Most of you who know me in real life know I have been married for a couple of years now. Some of you know that I met my second wife online. Even fewer of you know that I met my first wife through a personal ad.
A very very few of you know just how much effort I put into finding the aforementioned second wife.
Put it this way: I pwn j00.
The stats:
Between September, 2002 and May, 2006, I contacted, or was contacted by, nearly 400 women through online dating systems (and yes, I pretty much tried them all). I had more than 175 first dates, about 40 second dates, had substantial relationships with about ten, and married... one.
I spent about forty thousand dollars on dating during this period. Enough to have my diesel VW rebuilt for the rest of my life.
What I am about to say comes from both that three and half years' worth of experience, that forty thousand dollars' worth of expense, and an anomaly. The anomaly is that I cannot seem to get Yahoo Personals to stop fucking sending me weekly updates about women who are just dying to meet me! My credentials? I married a woman I met online. Nyaaaaaah.
And what I have to say is, you suck at online dating.
Women, mostly. I wasn't much interested in meeting men, obviously. So, what follows applies most intentionally to Caucasian women in the Baltimore/DC area, 36-50 years old. The rest of you, take what you will from it.
Look.
I get these emails from Yahoo every Sunday night, and I just wanna reach into the screen and slap about half of you. Not because I don't find you appealing, but because your presentation of yourselves is so comically bad that when I was meeting women online, not only would I have not contacted you, I would have wanted to reach through the screen and slap y'all.
IMPORTANT NOTE: THE TURTLE DOES NOT CONDONE ANY TYPE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. HOWEVER, A GOOD WAKE-UP CALL IS THE RIGHT OF ALL PEOPLE, NO MATTER HOW DELIVERED. UNTIL COMPUTERS HAVE BIG, HAIRY ROBOTIC HANDS ATTACHED TO THE SIDE OF THE SCREEN, ALL WAKE-UP SLAPS WILL HAVE TO BE VIRTUAL. PLEASE DO NOT BEAT ON YOUR FELLOW HUMANS. THANK YOU.
OK, so, y'all pull up a chair a second and listen.
Women, you are terrible at selling yourselves. Part of that may be that you don't realize that online dating is, for everyone involved, not much different than people selling an old lawn mower on Craig's List. The sooner everyone figures that out, the better off everyone will be. Except, maybe, Match.com, eHarmony, and all the other sites whose marketing claims that it isn't like selling an old lawn mower on Craig's List.
But y'all could do better.
Women, here's a chart for you. I've been a guy for a long time, and I think I can speak for what a lot of guys my age, in my area (Washington DC/Baltimore/northern Virginia) might say about your stuff, OK?
If your profile pictures include...
He will think...
Small children
Whose are those?
Mostly pictures of you holding domestic lite beer bottles
Ummmm... yeah...
Old guys
Oh, shit, is that Dad, Grand-Dad, or her brother?
Old women
Mom will h8 my ass
Cats
Oh, shit, there goes my couch
Big dogs
Oh, shit, there goes the back seat of my H3
Horses
Oh, shit, there goes my 401(k)
Other women your age
Hey, that girl next to you is hot!
Women older than you
Does she volunteer at a retirement home on Saturdays?
You at other women's weddings
Oh, shit
You with guns
Oh, shit
You with your Harley
Oh, shit, she has more chrome on hers
You with celebrities
Oh, fuck, you mean I will have to listen to Tony Orlando/Tom Jones/Julio Iglesias/Justin/Bieber?
Your Halloween costume from 2007
Oh, fuck, maybe it's not a costume
And those sites where you can choose what your "best feature" is? You have no idea how many profiles I looked at where women said that their "best feature" was their eyes... and every damn picture showed them in sunglasses. Or where they said their "best feature" was their legs, but all they had was bad webcame pictures that made them look like Sigourney Weaver at the end of Aliens.
We won't even talk about the women who, in the DC area, couldn't possibly imagine dating a man who wasn't at least a Ph.D making over $100,000 a year, never mind that they listed themselves as "self-employed," making $20,000 a year or less... which is code for "the other bedroom in my mobile home is jammed with unsold Mary Kay or Tupperware."
But you know what? Fuck all that stuff above here... the single most idiotic thing women in the DC area say is, "I love moonlight walks on the beach." Have you lost your fucking MIND?????
On all the beaches on the Maryland, Delaware and Virginia coast, "moonlight walks on the beach" means stepping on an assload of ghost crabs. They may not be hostile, but your tender-ass suburban feet will sure enough know when you've stepped on them, OK? Do you not want to suck at online dating? Keep reading. 1. Show you. Good, bad, or otherwise, people want to see you. Not your bike, your dog, plants you saw in Bermuda when you went there in 2002, your mom, your dad, or your fat sister's kids. They want to see YOU. Any picture that is not you, and the real you, not you 20 years ago, is a #fail. Avoid./ 2. Read other people's profiles. The instant you read a phrase in their profile that appears in yours, get rid of yours. You may think you are being original when you're asking for a "partner in crime," but I guarantee that if someone who has recently appeared on C.O.P.S. answers your ad, "partner in crime" will be much less amusing than you thought. 3. Everyone claims to be "fun-loving." Only goths seem to want people who crave misery. 4. If everyone was genuinely "tired of the bar scene," there would be no bars left in America and the economy would crash tomorrow. 5. Please fix your keyboard if the CAPS LOCK is stuck. 6. The next time you go to the bank, say "LOL" verbally to the teller. Yeah. You wouldn't do it in real life, so if you have the urge to put it in your dating profile, please drill holes in your skull the next chance you get. 7. Your dog can find his own dates. Your cat, too. Do not be cute and let them "write their human's profile." 8. Kids. Ditto. Your kid can find more dates than you can, except most of them would lead to Federal indictments. 9. No one looks good in scuba gear 10. There is no Rule 10.
This post might get me more shit than anything else I've written online in years, but again, I say: I met my wife online. She ain't killed me yet, so I regard it as a success. But you still suck at online dating.
Does anyone remember Match Game? This was a 1960s-1970s television game show (if you never saw it, you can read all about it here) which if nothing else provided a place for obscure "celebrities" to hang out, make some money and wait for their next television pilot or TV movie to come along. In this role it was similar to its contemporary, "The Hollywood Squares." I spent a good portion of my childhood trying to figure out what Brett Somers or Charley Weaver were ever supposed to have been famous "for."
I mean, celebrities should be "famous" for actually doing something, right?
It wasn't until much later, and the advent of the internet, that I was able to figure out that some of these people had had minor roles in major movies (or major roles in B-movies) back in the 1950s, or had had Vegas shows that ran for years playing to dozens of people a night, or had done some other obscure thing years before I was born.
Still, in modern times, we have nowhere to put these "celebrities," so they wander around in a big feral mob, waiting to attack and eat stray TMZ reporters and live off the ink in old copies of TV Guide.
Here in 2010, we have an enormous feral population of "celebrities" that can't be controlled, and we lack the old-school corralling provided by game shows like Match Game and The Hollywood Squares. Yet there they are, sucking up valuable television time, screen space on the "Entertainment" page of otherwise-respectable newspapers, and clogging up Twitter with their fans. I wish to name them, so that you can identify and avoid them.
People About Whom I Could Not Possibly Give Less Of A Shit:
Justin Bieber. Sitting here right now, I cannot picture his face, cannot name a single thing he's done, and lack the will to do so. However, I dream of a bieberless internet at some point in the future. I can only dream.
Miley Cyrus. In my head, mostly she's famous for being the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, and as far as I can tell, Billy Ray was famous for one hit about 25 years ago, and for mullets. This is not exactly a Barrymore-style show-business pedigree.
The Gosselins. Whoopee. She's got a clown-car vagina, and he helped. How come you never saw the mother of the Dionne Quintuplets on Match Game, then?
Octomom. See "Gosselins," above.
John Basedow. What the fuck is a "fitness celebrity?" All I know is that he's got the eyes of the villain Bruce Willis always kills at the end of the Die Hard movies.
Any member of New Kids On The Block. This should be self-explanatory.
Kim Kardashian or any member of her family. She's another one I had to look up on the net to figure out what she was ever "famous" for. Turns out: nothing. If your only real "fame" comes from being a reality-TV "star," then there's nothing you're really famous for, is there?
Anyone Tiger Woods ever had sex with. None of our business. Move along.
Now, think about this: if you read "celebrity gossip" and your targets are these weird things called "reality TV stars," do you realize that there's really nothing separating you from them, except a $250 camcorder and the fact you're watching them, not the other way around?
In an era when we can all theoretically be "stars," there are no stars. Please quit clogging up my television and internet with these non-stars and their social detritus. Either that, or bring back Match Game so we can keep them safe and harmless.
I pretty strongly believe in the 80-percent rule, wherein in any given human endeavor, 80% of the people in it, suck.
I don't have any reason to believe Twitter is any different. But just in case the number is lower, I know some of you dread the idea of not being in the majority, so here is... The Giant Inflatable Beavers Guide To Sucking At Twitter
Here are some easy steps to ensure that you bore the crap out of your followers, don't attract new ones, piss people off, and junk up the system in general. Don't worry, you don't have to follow them all! Just a few, or in some cases, just one of these habits will ensure that you suck at Twitter. 1. Post only quotes or platitudes. Never post any original content of any kind, and of course never post anything out of your own brain or something that narrates your own life. 2. Make sure your Twitter feed is nothing but bit.ly links to your own blog, and make sure the Twitter post gives the reader absolutely no clue about what the blog post might cover. 3. Have at least 50% of your Twitter feed be retweets, preferably of people you don't know. Add no new comment of your own. 4. If you're a celebrity, have hundreds of thousands of followers, but follow no one. After all, Twitter is there so that your followers know about your every move, but not so that you need to bother paying attention to anyone but yourself. Even better, have a "public" feed that follows no one, and then give your celebrity friends your "secret" account and protect your updates from anyone else. If you don't do this, your fans may discover that your life isn't any more interesting than theirs, and they may realize you probably have more reason to follow them than they have to follow you. 5. If you're a company, use your Twitter account to blast your followers with mindless advertising and never, ever read your tweets. Just like celebrities, Twitter was created for you to talk, not to listen. Make sure your bot autofollows anyone who mentions your product or industry, even if your product area is general, like "food." 6. Never choose an avatar. Avatars are for suckers. 7. Never post a bio. Bios are for suckers. 8. Be sure and use the most mind-numbingly garish background and color combination you can. 9. Collect lots of followers and then never post anything other than your first post, which must read, "Just signed up for Twitter." 10. Be sure and junk up the TwitStream with really long, idiotic hashtags like #youknowyousofuckinstupidif or #youknowitstimetostopbanginthatskankwhen. This encourages your stupid friends to do the same, and keeps you all off the streets at night and limits the actual text you can fit in the tweet. 11. Become mayor of every known landmark within 500 nautical miles of your house and make sure FourSquare announces it to the world. 12. Make sure you earn the "DumbShit" badge. Without it, you are nothing. 13. Join a lot of Facebook games and be sure that your every bowel movement gets crossposted to Twitter so that we have warning if there's going to be a "gang hit" nearby and we can remind you to harvest your yams. 14. If you attend a conference, make sure you livetweet all the keynotes word-for-word and in real time, so that none of us have any reason to actually attend the conference and it will die from lack of attendance. This also will help you seem important instead of like a crude text-to-speech bot. 15. Search for common words like "cow," "sailing" and "food" and follow every person who ever mentions that word. Even better, write a bot to do it. This is a challenging and rewarding activity and will get you lots of admiring fans. 16. If you know how to spell, forget. 17. Have only one topic and tweet about it brutally often. We can't hear enough about peanut allergies, SEO and vegan living.
There you go! Just follow some of these simple steps, and you, too, can suck at Twitter! Comments Disabled
A lot of formerly-interesting cable networks have basically turned into high-definition fecal matter. And I've watched it happen.
I know many of my readers are my age, but for you younger ones, did you know that MTV used to show these things called "music videos?" These were popular songs with moving pictures loosely coordinated to the music and lyrics? They had these people called "vee-jays," who introduced the music videos and occasionally gave you some background on the music, the artist, and information about upcoming "albums," concert appearances and interviews.
Yeah, I know that's news to a lot of you. Maybe some of you don't believe me, since MTV is pretty much now jam-packed with game shows, "reality" shows starring people you want to hit with a large stick, and a lot of commercials. In fact, these innovations left no space to show actual "music videos," so these were shuffled off onto a little-known network called "MTV2," which has never been available on any basic or expanded cable plan to which I've ever subscribed. Thus, the only place I see "music videos" is on YouTube.
A lot of networks have morphed or mutated from their original purpose. Cable once held out the promise of enormous variety of choice, something for every taste. Over the last 20 to 25 years, it's basically been perverted into eight or ten basic types of programming with microscopic differences among the channels.
How bad is it?
A&E: started out as the "Arts & Entertainment Network." Incredible though it may seem now, they broadcast concerts, opera, ballet, theatre, and all sorts of "arts and entertainment." Turn it on now, and you'd guess it was the "Crime And More Crime Network." Pretty much nothing but crime: who did what to whom, when, when they got caught, and how they got caught. Nothing artful about any of it.
TLC: originally "The Learning Channel," they had lots of interesting shows on science, nature, and medicine. Lately, they have crime and more crime, shows about midgets, shows about humans "miracle babies," and some crime. I don't learn a damn thing from it.
TNN: originally "The Nashville Network," this was the country-music version of the aforementioned MTV. Country music videos, country dance shows, and more music videos. They also showed The Grand Ole Opry and shows about country music history and interviews with the people who made it. It morphed into "The National Network" and became the world's leading source for reruns of The Dukes Of Hazzard. Is now known as SpikeTV and basically shows a lot of shit blowing up, interspersed with "professional wrestling."
CMT: originally "Country Music Television," and was where country music videos went after TNN evicted them. Now, usually the source for old movies. reruns of home-makeover shows, and the occasional rerun of old television series. No music videos detected.
National Geographic Channel: I'll just say, since when does gang violence have anything to do with geography? Somewhere, Jacques Cousteau wants to kick someone's ass.
History Channel: Actually does occasionally show some history shows. For a period in the late 1990s, showed way too many World War II programs, leading some to think Hitler was alive and running a cable network. Lately, far too many shows about "monsters," and the history of the gangs featured on other cable networks, like "Arts & Entertainment."
truTV: originally "CourtTV," they showed actual court trials. This is the network that showed the infamous O.J. Simpson trial gavel-to-gavel. Forget that now... it rarely shows any court action, mostly because a lot of the time court proceedings are skull-crushingly boring, and instead they show a lot of crime. Oh, and some gang violence. And some crime.
HLN: originally "CNN Headline News," this actually showed headlines and short features to allow the main CNN network to focus on larger features and talking heads. Lately, however, "HLN" stands for "The Missing White Baby Network" and tries to outdo itself in the shrillness and pinheadedness of their usually-female presenters, and the bad hairstyles thereof.
VH-1: originally "Video Hits 1," this was MTV targeted to an older bracket of viewers, with music videos from older artists and bands from the class rock era. now generally shows programming demonstrating how these artists have disappeared from the culture after their careers took a dump. When Billy Idol dies, VH-1 will no longer have a reason to exist.
Some years ago, I got a note in my cable bill describing all the new, wonderful channels that the provider would be opening up. As it turned there were three new religious channels and three new shopping channels. I emailed them, suggesting that they just combine them all into The Jesus Shopping Network and use the other five channels for shit I actually wanted.
Can I finally go online without feeling vaguely uneasy because I pretty much don't care about who wore what on the red carpet (unless they're hot and wearing something short and low-cut, which pretty much aces out Jeff Bridges)?
Is it safe to go back on television?
I guess this is one facet of my general disinterest in mainstream media except as a source of amusement. There was a time I was actually curious about the Oscars, but that time was many, many years ago, back when the list of nominees was a fairly small article on the second page of the Entertainment section of the newspaper, not a huge-ass feature on the front page, let alone worth two hours' worth of gab on various "news" television shows. This was back when "Oscar Week" was "Oscar Night." Mentally, I'm trying to figure out when that time actually was, and I'm thinking that Jimmy Carter was still in the White House.
Let me ask something: does anyone legitimately believe that the Best Picture Oscar really represents the "best" movie of the year? And what, exactly, does "best" really mean?
I'll tell you what: jack shit.
What do you like? What did you actually see? And what did that film or those films mean to you? Oscar or not, a film that means something to you, affects you, makes you think or feel something, is a winner regardless of what the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science voter pool thought. And if a film doesn't speak to you, then a gold statuette isn't going to magically change that.
Worse yet is the sideshow that is Oscar Week. Come on, since when did what someone wore to the awards show mean a damn? Or is it just another opportunity for people to flap their lips about people they don't know and rarely if ever talk to, based on whether they wore this designer or that designer, or whether this-or-that was garish or dowdy or cut wrong or just plain goofy. Does anyone do the same when it comes to the attendees at the Stockholm ceremonies where they award the Nobel Prizes? Was there a self-appointed fashion critic on the sidewalk outside the Army/McCarthy hearings? How about your high school graduation... did the school paper do a ten-page spread about what the graduates were wearing (or not) under their sweaty synthetic graduation gowns out on that football field?
Arguably, any of these three events, or many others, "mean more" than the Academy Awards. But Hollywood loves throwing themselves parties, because it just reinforces the impression that there are far, far too many people in the world who are famous-for-being-famous, and (as I well know) opens them up as convenient snark targets.
Can I say that I completely love the Miller Lite ad that's out these days? If you watched the Duke/North Carolina bloodbath tonight on ESPN, you saw this commercial at halftime... upbeat music, white background, hot chick climbing all over cute guy, until it's revealed that the real love of this guy's life is a... well, just look at the damn thing, OK?
Let me explain something.
I spent about four YEARS doing online dating. I was a beta user of eHarmony, which is the commercial being spoofed in the Miller commercial, and like the old John Valby gag*, I rejected eHarmony. OMFG, what a fucking smarmy, nannyish chunk of steaming shit! Homophobia, Judeo-Christian indoctrination, and all the benefits of emotional "home owners' associations" and all for the low, low price of sixty bucks a month. I canned them long before they canned my atheist, open-minded, Democratic ass.
I am beyond delighted that Miller Lite is spoofing the living crap out of Dr. Neil Clark Warren's little experiment in making more fundy white babies. Now, some background you may not know:
First, Dr. Neil Clark Warren attributes the "early success" of eHarmony to its promotion through James Dobson's "Focus On The Family." Ever been to eHarmony's website? One thing you'll notice is the complete lack of any nontraditional lifestyle choices. You won't find a single dropdown anywhere on the site that isn't about putting Tab A into Slot B (within the bounds of Christian marriage, of course) and producing Brat C. There's no "women-seeking-women," there's no bisexual option, and according to field reports friends of mine have sent me, you're likely to be "rejected" by eHarmony if you mention common issues like depression or even if you state your preference to be childfree.
Unlike the early days, they have specialty areas for African-Americans, Jews and Hispanics. I was actually a little surprised these weren't labeled as "Negroes, Kikes and Wetbacks."
Astonishingly, they now have an additional area for "Christian dating," which kinda strikes me the same way the "mint" flavor of Crest strikes me. Shit, the REGULAR flavor is "mint," so what the hell is a "mint" flavor doing here?
A minor trivia fact: Dr. Neil Clark Warren and my wife hold the same degree, a Master's of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary. He was there much earlier, but even then, I can picture PTSem regarding him as a right-wing nut job. My advice?
Go enjoy a Miller Lite. It's shitty beer, but it's not as shitty as spending sixty bucks a month on a website that will match you with a Stepford Spouse under the approving gaze of some right-wing old trout with an armload of "scientific" studies that don't mean a goddamn.
Sixty bucks a month will buy a lot of Miller Lite. And beer will not proselytize. For the record
I met my wife four years ago on Match.com, who will take anybody who pays them. She ain't killed me yet, so I guess we'll count that as a win. And she doesn't look like Neil Clark Warren. Or drink Miller Lite.
__________________________________ * The amazing John Valby, 1974: "Nixon got an asshole transplant, and it rejected him!" Comments Disabled
What the hell is giantinflatablebeavers.com about?
It's about... THIS!
(crickets)
No, seriously. Once in a lifetime, you get the chance to buy a domain name that is so frickin' wacky, and presents so many possibilities, that you just have to take it and run with it. Run, and see how far you get before your colostomy bag gets caught on a parking meter and makes a spectacular mess.
So, just like fark.com, icanhascheezburger.com, 4chan.com, and beerlooterdude.net before me, I will strive to use this lame-ass webspace to show you truly stupid but edifying things taking place in other forms of human communication.
Over time, I will figure out ways to invite input from the unwashed, unshaved, unflossed masses (that would be you) and will try not to get my ass thrown off my limited bandwidth provided by conservative folks here in the mountains.
One proviso: FoxNews and QVC are on all night. I have to sleep sometimes. At other times, I have to eat. And at still other times, I have to... well, we'll just leave it at that. So don't get in my grille if I don't respond to every frickin' stupid thing that occurs on every network or website in the world. I only have so much snark to go around, and when this supply runs out, I will turn into Pat Robertson.
Good, day, eh? Welcome to GiantInflatableBeavers.com, another in a series of websites that seem to have sprung up from an offhand comment in an entirely different medium. Just like AllyourBase.net, YTMND, donttasemebro.com, and anything that incorporated "series of tubes," this site is one big gut reaction to strangeness, echoed tenfold.
Where'd it come from?
If you were watching the Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony from Vancouver on Sunday night, February 28, 2010, and you were watching in the United States, you got to hear the inimitable and sometimes-intolerable Bob Costas say this:
"The always-enjoyable Giant Inflatable Beaver."
WTF, Bob? I mean, where you come from, are these roaming the streets or something? I do admit that sometimes you look a bit rodentlike, but when you stare into a camera as many hours a week as you do, a little bit of the ol' Popeye is inevitable, and I haven't seen your incisors in years. But why the giant inflatable beavers, in particular? The flying inflatable mooses were pretty good, and the women strung up on wires dressed like giant leaves... but you were just so offhanded about the big rodents, like "oh, jeez, not these AGAIN..."
Now, mind you, Costas didn't say anything about the glowing blue people trapped in radioactive blobs, which I assumed meant that some of the events at the Sochi Winter Games in 2014 will include events near the old Chernobyl site, and he didn't make a peep about the kid dressed as a hockey puck, getting smacked around on a gargantuan replica of an old 1960s table-hockey game. He didn't grumble about Catherine O'Hara's semi-lame jokes. He isn't qualified to comment on William Shatner. And he didn't mention how much the big inflatable Mounties looked like the autopilot from Airplane!
But I guess Costas recognized kin among the giant inflatable beavers.
I mean, to some, this would probably be some really odd sexual euphemism. For some other people, maybe it could be some avant-garde artsy portal to lots of strange and unexpected stuff. For still others, you could ignore the domain name completely and post stock analyses or offers of business-to-business trade with China (perhaps for giant inflatable animals or something).
