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monkey times blog
Open Letter to Women Considering Using Internet Dating Sites
Nigel Parry, Sunday, July 9th, 2006
A couple of my friends use Internet dating sites, which had always instinctively sounded like a bad idea, until one friend* met his wife on one and started pumping out children like his sperm was about to expire.
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*The friend would be Ken, seen here reacting to reading the first paragraph, and accompanied by the first fruit of his loins, Rio. In defiance of all recommendations below, Ken's screen name that bagged the breeding babe was "sheeplover", which he chose, in his words, "to weed out the people who would be easily offended."
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Last year, my friend Maysoon wrote a couple of laugh-out-loud funny columns about love and dating, linked at the bottom of this page. As I was updating her website the other day, I came across them and was inspired — particularly with current events in Gaza — to focus on something a little lighter.
In December, I joined an Internet dating site to see what the fuss was all about, only to have real life toss someone across my path — literally the very next day — that completely torpedoed the idea. Nonetheless, it seems a waste of that $19.95 not to share what I learned in those first, heady 24 hours, with women seriously considering trying Internet dating.
General advice
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Yahoo Personals, for people who want to date people who don't know Google exists.
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Lady, you are clearly hot, smart, rich and funny. Why therefore are you on an Internet dating site when you live in a city of 9 million people? Either you are spending too much time "relaxing and watching TV", as the "for fun" part of your profile states — and never venturing outside your front door — or there is something very disturbing that you are not telling us.
Girl, you are an actress for whom "acting is the most important thing in my life", your bio is well-written and hysterically funny, you are a total babe, yet you state that you are "looking for an actor". Does this mean that you are a crap actress, who never gets any work that puts you in contact with actors?
Sister, you are living in New York City and your profile states that you earn under $15,000 a year. Will you ever consider that being a "poet" is not the best career choice for you?
Honey, you are a white South African who, from your the dates you give in your profile, clearly lived in the country during Apartheid. While it was forthright of you to specify that you only want to date a caucasian, perhaps you might add "racist" to the list of qualities you are looking for in your mate.
Your screen name
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Hope for the old folks, courtesy of eHarmony.com, whose founder looks a lot like Colonel Sanders on the TV ads, but without the beard.
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It is definitely not a good idea to have the word "princess" or "bitch" in your screen name. "Bitch" I shouldn't need to explain, but if you really want to go the "princess" route, why not go for total honesty and just call yourself "highmaintenance1483"?
Similarly, any screen name that includes the word "cute", "sexy", "babe", or "hot" should be avoided. That's what the photographs are for, assuming they were not taken five years ago, before you gained 80 pounds.
Any screen name that is centered around your five cats is a no-no. If that is indeed the most defining part of your personality, you have a public relations problem that no profile, no matter how creatively written, and no photos, no matter how cute you are, can fix.
Any screen name with the word "angel" or "sweet" or "halo" in it will probably not communicate what you were intending if the images accompanying your profile are borderline pornographic.
Larger ladies should probably avoid screen names including the word "kitten". Or "hippo", for that matter.
"arsenicgumdrop", "pettydemon", "conflict02", and "URfuture_exwife" — all actual screen names — should be discarded for reasons one should not have to explain.
If your screen name includes your age and the word "catch", be sure that your profile age is not several years older. This communicates that in the several years you apparently have needed to remain on the site, many have discovered you were anything but.
Your photographs
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Chemistry.com, for a creepy scientology-like test that figures out your personality characteristics on a number of levels that you didn't know even existed.
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While I understand that not everyone is a whiz at Photoshop, seeing you standing in a group shot with some guy's tongue in your ear, or with a series of several obvious ex-boyfriends in every single one of your sixteen photos, is not advisable. Find some image manipulation software with a crop tool. Do not, I repeat, do not, leave him in the picture and paint over his face with an angry black paintbrush. This comes off as a little creepy.
In that photo of you in bed, clealy naked but tastefully covered up, you seem to have forgotten to crop out what appears to be two male feet. Both are the right foot.
When uploading images of you in some bar with some of your girlfriends, make sure that every single one of them isn't way hotter than you. It really sucks, on Internet dating sites, to get e-mails asking, "Who is your friend?"
When uploading picture of your pet, see above.
Do not, I repeat, do not, make 4 out of 5 of the pictures you uploaded be of your pet. While it's always good to let someone know you have a pet — in case they are allergic or simply don't like animals — try to avoid any photos of your pet in which a jar of peanut butter is visible. You may be lonely, and that's totally okay, but it is never a good idea communicate that your level of desperation has driven you to bestiality.
That picture of you sitting in the very short skirt with a small black kitten on your lap is really unfortunate. Or perhaps it really isn't a kitten. Either way... really unfortunate.
Wow, there are photos of you in Africa, Mexico, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and New York City! You like that orange shirt with the flowers on it a lot, don't you?
If your profile claims that "I'm the type of girl who is always smiling", those five shots of you glaring at the camera are probably sending a contradictory message.
"seekingmy1truelove", 23, who "attends church regularly" — that picture of you and your three friends in the sailor uniforms at Daytona on Spring Break is really something.
Are 9 out of 10 of the photos you uploaded telling me you like your cellphone a lot?
In that picture of you with New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani, was he really clutching your breast? This angle will probably only appeal to a small number of men.
Next time, wait until the cold sore goes away.
You "look like Ana Kournikova" like I look like Ana Kournikova.
Do you really expect me to believe that you are 23 or — in which case I am sorry — are you merely dyslexic?
Dude, you clicked the wrong gender when you filled out the sign-up form. This is most likely why you are only getting mail from bisexual men.
Your profile
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Craigslist.org personals. Ranging from cheapskates who don't want to pay $20 a month but "seek true love" to the two 24-year-old chicks who'll blow you tonight if you only jump on a subway and bring them some weed.
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If you are truly a "social drinker, maybe one or two", why do all of your eight photographs depict you with a drink in your hand, looking hammered?
If you are in fact 20 years of age, please note that having "seeking men 18-55 within 1,000 miles of New York" sends out the message that anyone will do. If that is indeed the case, which is totally okay, you may want to try heading for Kinkos, jumping on the subway, and leafleting Times Square with photocopies of your profile, thus saving yourself the monthly fee you pay to the Internet dating site.
If you only have 2000 characters, you probably want to stick to the important parts. Devoting 75% of your narrative to saying "I don't know what to say" in 20 different ways is definitely discouraged.
Don't open with a sentence that tells us you played basketball all the way from 6th grade to college. That can't be the most interesting thing about you, or can it?
If you are going to start your profile with the sentence, "There's too much to me to be contained in 2000 characters", why does it only contain 692?
Saying that you are "intelligent" in a bio that admits you read the New York Daily News every morning suggests otherwise.
Do all the people whose children you are holding in the 12 photos you uploaded know that you answered the "Want kids?" question with "No Way"?
Please note that the news that you have "never been married", "have 5 children", and are "sick to death of thugz, playaz, and gangstaz" may make some men a little worried about the whole visitation rights part of the presumed future relationship.
From the combined field research of myself and my five closest male friends, I have to tell you that it seems extremely statistically unlikely that you will be "easy going".
With that long list of 24 sports you enjoy, will you have any energy left for boning?
Thank you so very much for mentioning that you served in the Israeli Defense Forces and saving us both a lot of time.
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This creepy assed dating site can help you find a 6 year old. Or, if you prefer, a 99-year-old. Ah, the unintentional ironies of default web form fields.
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Related Links
"Escaping Your Inner Monologue Alcatraz", Maysoon Zayid (9 September 2005
"Avoiding a First Date Debacle", Maysoon Zayid (23 September 2005)
more from this section
• A letter to Washington Mutual and their debt collecting agency, IC System (Thursday, May 15th, 2008)
• Contact from Suha Arafat (Friday, March 21st, 2008)
• Open Letter to Women Considering Using Internet Dating Sites (Sunday, July 9th, 2006)
• Little Shop of Horrors (Wednesday, June 7th, 2006)
• Return of the Monkey King (Thursday, June 1st, 2006)
• Curiosity and the Cat (Friday, May 26th, 2006)
• The Children of the Shoemaker have Sandals (Thursday, April 6th, 2006)
• Finding an Apartment in New York City (Sunday, August 7th, 2005)
• A Letter from the Editor (Saturday, July 23rd, 2005)
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• A letter to Washington Mutual and their debt collecting agency, IC System (Thursday, May 15th, 2008)
• Contact from Suha Arafat (Friday, March 21st, 2008)
• Open Letter to Women Considering Using Internet Dating Sites (Sunday, July 9th, 2006)
• Little Shop of Horrors (Wednesday, June 7th, 2006)
• Return of the Monkey King (Thursday, June 1st, 2006)
• Curiosity and the Cat (Friday, May 26th, 2006)
• The Children of the Shoemaker have Sandals (Thursday, April 6th, 2006)
• Finding an Apartment in New York City (Sunday, August 7th, 2005)
• A Letter from the Editor (Saturday, July 23rd, 2005)
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