Posts tagged punctuation

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.

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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

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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

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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. 

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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

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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

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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!

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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.]

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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?