The art of looking without looking
Going through ads of some of the various dating websites out there, it continues to amaze me how many people are looking for something they are officially not looking for.
Take collarme.com, a newcomer on the lane slowly surpassing alt.com and bondage.com, for an example. Because I'm only interested in girls, I can only tell about girls profiles, but every second or third one I open says "I am not really looking".
Why are you here then? People have these exaggerated expectations about dating websites, without admitting it. Women putting up a profile on a dating site seem to be taken by surprised that many men will answer them. Sure, there is a high number of dumb asses who don't even read her profile, send out mass letters without thinking twice about what she might think about that. But still, if you put up a profile, you shouldn't be surprised if someone looks at it and wants to get in touch with you.
I can only imagine what it must be like being female, entering the online dating space. I have a vivid imagination of the crap you have to deal with, that huge amount of emails a girl will get in the first minutes even after she published her profile. Going through those emails, encountering that most of them are plain bullshit, fakes, people being dishonest, playing, acting, telling nothing about themselves and expecting her to reveal everything, at once, instantly.
So what is her reaction? Retreat and self defense. She becomes frustrated first, suspicion follows. And she starts acting bitchy. Every guy, not only those who can’t think twice, will come to feel that tone of voice. It's all like "sorry, but I had to waste so much time going through all this bullshit of you guys".
But this is not going to make things better. It is not going to change behavior of those fake Doms and 18 year old wannabe "Masters". It is not going to make things better or easier for those who are seriously interested, making an honest attempt to get in touch with someone. It is not going to lead to any results. In the end, it will lead to a dumpster filled up with frustration, on all sides. Which is basically the reason why there are so many profiles alike already, with virtual barb wire around them and "We shoot everything that moves" signs all over the place.
I don't think anyone ever is really not looking. People who are married are still looking. Yes, they might not be looking for a new partner, so the question is what people are looking for when they don’t need a new partner. People entering the BDSM blurb are most definitely looking for something, otherwise they wouldn't go online to do research, to find others alike, to seek exchange and feel home with their despair, their longing, craving and questions. If you ask them, they'll all claim how easy they take this all and that they are not really looking for anything but chat, entertainment, or some time out.
But in reality, we all are looking for something. We are looking for luck. For fulfillment. For completion. For fun too, sure. We are asking ourselves: Am I the only one feeling this way? Am I weird or what? We are looking for confidence in others. For similar experiences.
And by entering the realms of BDSM online, on IRC, attending chat rooms, looking at informative websites, reading ads on dating sites, we are ready to accept the fact that we might never ever find what we are looking for. Yet the sparks of what we found already have been so inviting, so compelling and overwhelmingly convincing, that we must go on.
So we pursue with our quest, to find what we were not looking for.
Take collarme.com, a newcomer on the lane slowly surpassing alt.com and bondage.com, for an example. Because I'm only interested in girls, I can only tell about girls profiles, but every second or third one I open says "I am not really looking".
Why are you here then? People have these exaggerated expectations about dating websites, without admitting it. Women putting up a profile on a dating site seem to be taken by surprised that many men will answer them. Sure, there is a high number of dumb asses who don't even read her profile, send out mass letters without thinking twice about what she might think about that. But still, if you put up a profile, you shouldn't be surprised if someone looks at it and wants to get in touch with you.
I can only imagine what it must be like being female, entering the online dating space. I have a vivid imagination of the crap you have to deal with, that huge amount of emails a girl will get in the first minutes even after she published her profile. Going through those emails, encountering that most of them are plain bullshit, fakes, people being dishonest, playing, acting, telling nothing about themselves and expecting her to reveal everything, at once, instantly.
So what is her reaction? Retreat and self defense. She becomes frustrated first, suspicion follows. And she starts acting bitchy. Every guy, not only those who can’t think twice, will come to feel that tone of voice. It's all like "sorry, but I had to waste so much time going through all this bullshit of you guys".
But this is not going to make things better. It is not going to change behavior of those fake Doms and 18 year old wannabe "Masters". It is not going to make things better or easier for those who are seriously interested, making an honest attempt to get in touch with someone. It is not going to lead to any results. In the end, it will lead to a dumpster filled up with frustration, on all sides. Which is basically the reason why there are so many profiles alike already, with virtual barb wire around them and "We shoot everything that moves" signs all over the place.
I don't think anyone ever is really not looking. People who are married are still looking. Yes, they might not be looking for a new partner, so the question is what people are looking for when they don’t need a new partner. People entering the BDSM blurb are most definitely looking for something, otherwise they wouldn't go online to do research, to find others alike, to seek exchange and feel home with their despair, their longing, craving and questions. If you ask them, they'll all claim how easy they take this all and that they are not really looking for anything but chat, entertainment, or some time out.
But in reality, we all are looking for something. We are looking for luck. For fulfillment. For completion. For fun too, sure. We are asking ourselves: Am I the only one feeling this way? Am I weird or what? We are looking for confidence in others. For similar experiences.
And by entering the realms of BDSM online, on IRC, attending chat rooms, looking at informative websites, reading ads on dating sites, we are ready to accept the fact that we might never ever find what we are looking for. Yet the sparks of what we found already have been so inviting, so compelling and overwhelmingly convincing, that we must go on.
So we pursue with our quest, to find what we were not looking for.
posted by Alter Ego at 2/25/2006 02:05:00 PM
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