I invited a friend to tag along with my family to see movie, and of course they were all weird and obnoxious the whole time, so on our way to drop her home I said:
"I'm sorry I dragged you into a stupid outing with my family and having a terrible time"
and she replied
"I think you mean chill with your posse and have a blasty blast"
I was gunna FB you but you weren't online. Tell me about OkC? I was sitting here pondering it, and I'm kind of curious, and then I remembered you posting something about it a while back and lo and behold, 26 minutes ago your post was relevant to it. Chance? Methinks not. You up for it, Carly? OkC critique and review!? GO!
First of all, woman, you can FB me anytime. Or even shoot me a text, you know! I don’t bite, but I miss you so I welcome the occasional FB message or texting banter.
Here is my experience with OkC, and I will start by telling you why I decided to try it in the first place:
Put yourself in my shoes. Heartbroken. In a dead-end friends-with-benefits relationship. Desperately wanting your best friend to become more than just your best friend. Finding out your best friend has been seeing other girls. Finding out your best friend has a secret girlfriend.
Shit’s tough. I got hurt really badly by this guy. And even though I was happy with where I was (in school, full-time AND part-time job, volunteer work, etc.) I felt something was missing and I found I had a lot to give someone. In no way am I saying “oh a guy will complete me”. Because they won’t. I just want to share experiences with someone and support and love someone and also foster a relationship with someone that will have sex with me and only me.
Okay so, for the reasons I listed above, you can tell I’m pretty busy. I’m in school, I work a 9-5 (sometimes 9-7) desk job in a stressful work environment, and I spend my weekends working at the mall. My spare time is dedicated to colouring in colouring books, spending time with friends I’ve managed to keep in touch with, writing, or volunteering at my school when I can. So. I don’t really get a lot of chances to meet single guys interested in a relationship. I mean, I go to bars, but no one’s looking to make it FB official there.
So I took the desperate plunge and created an OkC profile (and a POF one too). At first, it was okay. Guys will message you saying “hi what’s up”. Don’t reply to those ones. They don’t take the time to read your profile. I find most guys don’t. I mentioned I was a student at UW 5 times in my profile once, and a guy messaged me asking if I went to Conestoga College. I didn’t reply. Then he got mad at me for not replying.
You’re going to meet a lot of frogs on there. Every shape and size. The neon poison frogs, to boasting bull frogs. But occasionally, there will be a few guys that will take the time to read your profile. And they might be able to muster up something other than “hey”. The first couple times, it’s really awkward. Because you know that both of you are on a dating site, looking for love, and you’re trying to make polite small talk. That’s okay to feel that way, because I did feel like that too.
I find the best encounters I’ve ever had on there, I did the footwork myself. I made the first move and sent them a message. I think women are better at this – they know what’s important is substance, so we won’t send a generic and sigh-worthy “hey whats up” message. We’ll ask where they go to school, or what’s their program like, or “Tell me more about your career/job”, or “I love Flesh God Apocalypse! What’s your favourite song?”
A lot of the questions OkC asks about you can be intrusive, but remember you can skip these questions. You’re not obliged to answer them. OkC also finds 3 of your best matches, and sends them to you. You can check out their profiles, or say “I’m not interested”. Another cool (but creepy) thing OkC does is it shows you all the romantic prospects that visit your profile. I often laugh when I see people I explicitly told “I don’t like you, you’re a jerk” visit my profile a couple days later. But! It’s a blessing, take this example:
Okay, so. When I was 14, I took guitar lessons. There was this guy (17 at the time) that had his lessons after me, but I always thought he was really hot and I got really flustered one day when my instructor did a combined lesson with myself and him. Imagine my surprise, when I adjusted my max age for romantic suitors to 25, only to find HE VISITED MY PROFILE. I recognized the photo. I recognized his name in his user name. I did some Facebook/twitter detective work and 100% THIS WAS THE SAME GUY. 14 year old me freaked out. 20 year old me’s heart skipped a beat. I messaged him immediately. I saw he visited my profile again, and he messaged me back. We’ve been messaging back n forth until yesterday, where I gave him my number and asked if he wanted to go to a concert with me. I’m still waiting for that text from a mysterious number, but he’s visited my profile since then, so maybe there is still interest.
Anyway, I could be overanalyzing. I’m really good with that. But online dating is a totally individual experience. Not a lot of people like talking about it. Personally, I’ve never met anyone in person from online dating. I just haven’t met the right person yet. But I’m hoping guitar lessons guy will be different, since we’ve met before. It’s not the worst thing you could ever do. Here I am, voicing my personal life on the internet, and I’m perfectly okay with that. OkC provides a lot of options, and you can really tailor your preferences to match what you’re looking for in a relationship. Take everything with a grain of salt, because online portrayal doesn’t necessarily match with a real life personality, and remember: there are plenty of fish in this sea. And some might be mean to you. But the “Block User” button works amazingly. J (and never ever ever get a POF profile!)
