Posts tagged let's answer that!

oh, the changes around here!  

i deleted my old okcupid profile.  it felt like the right thing to do.  i wanted a fresh start for several reasons, both personal and technological.  lucky for you, it took no time for the messages to pile up.  

let’s get into them, shall we?

—

dear [redacted],

words mean things.  they have specific meanings.  yeah, yeah, homophones are hard, but it still remains that i have not, to my knowledge, peeked your interest.  i have never, surreptitiously or otherwise, seen your interest, and you certainly are not getting a glimpse of mine.  the phrase is to pique one’s interest.  call me a dick, but i find using words and phrases incorrectly to be irritatingly stupid.  it’s not that i’m immune to making mistakes.  i just have a lot of smart people around me who, thankfully, will correct me.  misusing words can be charming in children, but once you’ve reached the ripe, old age of 33, it’s not cute.  read a fucking book.  read lots of books.  or just use a dictionary.  it’s what literate adults do.    

it’s a commonly known fact amongst my friends that i have a serious thing for tall, skinny guys with messy hair and the skinniest jeans they can cram themselves into.  it’s gotten to the point that a friend of mine frequently tells me, “i saw this skinny guy in the tightest jeans i’ve ever seen and thought of you.”  it’s bad.  i blame it in combination on leonardo dicaprio and the strokes.  leo with his skinny hotness and messy hair in baz luhrman’s r+j, and the strokes for being the hottest guys in tight jeans this side of anywhere.  i don’t help matters by living in williamsburg, aka hot, tight pants-wearing hipster central.  now, this is probably unfair.  being someone who “seems real”—i.e. is fat—i probably should date chubby guys, but life isn’t  fair, [redacted].  it turns out that there are enough cute, skinny guys who want to hit this that i don’t have to date bald, goateed men from bay ridge.  

-dstar

—

nothing.  it just isn’t what i want.  

and fuck you.  this message infuriates me.  it some seriously disrespectful bullshit.  

if that sounds like a crazy leap to make from a single sentence, look at it this way: a reasonable person would see that i’m not interested in a casual relationship and move along if that’s what they are looking for.  you decided that instead of just moving along to someone who wants the same thing as you, it was a good idea to try and talk me into doing what you want.  that is the real purpose of this message.  it is the beginning of a campaign to manipulate me into seeing things your way.  it is disrespectful of my ability to know my own mind, and it plays into the false dichotomy of sex being something that men want and that women want to keep them from getting.  it’s false because it sets up these interactions which are, at their base level, men trying to get women to “give up” something.  and it’s all total bullshit!  sex is something that is awesome that two people choose to participate in.  it’s not something that one person lets another do to him or her.  it is a joint venture that two (or more) people gladly and excitedly undertake.  it should not be something that you have to convince someone to do.  this dichotomy feeds into rape culture.  and that’s disgusting.  

-dstar

—

(friends, my new okcupid name is star shark)

—

Ms. Shark, You’re very beautiful, and you have a gorgeous smile. Do you have any use for free housework? I would do excellent work for you. I’d make all your floors and appliances look perfect, and I’d work hard and do great work with any other chores I’m assigned. I’m very obedient, and I know my place. I would not expect any attention or anything else from you. I can also serve as a chauffeur-slave, providing you with free car service whenever you like.

dear sir, 

you do not know how fucking much i wish i could say yes to this.  i have all of the use for free housework.  i hate cleaning.  i have been sans boyfriend for almost a year, and good god, is that fact ever apparent in the state of my apartment.  sure, i’ve had guys over since then, but not with the necessary frequency to force me into cleaning with any regularity.  plus, if i have a gentleman over at night, you can barely see the dust.  so why bother?     

alas, i cannot say yes.  i cannot say yes because, despite your being someone who gets off on being treated poorly, i’m not someone who can treat another person like that.  it would make me feel bad.  i’m just not into the other side of your kink-coin.  sorry.  

-dstar

—

Wow!your beauty is like a song written by the hands of God…i m interested in you..[Redacted]

dear [redacted],

i know, right?  i am, like, the super prettiest.  there are days where i can literally get nothing done because i just cannot tear myself away from the mirror.  

just kidding.  you can cool it with the hyperbole.  i don’t understand why people write messages like this.  does it work?  what kind of person is so flattered by that nonsense that they ignore, say, the 3% match, or that you are super old and live in qatar?  (yes, folks, you read that correctly.  3%.  it is not missing any zeroes or other digits.)

flattery makes me kind of uncomfortable.  especially from people i do not know, or do not know well.  i distrust the motivations of people/men who lay on the unnecessary compliments.  can’t we just let things be?  i just feel like it gets weird if you start dropping things like, “you have the sweetest smile i’ve ever seen.”  like, really?  ever?  i guess i just assume that the guys i’m with think i’m attractive, or they wouldn’t be with me. especially when things are new, compliments are basically, “hey.  you’re pretty.”  well, thanks, but i already know that.  

now, genuine compliments from people that know me and with whom i share real affection is a totally different matter.   i just think flattery is some bullshit.  

and hey, it is entirely possible that it’s because i just came off a year+ of some on-again/off-again shenanigans with a guy who was full of remarks about how beautiful and great i am.  though in the end, it didn’t matter.  despite being so beautiful and amazing, i still wasn’t what he wanted.  

so what i’m saying is, fuck your flattery.  

-dstar

—

Hi , im [Redacted] nice to meet you, i live in rego park queens, im single , 33, work in fashion and finance, 
im a really nice guy , very friendly, and easy to be around, 
i think you look great by the way, and wanted a chance to talk to you and get to know you, 
im looking forward to hearing back from you, you can either get in touch with me here„ im also on aim or aol [redacted]@aol.com or yahoo chat [redacted] , if you prefer ill give you my cell number, we can text talk get to know each other , and maybe meet up for drinks or go to a cafe :) 
thanks talk soon :)

oh [redacted],

no.  

not ever.  

there is not a single period in your message except the one in your aol email address.  (fucking aol???  seriously?  is this 1995?  are you secretly in your 60s?)  you spend the whole message dreadfully abusing commas.  it’s a fucking massacre of punctuation.  i barely know where to start.  you neglect both full stops and apostrophes.  at one point you put a double comma.  that is not a thing.  

the cherry on top of this terror-sundae of bad grammar is the desperation.  write me here!  email me!  yahoo chat with me!  i can give you my cell number!  we can text!  we can talk!  we can get drinks! or coffee!  anything!  whatever you want!  pretty please!

gross.  first messages should be casual and not contain so fucking much personal information.  as anyone who has received a message from me can attest, i’m a big fan of, “hey!  you seem cool.  maybe we can meet up for a drink some evening, if you’re interested.”  if they reply, of course, i’ll be more of a human and less of a spambot, but i don’t see why i should write lengthy, personal messages when 95% of them will go unanswered.  it’s a numbers game, sir.  save your effort for people who give a fuck.

-dstar  

—

this next one is both a real message and my real answer.  for some reason, i felt like calling him on his bullshit.  

—

Am ready to date and fuck if you wish—-agree?

that’s a highly inappropriate message to send, and i don’t go out with guys who have a poor sense of what is appropriate.

—

well, i try not to go out with guys who have a poor sense of what’s appropriate.  

at least, it’s something new i’m trying.  no more guys who speak casually of a future when they have girlfriends.  no more guys who think that sex on the first date makes me a slut who you can’t have a real relationship with.  (p.s. fuck you. it would make you a slut, too, and that didn’t bother me.)  no more guys who think that kissing when sober implies something ultra serious.  no more guys who think enjoying his company means i’m falling in love.  (believe me, i would awkwardly let you know if i was falling in love.)

let’s all try to be appropriate!  

(this includes knowing when it’s okay to be inappropriate.)  

comments here, if you have them!

hello, hello!  look who’s finally doing something other than take naps and watch so you think you can dance!  (it’s me!)

i haven’t been on okcupid much these last few months.  first i was dating the square, then a lawyer, then the square again, then i was sleeping with my ex.  oof.  such an awkward life i lead, guys.  especially when you consider all the overlap between the guys i just listed.  yeah.  so much overlap.  oops?

on to the good part!

—

Hey there.My name is [redacted]. How are u doing Sexy? I am a 21 year old guy that is half italian and half irish. i am also half a gentleman and half a bad boy. ;) I would really like to get to know u and possibly hang out with u, take u out on a date, or talk to each other either by texting or talking on the phone. Would one of these ideas be ok with u?:)

oh, [redacted], 

where to start?  

oh i know!  you’re 21 years old.  gross.  

both your manner of expression and the number of times you wrote “u” instead of “you” literally makes me want to vomit.  ”half a gentleman and half a bad boy”????  could you write anything more nauseating?  just kidding.  that is not a challenge.  i take it back.  

let’s also address the way you capitalized the word “sexy,” as if it were a proper noun.  it is not.  i’m not sure where you got the idea that capitalizing a term of address that is not a proper noun was the right thing to do.  it isn’t.  just like if i wrote, “please fuck off and die, sir.”  i would not capitalize the word “sir,” even if i were prone to capitalization, which i am not.  

oh and the emoticons.  

this message is just filled with so much nausea-inducing desperation that i just can’t handle it.  can we hang out?  or go on a date?  or talk on the phone?  or text?  is any of this okay?  ugh.  

the answer is no, none of these ideas are okay with me.  

-dstar

—

u meet in nj XXX-XXX-XXXX? call now

no.  

a million times no.   

no to the infinite power.  

i don’t go out with old men.  i do not take orders from strangers.  i do not date those with a tenuous grasp of the english language.  i do not go to new jersey on the command of a strange old man with a tenuous grasp of the english language.  

what the fuck is wrong with you?  in what world is this an appropriate first communication?  i’ll give you a hint: in no world is this appropriate.  i think you fundamentally misunderstood the nature of okcupid.  it is a dating site, not an escort service.  you can’t just message people with your phone number and order them up for the evening.  

also, you are 25 years over the top limit of my age range.  i might be able to forgive a few years.  we can’t all be 35 and under.  i get that.  however, it is also true that i’m not going to date a 60 year-old russian man in the middle of fucking new jersey who looks like an after-photo on a those posters that show the effects of crystal meth.  especially not a creepy one whose only photo is fucking creepy and your profile is minimally filled in with creepy broken english.  

-dstar

—

I threw my cat out the window before writing this message, no cat is worth not meeting you. I just wanted you to know the sacrifice I just made to establish a small connection to you.. I’m totes comitted.

dear sir,

well.  that is certainly a terrible way to win my favour.  i may very well be horribly allergic to cats, but i do not advocate their defenestration.  i fear that this act was entirely in vain.  i could never go out with someone who was so cruel to animals.  pets are our friends.  if for some reason, we can’t continue to care for them, it is up to us to find them a nice home, not throw them out the window at the first sign of a pretty girl with an allergy.  now who will be there to comfort you when you never hear back from me?  i mean, i am not all interested in you.  that cat though, it probably loved you.  (do cats love?)  you and i have zero in common, but that cat, it probably hung out with you while you did all kinds of stuff.  

i think you’ve made a huge mistake.  you better go see if your cat is alright.

-dstar

—

Bonsoir! 

OK, you and I.. joined at the hip. 

I’m still reading through your profile (haven’t even got to the rest of your photos yet), but noticed you were also online, and couldn’t help but press pause to send you a quickie. Heh. (I live in San Francisco, but so happen to find myself situated for the evening in your fair borough.) 

“Mainsplaining” !!! Classic. 

You rock (needless to say). And that ever-present smile? Delicious as a motherfucker. #justsayin 

OK back to your profile I go. You carry on, for the moment… 

Oh — and yes — drinks! Do you happen to be about, this evening? 

[Redacted]

15 minutes later:

**UPDATE** 

Good Lord, girl — you’re.. I mean.. seriously?!? 

Your crazy-sexy-cool snare has me in its grasp. Good work! ;) 

Right. This polite-but-foolishly-fun gentleman seeks your immediate accompaniment for, at minimum, engaging conversation and assorted cocktailery. (The business end of this might involve waking up bleary-eyed to blinding sunlight streaming in, with random chickens clucking about the floor strewn with discarded garments. #couldbeoneofthosenights) 

What, you’re still sitting there? Name your establishment, woman! :D 

[Redacted] 
+1 XXX XXX XXXX

dear [redacted],

first of all, we are not joined at the hip.  i feel certain i would have noticed a conjoined twin at some point in my 29 years of life.  that is a very weird way to say that you think we’re alike.  it is not a good metaphor.  you probably should have chosen a more appropriately descriptive phrase.  i’m just saying.  

i know that i say in my profile that i prefer meeting in real life to endless messaging on okcupid.  and this is both true and a lie.  it is true if i think you’re attractive and interesting, but it is a lie if you are not someone i would ever go out with.  i feel like i need to clear this up because i get a lot of messages that are like, “yes, drinks.  let’s do this.”  but just like everything with me, it’s only fun for me if it’s mutual.  it’s not fun for me for a guy to send me messages taking for granted that i want to meet him.  

you see, i don’t like guys taking my interested in them as a given.  it’s a little creepy.  if you take my interest as a given, despite my not expressing it, what else might you expect or take for granted though i give no indication i feel it or want it?  might you date rape me?  i don’t know.  i don’t know you. maybe you’re not that guy, but i feel really uncomfortable with a stranger telling me how it’s going to be and what to do.  wrapping it up in flattery doesn’t make it less creepy, it just says to me that you are accustomed to using flattery to manipulate women.  i don’t like that kind of guy in person, and i don’t like that kind of guy on the internet.  it makes me uncomfortable.  

plus, come on.  i know i’m super awesome and totally pretty.  you can calm down.  i am not actually so fantastic that you can’t finish a sentence.  no one is.  again, that over-the-top bullshit makes me uncomfortable because it feels so disingenuous.   it’s a turn-off for me for someone to be so enthusiastic about my profile.  it’s actually a turn-off in person, too.  it just feels so manipulative.  just be cool, man.  i already know i’m awesome.  

-dstar

—

I’m 5’10 foot tall, blue eyes and I am very pre-occupied with stimulating and intelligent conversation; while I love travel I believe the greatest adventure is to explore one’s passions. I define true passion as not just lust in the moment… it’s not even when you are touched so deeply that you find you give all that you have. It’s when you are touched so deeply you find things coming forth from you that you never even knew or imagined could be there. Can you feel that… would be an amazing thing to experience with someone? 
ME: I’m successful self-made lady, so you’ll learn lots from me about spirit and mind as well as body! I must be with someone adventurous who LOVES to learn new things and is longing for an amazing new direction. please to know much about our self write me here [redacted]@yahoo.com 
Thank 
[Redacted]

hey [redacted],

so here’s the thing: i’m a 1 on the kinsey scale, verging on a 0.  soooo.  i don’t really think i’m what you’re looking for.  i am do love to learn things, but i’m not terribly adventurous.  and i think the things i want to learn aren’t the things you want to teach me.  

plus, i really like guys.  i like dating them.  i like having sex with them.  guys are what i think about when i [redacted].  i’m just super into guys.  pretty irrevocably.  

i know, it makes me terribly boring, but it makes me happy.  

also, [redacted], you know that your message reads like the nonsense spam that tries to sell you penis enlargement pills, right?

-dstar

—

that’s all for today, folks.  i’ll try to not let so long go between installments.  

but then i am very unreliable and very fickle.  so who knows?

a guy whose message i posted in “let’s answer that!” #3 wrote me a very long message on okcupid last night.  i’ve since removed his message from that post.  to be honest, it was never a very good or snarky addition to the piece.  it’s absence won’t really be noticed.  i was short on interestingly bad messages, so i padded my entry with a message from a normal enough guy in whom i had no interest.  

but that in itself doesn’t much merit a post.  

his complaint about being featured in my blog seems to be twofold: 1) i took the time to write down my thoughts and feelings about him on my blog, but not to him directly and 2) his not being a creep deserves better treatment than ignoring him to his virtual face and posting about him on the internet.  

let’s address these separately.  

1) oh hey, i’m doing that thing where i write about you on my blog and don’t respond to your virtual face again.  man.  you just never catch a fucking break, huh?

this is not about you.  my blog is about me.  it’s my personal blog about my experiences with online dating.  i write it to entertain myself and, hopefully, my friends who live far away from me.  i have never claimed to be objective or fair, or nice, for that matter.  my taking time to think about a response and posting it to my blog doesn’t actually affect you because making it to the blog means i had already decided not to respond to you.  it’s not as if the time and effort i put into the blog post took away from time i would have spent writing back to you.  

i was never going to write back to you.  

i’m proud of you that you’re so fancy that you’ve invented a specific phrase that you use in every message so that you can google its occurrence on the internet, but i still don’t fucking care.  you built into your message a way for you to find my blog, as well as any other time someone took to the internet with your magic phrasing.  i think that you got what you deserved.  you went out looking for what people wrote about you, and now are upset that someone has written about you.  i didn’t link to your profile.  i included no identifying information.  i didn’t expose you in any way.  you found yourself, but unless all your acquaintances are intimately familiar with your message syntax, you would be anonymous even if they all read my blog, which i guarantee you, they do not. i am basically a non-thing on the internet.  most of MY friends don’t read this blog.  

2) not being terrible is not something that deserves a reward.  congratulations that you are able to contact people and move through the world without being completely disgusting.  you are now a regular person.  i take issue with you claiming that wanting a negative response from someone who isn’t interested makes you silly or idealistic.  that is some bullshit.  what it makes you is entitled and demanding.  you think that behaving in a manner that isn’t terrible earns you special treatment.  

not being terrible is not a good reason to get a response from me.  you say that we should all reply to everyone who writes to us full sentences and a modicum of clarity, even if the reply to to say, “sorry, no thanks.”  i completely disagree.  it’s a fucking dating site.  part of the point is that we all get avoid having to experience that rejection in person.  i think we should contact and respond to people who strike our fancies.  i neither want to hear from someone that they’re not interested nor want to send out those messages.  

you seem to suffer from that delusion of many guys who consider themselves “nice guys.”  a lot of you think that just not being terrible is a fucking virtue.  no.  not being terrible is neutral.  it should be the goddamn default.  it makes me so fucking angry that you feel entitled to a response from me, or fucking anyone, just because you’re not terrible.  being polite, expressing yourself without vulgarities or overt misogyny, using appropriate punctuation: these are all NORMAL FUCKING BEHAVIOURS.  they do not make you especially worthy of my attention.  

here’s what make a guy worthy of my attention: i find him attractive and interesting.  period.  

if he feels the same about me, then it’s game-on.  if not, it’s nothing.  

even knowing that you’re a google-pro, i’m going to excerpt from your message because this particular bit makes me furious, and i don’t want to dilute the effect by paraphrasing.  

I messaged you because we’re a 96% match, and that’s tended to actually hold weight in my experience. Reading your profile it seemed like we’d get along (although after reading your blog, admittedly, I’m not so sure anymore), and I find what you do to be really awesome. I find you quite attractive, as I mentioned previously, and I would’ve been overjoyed to take you out. I was/am/whatever also looking for something fairly casual, as life can be busy, so I figured that’d work out just swell if we could be each others’ “every now and then we hang out and be nerdy and bang”-people.

let me tell you a story.  it’s a story that involves a guy.  a ridiculously attractive guy, who—because of links he posted in his profile (i am not a stalker.)—i discovered was also funny, talented, and didn’t just have a good headshot but was actually super hot.  he was tall and seemed like the kind of boy who wears skinny jeans.  oh, and he had this goddamned hair.  i have a special weakness for great hair on a guy.  i love that messy wonderful look that all the boys were doing about 10 years ago.  (yes, i am fucking old.)

anyway.  i read this guy’s profile, watched the short video posted on his website—again, which he had linked.  i am not that crazy—, looked at his blog, found him super attractive, thought we would get along and were interested in similar things in regards to dating.  so i wrote to him.  he wrote back asking what exactly i was looking for on okcupid.  apparently my answer wasn’t the right answer for whatever reason, and i didn’t hear from him again.  

here’s the difference between me and you, i don’t feel entitled to a response from him just because i thought that we’d have a good time together.  i don’t think he needs to explain why he isn’t interested or even inform me that he isn’t interested.  the only thing that matters is that, despite what i thought about us potentially having a great time together, he didn’t feel the same way.  just because i would have been “overjoyed” to hook up with this guy doesn’t make a bit of fucking difference.  my thinking he’s beautiful and has pretty much the best haircut that exists in the world doesn’t fucking matter.  all that matters is that it was not mutual.  that’s where it ends.  

(although, clearly i have reserved the right to wax rhapsodic about his fucking great hair and pretty, pretty face on my blog.  feel free to write whatever you want about me, wherever you please as long as you return the courtesy of anonymity.)

i don’t give a fuck how attractive you found me.  i don’t give a fuck how well you thought we’d get on.  i don’t give a fuck how perfectly you thought our dating ideas aligned.  i don’t give a fuck how overjoyed you would have been to take me out.  whatever perfect picture you had in your head doesn’t matter.   none of it matters because i was not interested in you.   that is the only relevant fact.   

forgive me for expecting people to write in full sentences, use correct punctuation, and not start off a message with a request for obscure/mythological sex acts.  perhaps i am the idealistic one.  what you think deserves special consideration, i think is the bare minimum.  i am not impressed by your full sentences or clarity of expression.  

i refuse to set the bar so fucking low.  

my goodness.  it’s has been fucking forever since i wrote one of these.  i have so many terrible messages to fake-answer.  

let’s get down to it, shall we?

—

Hey my name is [redacted] and I m from Rome Italy.
Would like to take you out for good dinner and good drinks and tons of laughing!
Let me know
Ciao 

now, look here, [redacted].  you are 42 years old.  that is so many years, sir!  i’m having a hard time getting past how fucking old you are.  do you know how long it took me to see guys in their mid-30s as not too fucking old to go out with?  it took awhile and a ton of mental effort.  

plus, i’m not into the douchey mediterranean guy thing.  like, at all.  sure, maybe you are the outlier.  maybe you are the cool, open-minded, not misogynist, not creepy and gross, middle-aged italian man.  

but, come on, you aren’t that guy.  you’re a gross old man who writes to young-ish ladies on the internet and says that you want to take me out for dinner and drinks and laughter, but your profile is a shirtless picture of you and you have sex listed three times in the “Six Things I Can’t Live Without” section.  

-dstar

—

I have something fun in mind if you’re down for an adventure. Let’s go to a park sometime and I’ll give your body some discrete pleasure.

nope.  

i am not down with that.  i do not at all want to have public sex with a stranger.

oh, i’m sorry not public sex, “discrete pleasure.”  

still not into it.  

what the fuck is wrong with you?  there is nothing in my profile that indicates that this is an offer i’d appreciate.  yes, i do indicate that casual sex is something i’m interested in.  acknowledging that i like sex does not equate to asking for weird offers from strangers to fuck me publicly!  

do you even see that these are two entirely different things?  

your bullshit makes me super angry, in case i wasn’t clear enough above.  the attitude that enjoying consensual sex must mean that i’m up for anything, anywhere.  this is the same attitude that equates buying dinner or drinks into somehow being owed sex.  or that anything other than explicitly saying or indicating that i want to have sex with you ever means that i want to have sex with you.  because that’s how it fucking works, you piece of shit.  it would only ever be okay to propose what you did if i had communicated to you that i would be cool with that.  

now i’m not saying it needs to be some draconian code that requires you to ask my permission for every fucking thing, but jesus christ.  i don’t say anything in my profile about being an exhibitionist, or, i don’t even fucking know!  because i am not seeking out this kind of offer!  so i’ve never much thought about how to invite it.  though clearly, i needn’t have worried because there will always be some fucking guy who thinks you want to get raped have some discrete pleasure in a park.  

-dstar

—

Where do you go to listen to live music? I would love to visit a place like that with someone who knows a lot about it. ^^ 

hey,

here’s the thing.  i don’t take dates to concerts anymore.  it’s just such a bummer.  the last time i did that was a few weeks ago, and i realized it’s just bad news.  my date was weird and awkward with my concert friend.  and all i wanted to do was giggle and dance with my concert friend, but i had a date with me.  so that would have been rude.  long story short-ish, i resolved to not mix music and dates ever again.  

also, i’m not your fucking cruise director.  i know i’ve said this before, but i’m not really into being the indie colour in someone’s life.  i don’t actually think you would enjoy going to a show with me.  if going to shows was something you enjoyed, you’d already be doing it.  it’s crowded, noisy, and the floors are sticky with beer.  people will shove their way past you toward the front all night.  sometimes the bands are not as good as you had hoped.  inevitably, some 6’ tall guy will stand right in front of me.  your feet will hurt, and i will not want to go sit down to give you a break.  sitting at shows is for fucking squares and old people.  

sorry, dude.  

-dstar

—

I liked your profile and wanted to say hello. Just out of curiosity, what’s your beef with Mastodon?

hello!

i am glad you asked.  

mastadon totally earned my undying hatred.  though if we’re being entirely fair, i hate them a little less than i hate the mother fucker who curated the line-up at the pitchfork music festival 2007 and put them on after iron & wine.  who thought that would be a good idea?

picture this:

my little sister and i went to the pitchfork music festival in 2007 about 5 days after we buried our oldest brother.  it’s not so much that we necessarily wanted to go, so much as we had the tickets and it felt like eddie would have wanted us to go.  he was super into music.  i had spent the previous week barely eating and not sleeping.  that weekend i learned that it is, in fact, just as easy to be miserable surrounded by a bunch of people, listening to your favourite bands play live, as it is lying on your couch at home.  well, i found it to be just as easy.  perhaps others would have been uplifted by the experience.

after half a day of trying to enjoy the festival in earnest, my sister and i lay down on a blanket to listen to iron & wine’s set.  it was fucking beautiful.  the band was great.  the sun was shining down on us.  and we fell asleep to sam beam’s lovely voice.  this is possibly the most pleasant way to fall asleep.  

the next thing i knew there were thundering drums and screaming guitars.  waking up from a lovely sunshine/iron & wine nap to the sounds of mastadon is definitely the most unpleasant way to be awakened.  and for that i will hate them until i die.   they ruined the first nice moment i experienced after a terrible week that was filled with pain and grief.  i don’t like metal on a good day.  and i super fucking hated it that day.  

-dstar

—

i feel like i should stop, guys.  this has been way heavier than i intended and not up to my usual standard of snark.  i guess bringing dead brothers up always kills the general sense of fun.  

i’ll try to write a more fun installment later in the week.  

you know the rules.  comments here, please.  fuck facebook.  

well, well, well.  there’s nothing like checking the box marked “casual sex” to make the messages just flow into my inbox.  luckily for us, most of them are terrible.  

let’s get right to the fun, kids!

—

Hi, hoping you had a good week.

I am hoping to find someone someone who is older, who can understand my sadness and can have some compassion. A teacher who is willing to teach me how to how fun and show me different things.

Let me know if you want to find out more, I hope you reply.

I am just a simple, honest, sweet guy looking for someone to have fun with at the same time share respect.

dear asshole,

what the fuck, dude?  i am only 3 fucking years older than you.  

let’s add to that the fact that, yes, i am turning 30 in a little over a year.  do you know what people approaching 30 do not like hearing?  that they’re considered enough older than someone to be a mrs. robinson.  i have no idea what in my profile gave you any indication that i would have interest in filling this role for you.  for real, i just re-read my profile right now, and i fail to see why you thought this was a good idea.   

rather than understand your sadness and show some compassion, i’m going to make fun of you on the internet.  i just can’t believe that this tactic of calling ladies old and then asking them to be nice to you works very well.  who the fuck wants to be nice to someone who implies she is old enough to have some fucking wisdom to share with you?  i certainly don’t.  your profile is full of references to how happy and optimistic and smiley you are.  so is this sadness something you invented to evoke compassion from old ladies, or is your profile you trying to put on a happy face because no one wants to date a depressed douchebag?

here’s a pro-tip: if you want someone to help you learn how to fuck better and how to please ladies (or at least that particular lady.  you do understand that we don’t all like the same sex-things, right?), DO NOT CALL HER OLD.

-dstar

—

Turquoise hair girl,

I find you rather charming and infectious .
Love your love for indie rock music, love your art. Love your tendency o actually get to know people after the Internet acquaintance .
You indeed have some of the purest profiles that I’ve seen here on OKC.

Eager to read from you……. 

dear hat-wearing sir,

i am sure you are eager to read from me.  i bet you didn’t expect it to be on my blog instead of a direct reply to your message, but such is life.  you’ll get over it.  

i’m sorry to hear that you find me infectious.  i will contact the CDC directly, and let them know there’s another one to put into quarantine.  i really do hate it when this happens, but you know how it goes.  i don’t want to be put into quarantine, and i am basically willing to let the entire population suffer as a result.  it is, in fact, my ability to write such a pure profile that keeps me from having to surrender myself to the state for everyone’s protection.  that’s right, there are so few awesome ladies out there making okcupid profiles that the president issued an executive order to let us continue to operate despite the serious human toll caused by our remaining at large.  i probably shouldn’t be writing about this on my blog, but i’m pretty sure that personal blogs were excluded from the NDA i had to sign.  (i’m really great at negotiating contracts.)

let’s clear up one of your accusations though.  i don’t have a tendency to get to know people after an internet acquaintance.  1) that is a really weird way to rephrase my statement that i prefer getting acquainted in person.  2) it’s hardly a tendency.  please refer to the people who write to me who do not get to meet me.  there are currently over 80 messages in my inbox on okcupid that i have received in the past 3 months.  i have gone out with 5 of those guys.  i think the number speak for themselves.  3) what makes you think you have any right to point out any alleged tendencies of mine?  you don’t know me.  you read a carefully edited profile that i posted to an internet dating site.  that is the total of your knowledge of me.  you have no basis for this judgment.  this is extremely irritating and presumptuous.  just like i hate it when guys try to mansplain things to me, i fucking hate it when they presume to have some unfounded insight about me.  

yeah, sure, you didn’t mean it that way, and i’m being an over-sensitive bitch.  but you know what?  i don’t care.  it’s one of the benefits of being such a bitch.  

-dstar

—

What’s up sexy how are you lets talk sexy

hey douche,

not much, douche.  i’m fine, douche.  let’s not, douche.

what have i said about denying me punctuation?  i fucking love punctuation.  i even added a bit to my profile about how i get messages lacking punctuation and then mock them on my blog.  what this says to me is that you fucking douchebags never learn.  

i get it.  we ALL get it.  i’m like super, super pretty.  that is not a reason to just dash off a terrible message after only glancing at my pictures.  not that my saying this matters at all.  clearly.   i have said it here.  i have said it on my profile.  i could tattoo it backwards on the foreheads of all you morons so you see it every time you pass a reflective surface, and still i would get these messages.  every fucking douchebag either doesn’t bother to read my profile or thinks my insistence on grammar and spelling doesn’t apply to them.  

it does.  

it totally does.

-dstar

—

Hiiii I’m the type of guy that likes an intriguing woman ur very cute read the profile I like wat overall hit me with a message if you like aswell

 aw, come the fuck on, man!  this is basically word salad. 

bullshit you read my profile.  i refuse to believe it.  you cannot have read my profile and thought coming at me with this jumble of nonsense was a good idea.  

exactly what is so intriguing about me?  that i am so clearly head and shoulders above you in IQ points?  that i used big words you didn’t understand in my profile?  that i can manage to spell basic words like “what” correctly?  let’s be real: it can’t have been my reference to the oxford comma.  or maybe you googled oxford comma and then were super intrigued that i understood the concept enough to make a joke about it?  

seriously, dude.  what the fuck?

-dstar

—

hi,
i really liked ur profile and would luv to get to know u. so, if u r interested and don’t mind a indian guy then do drop me a line.
also, my correct age is 34 but the site won’t let me change it now.
bye!

dear sir,

i’m actually a little offended that you felt the need to drop in the comment about how i should write back if i am interested and don’t mind an indian guy.  what the fuck, man?  way to basically say i am a racist if i don’t want to go out with you.  

let’s go over the reasons why i am not interested in you:

1) you fucking live in new jersey.  nothing against new jersey, but it’s fucking far away.  do you have any understanding on just how far brooklyn is from new jersey?  i have good friends who live in new jersey and refuse to come to brooklyn unless absolutely necessary.  besides, i barely like to date outside my neighborhood.  i am certainly not going to date someone who is in another state.
2) we are a very, very poor match.  i don’t know why people are so quick to disregard okcupid’s matching algorithm.  i don’t think someone needs to be a near-100% match for things to work, but if we are less than 80%, it indicates to me a bad match in terms of values, goals, experiences, expectations, desires, and so on.  also, based on your profile we have nothing in common.  our careers, interests, activities, and tastes are so totally different.  
3) the spelling.  oh, the spelling.  if there is one thing i fucking despise, it is fucking webspeak.  ur is the capital of ancient mesopotamia.  love is spelled with an ‘o’ and an ‘e’ with nary a ‘u’ in sight.  
4) you implied i am a racist.  unfortunately for you, i am confident enough in my non-racist status that this implication will not make me go out with you just to prove you wrong.   

-dstar

—

that’s all for this time!  don’t worry.  there seems to be no end of weirdos/creeps/misguided fellows sending me messages.  i’ll probably be back next week with another installment.  

you should leave comments, right here on my blog instead of on facebook.  in fact, you can now log in to disqus with your facebook account and not have to create a whole new account just to comment.  

exciting, yeah?  

well, well, i seem to be accumulating bad messages like it’s my job.  

you know the rules.  i mock the terrible, sometimes incomprehensible, sometimes insulting, sometimes insane messages sent to me by (possibly?) perfectly nice guys on okcupid in whom i have zero interest.  all identities are protected. 

hit me, guys.

—

I passed by your page, I haven’t read your information yet, but I was very interested to tlook into your pictures. I love your hair, and smile. I’d really like to get to know you. Hope to gear from you. And till then ill read your page :-)

dear wayward sir,

i get this a lot, both the typos and the composition of a message before actually reading my profile because i’m just too damn pretty.  what i love about you, sir, is that you just come right out and say it.  you don’t have time to read my words because my lovely face is just too distracting!  now i’m going to be real with you here, i foresee this being a problem.  i’m pretty much always going to be this lovely.  (looks don’t fade, right?  i’m pretty sure that’s the expression.)  i need a guy who can see my pretty face AND pay attention to the words i’m saying. 

i know what you’re going to say.  you were just so caught up with my beauty that you couldn’t focus on my words until you had written me a message full of misspellings and distressing punctuation.  then you were free to read what it was that i had to say about myself, but you didn’t really read my page, did you?  you just sat there, staring at my smile and hoping to gear from me. 

-dstar

—

Well for sure, real life is better than the interweb! So I thought I’d drop a line and say hi and maybe if I’m lucky, we can do some real life stuff. I’m [redacted], by the way… i design web sites and make music and some people say that I’m cool. I think I agree with them, but I’ll let you decide where you stand on that issue. Anyhow, I’d love to talk more and see where things lead you seem like a pretty awesome chick.

-[initial]

dear [redacted],

other than some questionable punctuation, you write a decent okcupid message. 

here’s the thing though, i am not going to date a guy with the most appalling goatee i’ve ever seen.  it’s just never going to happen.  i guess it was the turquoise streak in my hair that made you think that i’d go out with someone who is pierced, tattooed, and in possession of my least favourite form of facial hair. i understand the confusion.  i am so obviously alt.  it can be confusing for some of you large, tattooed, pierced, terribly facial-haired folks.

also,  you have a child. 

i’m looking for something with a bit of possible future potential.  and my future involves zero children.  not mine.  and definitely not yours.  i’ll consider it a victory against the baby-hating darkness inside me if i am able to be sweet to the future children of my dear friends.  you are not a dear friend.  and you have indiscriminate taste in music.  that’s just gross. 

-dstar

—

i am a libra also. i love to laugh and i am a music addict. lets talk more. hey love your smile ms. colgate.

hello,

i feel like you may have had some copy/paste issues while trying to compose the perfect message.  for example, most people would have opened with the greeting instead of closing with it, but i get it.  you’re not like other people.  you’re a rebel who is turning letter composition on its head.  no longer will we live in a world where we follow the strict dictates of greeting, intro, body, conclusion, sign off.  with you leading the way we will write letters in any manner we please.  opening with the conclusion, signing off with the body of the message.  the old rules no longer apply!  you have liberated us all! 

thanks,

dstar

p.s.  i use tom’s of maine wholecare spearmint gel, not colgate. 

—

Hi My name is [redacted]. I am 27 turning 28 in a week. I live in Queens. I saw your profile on the main page and knew I had to chat with you. I also like looking at your photos. You have a beautiful smile and I like the light blue streaks. The reason why I like your profile is because you are a hard worker, and seem to have fun in whatever you do. I work in college sports as the Sports Information Director at a local college. My job consists of writing articles, maintaining the athletic website, record and edit games, and input stats. I enjoy going to the museums, from Natural History to Modern Art. I never been to the Cloisters but I would love to go. I listen to all kinds of music and more. I think you have a great job, and its rewarding because you love what your doing. I would love to chat with you and get to know you.

not receiving a response, he sent this a day later:

Hi How are you. I liked the website you posted. I was playing with it earlier. Hope we can chat if you want.

hey [redacted],

whoa, now.  calm down a bit, dude.  first of all, when someone doesn’t respond to you, the best course of action is not to send another message.  believe me, i have been there. yeah, yeah, i’m pretty, and i have cool hair, but we don’t actually have anything in common.  like, at all.  we are a 47% match.  that means in addition to me just looking at your profile and quickly determining would get along terribly, we share almost none of the same values and experiences according to the matching algorithm. 

secondly, too much fucking information.  it’s a message on okcupid, not your resume. 

thirdly, really?  you like “all kinds of music  and more”?????? [emphasis mine]  what the fuck does that even mean?  there is no more than all.  it’s like taking infinity to the second power.  it’s still infinity.  i’m pretty sure that’s some lame attempt in trying to convey to me that you would gladly accompany me on my music-going excusions desipite the fact that we actually do not have similar tastes, but i don’t want a boyfriend who humours my taste in music.  i’d like one who shares it.  and you, [redacted], don’t. 

fourthly, you have a weird idea of how to flatter a girl.  you like my profile because i’m a hard worker?  perhaps you like my sturdy build and child-bearing hips as well?  what the fuck, dude? 

-dstar

—

Hey beautiful I’m [redacted] and I would like for u to text me tonight my number is [redacted].

hey [redacted],

i love the way you just started issuing orders to me over the internet.  if there is one thing i LOVE above all other things, it’s being told what to do by strange men.  i’m pretty sure you would not like it if i texted you because i am 100% positive i have nothing nice to say to you. 

how about this instead?  i won’t publish your phone number on my blog, and you go fuck yourself.  that makes us about even, yeah?

-dstar

—

that’s all we have for today.  at least there no one has tried to mansplain the internet to me lately. 

maybe next week i’ll tell you the one the guy who doesn’t like fat girls but was inexplicably drawn to my profile. i’m apparently so impressive that he’s possibly willing to overlook my enormity, but most likely just wants to be friends. 

what the fuck, universe. 

all i want is someone tall, handsome and awesome, wearing the skinniest jeans possible, who has a handle on his life and goals for the future, has a high sex-drive and is totally into me.  and is possibly a musician.  or an artist. 

is that really so much to ask?

welcome to the second installment of let’s answer that!  if you read the first installment, you know the rules, but i’ll reiterate for any new comers. on the suggestion of my best gat0rz aka hillary, i will answer okcupid messages that i do not reply to on the site.  uninteresting messages in the vein of “hey baby, want to chat?” are dismissed.  they are lame, and thus are left unanswered, both in the world of okcupid and here in my world of dstar’s dating adventures. 

alright, boys, bring on the messages!

—

Hey whats,good how,are you would u like to chat sumtime

yikes!  where to begin, sir?  i can’t tell if i love the misspelling or the erratic punctuation less.  though it’s perhaps the nonsense aspect of this i love the best.  it’s like an abstract word picture of an okcupid message.  perhaps you are a huge e.e. cummings fan.

Hey whats

         good how

                       are you

                                  would u like to

               chat                                                          

                     sumtime

[hahaha.  actually, if he had written it like that (but properly spelled) i might have been intrigued.]

—

Awesome hair beautiful smile super attractive

okay. 

granted, this is all complementary, but come the fuck on, guy!  it is literally just a string of adjectives and nouns!  verbs are awesome!  don’t deny me verbs. 

-dstar

—

In short version I like your swag. You curse say what comes to mind thats infiltered awesome.  My names Jason. I love your hair and you got a good happy smile.

Id like to take you to fatcats sometime , shoot pool and listen to some live music they tend to have jazz but depending what night it could be any music.

Warning though: yes I live in the bx but I travel into manhattan all the time. 2 I tend to say things that just pop into my head without regard to anything and I woukdnt have me any other way.

awww, you like my swag. 

punctuation, sir!  it is important!  it extremely important to me, anyway.  i just want to take a red pen and mark all over it and send it back to you.  it is so upsetting to me that you read my profile and sent off this message, genuinely thinking that i would respond positively to your missive.  is it because you don’t know you’re stupid? 

this is the kind of message that can send me into a spiral of self-doubt.  i get a message like this, full of poor grammar and spelling, and i take it as a judgment against me.  surely, i must come across as stupid and undiscerning if you really thought you could write me such garbage, and i’d take it seriously. 

sure, you’d like to take me to club that plays jazz.  come on, dude.  do i look like a fucking jazz fan?  more than that, do i say anywhere in my profile i’m into jazz, live or otherwise?  no.  i list bands i like and the kinds of venues i like to go to.  it’s actually really fucking irritating to say a thing you like and have the response be, “oh, so you must love this totally unrelated thing!”  no.  i do not. 

and those fucking warnings. here’s what i say to that: 1) fuck the bronx.  it means nothing to me that you’re in manhattan all the time.  fuck manhattan, too, while we’re at it.  i live in brooklyn.  i don’t want to date someone who is effectively in another town. i’ve joined the slow dating movement.  i try not to date outside my neighborhood if i can help it.  2)it is not a virtue to have no filter.  take it from me.  you want to channel that garbage into a more constuctive outlet. 

might i suggest a blog? 

dstar

—

A Generalized Missive
On behalf of those men who are not sexist, not embittered, nor callous, nor shallow, nor simply all-out face-in-the-wall insane, who try not to be boring or superficial or scary or twenty-to-thirty years your senior.
On behalf of those who don’t speak in all-caps, or single word responses, or hateful screed, or think negging is an appropriate way of communicating with a person.
On behalf of all those blokes who try to be just normal respectful people who don’t think women are some alien mystery to be prodded at with a stick while wearing armor.
I, and no doubt the rest of us, would like to simply apologize for the actions of our callous, bitter, rude and overly excitable brethren.
It is my hope that it won’t turn you off from OKCupid, or internet dating, or hell the internet in general. The web’s a giant, flabbergasting place and though the haystack may be bigger (and in some places, smellier), there are way more and way shinier needles to be found.

I personally know the menfolk on OKC can be a vicious, loutish and brutish bunch. If this hasn’t been your experience, then hey, that’s awesome - whatever it is you’re doing, you must be doing something right. But the amount of stories I hear from the chronically filled inboxes of my friends are…well, they’re pretty bad.
So, again. Sorry about that.

That is all. Have a nice day

oh, you. 

well, fuck you, for a start.  i hate this kind of bullshit.  it’s the kind of bullshit that “nice guys,” like yourself, put out there to try and make girls think that you are not just as bad as the guys who write a short and sweet, “UR HOTT WANT TO FUCK????”

but you are just as bad.  

first of all, a fucking form letter?  really?  do you really think that makes you better than someone writing me an overtly sexist message full of bad punctuation and spelling?  i mean, you obviously do, since you apologize for those other guys.  you have no right to apologize for what other people do.  this is a ploy to try and make me think that you are above such boorish behaviour.  and yet, you clearly think that an appropriate first interaction with a me is to treat me like an idiot. 

second of all, your letter is just as sexist as those for whom you claim to be apologizing.  it is arrogant and condescending.  you hope other guys won’t put me off the internet IN GENERAL? 

you actually wrote that. 

like a couple of stupid messages from lame people would have me cancelling my time-warner account?????  as if even a hundred offensive messages from losers would literally turn me off of the internet forever.  fuck you so god-damned much.  your bullshit actually makes me angrier than messages from stupid guys whose dicks get in the way of writing a thoughtful message. 

you fucking tried to mansplain the internet to me. fuuuuuuuuck you. 

and the cherry on this giant pile of dickishness is the fact that you (let’s be charitable) inadvertently blame the “victims” who receive offensive okcupid messages. 

”If this hasn’t been your experience, then hey, that’s awesome - whatever it is you’re doing, you must be doing something right.”

which means that if this is a girl’s experience, she must be doing something wrong.  this bullshit fills me with righteous anger.  that kind of language/attitude is a large part of what is wrong with our culture at the moment.  if men treat you poorly, you must be doing something to provoke it.  nope.  some people are just douchebags. 

you are a douchebag.  you think you are better than other douchebags, but you are just another variety of douchebag.  in some ways, i think you are worse because you genuinely believe you are a good guy, that form letters like this are some kind of service to the ladies of okcupid.  i am perfectly capable of navigating the tricky waters of the internet without someone like yourself to protect me from all the scary men out there. 

please, go fuck yourself. 

dstar

—

Hello,how are you doing?are you single?? I would like to know more about you?? Tell me about yourself and what you are looking for??

hey you!

i noticed that we are a whole 38% match!  you must think i’m super hot to completely ignore that tab that said “y’all got issues” and message me anyway.  i’m quite flattered, frankly.  

perhaps that’s why you used to many question marks.  you’re not sure if you’d like to know more about me because okcupid’s algorithm is insistent that we are pretty much diametrically opposed in our views on, well, everything, but i’m just SO pretty.  if i just tell you what i want?  then maybe you can transform yourself into that?  then we’d be, like, a 100% match? who needs someone with common interests and views when you can just date someone with my pretty smile and winning personality? 

i’m so glad you found me.  i’ve always wanted a guy who is willing to throw around question marks like he’s made of them.  wait a second, are you the riddler?  omg.  have i caught myself a super-villian of my very own?!?!  (made of question marks, covered in questions marks.  same dif.) this is basically why i opened this okcupid account!  i mean, i was willing to go for either super-hero or super-villian, but a girl will take what she can get. 

love always,

dstar

—

that’s all for now, kids!  to the boys of okcupid, i know you’ll keep the gems coming.  thanks in advance.  let’s keep the mansplaining to a minimum though, okay?