To follow up on my post about OkCupid’s trend blog and its excellent advice on what not to write in a dating site message, I thought I’d share some of the less — ahem — tactful emails I’ve gotten on the site recently.
Message: “hey fellow perv just dropping a line, i knwo you wont respond but at least had to try, good luck.”
Mistake: Grammar, punctuation, spelling, general laziness, too much self-deprecation, no photo (which just screams middle-aged and scraggly). I certainly don’t mind being called a “fellow perv,” but at least do it with competency.
Message: “How are you? Wanna chat?”
Mistake: Brief is different than meaningless. Give me something, anything to work with, buddy.
Message: “i don’t know why…but you remind me a lot of gilian anderson, aka dana skully from the x-files. i kind of dig the paranormal.”
Mistake: Ok, as a recovering X-Files geek, I take this as an actual compliment. If only the person sending it had a photo. Or the ability to hit the shift key.
Message: “hey, third eye blind is not only from San Francisco, but they are pretty darn groovy. I’m diggin’ your approach to this life of ours. Nicely done, miss.”
Mistake: Third Eye Blind, which I mention liking in my profile as the most embarrassing thing I’m willing to admit to, is in fact not groovy. Nor should anyone use that word. Ever. Another phrase that should never be uttered: “I’m diggin’ your approach to this life of ours.”
Message: “so you like to have sex then? , is that what your saying is what mind thinks., dunno how’s life and whats the color of your sky?”
Mistake: This is somewhere between transparent and insane. My synesthesia is not an excuse to message me without a command of the English language.
Message: “nice to meet some one that enjoys sex as much as I do. If you want to hang out and get knocked around and fucker in all your holes I would love to be the one to do so ;) I’m a nice Irish guy that likes to have a lot of fun in the bedroom. Let me know if I interest you :)”
Mistake: Are you a nice Irish guy? Are you really? Because somehow I’m just not buying it.
Bonnie Ruberg is a sex, technology, and video games journalist who contributes regularly to publications like The Economist, Forbes, and The Village Voice. By day she's also a comparative literature PhD student at UC Berkeley, where she studies French, English, gender, sexuality, surrealism and perversion. You can reach her at [her first name and last name, all one big word] AT gmail DOT com.
October 16th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
It’s very interesting to read some of these failures, but what about the successes? What are some examples of messages that got you interested enough to write back?
October 20th, 2009 at 1:01 am
Ah, you read my mind. Or you just asked me that same question in person :). Posting as we speak!
December 12th, 2009 at 3:41 am
Eesh. These come-ons make me feel ashamed of my fellow men. I can see why so many of my friends dipped a toe in the online dating pool and ran the other way.