Online dating sites

[Nigel]

I find the questions asked on online dating sites so absurd, and the answers even worse. Taking them seriously seems impossible. When I look at these sites, I often think to myself, would I date anyone who bothers to to try to answer these questions.

Questions and my answers:

Q: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

A: If I wanted to change something about myself, I would have changed it.

Q: What sign are you?

A: Umm, I don't speak sign language.

Q: What languages do you speak?

A: Last I checked, I speak English fairly fluently and since we live in America, I guess that is a good thing. If you want to speak in broken high school french or spanish, I am cool with that.

Q: What is you ideal first date?

A: I thought I was here to find a person, not a place. I can go to my favorite restaurant in little italy anytime, who cares about where, the bigger question is with who. As long as I am not an idiot and take you to Uncle Joe's Chicken Farm where you can slaughter your own bird and then pluck the feathers right there, what does it matter.

Q: Who has been the most influential person in your life?

A: I am pretty sure myself. You see, I work to buy myself the things that I want. I also by myself food and then eat it to keep myself alive. In addition, I make all my choices for myself and decide what I do. Finally, I also chose what to do with my free time to increase my happiness. You see, if it were not for me, I would be homeless, dead, unable to make choices, and much less happy. Therefore, I think I have been more influential in my life than grandma Easter who passed away when I was eight.

Q: If you could meet any person (alive or dead) who would it be?

A: I am sorry, I have been too busy living my life to sit down and think about this. Surely, I need to schedule time to consider impracticalities and unfulfillable desires.

Q: How would your friends describe you?

A: The same way that I described me, this is called integrity.

Q: What is your occupation?

A: I am confused, does it matter what one does as long as they value their work? Am I trying to date a person or a doctor? True story, when I was younger, I was probably in high school, I was told that it is just as easy to fall in love with a rich person as a poor person--this was a woman in her late 30s working as a waitress who told me this. Honestly, I am having enough trouble finding just one person to actually truly love.

Q: How do you spend your leisure time?

A: One of my favorite things to do on Friday nights is work, seriously. Its often quite quiet on Friday night and everything from the week is still fresh in my mind. I find that I get some of my best work accomplished on Friday nights. As a side note, I am yet to see any females jump at this response, but answered honestly.

Q: What pets do you have?

A: I have a dog, if you are cat person, please move along to the next profile. Hairballs gross me out, and both my dog and I detest cats. However, if you are a dog person, my dog is very cute and also single if your interested. I know that all good relationships are based on types of pets, I am very thankful that I paid $30 a month to answer this question.

Q: Do you want kids? How many?

A: Well, seeing as I am in my 20s and the economy ain't too great, having kids is a matter of economics. You see, if I have kids, I want them to have the best life possible, Frankly, I want to be able to afford that before considering having them. As to the second part of the question, three an a half is my favorite number. Does that work for you?

Q: Do you have kids?

A: I am still waiting to read the answer that says: "yes, I made a poor choice, but don't worry I collect an ample amount in child support." Lets be honest, if you have a kid and are working your way through school, you are not exactly responsible. You cannot provide the attention that a chid deserves if you are working full time and taking classes on the side. Yeah daycare may be great, but its not a substitute.

Q: What type of relationship are you looking for?

A: I thought this was a dating site? If not, I will take a prostitute for $50 an hour.

My favorite aspect of dating sites is the ready made matches when they try to point you in the "right direction". A real example:

Blank sparked your interest!

Like you, she's a dog lover.

You both enjoy watching a good sports game.

Like you, she's never been married.

Wow, this is dream girl. We both like dogs and watch sports (though I rarely actually watch sports for more than 5 minutes before becoming bored). And to put the icing on the cake, we have both never been married. Thank you website for coming up with such valuable similarities to make this evaluation. Surely with shared interests like these a marriage is looming.

Sorry for my rant, but is it really that hard to include something meaningful on these sites?

*I apologize for my sarcasm, but most of the time I am being serious.

[JASKN]

I sympathize with your dating efforts, not having been my favorite life activity either.

But, you've got the opposite attitude necessary to date successfully. That is, you're looking at everything from the negative. Yes, some of those questions are a little silly, but since you've taken the $30 (and all-around dating) plunge, why not make the most of them? Your goal is to meet a nice girl, right? So, for example, the influential person question is obviously just a conversation-starter, not something to be philosophically contemplated! The prostitute answer couldn't have been much worse on your end. Pets and kids are serious elements to consider in any relationship, as they take tons of time and money, and can be deal breakers. Etc.!

When I tried it, I had no success with dating sites. I never met someone I liked. BUT, I tried from the wrong approach. I was hoping the site would figure everything out for me, and I'd go on a date with someone expecting everything to be worked out already. In reality, the best you can hope for on a dating site is to get some of the very basic preliminaries out of the way: available, doesn't want kids, is attractive based on pictures online, and so forth. What you can't hope for is knowing how all of the subtleties that happen between two people will work out: oh, you love X musician AND have a recommendation I turned out to like, too? Oh, you smile more beautifully in person than I thought? Oh, you have a dry wit that didn't come across online, which I love? And so on. These and other things you can only find out in person. If the first date doesn't bring these things, no big deal. Get a new date! At least you don't need to get lunch or dinner that day anymore. No big loss.

Edited August 2, 2011 by JASKN

[0096 2251 2110 8105]

Why did you post your answers?

[Prometheus98876]

Judging from your comments here : you obviously do not understand the logic behind asking such questions or how the software algorithms used work. Also, it seems you are assuming that the questions are stupid and are not thinking hard enough to identify possible *good* reasons for asking many of these questions.

Q: What languages do you speak?

This is a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Many people on these sites do not speak English as a primary language, or know other languages in which they may prefer to speak in some/much of the time for various reasons. In any case, it is good to make anyone that may have reasons to consider such things aware of the possibility that this person may be or less able to communicate with a given user effectively in a language that another given user may be comfortable with.

Q: What is you ideal first date?

You are probably on the site to find " a person". But it is true that you are pretty unlikely to find a person that you can truly bond with without a date. You can potentially learn a lot about someone online and get to know them fairly well up to a point. But by the same token, there is a lot of stuff you need to find out in person. Which means that dating is really still a necessary reality.

Not to mention that ones idea of an ideal date could potentially tell you a lot about their values and their idea of romance.

Q: If you could meet any person (alive or dead) who would it be?

This is obviously an attempt to get you to specify people that you find inspiring, living or dead. There is much that can be learned about someone by knowing whom they admire.

Q: How would your friends describe you?

Not as stupid as you seem to think. Someones ones friends do not have quite the same view of yourself as you do or necessarily a fully accurate view of your values etc ( at least if you are not good at expressing yourself ). The point of this question is to try to get you to state how you think others are likely to perceive you, which can be useful to know. If I assume you answer this question honestly, and my estimation of you differs with that of your friends, I might have reason to reconsider my estimation of you, or perhaps whether or not I have a different estimation of you than your friends, which may or may not be useful to know.

Q: What is your occupation?

No, the exact answer may or may not be all that important in the big picture. But ones occupation can provide a useful insight into ones interests and abilities and even potentially their character. Plus, ones occupation may provide clues as to their lifestyle. For instance, if I find out that you are a busy corporate executive, I might think that you have a comfortable lifestyle, and also that I might have to keep the fact that work long hours in mind.

Q: Who has been the most influential person in your life?

I think the logical assumption is that it is meant to refer to somebody beside your self. Why is this useful? Well, already covered this really.

Q: What pets do you have?

Your presumably sarcastic answer to this is just silly. Sure, it might not be very relevant to some, but you know to others it might be. Like t hose that are allergic to animals , in which case it is at least something worth knowing.

What type of relationship are you looking for?

Not everyone uses dating sites to find romantic partners. Sometimes they just want friends, or even sexual partners. While I dont necessarily agree with using such sites for such purposes, the reality is that some people do want such things, and I would rather know this stuff at the start so that I know what to expect.

My favorite aspect of dating sites is the ready made matches when they try to point you in the "right direction". A real example:

Blank sparked your interest!

This is why I do not think that you understand the algorithms used. They work by identifying what the designers think are important facts which are considered useful in determining if two people may be compatible and then using some complicated math and doing some statistical analysis to take an educated guess as to who you may be compatible with. To do this it tries to determine what you may find important in a partner and some software will take these and try to spit out suggestions which may or may not be essentially random guesses in addition to its more sophisticated attempts to find people that it thinks you may be interested in. They are not meant to be "ideal partners" or a "sure thing", just some suggestions to consider that may be otherwise overlooked, or to encourage you to broaden your search criteria/search techniques.

Edited August 3, 2011 by Prometheus98876

[Dante]

The only question that I found ridiculous was "What sign are you?"

Also, a date is an activity, not a place.