I think I’m done with OK Cupid. Things haven’t really gotten much better since I first signed on, and I just got favorited by yet ANOTHER “gosh, that “available” status designation probably means you’re married yet you don’t say a damn thing about it in your profile and will undoubtedly get pissy when I call you on it” guy. I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations with a couple of interesting guys, but one of two things happens: either they just stop communicating (even though I can see that they’re on the site and/or looking at my profile), or one of us generates a “WTF report” (which compares your responses to the questions to his, and shows where your answers and the answers you want to see compare to his, and what he wants to see) and have not been pleased with the results. And when I say “I have not been pleased with the results,” I mean that the guy has said that being overweight or gaining weight is a dealbreaker, or he thinks racist jokes are A-OK, or he’d rape someone if he could get away with it. Or he just refuses to cough up a picture, even after several email exchanges.
The first time this happened, I’d had a number of really great emails and chats with the guy, and we were discussing meeting. Then I did the WTF report, and he had answered just about every weight-related question with a great big “NO FAT CHICKS;” being even slightly overweight was a dealbreaker for him. From his email to me after I’d gotten the report:
I just scanned the WTF report. For the most part, the differences are all simply great conversation fodder. The area you’re likely to find potentially concerning are my answers to weight and weight gain. I’ve had relationships with women who were not slender like me. And more than a few. The reasons I came out so strongly “anti large” in my profile was to, obviously, increase the match percentage with women closer to my size, not because i cannot be very attracted to a large woman, but because as a cyclist and woods walker, i would love to share “active time” with an intimate friend.
i’m much more concerned with a woman’s openness to my marital situation, her stance on drug use (i’m pretty hard core “no!”,) her sexual openness, and that her IQ being at least a few ticks higher than my own.
don’t know if that clarifies or fogs.
sometimes i find myself answering OKC’s questions knowing that i’m *trying* to manipulate a result.
i wonder if that’s a guy thing.
I dunno about the rest of you, but I consider being told that I’m presumptively disgusting but that someone might deign to fuck me anyway to be the end of a conversation, not a beginning. And as for the other answers being “great conversation fodder,” this was a guy who answers indicated that he thought no meant yes; that he liked racist jokes; that he thought racism was okay; that he doesn’t vote; and that he believed in creationism.
As soon as I saw the report (and even before I got this email, which crossed with mine), I wrote him and said that if weight was a dealbreaker, he could consider the deal broken.
And that’s happened more often than not when I or the guy generates one of these reports. If it doesn’t, then the communication just stops. Or gets weird.
Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something, and that is: having a relationship is Not For Me.
well, you have my sympathies. of course, it ain’t so hot over here, either. ten minutes into a recent date that sprung from a big-box dating site, i was being asked for the cubic measure of my shoes and how much closet space i take up. and it really doesn’t help that we’re on the down side of v-day, kind of a demoralizing social experience for the single-and-looking crowd.
Just Googled up “WTF report”. This sounds like something all people should come with, stamped on their foreheads. Getting the dealbreakers out there up front should save a heap of time and energy.
“Openness to my marital situation”? Brrr.
Quite frankly, I’ve had better luck finding dates and, ahem, casual encounters through Craigslist. Despite CL’s reputation, it doesn’t take very long to learn how to filter the ads such that you find folks you might actually like being around.
Wow, I’m sorry you had to experience that. I never heard of a WTF report; that must be something new on OKC (or at least new in the last 2-1/2 years since I was last on it).
Just curious, though: Do you have a full-body shot in your profile and/or do you say in your profile “what size of large” you are? I did, and I found that doing so and telling people I was “horizontally gifted” had the effect of not getting my profile very many responses, but that was exactly what I wanted — I didn’t want to waste my time with someone who had a bone up his ass about weight. I got ONE serious response. And that was all I needed. But I might have gotten extraordinarily lucky, I admit. (About damn time I did, too. If it makes you feel any better, I was 41 when I met him.)