Computer Love

Online dating, right…? According to the commercials, something like 1 in 5 relationships currently begin there. Of course these commercials are designed to attract more users to the online dating sites (I believe this one was for match.com) so I’m not really sure about the verity of these figures. The truthiness (thank you, Mr. Colbert…), however, seems widely accepted. As I wrote earlier, I’ve recently decided to once again attempt using such services for myself. So far – been at it for a good couple weeks now – it’s going exactly as I expected … haven’t even got any responses yet…

I ended up using Chemistry.com. It wasn’t my first choice – I was going to try eHarmony. Unfortunately, due to unadvertised discriminatory regulations there, I was considered unmatchable. Luckily Chemistry allows us blasphemous scoundrels to partake in their reindeer games. Perhaps, if all goes to plan, I’ll be able to bamboozle oodles and oodles of women into forsaking their flocks and living a more godless lifestyle. Sounds stupid, I know; but I can only guess that’s what eHarmony is afraid of…

So I’m on Chemistry now; and, as mentioned earlier, have yet to even receive a single response from the 60-some “matches” that I bothered to even attempt starting communication with. There were also a bit over 30 “matches” that I have added to my “not reallys” list for various reasons bringing the number of women that the site considered matches for me up to about 95 so far. I currently have 32 “connections” still active which means that I have already been deemed unacceptable by approximately 30 other women; and the site, thus far, has yet to fail at giving me five more matches to peruse daily. Sounds romantic, doesn’t it…?

You see, that’s basically what online dating is. It inevitably turns into nothing more than a progression of the systems used to deal with managing the data. After all, that’s all anybody is to these sites – data. Sure, when you first start using these sites, you take the time to read your matches “own words” essay and carefully review all answers given to the standard questions hoping to find your perfect match. You then add this person to your “connections” list by clicking the “I’m interested” button which gives you the opportunity to start communication with this other person by using one of the “chemistry starters” – 5 applets that attempt to make breaking the ice easier – or sending this person an email.

This is where the routine eventually (d)evolves into a new system that you create. After wasting too much time personalizing your efforts at this point based on the uniqueness of each match only to get no response from any, you realize that you’d probably be better off with more of a shotgun approach. Probability is what probability is and the more lines you throw, the more likely you are to get a nibble. Here’s how I’ve decided to play this:

Every day Chemistry sends me five new “matches” to check out. I (rather quickly) scan through these new possibilities and either add them to my “not reallys” list or click on the “I’m interested” button and add them to my current list of “connections”. After this, I go to my “connections” list and send the exact same “Four-play” (one of the “chemistry starters” apps mentioned earlier) to all of the newly added women. The “Four-play” I’ve decided to use is a list of four movies that I “watch whenever they are on” – 1) Pink Floyd - The Wall, 2) Six Degrees of Separation, 3) SLC Punk!, and 4) Monty Python and The Holy Grail. What this does is sends the women my list of movies and asks them to reply with a list of their own. Although this is a rather impersonal approach, it is merely step one of my system; and, should I get any responses to this, I feel that a list of movies that somebody deems “must watch” is a pretty good indication of how that person thinks. So far, nobody’s sent a reply list at this point…

The lack of response here doesn’t really bother me. It just gives me the opportunity to move ahead to step two of my system for any of the women who haven’t “thrown me in the trash” within two days of receiving my “Four-play”. Chemistry is good for keeping track here as it adds the option of “nudging” someone after two days of them failing to respond. This is where I get more personal – sort of… Each day, after considering the five new matches, I check out my list of “connections” for any that the “nudge her” button has become active. For these lucky ladies, I send an email reminding them that I am waiting for a reply to my “Four-play” as well as telling them a bit more about myself than what they can read in my profile essay. It would be quite time consuming writing unique emails basically saying the same thing over and over again, so I send the same email to all of the girls – the only difference being that I include their name in the “Hi {insert name here},” salutation. What this does is, hopefully, fool the lady into thinking that I went out of my way and wrote a rather in-depth letter to her asking her for more communication or, at the least, a response to my list of movies. Pretty sneaky, huh?

Now I am able to head to step three of my system on any responses I get from the step two letters. Step three is to actually send a uniquely written email based on whatever response was received. This is where the actual communication should begin.

I don’t know; seems like a pretty decent system to me. It gives the shallow, materialistic bitches two days to toss me out based merely on my profile and silly little list of movies – there’s one potential future disaster avoided… It lets the women who didn’t automatically dispose of me receive more information even before they responded to my “Four-play” just in case they were wondering whether or how they should respond – I’m thinking that this should improve the quality of any responses received. And most importantly, it ends up being an easily repeatable process for me that should swing the probability aspect a bit more to my favor.

So far it hasn’t worked; but I’ve just begun. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to trick some lucky lady into actually falling for me. Is this really where society is headed…?

bis später,

Coriolis