Three Messages

I haven't checked my OKCupid inbox since the beginning of February, but I just got an e-mail notification that I had a message, so I went in and found three new messages! If I had gotten three new messages in a little over a month when I was still single, I would have been shocked and amazed...so of course they come when I'm not single.

Message the First

first thing i see from this site is that gun you are holding lol

Fair enough; my main profile picture is me and a Stormtrooper from last year's Dragon*Con. What's a little weird about this guy is that under the "The most private thing I'm willing to admit here" section, he has "Aliens are gods."

So that's a little weird.

Message the Second

Do like hot, passionate sex talk? I bet we could have some real fun together.....

This is yet another instance when I wonder if this ever works. I would like to know the percentage of women who would get that message and think, "You know...I really do like hot, passionate sex talk. I should definitely e-mail this guy back."

Kudos for the use of the comma after "hot," though; normally those messages are rife with illiteracy. I almost want to message the guy and ask him to talk to me slowly...grammatically...

Message the Third

I would like to be your friend and know you, I think that knowing a person is like, open a new workbook, you always learn new things

I've heard the phrase "like an open book," but I'm not entirely sure I like being compared to a workbook. For some reason, that brings back visions of those awful enrichment math books my mom used to get for me in elementary school because I struggled with multiplication and division.

A Beginner's Primer on Pickup Lines: Lesson I, Using the Same Line on Different Women for Fun and Profit

So, the first message I got wasn't really that interesting. Mr. I'm Totes Creative wrote,

Thought you'd enjoy a unique sunrise.

As far as first attempts go, that's not so bad. Not really worth posting about. It's a picture I've seen a myriad of times, so it's not particularly creative, but eh...were I still single, I probably would have responded back to him.

Then I got a follow-up five days later. No picture this time, just the text, "If I offered to buy you something important, like a gumball, would you refuse?"

Which is weird in a cute way and still not necessarily post-worthy except that when I logged into Facebook this morning, I see this as one of my friend's statuses:

[Random OKCupid dude]: If I offered to buy you something important, like a gumball, would you refuse?

Me: What's important about a gumball?

[Random OKCupid dude]: It is a sphere, similar to the earth. As a symbol of all that is beautiful, its importance should be respected in a similar manner as a tic-tac.

Bahahahaha.

I, of course, logged into OKC and verified that it was actually the same guy which, OF COURSE, it is (she had a picture of him posted in the comments to the FB status). I accidentally clicked on the guy's profile which has garnered yet another message from him:

Find me an aardvark and I might respond.

DUDE. You have responded to me THREE TIMES without me responding to you. Anyone want to give me a suggestion of how I should respond to this request for an aardvark?

Deeply, Deeply in My Soul

So...there's this theory that once a person acquires a significant other, they become significantly more attractive to the opposite sex. Whether it's an unconscious increase in confidence or pheromones or whatever, it apparently carries over to the Internet because since I got a boyfriend back in May, I've gotten absolutely no idiots sending messages to my inbox...or at least none worth posting.

Which is both depressing and impressive.

Until, of course, I got a message from this guy who I'll admit was probably just trying to amuse me, it still came off as a touch on the creepy side.

You used the word tenterhooks in a dating site.

THAT. IS. AWESOME.

I thought you should know how I felt about that. It feel it very deeply in my soul.

I really hope it was just his soul he felt it deeply in and not...er...anywhere else.

Plato Was Sexy, However...

Okay, so this isn't really a Rotten Fish, but it's from a Craigslist ad, it made me giggle, and we haven't updated in a while, so I'm sharing it with you.

I found this under the "strictly platonic" section of the Atlanta Craigslist:

Lets Stay Warm Tonite! Sexy Black Fem Seeking Sexy Black Fem! - w4w - 27 (EastSide)
Sexy and Single Black Fem is looking for her cuddle buddy!... Its getting cold outside, but we can stay in and make some good heat! I want to make this a 1 on 1.... No BBW please.
I want to hear from you tonite! Im in the Lithonia/Stn Mtn area! Put WARM PUSSY in the subject line. SO I know that you are real. Talk to you soon!~

For the reason why this is hilarious, please see this Wikipedia entry. I'll be here at home, snuggling my cat.

Selling Yourself: How Not to Do It

I got a message from OKCupid that someone had messaged me, so I signed in to see if it was anything worth posting. It wasn't, really, but there was another message that hadn't triggered my e-mail alert because the person didn't pass my filters.

Probably because he lives in Tucson, AZ which OKCupid tells me is 2,064 miles from my current location. That's about all I know about the guy because his profile is completely empty...no, wait, scratch that. I know he never does drugs. See? Now we're best buddies.

His message to me was this:

Your profile sounds so normal.. except for killing aloe. There really isnt a reason for me to message you, especially since I use the word isnt, but I was looking around for people that play warcraft and you sound like someone I would get along with.. some of the time anyway... maybe on Friday.

I read it once. I read it twice. I read it three times before it hit me what bugged me about it: He's said that there's no reason for him to message me, so why would I bother messaging him back? I thought the point of these sites was to sell yourself so that the opposite (or same, actually) sex was interested in you, not to point out immediately that eh, it wouldn't work out anyway.

Besides, I maintain that my ability to kill aloe plants really isn't the least normal thing about me.

The Request.

OMG HI!

I've been disenchanted with online dating lately, hence the lack of posting. But here's a story for everyone.

I got an email saying someone had added me to their favorites on OkCupid. I was in the middle of something, so I didn't check his profile right away. Then I got a message directly from him, so I figured I'd read it. On my way to doing so, I got a friend request on Facebook from some random guy. Understandably, I was a little confused.

So I go to read the message...

Hello. :) Judging from what I see on your profile, I'm very interested. [where I live] isn't too far I guess. If this ok cupid thing seems too lame we could connect on facebook as I'm on there everyday.(just send me the link to your page or whatever) So what do you think? You can check out my profile and if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them for you. (I just made my profile today as it turns out, so my apologies if its not complete)

Yeah, this was the dude that just sent me the friend request. Now... I used to link to my Facebook in my OkCupid profile. I don't anymore. I do share my first name, and obviously my location. I'm not especially hard to find if you want to go looking for me on Facebook, and most of my information is private anyway. But the act of asking me if I want to connect on Facebook, and then going to add me BEFORE I've answered the question... That's a little too eager for me. Not quite creepy. Just overzealous. So I replied:

Look... You seem like a nice guy. But I don't really appreciate you searching for me on Facebook like that without giving me a chance to even say if I was interested. That's pretty invasive. So I don't think so. But good luck with everything.

He really didn't seem like a bad guy, honestly. I just didn't like him jumping the gun. That's all. But of course he had to get defensive...

lol. My apologies. It's just that your name was here, combined with being from [where I'm from] and a recognition of your face from your profile here. Sorry if that came out creepy but, I thought I'd just send a request. I'm not going to stalk you or become obsessed with you because of that. No need to overreact. lol
That's fine if you're not interested, but you don't get to control how people respond to you here or who they choose to send requests to on facebook.

I don't think I overreacted. Overreacting is "OMG YOU CREEP I'M CALLING THE POLICE!!!" Nor did I say it was a necessarily wrong thing to do. Just not something that I was fond of. And if he had just replied with, "Okay, I can understand that, let's forget about it"... Different conversation. I said...

I wasn't trying to control anything. You have every right to do it, and I have every right not to like it and to say so. That's all.

But that's not all!

Well, its just that you seemed to react a little too strongly to something that was pretty damn innocent. That's all I'm saying. So if that's all it takes to ruin this, then wow, that's amazingly shallow but whatever, if that's what you want, I'm not going to argue with you all night over it.

First of all: How are we defining "strongly"? I was incredibly calm. Second, what is "this" that we're ruining? The nonexistent relationship we have because we literally just "met"? But how does that make me "shallow"? And where is the "argument"? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

I have no plans to argue anything. It bothered me, I said it bothered me, I told you good luck, and that was that.

And, mercifully, that was, indeed, that.

Am I wrong here? Am I a little too harsh? Am I just looking for reasons not to like people? Am I or am I not the walrus, goo goo g'joob?

Er, What?

Two bizarre though not completely rotten occurrences:

Bizarre the First
Got a message from a guy that was pretty well thought out and interesting. He expressed interest in my hobbies and mentioned some that he shared without coming off as creepy or harassing. He's looking for a nerdy, best-friend kind of girl he can play an MMO with.

Only problem is that he's in Redmond, WA which is...well...a fair distance from Philadelphia, PA...which he acknowledges, then goes on to say that he just moved there last August, so he doesn't have a lot of friends out there yet. You would think that instead of courting someone with "it's only a plane ride away," he'd look for someone closer. Like Seattle. Where I'm guessing there are a few nerdy women hanging around.

Bizarre the Second
This message started"Long time, no chat. What's been up with you, lately?" but I didn't recognize the name. In fact, I thought it was the guy from the previous message following up after I hadn't responded.

I vaguely remember talking to this guy, but not really. OKC tells me that the first time I messaged him was September 2010.

So, yeah...less rotten and more leaving me with an unsettled sense of "bwuh?"