Why Nobody Wants You On OKCupid 473
Hugh Pickens writes "Social awkwardness has the most opportunity to shine in your very first message to a potential sweetheart, write Andrea Bartz and Brenna Ehrlich at CNN. Bartz and Ehrlich enumerate and humorously describe seven types of message senders: the generalizer, the autobiographer, the 'eccentric,' the creeper, the gusher, and the wordless wonder. Our favorite: the generalizer, whose typical first message may be 'hey, wuts up?' Why does no one want the generalizer? 'You're probably stupid. Or possibly illiterate,' write Bartz and Ehrilich. According to OKTrends, bad grammar and bad spelling are huge turn-offs in a first message. 'Our negative correlation list is a fool's lexicon: ur, u, wat, wont, and so on. These all make a terrible first impression. In fact, if you count hit (and we do!) the worst 6 words you can use in a first message are all stupid slang.' Other tips from OKTrends' analysis of successful keywords and phrases from over 500,000 first contacts on OKCupid: Avoid physical compliments, bring up specific interests, and if you're a guy, be self-effacing."
Re:Alright, I know how to be now. (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree, the first makes me want to cut out my eyeballs to not have to read that drivel, the second makes me realize the person sending it is a psychopath.
Both would end bad if you met up, but the latter is clear, concise and legible as compared to the former being written by a 5 year old or a mental patient who can barely communicate over shouting his own name as a reply.
Dating isn't everything (Score:2, Informative)
For those who do not wish to breed, life is a whole lot simpler (and more interesting), if you stay single.
Seriously, if you don't spend the greater portion of your free time obsessing over someone else, you can instead study a wide variety of topics, exercise and train in a variety of physical disciplines, do a lot more hobby programming (or other creative hobby), watch more movies/shows, devote more time to your spiritual practices, and so on.
Basically, the whole world opens up. Sure, you can do any of that while dating, but not nearly as much. You wind up spending significant amounts of time and money doing stuff for/with the other person that normally you wouldn't care about at all. The best part: if you stay single, you can *still* get laid. Prostitution is actually the safest sex you can have if you are doing it in a state where it is legal and properly regulated. And, depending on your frequency of indulgence, it can be cheaper than dating too. Also, if you have the cash (which you likely will since you have more time to devote to money-making), you can have sex with much hotter women than would normally date you. It is a win all-around.
So why are people so insistent on dating? Partly because of social pressure, and partly because people have bought into the lie that they cannot possibly be emotionally self-fulfilling. People believe that they *need* someone else in order to be complete. But remember, every emotional experience you have ever had was created by your own brain.
As the 14th dalai lama so elegantly put it, "when you make someone else responsible for your own happiness, you set yourself up for suffering."
Own your soul.
It is ok to be single.