FACEBOOK (verb and noun): Facebooking (present), Facebooked (past), Facebooker (noun)
TWITTER (verb and noun): Tweeting (present), Tweeted (past), Twatter (noun)
As most of you well know, I’m a huge fan (some would say obsessed) of Facebook and Twitter. These sites allow me to keep in touch with both my disparate group of friends in London, and those farther afield. Gone are the old skool days where I would have to send out a group email or text my friends and family to let them know of the good news going on in my life (I just pooped) ; the bad news (I didn’t poop) ; the important news (I pooped again) and the not so important news (I hope to poop today) – this would be tedious for all involved. With Facebook and Twitter I can, within in minutes, update the world on my movements (bowel or otherwise) with the click of a button. In addition, these sites allow me to keep updated with the friends that I grew up with – who’s gotten fat, divorced or is in prison (no, I’m not bitter that I didn’t go to my high school prom), and rekindle relationships with people I have not seen in a very long time.
That said, while the social networking sites continue to hold my favour, the dating website have left me frustrated and exhausted.
WRITE IT TO SELL IT
You spend hours, upon hours setting up a profile, trying to write something that will illicit a response from your future ex-partner. If you’re a straight male, the idea is to be witty, but not too witty as to come across as gay. And if you’re gay, the idea is to be witty, but not too witty as to come across as uber gay. Men want to give the impression that they are macho, but not too macho; confident, but not cocky; desperate, but not too desperate, rich, and well, rich. Women need to come across as being sexy without being trampy; girlie, but not needy; understand the offside rule; and most important of all, have major boobage (a profile pic showing-off her major boobage would help immensely).
To give you a taster, here are some real profiles that my in-depth, ‘journalistic’ research uncovered:
- ‘Fat, flatulent, over 40, cigar-smoking redneck seeks sexy woman with big hair to cook, clean, and pick up unemployment checks.’
- ‘I am a single 5’9 plumber looking for my soul mate and any jobs in the neighbourhood. I have my own car and will take care of emergencies; dating, plumbing or otherwise’
- ‘Are you looking for a fun loving, beautiful woman with her act together? Well, good luck!’
- ‘I am an independent woman and don’t need a man to support me, although the ability to do so would be nice.’
- ‘Yes, I have nice breasts.’
SMILE FOR THE CAMERA
The next task that will take you hours is choosing a good profile pic. Trawling through hundreds upon hundreds of profiles, I noticed a couple of things:
# 1 – Unless you’re Tyson Beckford, do not include a picture of yourself without your shirt on. I mean look at that loser below, all that flab hanging about. I wouldn’t give him the time of day. Geez dude, put your shirt back on and try hitting the gym.
# 2 – Never trust anyone that smiles in their profile pic. It means they’re either up to no good, or psychotic – or both. And defintely never trust anyone that smiles with their shirt off.
# 3 – If you’re a straight male and you don’t want to look gay, put up a pic with you wearing sunglasses. This trick will help put the ‘cho’ back into your macho.
# 4 – Ladies, there is no such thing as too much make up. When in doubt, put more on.
WAITING FOR GODOT
Now that your profile is complete and you’ve sent out some messages to potentials, all you need to do is sit back and wait for all that love interest to come flooding back. So you wait… And you wait… And you wait some more… Some advice – if you’re going to do internet dating, you will need to be thick-skinned. Rejection is going to be your new drinking buddy. You may have the perfect profile, but that doesn’t mean the responses will come rolling in. In fact, most of your messages won’t be responded to. And with those that do respond, you will have to weed out the ones that want to chat forever and never meet you; the ones that want to know what you’re into (and they don’t mean your hobbies), or how big you are (and they don’t mean your personality); the ones that want to ‘swap pics’; the married ones; the ones who want to know if you believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Saviour and died for our sins (at least let’s have a shag before asking that question).
HOW DID GRINDR CHANGED MY LIFE?
Grindr didn’t change my life, I did. Last week I took the bull-by-the-horns and decided to leave the virtual dating world and close all my dating accounts. One by one, with a glass of wine at the ready, summoning all the inner force I could, on each account I clicked ‘delete account’ ending years and years of addictive behaviour. With seven profiles closed and one last one to go, I get a message from a 33 year hottie, living very far away, saying, ‘very sexy’. I sat back, looked at the message and thought for a while. Knowing I had no choice, I replied, ‘Blush’. And like any addict I told myself, ‘tomorrow is the day you quit for sure.’