of OKCupid contact are similarly mislabeled.

When all is said and done, a machine that does my flirting for me is not going to flirt any better than I can myself.

[firecat]

a machine that does my flirting for me

[giggle] Yeah

[snippy]

I am not finding OKC to be a helpful tool or experience. I am having feelings of inadequacy and unlikeability, often experience envy, and have even had a touch of jealousy--especially since both my partners started being active on it in the last week or 10 days.

While I've had dates with two men from OKC, neither turned out to be someone I'd even want to be friends with, let alone date. Lots of people (men and women) look at my profile, but very few ever message me, and most of those have been 25-year-olds from Oman or Turkey.

[firecat]

I'm starting to wonder whether sites like OKC might be better suited to how men search for relationships than how women do (as a general rule).

Or at least how women who are so awesomely cool that many people are unable to see their awesomeness do. :-)

[snippy]

Oh, oh! I like that.

allow me to protest

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i despise okcupid. and i mildly boggle that the OH would even consider it. huh. well, the OH and i rarely think alike. :)

about how fucked up and/or out of the mainstream

you are so totally NOT fucked up when it comes to relationships. yes, you're out of the mainstream. which is a good thing, because the mainstream sucks at relationships.

Re: allow me to protest

[firecat]

Thanks.

I don't think I'm fucked up about maintaining relationships once they start. I think there are some differences (at least at the moment) in how I approach forming romantic relationships compared to how a lot of my peers do it, and sometimes I think it means I have, um, hangups? Sometimes I think it doesn't matter and/or I think my way is better.

I suppose I could write a post about this sometime. Maybe I will start a community first:
slow_poke_polys_with_obscure_sex_drives_and_fear_of_making_commitments_that_might_prove_
incompatible_with_their_sanity

On another subject, I was looking at your manga collection tool and it appears you haven't tried Haibane Renmei yet. :)

Re: allow me to protest

[opalmirror.livejournal.com]

slow_poke_polys_with_obscure_sex_drives_and_fear_of_making_commitments_that_might_prove_
incompatible_with_their_sanity

*sporfle*

Um. Presently, /me shyly raises hand

Totally baffled that OH is exploring OKC.

Re: allow me to protest

[firecat]

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one of those.

Re: allow me to protest

[bunnybutt.livejournal.com]

Not by a longshot.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

It definitely is not a conversation site. OTOH, I like their quizzes, and I am consistently amused at how often it chooses people I already know as matches for me.

Recently someone messaged me about BDSM, and I explained that I'd be happy to help zir with technical questions and figuring out the local scene, but that I am not looking for love, sex, play, or romance of any sort. We were going to get together for coffee, but it hasn't happened. My bet is that he found someone to play with him and no longer wants mere advice.

As for the blogs, my sole entry directs the reader to check out my LJ.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I joined OKC once to take a quiz, but they kept sending me emails saying they had matches for me, and I'm not dating anymore, so I finally quit.

It does seem a bit odd that the OH would be there.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Hi,

Oddly enough, I'm here because firecat messaged me on OKCupid. I just thought I'd get that out of the way first...

Anyway, OKC. I have been on there quite a while, done quite a lot of questions, taken a few tests, but as-yet haven't actually made a new connection from it. Though maybe firecat just proved that wrong, but we shall see. :-)

Typically I tend to find that the sort of people that message me on OKC are straight men. I'm actually queer-identified, bi, trans, poly and a bunch of other things that typically makes straight men blow a few fuses. I do date men from time to time (have a date with a very nice one this evening, no less!), but they tend to be at the queer end of the queer spectrum. All my long term relationships to-date have been with queer women. I've typically found that if I message people on OKC (unless I actually know them already) I don't get a reply, or I'll maybe get a reply and a conversation will start go fairly well for a while, then they will read my profile and say, "Oh gosh! Look at the time! I'm late for an ear-perming appointment and the cat's just eaten the lizard. So very sorry! Nice talking to you."

So, anyway. I manage to be reasonably popular *without* OKC, somehow. This is actually a fairly recent thing, I certainly don't remember ever being popular significantly before I moved to the bay area.

That said, pleased to meet you, firecat. I have no expectations beyond that, but you would appear to be nifty, so I'm happy to know you. :-)

[firecat]

Pleased to meet you back, and thanks for your datapoints!