Outta Date

Now I've been on the match for a number of months. I've gotten quite a few dates under my belt. I think I'm getting into the groove of it now. In so much as I'm getting good at not letting my soul get crushed by the rejection. I'm also beginning to realize that you can't trust how great people "look on paper". You could fall in love with the portrait that some people paint of themselves before ever laying eyes on their 3D persona. THAT'S some 21st century shit right there, boy. At least back in the day of love letter courtships you'd have already met the person you were writing to so you knew there was some kinda spark or physical chemistry. It would make it much easier to hear about your beloved's afternoons of needlepoint and yarn balling if you could picture her sexy clavicles in your mind, I'm sure. But when you have no real life picture of this person, or remembrance of how seeing them made your heart race and palms sweat, all you've got are pictures and some paragraphs to create your mental image/persona of this would-be-suitor. Those graphs; photo and para, become everything.

You start doing the "list comparisons": likes and dislikes, as some of the online yenta's call them. These cover topics like movies, music, books, and activities, but all generalized into simple titles. You have to be careful to make your list's broad in scope and quirkiness. Pour example; when listing books:

Harry Potter series

LOTR

Dune

Terry Pratchett's Discworld

Anne Rice (pre-born again Christian)

Whoa whoa whoa, there! You're one hidden Orc door away from a D&D orgy. So unless you're looking for someone to go to Renaissance fairs with every weekend that you're not at a comic con or having a Battlestar Galactica marathon viewing slumber party--remember to throw in a David Sedaris novel and that Gore Vidal historical fiction book you bought at the airport thinking it was the new Dan Brown. No one wants to be pigeon holded--just ask Meg Ryan's new face.

Now even though I'm stressing the importance of variety in your lists, it's equally important--vital even--that you be truthful in your listing. Do NOT say you've read something you haven't, or are a faithful watcher of something you've never seen. Don't throw in an inside joke about the show Survivor, that you heard the cool guy from advertising making at lunch, when you don't even know on what channel Survivor airs. You WILL be called out on this, Survivor is a very popular show (so I hear).

Also, don't try and fake your way out of your gender stereotype. Meaning; guys, don't say you love America's Next Top Model because you accidently watched an entire season one Sunday when you were so hungover you couldn't find the remote. That's like a chic saying she's a huge football fan because she always puts the game on during her Thanksgiving afternoon couch nap. It will turn out badly.

Be unique--but uniquely YOU. Listing generalities about yourself isn't going to attract anyone special. When you're reading about how someone is really "down to earth" and "likes to go out but sometimes really loves a night in", you find yourself breezing over those space fillers like an iTunes licensing agreement. Don't just say you love to go out to eat--mention the time you tried a small Armenian restaurant in Hollywood and ended up eating 3 orders of samek bezry before you found out it was deep fried sardines.

I'm not telling anyone they should lie about who they are or what they like. I'm saying you should paint an accurate portrait of who you are in these online profiles. That's who you're offering to people, the whole you. Not the you that loves to travel and enjoys oxygen. The you that really likes board games and holiday cheese logs. You'll end up attracting the kind of person who is actually well suited to you. Instead of finding yourself on a date with some train wreck who's generic generalities and picture of them next to a waterfall wearing sunglasses prevented you from recognizing them from the post office bulletin board. That shit happens--trust me.