Fun with #OkCupid: A dude in the OKC corral (Date Night?)
<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Kenny. We e-met through OKC and although we've never gone out on a date, he was inspired by my documentation of my online search for love, that he wanted to come on board and provide male insight into OKC. So here you go ... and now we're here ... HIT IT KENNY!!</editorsnote>
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @KennethArthurS
Here we sit on the Eve of June and I can't remember the last time I actually went on a real date. Well, that's probably not true. I can remember a couple of months ago when a girl that I met on OkCupid asked if she could smoke speed at my house. Now that's what I call "Speed Dating!" (Hit the drum and the symbol. Perfect, thanks.)
Before that I went out with a girl for the second time and she invited me over to her house to play Scene It! Considering that I'm the master of movie trivia, I'm all for a good game of Scene It, but I hardly thought that all she wanted to do was play trivia. I don't know, maybe don't invite a date over until you're ready to not put up the stop sign when I make a move?
Needless to say, this hasn't exactly been how I'd plan my 2012 to go in the search for love. So now that we're getting closer to the middle of the last year of the Mayan calendar and I get dangerously close to thirty, I figured it was about time to try it out again. Last week, in a feeble attempt to run an experiment, I sent out a bunch of OkCupid messages. These weren't copy/paste jobs like I did on my English papers in college. I actually ran with the same tips that Jen Friel has consistently given on what kind of message to send an online dater, picking out a specific part of the profile and making the message short and sweet. The results weren't good.
Not a single date or prospect came from that experiment and I was even more discouraged after I ran it than before, when my only discouragement came from actual in-person dating fails. Now I had both offline and online fails to hang my head over! Ya know, no big deal, I just kind of like to fail like a boss.
Finally, a few days after I ran through OkCupid like a rabbit in a carrot factory, I settled down and re-collected myself and my ego. There wasn't necessarily anything wrong with me (at least no more than before) and we can't force the issue. As I've been doing for the past year and a half, I had to remember to focus on myself and improve myself. We can't control what others do but we can certainly control ourselves. We can shape our present, improve our future, and learn from our past. That's what I had to do. That's what I have to do.
My experiment was a failure in finding love, or even a gosh-darn-date, but it wasn't a failure. I learned that picking up a hundred darts and chucking them in the vicinity of a dart board is no way to become a dart champion on ESPN the Ocho. The only way to win at a game like that is to master throwing just one and getting it right and then repeating.
I calmed myself and perused OkCupid again and sent out maybe one or two messages. Shortly thereafter I got a reply and exchanged a few messages with this girl, who I will be meeting tonight for my first date in months. I've buried myself in my writing and my work and ignored my dating life but I can't simply ignore it forever because what the hell do I have to write about if I'm not living? Fashion? I don't know anything about fashion!
I have no idea if this girl will be someone I see again and I can't predict the future, but I can focus on today and at the very worst I'll learn something, just like how I learned that if you pick up a handful of darts at once you're bound to bleed. You have to take it one throw at a time.
#thatisall
and don't forget to check out his blog!! <----- good shit!