The dating world is scary. Online dating is scarier by an order of magnitude. Is the person you’re talking to who they claim to be? Is the flattering photo with the twinkling eyes and rakish grin a decade old, hiding a receding hairline and a neck the size of Kansas? Are they as clever in person as they are online, or are the little one-liners and pop-culture references they put on their profile elaborate covers for a severe lack of personality? Are they really interested in meeting in person or do they simply love the attention they gather from strangers? And those are just some of the concerns one has about the people they might entertain the notion of meeting in person. There are the email blasts, generic one or two line messages sent to a number of people at once to see if they’ll get any takers. There are the sexual propositions that make one’s skin crawl.
In my online dating endeavors, I was always honest…to a point. Anyone viewing my profile could see recent photographs illustrating the actual size and shape of my body…but there was no need to go on and on regarding the extent of my morning breath. Potential dates reading my page knew my political leanings, marital status, the nature of my job, and some of my hobbies…but not the name of my workplace, my address, my website, or any part of my real name. I was not being dishonest by concealing this information, but protecting myself. Occasionally I’d write about my mind-boggling encounters, from the self-described polyamorous republican wizard who invited me out for group sex OR a sandwich to the guy who told me he has kids older than me so he’s not playing around when he tells me he’d like to tie me up and slurp whipped cream out of my pussy to the guy who told me it looked like I had nice dick-sucking teeth to the guy who pestered me endlessly for a date for over a month and then had to call me and ask me when and where we were meeting because he had forgotten to the guy who literally could not speak unless it was a quote from The Simpsons or Family Guy. When I wrote about them, I never used their names or other indentifying information–after all, the purpose of the story was to point out and laugh at how ridiculous and horrendous the dating process was, not to publicly humiliate or lead anyone with a Google alert on his name directly to my blog.
Alyssa Bereznak, a former Gizmodo intern, took a different approach. She signed up for OkCupid, got the same sort of messages that every female on the site is subjected to, and when she received a nice message, she elected to go out with the sender. She then curses the day she agreed to go on this date, as it turns out her date was world-champion Magic: The Gathering player Jon Finkel. Here’s an excerpt from the article she published on Gizmodo in an attempt to shame said date (no link here, as there’s no need for her to get paid for pageviews):
I gulped my beer and thought about Magic, that strategic collectible card game involving wizards and spells and other detailed geekery. A long-forgotten fad, like pogs or something. But before I could dig deeper, we had to go. He had bought us tickets for a one-man show based on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s life story. It was not a particularly romantic evening.
The next day I Googled my date and a wealth of information flowed into my browser. A Wikipedia page! Competition videos! Fanboy forums! This guy isn’t just some professional who dabbled in card games at a tender age. He’s widely revered in the game of Magic that he’s been immortalised in his own playing card.
Just like you’re obligated to mention you’re divorced or have a kid in your online profile, shouldn’t someone also be required to disclose any indisputably geeky world championship titles? But maybe it was a long time ago? We met for round two later that week.
At dinner I got straight down to it. Did he still play? “Yes.” Strike one. How often? “I’m preparing for a tournament this weekend.” Strike two. Who did he hang out with? “I’ve met all my best friends through Magic.” Strike three. I smiled and nodded and listened. Eventually I even felt a little bit bad that I didn’t know shit about the game. Here was a guy who had dedicated a good chunk of his life to mastering Magic, on a date with a girl who can barely play Solitaire. This is what happens, I thought, when you lie in your online profile. I was lured on a date thinking I’d met a normal finance guy, only to realise he was a champion dweeb in hedge funder’s clothing.
I later found out that he infiltrated his way into OKCupid dates with at least two other people I sort of know, including one of my co-workers. Mothers, warn your daughters! This could happen to you. You’ll think you’ve found a normal bearded guy with a job, only to end up sharing goat cheese with a world champion of nerds. Maybe I’m an OKCupid arsehole for calling it that way. Maybe I’m shallow for not being able to see past his world title. But if everyone stopped lying in their profiles, maybe there also wouldn’t be quite as many OKCupid horror stories to tell.
So what did I learn? Google the shit out of your next online date. Like, hardcore. Also, for all you world famous nerds out there: Don’t go after two Gawker Media employees and not expect to have a post written about you. We live for this kind of stuff.
The first time I read this, I found myself at a loss for words. Then, the rage came. Go after Gawker Media employees? Infiltrate his way into dates? Like he’s a stalker with some sort of intern fetish? Like Gawker Media employees are some kind of golden prize pigs? How dare he be talented at his hobby?! Who does he think he is, trying to pass as a normal person looking for a date when his associations have branded him forever nerdy and socially repugnant? His modesty is akin to lying and he should definitely be taught a lesson by publicly identifying and humiliating him on a site read worldwide by many of his peers and employers. His multitudinous crimes involve inviting women on dates (and getting them), not disclosing one of his hobbies on a dating site, and (gasp) being friends with people he’d met through said hobby. He then took it one step further and was gracious about being mocked on the internet. What a bastard.
So here are some things I don’t understand: How did this piece ever get past an editor? Why, when she determined that she couldn’t handle dating Mr. Mana Tapper 5000 after one date, did she go on another with him? The only fathomable reason I can conceive of is that she had been planning to write this nasty article all along and needed more material. What is an acceptable hobby for a hedge fund worker to have? How is a Magic player too geeky for a tech blogger? How can she portray him as a socially awkward reject if he can play the dating game well enough to get the dates that he asks for? Why did she write as if he dominated the conversation with Magic talk that she had to smile, nod through, and endure, when she was the one who brought it up?
Of course people are allowed to find certain hobbies, behaviors, and mannerisms unattractive. There’s very little logic in the game of love. No one is insisting that Miss Thing fall in love/sleep with/marry/devote her life to serving a man she’s met twice. What I’m insisting is that she didn’t need to drag someone’s name through the mud because she doesn’t like or understand his hobby, that she doesn’t call him a liar or a predator. I’m saying that if she’s going to nail someone to a wall for failure to disclose something in their online profiles, she needs to make an addendum to hers that includes the words “cruel” and “judgmental”. Of course, any future date of hers taking her advice to “Google the shit out of your next online date” should already have an adequate warning.
Wow, that’s the saddest article I’ve ever read. Especially being that A. I met my fella on OKcupid, and he didn’t disclose his Magic playing tendencies until our 3rd date, and B. I date a Magic player (duh).
I hope she lives to the ripe age of 120 with nothing but her kitty-hoarded, pee-stained apartment to keep her company.