#okcupid

[jadagul]

While I'm getting myself in trouble over gender:

I matched with someone on OKCupid yesterday. By which I mean she liked my profile and messaged me to tell me how much she liked it, and I agreed to the match and responded.

And her first followup message was to quote my list of movies and books I like and "gently ask me my fave women/POC creators".

And like there are various ways I could answer that question. (I just enjoyed Gideon the Ninth. I subscribe to KB Spangler's patreon at like ten dollars a month. I love Unpretty's fanfic here on tumblr. Ursula LeGuin is amazing. Etc.)

But my real answer is, I think that's kind of a poisonous way of engaging with media; I mostly don't care about the demographics of the author, and I mostly don't think you should either. I find the question, and the tone in which it was asked (""gently""), so offputting that my interest is now at zero.

[lovingbasementtastemaker]

[czech-hunter-reject]

via Instagram

Jesus fucking Christ!! Like, I knew it was gonna be bad, and yet it still completely fucking floored me. This is just so goddamn gross. I'm also wildly curious to see how the graphs would look for both queer men and queer women. I honestly am afraid it would look much the same. I mean I was never more popular with gay men of all ages than when I was a 16 year old twink on the (at the time) only gay dating site in my country :/

[intoxifaded]

I need a new tumblr simp to fall in love with

My last tumblr simp and I lasted 5 years and we lived together

Who wants to be mutually obsessed ? I’m clingy and loyal af.

I simp back, hard.

[marzipanandminutiae]

did you match with me just to say that

I match with a girl on a dating app

"hi! is fetishizing the Victorian era ever problematic for you?"

I unmatch with the girl on the dating app

(it's not that I'm unwilling to have this conversation at all. there's a reason "Vintage Style, Not Vintage Values" pins exist. I'm just unwilling to start a potential romance with an Internet argument)

[theromandaniels]

FAVORITE THING ABOUT THE PLACE I LIVE

The beautiful landscape, perfect for walks in nature, perhaps with a special someone. Ideal if you want some sight-seeing...

[lennythereviewer]

Dating has become this overly casual, impersonal thing now that I can’t really adapt to; it’s almost definitely a result of dating apps becoming the norm.  I don’t know how to really put it into words but like: If you meet someone for a date, its just assumed you and the other person are probably talking to at least two other people on the side and once you’re done seeing whomever you’re seeing, you go right down the line to the next one. 

Even if you had an amazing time with said person, you got two others to get though so you’re not really expected to follow up with Person A when you’re seeing Person B and C the next evening.

By my own experience, dating just feels like going to an audition these days and in the back of your mind you know you’re competing with whoever else is gunning for the role of “romantic partner”. It’s no wonder people are so nervous on first dates.

Maybe it’s a neurodivergent thing on my part but I just can’t keep up with it and I can’t handle the pressure knowing I’m being eyed in this clinical “don’t call us we’ll call you” mentality. 

If I get a date that’s my whole week right there and I spend days getting ready for it and psyching myself up, and when afterwards I inevitably get ghosted for whoever was next in line after me I feel mortified, and can’t help but replay what it was I may have did wrong or said wrong over and over.

It’s not that I can’t handle rejection I just hate the cold indifference of it all now. Dating is just so much less personal now, and I can’t really adapt. I don’t know how anyone can, really

[arctic-hands]

Aaaaah I just messaged someone I mutually matched with at ninety-six percent

[cutie-melon]

@h-kikomori sure why not

I was but a fresh-assed baby of 19 years old and it was my first time meeting someone off a site. We chatted for a bit that day and she invited me over that evening. She lived in my friend’s apartment complex so I figured if anything got weird I could just walk over there.

(Spoiler alert: It got weird! I did not just walk over!)

When I arrived at her house she wasn’t there. I hit her up and she said “Oh I’m on the way back from dinner. I’ll be home in 3 minutes!” Umm, okay. I’ll stand here in the cold amidst your hoarder-level variety of balcony plants.

15 minutes later a car pulls up. Out comes Jessica (because of course she’s Jessica) from the passenger side. She has clearly been drinking. And from the driver’s side emerges her dinner date. We give each other a glance and then both look to her, nearly losing a heel trying to close the car door while balancing three boxes from Outback.

They mosied up the stairs, a thick fog of awkward rising with them. The date and I were both unsure of the situation or how to act. Not Jessica though. Jessica seemed incredibly sure. Of herself if nothing else. And she was sure to thank her date as she sent them home.

We entered her apartment and greeted her cat. Jessica wasted exactly zero time navigating her way to the nearest wine bottle. “You want a glass?” she inquired. “Sure..” I replied, wishing it was already in my veins. “You want a klonopin too?” “Umm, I think I’m good, thanks.” Now I’m no stranger to drugs, but this seemed like a situation where I should keep at least a couple wits about me. She chased her pill with half a glass of wine and topped up before joining me in the living room.

We sat around and chatted and she was decently fun to hang with. We were pretty different people but had a fair amount of overlap in interests and taste. We finished our wine and she refilled us as I packed a bowl and browsed her DVDs. “Have you seen Across the Universe?” she asked as she sat back down near me. I said “No, I was curious about it, but not interested. Seemed like it might ruin some Beatles songs for me or something.” “Oh my god I loooove that movie. I saw it like 7 times in the theater. I can’t wait to buy it!” she gushed. I didn’t care.

We kept chatting while I put on a movie from her collection. It really just served as background cause we were having a good time. I was well over the awkwardness from earlier, and while I wasn’t romantically interested in her, it was fun to hang with someone new. Until I got to the last drops in my second glass of wine and saw some white powder. Some sludgy with red wine, some kind of chunky and bright as chalk.

I felt a slight panic as my brain tried to configure all possibilites of what was in front of me and all outcomes from all responses until I finally just blurted “Ummmm what the fuck is this??” I made her look at it with me. “Oh, that’s just residue from my dishwasher!” she lied. I pressed her, “It wasn’t there after my first glass..” She doubled down, “I got you a new one when I poured us some more.” “That doesn’t make sense. Let’s go check your dishes, shall we?” She scrambled to keep it together but she eventually conceded. “I just thought you’d have more fun if you were on my level.” she said. I told her I can have fun however I choose and how fucked up it was and etc. I wasn’t mean but I wasn’t fuckin around. It would seem she wasn’t a sociopath cause she sank exactly the way she should’ve.

She asked me “Are you just gonna leave then?” I told her “You know, this was fucked up but I think it was a poor decision made by an alright person. I don’t think either of us really want the night to end on this note.”

Gentle reader, this night would end on a very different note.

“I packed this bowl and we still haven’t touched it,” I said. “Let’s smoke and snack.” She agreed it was a good call and volunteered some crackers and peanut butter for the cause. We were able to kind of get over the awkwardness of the attempted drugging, but it still sat in the corner of the room. The spectre of insecurity, however, came and sat right with us. As we snacked every topic of conversation somehow managed its way back to her gaining 30lbs over the past year and everyone “judging” her for it. She wasn’t fat, and her “perfect” weight she kept referring to looked unhealthily skinny from pics she showed. This was the late 2000s and Abercrombie had done a number on us all. I commented on how she seemed really stuck on the topic. She apologized and we sat in silence for a minute. Just a film score over credits on the TV.

Her cat decided to break the awkward moment with a cute strut into the room and biiig stretch. “Hey, check this out!” Jessica said. I watched as she thrust three fingers into the jar of peanut butter on the table and proceeded to lean over to her cat and smear it all on his head and down his back. I sat there frozen, my brain trying to tell me that is in fact what just happened, as Jessica literally rolled on the floor laughing. I don’t think I’d seen a true rofl in years and I don’t think I’ll ever see another as perplexing or unwarranted. She’d just had the funniest experience of her life, and I’d just had enough.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!?!” I no longer cared about this girl or this experience. I no longer cared what a person might think of me, least of all her. “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT???” the cat had run off already, leaving a trail of peanut butter on the carpet and furniture. I’m sure Jessica probably rolled in some. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” Her face changed instantly. She became the child she was acting like. She quickly gave up being defensive for crying. She ran to her room and slammed the door. Pillow-muffled sobs carried through the wall.

I grabbed some paper towels from the kitchen and picked up the larger globs of peanut butter off the floor. I put all her dishes in one side of the double-bowl sink, and went up to her cat who had cozied up on some pillows struggling desperately to lick peanut butter off himself. “I think we’re both gonna hate this” I said to him as he hesitantly let me pick him up. I walked him to the kitchen and tried to mentally prepare myself for an unfamiliar experience. I had not gotten to know many cats at this point in my life and I sure as hell had never even thought about bathing them. I just knew they hated water. But also peanut butter smeared on them.

Folks, this cat bath did not go smoothly. I didn’t know to scruff him so i just felt the flurry of claw attacks as I did my best to remove a third of a jar of peanut butter from his fur with good ol’ dish soap. “Is this okay to use?” I wondered. “They have ducklings and stuff on the commercial. It’s gotta be okay.” I was sure of one thing though, a duckling wouldn’t draw near as much blood.

I dried off this poor cat as best I could with some paper towels, but he was still soaked. Despite my best efforts there was also a not insignificant amount of peanut butter on him as well. Whatever. I tried. I didn’t have to do any of this. I surely wasn’t gonna do anymore. Jessica’s sobs had given way to the sounds of shitty Beatles covers from the Across the Universe soundtrack. I guess she was in her happy place. I wiped myself off and gathered my things.

“Something in the way she moves-” I hear through her bedroom door. “Attracts me like no other lover-” I chuckle at the irony as I knock. No answer. “Something in the way she woos me-” Oh no… I can feel the song sticking to this moment. I knock again. No answer. “I don’t wanna leave her now-” God please get me out of here I love this song. I gently open the door. “You know I believe and how-” Jessica was indeed in her happy place. Fully nude in her computer chair. Legs spread. Feet on desk. Hands busy. “I’m gonna head out.” I say, seemingly to no one. “It’s been real.” I do not exist in this moment. Only Jessica, her porn, and shitty Beatles covers. I close the door and I leave. It’s finally over… but what toll has it taken from me?

“Somewhere in her smile she knows-”

Fucking Jessica…

[liskantope]

The newest thing in my (attempt at an) online dating life recently has been matching with someone on Bumble (where women have to message first) and then just not getting a message from them. This has now happened for the last 7-8 matches in a row. These matches have come slowly enough in the first place that I think the time span I'm talking about is at least this whole summer if not longer (to be fair, I've been too busy and preoccupied this summer to try very hard at dating apps).

My general OKC experience has also gone way, way downhill over the years, and I think what I need to do is leave both apps and start fresh on different ones, although most of the time I honestly really don't see the point in any of it anymore.

[jadagul]

So does OKC have an unusually leftist userbase; does the match algorithm match me with unusually leftist people; or do the longer profiles just mean that more people wind up expressing their leftism more clearly and aggressively?

Because I really think the median profile I see mentions the need to destroy capitalism or something like that.

[skvtchead]

got okcupid and tinder self esteem has never been worse

[gayautisticjewishtexts]

[rebeccameyer1]

A redpiller wanted to make me his trad wife???

[irlactualhuman]

I was gonna delete my okcupid profile cuz it's really just making me kinda bummed out, but I just got... m'lady-ed? It's the best worst shit ever.

Behold:

[ramensauce2pointoh-blog]

Confirmation:

Full moon weekend is black Friday on my dating profiles lol. People just become crazy enough to like me.