In other news

Maia received a message with the subject: "Puke Nachos" and the content:
and sweet tears, hmm.
and a link to this video

A quick glance at his profile reveals

• he is Searching for immortal secrets& being strong enough for your love!
•  he is really good at smacking rumps, making elixir medicines
• You should message him if You want to be immortal :D If you wanna talk big FUN. No boring.toxic. souless. typical retardz with shit tastes. suburbia girls 90% of this site = barf *** piss down your back HO with sunshine lollipops x

 I think Maia needs to marry this man.

deal breaker, deal-breaker, dealbreaker

I guess the proper spelling is "deal breaker" -- but I really think it should be spelled "dealbreaker" but am willing to concede that spell check knows best.
I wrote the above (or a version of it) in my profile for some reason -- and lo and behold look at the response it engendered from MichiganTravis:

filter warning?

Anyway.....just was gonna say I probably would go with deal-breaker. Like that warning is a deal-breaker.

later

The "filter warning" is something you can set up so you can filter messages from people for all sorts of reasons. Like I have mine set to filter out people who are below a 70% match with me, live farther than 25 miles from Ann Arbor, and are not between the the ages of 24-33, and maybe a few other things I can't remember. So I'm not sure how it works but I guess when a guy who does not pass my filter tries to message me he gets a message telling him that. Then he can send it anyway. I still receive the message but it doesn't alert my email (like it does when someone who passes my filter messages me) and it tells me at the top of the message that "this user does not pass your filter requirements" -- I think this is another reason why the amount of messages from weirdos has unfortunately (from a blogging perspective) dropped off recently.

So my apologies MichiganTravis, I am sure you are a nice person, but you live 54 miles away from me. Also, really not sure why you are seeming to personally take offense at the fact that I have a filter set up... that my friend is a definite deal breaker.

Yes, a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words (but it depends on the picture)

Since I am basically an OkCupid expert now (I mean in this day and age having a blog devoted to a topic is really more than enough to be considered an expert in it right?)  I would like to offer one important piece of advice to all current or potential online daters: DO NOT USE A MISLEADING PICTURE! Nothing good will come from this I promise.

Here is a perfect example taken from a conversation I had tonight with one of my guy friends who is also on OkC. He had been messaging back and forth with a girl for a few days. She seemed cute from her profile pic -- and he was getting ready to send the "we should meet for coffee" message (which the appropriate time for the coffee message is a subject worthy of its own blog post, and of a spirited debate, but I digress) when right before he is about to send it he notices that she has changed her picture. The new picture is definitely the same girl -- but with an extra 75 pounds. He did not send the coffee message after all. Now the point of this illustration is not to argue whether or not that is right or wrong. We are attracted to who we are attracted to -- and this is after all a dating website (and last time I checked physical attraction was kind of a key component in that whole thing). Now the girl most likely knew the coffee message was coming and realized that she could either post a more accurate picture of herself before it happened or show up and see the look of disappointment in my friend's eyes. (This might sound cruel -- but it's totally true.) If she had posted the second picture to begin with none of this would have happened and it would have saved them both a lot of embarrassment.

This is why it is important to also post more than one picture. Anyone can take at least one good picture in his or her life so that alone doesn't really tell you much. Often I find the guy's main profile picture is fairly attractive, but he looks significantly less attractive in all other pictures he's posted. This of course isn't as bad as just posting the one misleading picture, and maybe is a good strategy if you happen to have a particularly good profile (or are a doctor) as it will increase the odds that a girl will click on your picture and go to your profile and find out how rich, funny or charming you are (or you think you are).

That is definitely one way to view things...

 The coolest part of OkCupid from a dorky perspective is that you get to answer all these questions about often random stuff, and then they match you based on your answers (as a percentage).

This one showed up on my homepage today (when people make changes to their profile or answer more questions it sometimes shows up).

 Dan3point14 explained his answer publicly

Q: Is homosexuality a sin?

A: No, it's not a sin

Explanation: “Lust is the sin it is still as much of a sin reguardless of the person lusted after”

Good thing he added the explanation -- I think that definitely clarifies a lot. 

Dilemma

Is it wrong to just summarily reject a guy who is wearing a beret in all of his photos, even if he seems OK other than that?
On second thought, in his My Self-Summary section he has a paragraph entitled "snippet of my interests:" and he lists "sensuality" so I think I'll pass.

In more positive news, tonight I responded to 2 more guys (who seem relatively normal and decidedly non-creepy) who have messaged me.

"Your blog is kind of depressing"

The reaction to this blog has mainly been positive, but behind every "it's funny" is always a slight look of concern.

To put your mind at ease (unless you are totally into schadenfreude, which is fine I'm the last person to judge someone for that ) not every single guy on OkCupid is completely terrible. As I mentioned in a few of my posts I have cleaned out my inbox and have about 15 messages left that are in some ways promising and that someday I will respond to. (I have actually responded to one so far.)
The problem is that writing about nice, seemingly normal guys is not funny in any way, so the vast majority of this blog will be dedicated to all the jerks, freaks and weirdos that cross my path. enjoy.

Unique?

It's 2AM, I can't sleep so what better way to deal with my apparent insomnia than to do some OKCupid perusing.
Stumbled across a guy with these questions in his profile:

• Does anyone anymore know how to even have a deep intellectual or refreshing conversation anymore?????
• Is there anyone left out there who is eccentric and open-minded like me???
• Is there anyone left that actually knows how to not make primitive assumptions and can actually be socially stimulating anymore???

Was going to include more from his profile -- but it just makes me really sad. He possibly has the longest profile I have ever seen and from what I can gather he is from a fairly conservative family and is probably gay, and is completely confused about everything and this is all manifesting itself in very weird ways. (The questions he asks are really just the tip of the iceberg of strangeness -- he also says "I consider myself a niche market for a lady looking for quality" and other bizarre things.)

Here's hoping it is just a fake profile.

Ugh -- now just feeling bad for this random stranger. I hope he gets some therapy and takes down his profile.