Strongly Worded

An Open Letter to Men Pursuing Online Love

So I'm still healing from my breakup with my former boyfriend. It has been almost four months now, and I am not completely opposed to the idea of pursuing romance anew. Thus, I have been doing some very noncommital online browsing, and would like to take this opportunity to write:

An Open Letter to Men Pursuing Online Love

Dear Men,
If you are seeking a mate via the Internet, and have received a lackluster response, it might be because you've committed one of the CARDINAL ERRORS OF ONLINE DATING POSTS, outlined herein, with actual true-life examples.

1) Expressing Anger/Social Ineptitude
Contrary to what many male e-daters seem to think, women do not find it compelling to read about your frustration with dating, your boredom, or your loneliness. The subject line “JESUS CHRIST I AM SO F***ING BORED!!!” followed by the admission that “I am stuck at work with absolutely zero to do. I can feel my intellect starting to wane. It feels like it's being pulled out of the back of my skull with a rusty fork. I'm not above begging for entertainment” is not funny, or cute, it’s just unbecoming. Everyone gets lonely and bored sometimes, but it’s not attractive to flaunt it. Much better to come across as playful and inviting i.e. “would love to engage in stimulating email exchange with wise and witty lady” or something like that.

2) Expressing Astonishment
SO many ads start with “I never thought I’d do this” or “just giving this a whirl”. I think we can take it as a given that NONE of us came out of the womb expecting to place a personal ad on the web. We know you didn’t plan on posting the ad, just as much as we didn’t plan on reading it. OK, so now that we’ve got that established, we can move on.

3) Being vague/cryptic
A sampling of recent “headlines”: Mellow weekend - Winter Warmer-
420 and a flick - Feeling spontaneous? - 420 right here - tonight! - Shanghai Slippery Mangosteen Surprise.

As we all acknowledge, we all scroll through hundreds of posts. Usually we’re looking for something specific in a GUY. So we’ll click if we see something we like about YOU, not the weather, not the weekend, not 420, not the bar or movie you want to check out, definitely not Shanghai Sliperry Mangosteen Surprise.

4) Expressing an "ism"
Everyone has a physical “type” and it’s fine to say so if you’re only attracted to thin/tattoed/big-breasted/red-headed women. It’s NOT fine to be abusive to people who may not fall into one of those categories, aka “If your 'big boned' or large, dont reply, I do not believe in the obesity gene... I think its just lazy to be fat” [sic]. The guy who posted that (besides having no grasp of apostrophes) has alienated not only heavy women but all women who value respectfulness and kindness.

5) Abandoning principles of grammar/spelling
If you can’t take the time to carefully check over your post, it bodes poorly on your ability to check over your physical appearance/hygiene/etc. Lots of us really care about this stuff! It’s worth running it through the spell check.

Hope this is helpful! Good luck! See you in cyberspace (once I've fully healed, of course)!

Posted by Dori at 9:44 PM