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| Dr. Malcolm has since lost his license to practice obstetrics. |
1.) "Hi, how are you?" on its own, is not an acceptable initial message-- Folks, this is not 1998, and OK Cupid, Match.com, and Jdate only resemble AOL Instant Messenger in that no one knows the difference between "your" and "you're". You and the hot lady/dude whose profile you just stumbled upon are total strangers; give them a reason to message you back. Like "Hi, how are you? I am Bob, and I noticed that you also like white wine and resin t-rex heads. Tell me, have you ever put a silly hat on your t-rex head?" To which I would be like "Bob, I actually have a fantastic hat to put on Dr. Malcolm for St. Paddy's day, and will possibly photograph him turning down corned beef and cabbage because he does not eat vegetables. I saw in your profile that you hate Star Trek: Voyager. I too hate Star Trek Voyager! Let's hang out and discuss Janeway's failures as a leader!"
2.) Put your best foot forward in your profile-- Social media has given us all a mouthpiece for our whines in Facebook. Please continue to keep them about Facebook. No one wants to hear about you getting your heart broken or losing your job and living in your mom's basement on a dating site; that would be like the grocery store putting "This Will Go Bad in Five Minutes" stickers on cheese instead of "Manager's Special". I see damaged goods and I look for something that someone at least taped up the box on. I, Eris Greenberg, am the first to admit that things ended poorly with the vast majority of my "romantic entanglements". But really, does "my last relationship was with a 28-year-old virgin who clearly had unresolved issues involving Catholicism and shame" make me seem attractive? No, it makes me seem like a bitter spinster who resorts to taking a guy's virginity to clean out the cobwebs. I don't talk about my ex-hook-ups in my profile, nor do I talk about my issues with my mother, the fact that I was bullied in middle school, or about how my friends are always very suspicious when I buy Benadryl due to some past dependency issues. Talk about things that make you great; if you don't think those things exist, maybe you ought to work on you before you blow a bunch of money on a PUA class and try to pick up women using ridiculous hats and an OKC profile that eventually gets mocked on tumblr.
3.) The more information, the better, unless you are racist-- So, I am usually pretty suspicious when there isn't a lot of info in someone's profile, especially when you don't specify an industry you work in, or if you do drugs or have children or are divorced and maybe paying fat alimony payments to some hussy you married at 19 and divorced a year later. Fill out everything, even sarcastically, except, and this is big, don't specify you'd never date someone of a particular race. Some folks actually do this blatantly (I have a friend from Cleveland who I guess sees "I don't date black chicks" a whole lot), but many dating sites allow you to specify racial/ethnic preferences for people you're dating. Either don't specify anything, or check everything, regardless of whether or not you'd never really date a Latino because Lord knows Grandma doesn't need to have a third stroke when she thinks you're going to marry a Cuban, fulfilling her nightmares about a Cuban takeover of the United States (she is 90 and from Miami and is convinced some woman in the '50s told her they would take over the country by having lots of babies). I look at it this way: if you're going to be as blatant about your racial prejudices as my 90-year-old grandmother was during bedtime stories, I do not want to run the risk of you passing on that prejudice to our hypothetical children. It would take a lot more time at a Unitarian Sunday School than I am willing to give at this point in my life.
4.) Take no for an answer-- If a person does not reply to your first message, don't send a second. Not replying is a passive rejection. The more unanswered messages you send, the creepier you become and the more likely that your dating site's version of the Ban Hammer is about to fall.
5.) Don't be a wuss-- If you are interested in someone, send them a message. Don't keep pussyfooting around it, continuously looking at their profile, or sending them winks or likes or whatever. Initiative is super hot. Just remember rule 4.
6.) Meet in a public place and tell no less than two people where you are going and every single thing you know about your date-- I went on a date once with a guy from Match who talked about having a random ax in his car. There was no second date. There was a second Match guy who talked about owning an ax though. Seriously, you don't know if a person is going to be creepy until you meet them, so make sure you tell people where you are going and let them know you got home okay. Serial killers are not nearly as common as Criminal Minds wants you to believe (nor would a real-life Spencer Reid be super-hot), but it's better to be safe than sorry. Also, don't ignore your "creep radar"; this is really a thing that you probably have and a lot of people ignore it. I speak from experience when I say that it is better to listen to your creep radar and risk not having a mediocre second date with a guy you're not really into anyway than to not listen to your creep radar and end up assaulted or worse. I know, ladies, that we're programmed from birth to be nice, but your safety is more important than maybe hurting a stranger's feelings.
7.) Don't get sad when you are rejected-- No one likes rejection. Know that if you're rejected before you actually meet a person, it's probably for some superficial reason. I reject guys for things like being into astrology (because they're probably stupid), Libertarianism (black heart and will probably end up moving to the Libertarian Paradise of Somalia before we can get serious anyway), not being an organ donor (morally reprehensible asshole who probably believes in conspiracies and had better hope to god he never needs a kidney), or being friends with my older brother (self-explanatory). I know I get rejected a lot for being in my very very very very late 20s, for wanting kids, for not representing myself as an atheist, for representing myself as both a person who loves bacon and a person who is Jewish, and because once I admitted that I liked to sew. In the end, who fucking cares what strange dudes looking for women on the internet think of me, or of you. I am fucking awesome and everyone who knows me in meatspace agrees. I am sure if you are reading my blog, you are similarly awesome and should not despair because of what some rando on the internet thinks of you.
Well, intrepid readers, good luck with the online dating thing. If you'd rather get a resin tyrannosaurus head, visit http://www.whitefauxtaxidermy.com/ , which is where Patience got mine, and thank me later.
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