#1 - join an online dating site.
at first i did it for "research" purposes after hearing this Freakonomics podcast, and then out of curiosity after reading this article. i figured if it's good enough for PJ Vogt, surely it could be good enough for me? (and in all honesty, i thought, if guys like PJ Vogt are using OKCupid, maybe that's where i need to be meeting more eligible, PJ Vogt-like men!) honestly though, i'd never even heard of OKCupid until this podcast, and didn't think people were actually using sites like these to, you know, really date. as soon as i created my profile i felt like i had just set myself up to be trolled.
i figure the internet already brings out the worst in people by granting a veil of anonymity and a low-risk of getting caught for shitty actions and a low accountability to "real" people. but then when you add in the potential for "hook-ups," hundreds of thousands of objectifying men, personal questions about sex, relationships, etc. AND a chat/messaging function? you've pretty much designed THE WORST way i can possibly imagine to meet people. for me at the moment, it still remains a social experiment -- how many guys are interested in me because of the pictures i posted and how many are actually impressed by my work experiences, my interests and my hobbies? i've also been interested to see how race factors into my popularity on OKCupid. so far, i'm surprised that it's been far fewer Asian men and many, many African-American men. like, twice the amount from any other race. lots of young'uns too. and then there was this guy:
what am i, or anyone, supposed to do with that??
i also had a guy try to chat me up and get me to hook up with him and when i said i wouldn't, he proceeded to lecture me about moralizing and basically called me a "stuck up b****." the best part was, about a month later, he tried chatting with me again under a different username (but same picture), and when i ignored him he tried again the next week ("third time's the charm?") i guess even in the digital world of human interaction, a lady just can't get a break from the douchey entitled bros.
all of this to say: i'm angry that this is what's happening. i poured my heart into the last seven years and worked so hard to make another person happy because i thought it's what i wanted and because i thought i couldn't imagine living without this other person. it made me happy to give so much of myself to make someone else happy. then i wake up one day and it's like a switch was turned off, and he became a different person. unable to feel anything, unable to understand what he'd meant to me the last seven years, unable to even look me in the eyes and tell me how his heart has changed, explain what has happened. i look at him now and i feel so distraught and angry, at him for changing into this totally different person who can treat me like such shit, and at myself for letting this happen, for making myself vulnerable and not expecting this could happen one day. every day i wake up and grieve for the person i loved who i feel is now lost to time forever. wherever that person went, i will never see him again, and looking at pictures from the past is such a deep wound in my heart ripped open all over again because i don't understand where that person has gone and know that they've also taken that version of myself with them. i will never be the happy smiling woman in those pictures again either. we're both lost, we've destroyed each other. i used to be excited about the rest of my life with another person, and now i dread the rest of my life spent agonizing forever the doomed happiness of the last seven years.
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