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

[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.