Profile Do's and Don'ts

Bea is bored again... and we all know what happens when she gets bored... she turns to online dating (fyi, it looks as if I will be getting together again with the IT philosophizer from Saturday at some point...). But bored with Lava, I was at a loss of what to do. At a loss until I told about a new site... I won't divulge the name except to say the it has something to do with fish and plenty of them. And did I mention that is was free?

I like things that are free. Dinner last Saturday was great because it was free. Going to funky little clothing launches and induction dinners are great because they are free. Going in and renting a "guaranteed" rental in Blockbuster because it is out of stock even though you swore you would rather have your eyes gouged out than see Sisterhood of the traveling Pants is alright because it was...FREE.

So this new site... did I mention it was free... is really quite a little gem. As much as I like FREE, it does tend to bring out some very interesting folks, or so I am quickly learning... folks who would never stoop to paying $2.50 to contact someone on lava... folks who seem to have made it their life's mission to contact as many random people as possible because what the hell, you got nothing to lose because... it's FREE.

So what ARE the differences between a site where you have to fork out a subway fare to talk to someone as opposed to getting the opportunity for free? Many. There are many differences... Here are just a few observations that I have made thus far. I have entitled them:

Bea's Guide for Men on How to be Successful on a Free Online Dating Site (I know, it's rather a long title...)

1) Include a picture. If you are going to write me and ask me if I like to get spanked, at least do me the courtesy of allowing me to see the face of the person who I may or may not (probably not) allow to spank me.

2) If you are a man/male and it is quite obvious-- because you have complied with handy tip #1 and due to the large amount of facial hair you are displaying-- that you are a man/male, then there is no need to state that fact in your profile and/or email.

3) Spelling, spelling, spelling. I cannot stress this enough... along with grammar and punctuation and spacing... basically everything that you learn in elementary school. "im" is not a substitute for "I'm", "u" is not a substitute for "you" and god help you if you have already made the mistake of stating that you are a male and spell it "mail".

4) Don't copy and paste the same email to everyone. A distant acquaintance I know, who is also on it (whose name I will not mention) was contacted by a guy about 5 minutes after he had contacted me. It was EXACTLY the same, word for word... right down to the "thats a fantastic pic!your very stunning!" (quote unquote). A copy and paste can be spotted from a mile away.

5) Try to make an effort to make it remotely interesting. The following is one that I received today and although better than some of the ones I have received that simply said "wats up" or "hey" or just a name and a phone number, it still left something to be desired. It also demonstrates handy tip #4, which will become obvious shortly. Please note that I have changed some of the personal information (job, hobbies) to protect the innocent:

hi there, I just joined this site and saw your profile and wanted to say hi and would love to chat with you sometime. Drop me a line and maybe we could chat.I am a groundhog farmer. I am into cockroach racing and love Snapple. I am enjoy the positives in life and would love to get a chance to chat with you. Love the brownies comment. sounds really cute. hope to chat with you. Have a great day.

As you can see, there are a couple of things wrong with this, not the least of them is his eagerness to chat with me. Now, here's where he completely lost me... The "Love the brownies comment" comment. Nowhere does it say in my profile anything about brownies. A "Cutter Paster" all the way... Now see the important of reading a person's profile and writing a message from scratch? Although I would be lying if I did not admit that I do find msyelf more than a little curious about this "brownie comment"... If the girl who wrote it is getting people contacting her because of it, I may have to include one myself... anyone know of a "cute brownie comment" I could include to jazz things up a bit?

6) Don't write a person 10 times in the space of an hour when they haven't responded to your first e-mail. It may be FREE but FREE does not mean "FREE pass to display stalkerish behaviour". And Ye shall be blocked...

7) *added since first posted... I meant to put it, I swear... "Prefer not to say" = "Prefer not to respond to you". If your marital status is set to "prefer not to say"... Hmmm. Drinking or drug habits, "prefer not to say?"... Um... Yikes.

That's it for now. Really and truly it is amusing me to no end. Ah, the simple pleasures in life...

BP