Every woman I know who’s tried online dating has gotten all sorts of weird and sleazy messages from guys, from crude sexual come-ons (“sorry for being forward but id love to cum on your glasses :)”) to terrible “sexy” jokes (“So ay girl, you looking for a stud? Because I got the std, all I need is u :)”) to fetish-tastic examples of Too Much Information (“I WISH I WERE A DOG SO I COULD SUCK MYSELF OFF”). (No, guys, appending a smiley face emoticon does not make it ok to be a grotesque douchebag.)
You always wonder what guys like this are thinking. With the dog lover at the end, it’s clear he was trying to rattle a woman who hadn’t replied to two earlier messages of increasing creepiness. With the others, I suppose they think there’s always a tiny chance that some woman out there is as desperate and horny and undiscerning as they are.
What’s stranger are those who lead not with sexual come ons but with blatant misogyny. Do men really think that women melt at the thought of dating a man who hates half the human race? Or are they just looking for yet another chance to mansplain their Men’s Rights bullshit to the world?
Here are a couple of examples of this strange and unsuccessful approach to winning over women which I found on the delightful and disturbing blog The Ladies of OkCupid, which documents the quests of three women searching for love online.
Sometimes the misogyny sneaks up on you, as in this OkCupid profile from a “laid-back” slut-shamer (who was clearly not an English major):
This fellow, by contrast, launches into the misogyny right from the start, suggesting that the woman he’s writing is exceptional, simply because she’s not stupid and illogical like the rest of her gender:
This “edgy” fellow tries to break the ice with some lovely rape jokes:
But the strangest one I’ve seen so far comes from this dude, who uses his OKCupid profile as an opportunity to mansplain why feminism is eeeeeevil:
Oh, and that list keeps going; it’s one hundred items long.
As Jasmine from The Ladies of OKCupid writes,
Delusional and repulsive takes on a whole new level with this one, because I really don’t think he’s kidding. He has every social media outlet known to man with all the same crap, and his profile is HUGE. So either he’s attempting to become the ultimate Canadian troll, or he really thinks there’s a woman out there who exists like this AND would be interested in him, of all people. Really? He offers little more than a receding hairline and an outrageous sense of entitlement in return.
To paraphrase Animal House, delusional and repulsive is no way to go through life.
Happily for The Ladies of OKCupid, and the rest of those ladies seeking love online, not all the messages are like this. For example, take this message about a basic but delicious foodstuff:
Also, the woman who got the message above about that thinking-outside-the-box use for her glasses? She stayed on OkCupid, and is now in a happy relationship with a dude she met there who is not a shitlord.
I like maccaronies.
Ha! Is the full list as stuffed with hair-removal demands as the first few items? Strewth, what a nobber.
I went to a lovely wedding yesterday where’re the bride and groom met on MySingleFriend, which sounds a splendid idea because gentlemen like these would not be on it.
“Where’re”? Damn you, autocorrect.
Maccaronies are of course delicious.
I know I’m hopelessly naive (and probably optimisitc, to boot), but these lists of what people want in the person they’re hoping to meet/date/hook up with always baffle me. Mainly because whether it’s been friendship or romantic interludes, my experience has been serendipity! Didn’t have any formulas or lists … just meshed with somebody. I mean, certain things doom a close relationship of any kind for me (Republicans!), but I don’t have a list of demands, FFS. I mean, specifying a bra size? Also: this douche thinks he’s going to attract college-educated women by the dozens?
I despair.
@Estraven – years ago, my mother was on Match.com, and her profile said something along the lines of, I don’t have a list anymore, surprise me, and this one guy was really impressed by that, and messaged her, and long story short they’ve been together for about 8 years now and got married last month. (And if you’d asked her for a list, he probably wouldn’t have qualified.)
My favorite bit from not-a-misogynist-huge-list guy is how women have “many uses.” Like sextoys! And breeding units! And… housekeepers, baby-sitters, cooks, trophies…that’s five uses right there.
I agee, he’s not a mysogynist. Not at all. He’s a misogynist.
The last guy’s list was magnificent. I needed a good laugh.
Maccaronies are great, except for when they’re the only food available.
I like macaronies, and cheese. Sometimes I like them with pesto, or tomato sauce. Brown butter and pine nuts are good, a bit of garlic and some olive oil. Fried until they are crispy, or made into a custard.
Macaronies are good.
He wants a woman who will conform to 100 obnoxious, nitpicky requirements just to qualify for a date with a misog… excuse me, male chauvinist –but no low self-esteem?
mmkay.
To be fair, one of them is “Must shit rainbows.”
He also wants to be able to dump popcorn on his ideal woman at the movies. What a catch!
And she should be able to take a punch!
Of course he’s not a mysogynist, what with his need to control and punch women and all, but come on. Wasting popcorn is a true crime against humanity. What kind of monster is he?
My wife and I have hardly any interests in common – I don’t think she’s read a single work of fiction that didn’t have the words ‘Harry’ and ‘Potter’ in the title since I’ve known her, and her knowledge of and interest in music is close to nonexistent other than a few popular hits absorbed by osmosis. If we’d been matched by a dating agency, I’d have strong suspicions about their methodology and might well have turned her down flat without bothering to meet her.
But because we clicked on an absolutely fundamental level – initially over a shared love of truly eye-wateringly bad-taste jokes, then lots of other small but crucial things – none of that mattered.
In fact, I now think that it’s a major advantage for our kids that their parents have such different interests: I’m handling the cultural side of their education, she’s handling the scientific/medical side.
Some other demands from the lovely gentleman:
So I have to be either a woman who hates anal sex, but occasionally gives in because he is so Very Dominant, or a woman who likes anal sex, but randomly refuses just to prove she’s not a slut. …And he probably doesn’t think the second one exists.
Y’know, I’ve got nothing against anal itself, that’s just good clean fun, but man, there are a lot of guys who want it for the wrong reasons.
Yep! The first is what you’re going to call your arguments, and the second is what you’re going to call mine! And even if I didn’t see that game coming a mile away, I also see a whole lot of “emotions are inferior to facts, therefore emotions don’t matter at all, so you can’t complain when I massively abuse you emotionally.”
Please let this be a parody.
…Maybe it is? Maybe. I don’t even know any more.
Okay, we’re done here.
So he wants a girl who has a mind of her own, but is ok with being utterly and totally controlled by him…Fuck me if he hasn’t got his priorities in order./sarcasm
Cliff – on the one hand, I feel like it almost has to be a parody. On the other hand, that’s an awful lot of work to do for lulz. But people do stuff like that all the time, so…
It’s just so over-the-top. Your mom must be hot. Your sister must be hot.
If it is a parody, I would really love to meet the person who wrote it.
I also tend to believe these guys are trying to rattle women, and may even be getting off on it. I hate creeps like them.
That’s a pretty controversial minority opinion you’ve got there. Are you sure it’ll stand up to scrutiny?
Burgundy – Sadly, I’ve heard the “must have a hot mom” thing other places, based on the theory that women will age to look like their mothers.
(I don’t look anything like my mom now, so it would be pretty surprising if that happened.)
cool. i hate creeps who get off on the pain and suffering of those they think theyre better than. thats the kind of creeps i hate.
OK I’m going through the Ladies of OKC blog and there’s like a million people contacting them with sub-40% Match scores and huge Enemy scores.
Now that score isn’t perfect but I sometimes get dealbreakers in questions from people with 90% Match and often have them with people at 70% (though sometimes I get like a 75-80% person where all the ‘bad answers’ are minor stuff and all my important shit is a match). There’s no way someone at 38% Match is anywhere compatible with someone.
So my inevitable conclusion is that these guys are just checking pictures and mass mailing every girl they like the look of without even caring about their profile (which is the experience my lover relates, she gets dozens of mails a week from people who have clearly not read her profile at all).
I never get contacted by girls under 70% (and mostly no under 80%) but I get bi/gay guys at 30% all the fucking time. Some people clearly have the wrong approach to this whole dating thing.
“If it is a parody, I would really love to meet the person who wrote it.”
That might be the point? I can’t see any other way those profiles could possibly be intending to attract partners, so maybe they are going for “who the fuck would write this?!”
And yes, macaroni is good.
I am loving that reply knock-knock joke with the punch line “ya better check your fucking privilege”. Whereas Mr. “logical women don’t exist” is failing to realize that any truly logical woman would take that as a sign not to speak to his dumb ass.
OkCupid has, or used to have, what I considered the single most useful dating-related question ever:
Women are obligated to shave their legs.
__Strongly Agree
__Agree
__Disagree
__Strongly Disagree
In the comment box attached to the question, I wrote “‘Obligated’ to whom? They’re *my* legs!”
Not coincidentally, every dude who messaged me and who had ticked one of the “agree” options to this question was a dude I ended up not getting along with. Including the one I actually did go on a date with, who turned up 30 minutes late, congratulated himself for being 15 minutes early, and then went on to explain how the whole world was fucking him and his MBA over for not handing itself to him on a silver platter while he hung out in Mom’s basement the whole summer.
…Yeah, no, dude. You don’t have to be Superman, but at least try to keep up with those of us who work for a living and have hobbies, okay?
unless theyre raped in prison cuz thats hilarious amirite