Step one: setting up.

The first challenge of joining a dating site, before you even get close to having to wade through messages from the sub-humans of our species, is creating a profile that will appeal to the small percentage of normal and, dare I say it, desirable men you’d like to attract. I started by having a browse of some existing profiles, and quickly became fascinated by how people attempt to present themselves, and fascinated by why some people would want to present themselves in certain ways. Generally, I could understand the motivations behind people’s profile decisions.  A series of holiday/festival/nights out photos: suggestive of a fun, carefree, adventurous attitude. A list of favourite books: intellectual, thoughtful. The ‘I never thought I’d use a dating site but…’ explanation:  self-deprecating, non-threatening. I was less clear on the motivations behind usernames such as ‘thesadnessneverends’ and taglines which read ‘don’t waste my time’. 

Before I was even allowed to create my profile and worry about how my sarcastically worded ‘about me’ would come across, I had another preliminary hurdle to jump, in the form of a ‘true or false’ quiz designed to ascertain each person’s levels of ‘self-confidence, family orientation, open-ness, self-control and easygoing-ness’. Many of the statements requiring an affirmation or negation in the form of mouse-click were fairly straightforward: for instance, ‘I think children are an important part of family life’ or ‘financial stability is important to me’. Less expected were statements such as ‘I do not like my partner going out socially’, and the rather bizarre ‘I like sex to be planned to some extent rather than completely spontaneous’. Presumably these measures ensure that people as controlling and sexually uptight as one another are paired up, thus leaving normal people, such as myself, free to date without fear of encountering those who like to stay indoors having scheduled sexual encounters. Saying that, the list of people suggested as ‘matches’ based on my results began with a guy who specified that he wanted a girl with ‘little to no sexual experience’. As the ‘sex in a bunk bed scenario’ alluded to in my previous blog entry may have already suggested, this is not a description easily applicable to myself.

Unperturbed, I created my own profile. I stuck to a pretty tame list of likes and dislikes, selected a range of pictures to display aforementioned fun, carefree, adventurous attitude, and sat back to await messages. Within twenty-four hours, I’d received, amongst others, messages from both a forty-one year old referring to himself as ‘daddy’ and a sixteen year-old asking if I’d take his virginity. The cross-section of manhood out there is massive and, frankly, terrifying. Initially, I felt guilty for not replying to people’s messages, and spent a bit of time messaging people whom I wouldn’t give a second glance to in a bar. Quickly I realised it was like fresher’s week at uni: giving the time of day to any old plebs, because you don’t know any better, and then promptly learning that you’ve got to be cut-throat if you’re going to have any chance of getting to the good stuff. Sorting the wheat from the massive amount of chaff, as it were. My judgements became quicker and quicker, more and more specific. Anyone not living in zones 1 and 2 was an instant click-off. Ditto to those under five foot eight, anyone with a profile picture taken of themselves topless in the mirror, and anyone who used ‘lol’ in an about me or message. My tagline which stated I was looking for ‘fun dates with non-creeps’ resulted in a message from a guy asking if I’d like to go on a fun date with crepes. Any initial positive response quickly dissipated after a quick browse of his profile revealed that he liked ‘women who would be told what to do’. Misogyny instantly negates witty wordplay. 

Whilst the percentage breakdown of creeps/non-creeps is roughly ninety to ten, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the amount of seemingly funny, intelligent and attractive men out there in the fishing pool. And so, by the end of the week, I had my first date lined up.