I wondered aloud to the Professor, a few weeks ago, whether my perceived increase in sociability may have been delusional, all along. Perhaps, I said, I had merely honed a suite of social skills and thereby donned the trappings of normality, when in fact my core remained unchanged since the mid-aughts. He assured me this wasn’t the case, but I’m not so certain.
I think the truth lies somewhere in between: I have changed, just not nearly to the degree I’d like. I retook the Myers-Briggs test a few months back, horseshit as it may be, and I’ve switched from an “I” to an “E.” I feel different, too–a heightened capacity for interaction, for instance, and general ease with people. A lot of this recent crisis of confidence, I realized, may be a result of online burnout. There’s been too much interaction–overstimulation from every outlet.
There’s the lurking presence of my still-new smartphone, with its chirping text strings and constant conduits to everything. Invitations from strangers await in my LinkedIn account–preludes to sales pitches for services I neither want nor need at the moment. There’s the crush of feeds and questions from not one, not two, but three online dating sites. What I need–and what I’ve started–is a kind of electronic cleanse.
It began, ironically, because one electronic outlet was cannibalizing another. I found myself annoyed when a new message would hit my Gmail and, rather than being an anticipated notice from Match or OkCupid, turned out to be spam instead. This was spam I had requested, too, but suddenly, strangely, I was unsubscribing from lists left and right. No more Kickstarter notices. No more eBay updates. I bought CD-Rs from a vendor once and only once, maybe over a decade go, and faithfully stayed on their mailing list–until now. Haven’t logged into LinkedIn much, either, and it’s felt great. Next week, I’ll be meeting Charlotte friends every day of the week, completely offline and face-to-face–the break I need, perhaps, and a truer test of sociability.
What I had hoped would be a shift in my online dating fortunes turned out to be a red herring, packed with a clear reminder: this ain’t going to be easy. Now, I never pegged this as a cakewalk, but for the briefest moment, I thought I had caught a break. With my reality check firmly in place, though, I see the long, long road ahead of me.
I’m loathe to admit I found myself asking questions, too, specifically the degree to which I’d be willing to compromise. I don’t think compromise itself is loathsome, of course, so much as the actual questions I was asking. And these questions were driven by the same age-old challenge: the people I’m attracting are wholly different from the ones I’m pursuing. It’s like a fucked-up Venn diagram that never, well, Venns.
But the heart wants what the heart wants, and I still refuse to compromise. It’s a numbers game, in my mind, and I’ve got to keep plugging away at it. With a weeklong trip to Charlotte right around the corner, along with some dogsitting this weekend, I can switch gears to other topics, which I imagine is a relief to you as well. There will be a brief return to eBay, too, as I clear out a few lots I neglected to sell, in my haste to move here. Never thought I’d look forward to logging into the old account, but a chance to hawk merchandise online that isn’t me? That doesn’t sound so bad at all.
Finally, a bite. At a 25% response rate on these new engines, you’d think I’d be streaking–we’re going streaking, everybody–through the neighborhood, but when you’re pursuing leviathan-class, 25% really just means one of the four matches you messaged actually deigned to respond. Still, it’s a data point that’s far better than what I was seeing on eHarmony, and buried in it is possibility–possibility that my charted course may not be a fool’s errand, after all.
But beyond this, there are no expectations. There is only the next match, the next opening line, and no emotional capital to be spent on dwelling. I didn’t go into online dating expecting to learn anything of substance, and I was completely wrong about this. Not dwelling on matters is a fantastic and fantastically hard skill to learn, especially for someone who likes to agonize over a thought, turning it over every which way.
Ironically enough, though, you do have to agonize over your profile. Adding new pictures helps for sure, but the biggest coup I’ve seen is from refining the text. There have been smaller tweaks to be made here and there, because even copy that seems bulletproof can benefit from revision. But what really makes you stand out, shows your colors, is the voice. I’ve been experimenting with different pitches–thoughtful, earnest, direct–but the most effective one? It’s this voice, salty but sure, tuned to the key of douche minor.