Okay, okay, I admit it: I started online dating when digital cameras were a luxury rather than a standard item in your Tech Bag o' Tricks. Pictures next to ads were either grainy, scanned college senior portraits or blurry bar outings or even one time, a shiny professional wedding portrait with a piece of paper taped over the Ex-Missus "Funghi." (Like "Fun Guy." Get it? Um, yeah.)
But even my foray into online dating before I met my husband a couple of years ago, and a quick scan of online dating's usual suspects (n
ote to my husband: I was doing research, I am not banging the pool boy when you're not home. Note to all: We don't have a pool.) shows page after page of the same, tired syntax.
Enjoys: Long walks on the beach at midnight.
For some reason,
long walks on the beach at midnight is code for
I'm a romantic. You might as well type out the contents of a Hallmark card. Anywya, have you ever been on the beach at midnight in Los Angeles? It's kind of creepy. The last time I had a late-night foray out to the beach (with an out-of-town friend who insisted) we were greeted with drug dealers, gangbangers, and homeless, oh my! Maybe the beach is different where you live. Or maybe you happen to fall into one of those categories and
you're just being honest.So: Unless you've been on the beach at midnight within the last two weeks, for the Love of Zod, leave it off.
Enjoys: Theatre.
Harmless, right? Cultural? Sure. Except when asked who their favorite playwright or play is, or when they last attended the
thea-tuh, you are met with fleeting look of panic and a bunch of stumbling around abut that naked hamlet play they saw sophomore year of college.
So: Unless you're a theatre nut, leave it off.
Enjoys: Sports.
This is mostly for the ladies. I don't buy the stereotype that nerds don't care for sports, but most of the ones I've dated couldn't pick the center out of the offensive line or tell you what team Kobe Bryant plays for. A Nerdy Ex-Boyfriend once responded to Older SlackBrother J.'s query, "
do you watch sports?"
I care for archery a great deal.I do think that at the heart of it, thought, sports can be nerdy (I'm lookin' at you! baseball stats!) But for some reason, a lot of women are programmed to think that We Must Like Sports To Get Boys To Like Us. There's no rule.
So: Unless you've got a team you follow, a sport you play or watch with some regularity, or hell, you don't pull out the "y
ou shouldn't be hitting on me, my boyfriend plays pro football in Los Angeles" as an ex-roomate of mine once did? Leave it off.
NO highlights the annoying things people put in their bios, profiles, and online dating ads. Got something that qualifies as a NO? Email me!
I'm a writer by trade so you'd think it'd stack the deck in my favor and I guess it does, with jokers. Seriously, as you've hit on in your post, most people resort to online dating tropes. This has two lameassed ramifications:
1/ The homogenization of 99% of all posts
2/ If you dare to write something quirky, challenging, off-center, most people regard you as a sociopath (which might be true in my case, but you get the point).
It's sad-but-true that a great deal of the dating game is positioning yourself as part of an identifiable tribe. Even the Individual, needs to fit into specific parameters where someone thinks they are of the same ilk. So the use of canned statements only makes sense.
<3G
PS Oh, I went on a midnight scooter trip to Coney Island this Saturday where my date was hooping in the water in various states of undress. So I can't complain.