Absurdities of Online Dating

Good day. I am the Irish Nomad, and today we are going to show you why so many women fail at online dating.

By way of background, you should know that the Nomad does not shock easily. Chris Daughtry tossed off American Idol? Not a blip on the Nomad radar. Spurs out in 7 games? Saw it coming. However, Nomad's Girlfriend dropped a potentially earth-shaking little fact out the other day, as I accompanied her on a hunting trip for new footwear before starting her new downtown job:
Women actually care what other women wear to work. They even talk to each other about it. Compliment each other. Sneer behind the backs of the fashion-impaired.

We don't care about this. Never has Nomad in all his work life pulled a buddy aside and whispered conspiratorially about the appropriateness of, say, another man's neckwear.
"Hey, didja get a load of Nestor's tie? Who told him to wear a Garcia with a plaid shirt?"

However, nowhere does the clash of Mars vs. Venus rear its head more strikingly than in the world of online dating. As a public service today, I would like to tell women why they fail at online dating. Most of this will seem like common sense, though sadly it is not. These are The Rules. Violate one and you may yet succeed. Violate more than one, and... Well, cozy up to cable, 'cuz you're gonna be watchin' a lot of Saturday Night Live. Alone.

Rule 1: Put A Good--- No, A Great-- Photo Out There (Because We Don't Read Your Profile)
OK, that's only partially true. We don't read your profile until after we're interested from the picture. And even then we still don't care what the last Barbara Taylor Bradford novel was that you read that got you all dreamy-eyed and moist. Seriously, we don't.


OK, that is your casino players' club card. You put more effort into blocking out your personal information than you did with the photo. While I appreciate a woman who's willing to gamble, there aren't enough free drinks in the house to make this one happen.

Now this I appreciate on a certain level. She's got brass ones just for putting this out there, and there's part of me that digs that dangerous vibe. The last thing I need at this stage of my life though is to be sitting at a Waffle House at 3:00 AM trying to figure out how to cobble together somebody's bail money. Ultimately, no, but points for... uh... not trying..?

This one I protected the innocent because she's pretty damn cute, but violated Rule 2:

Rule 2: No Other Guys In Your Pictures
Not your cousin, your brother who Bravely Triumphed Over Palsy, your dad, the guy you met "during that summer internship, and besides we only fucked that one time." Not even if you crop his face out, no no no. If we can see him and know he exists, we don't like him.
We are insecure, get used to that, because we are. It's why David Bowie (the Actor) stuffed his crotch. One giggle from you at our equipment can destroy us for a lifetime. So if we're going to make a crusade of pursuing you, don't insert competition before the game even starts. Even Hannibal crossing the Alps only had to deal with war elephants and Rome, there wasn't some other fucker there constantly chirping in his ear about how he fucked Carthage first, and what great BJ's Carthage gives. (Sorry, I was a liberal arts major, I gotta use that shit somewhere.)

Rule 3: If You Must Put Other Guys in your Pictures...
At least explain who they are. We assume the worst, that it was the boyfriend who was really good to you but you broke up because he had to enroll in the Peace Corps and you're pining away with fresh produce or a vibrator waiting for his return.
Go ahead and lie about who it is, even. We want to believe you, because we want to sleep with you. There's only one pussy between us, and if you go home that number drops to 0, get it?

Rule 4: Take It Easy on the Pets
I have a dog, I love her. Even Girlfriend loves her, outside of the dog's shedding. However, at no time did I ever in any profile post a picture of my dog. Girlfriend tells me that guys like pictures with their cars, motorcycles, etc. (This is understandable, but guys, stop it, really. We all know you're compensating for your... ahem... shortcomings...)
Women and animals, the attachment is different, perhaps because they share the burden of long years of male oppression. In any case, one picture of your pet? Lovely. We get it, you're sensitive, you value life and all its creatures and pets are healers and blah blah blah......
Enough already. Limit it to one picture. And not this one:

...because while I'm as big a fan as anyone of humiliating Mister Whiskers on a regular basis, again, it's competition. We want to sleep with you, and ideally we'd like to hang around until the morning, but if ol' Birthday Hat there is going to be hanging out on the headboard, sneak-attack batting my head while I'm trying to have attention paid to the morning wood, it ain't gonna happen.
Well OK, it would still happen, but really, lose the cat. Honestly. Shut the fucking bedroom door. No, really.

Rule 5: My Personal Red Flag Phrases
(Some of this is just my own preference, other dudes might dig this. For every object, action, or event, there is a guy somewhere who fetishizes it. Case in point: Symphorphilia, the act of being turned on by natural disasters. Check out The Fetish List for more. And watch where you stand in the next thunderstorm)

"Good Christian man": Sometimes it means just what it says, but usually it means "I'm afraid of independent thinkers and would rather not be challenged about my religious beliefs." 90% of Americans actually fall into this category of religious sheep-dom anyway, so don't feel bad.

"I have 3 teenage kids and I consider myself a mother first": You lost me at "3 teenage kids." But the rest of the sentence sealed it up by telling me where I'd stand even if we did sleep together. ("No," he stammered over his coffee cup, trying to tap the hangover off his temple, "I am not your new Daddy.")

"No baggage": Bring a 12' Ryder truck to the date. They have baggage like Tom Cruise has crazy.

"My hobbies include dining out": Eating food is not a hobby unless you're a restaurant critic, then it's your job. The 3 billion people in the world who make it through life on $2 a day don't consider dining a hobby, they consider it a way to keep from slithering off the mortal surface of the planet. Masturbating is a hobby for 97% of all men (and the other 3% are liars) but it's not going on our resume. Be more interesting than someone we'll remember as "that chick who ate food."

"Gee, I don't really know what to write": Not that sentence. Not ever. Go ahead and write it, but then immediately delete it. At least let me believe you possess basic editing skills.

"You'll always know where you stand with me" sometimes restated as "I always speak my mind": This is a simple failure to have tact. It is no more an asset than the lack of self love which causes you to do this.

"My friends tell me I'm [fill in positive characteristic]": This is wrong because no one's friends do this. Girlfriend even got me to watch Sex and the City, and they don't even do it on that show. If I sat down with my friends and asked them to list my positive qualities, first they would ask why, I would tell them I was filling in an online dating profile, they would call me a loser, someone would have to buy shots, and that would become my positive quality: "My friends tell me I'm good at pounding free Jager."

"I've never been on one of these sites before": Right. And you learned to give blowjobs like that from reading "Dr. Phil's Great Big Guide to Oral Sex". Whatever.

[Ridiculous Exclusions]: This one would mystify me except that I'm American, and I know Americans solve problems by looking very narrowly at a crisis, determining which one thing caused that particular incident and then eliminating that one thing. I call it "This Will Never Happen Again... That Same Way" Syndrome.
(September 11, for example: Airline security obsessively examined to the exclusion of the root causes of terrorism. Discuss among yourselves).
So women, in an attempt to protect themselves with TWNHATSW Syndrome, invent these ridiculous "single feature" exclusions. My favorite is one I saw recently with a TWNHATWS exclusion against baseball hats. Not the idea behind baseball hats, that most of us get way too much self-esteem from the sports teams we associate ourselves with, which is true, but just.... baseball hats. Perhaps she was hurt by Wade Boggs once upon a time, we may never know.

Rule 6: Be honest
The picture should actually be of you.
The picture should have been taken sometime this decade.
It should have been taken after any life changes which caused the color or basic nature of your hair to change, your weight to fluctuate by more than 10 pounds up or down, or any applicable sex changes.

I gotta go. If I spend any more time looking at Personals for research, Girlfriend is going to think that the Wonderbra and its payload that she's pointing at me isn't working anymore.

But it is. Oh, it is.