Tag Archives: online dating

Sex, dating, and marriage survey of 2012. OMG.

Match.com is one of the many Internet dating sites that I’ve helped friends with; by which I mean, making over their dating profile. Because being single sucks. Or, it does for me. Most of the time. Probably because I need so much attention.

“Constantly talking isn’t necessarily communicating.” — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Since 2010 Match.com has done studies on singles and married people, asking them about what they want, what they have, and what they need. This year I’m bringing some of those stats to you, via Singles in America.

match.com singles america

Anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher lead the study of 5,481 single people, spending 12-14 hours a day analyzing her data. I feel like if you’re single and/or have single friends, we all do that in some way or another. Analyzing our data, and our friends’, and whatever we need to do to feel normal.

So how do we, (and by “we” I mean 20 somethings, but if you’re over 20, I still love and adore you, ASK YOUR DAD, the implication being that I had sex with your father, it’s a bad joke), feel about marriage?

kennedy wedding

Over 2/3 of men and women in their 20’s want to get married. Can’t help but wonder what if the question instead was, “How many of you want to get divorced in your 20’s?” 82% of women in their 20s wanted to get married. 67% of men do.

Weirdly, or weirdly to me, these numbers drop in the 30’s to 78% of women and 64% of men. I thought it only went up the older you get, especially with women. That’s what the movies and the television shows tell us. Except for Sex and the City. Actually, no, wait, didn’t they all wind up married at the end? Except for Samantha I guess. That Samantha! She is a PISTOL! So why is it that the stats go down? Is it because people get married in their 20’s, get divorced and think, Fuck it, I’m buying a boat? Can anyone explain this from personal experience?

Henry Groskinsky

 

Here’s something that shocked me from this study. Really, really surprised me. Did you know that the first thing both men and women judge when they first meet someone is their teeth? I always assumed my entire dating life that it would be how fat or thin someone is. But apparently it isn’t, at least not in 2012 when this survey was taken. So good news if you’re fat! You’re gonna be fine! What do you see immediately about someone you’re dating when you first meet them? Guess what else is important to people? GRAMMAR! YEEEEEAAHHHHHHH! That’s not a joke actually.

90% of people asked, “Do you believe that you can stay married forever, to the same person?” answered yes. YES! YOU IDIOTS. THE MATH DOESN’T ADD UP. THE NUMBER OF DIVORCES IS TOO DAMN HIGH!

Melina Mercouri

OKAY, LET’S GET TO YOU SLUTTY SINGLE SUPER PEOPLE. 45% of you had a friends-with-benefits relationship that turned into a REAL THING. And Dr. Fisher says, “I’m not surprised. Because any kind of sexual stimulation of the genitals drives up dopamine which can push you over the threshold into falling in love, and with orgasm is a real flood of oxytocin that is linked with feelings of attachment. Casual sex is NOT casual unless you’re so drunk you can’t remember it.”

mod sqaudI hear you there, good doctor. Being really drunk is like time travelling. I think I just accidentally made a Dr. Who joke. And this is where she said something REAL interesting to me: “maybe we’re in a new stage of courtship.” Dude, I said this way back when I started my blog. I said this in my THIRD POST. It’s TRUE, DR. FISHER, IT’S ALL TRUE!

So what do you guys and dolls think about all of this? What are some dating or marriage trends you’ve been seeing? Do they reflect this study or are you reading this and as puzzled as Cogsworth when Lumiere cooks up one of his schemes to get Belle and the Beast together?

I think this study is interesting as hell, and I recommend you watch Dr. Fisher’s talk here. It was a livestreaming video so the quality isn’t the best, but it’s worth watching/listening to, because holy fuck, it really surprised me.

(Oh, and for all you sexters out there, don’t be too hard — omg that’s what she said — on yourselves if you’ve sexted because you are so not even close to being alone. 35% of women say they’ve done but, oh my God, we all know it’s higher. It’s such a thing now that Match made a short vid about it. Check it out below. There’s another stat in there that may or may not embarrass you.)

This post was sponsored by Match.com. As always, all opinions are my own, for better or worse.

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Would you rather be rejected or ignored?

democratic national convention

GUYS: on OKCupid (or any other online dating site), if you message a girl and she’s not interested would you rather she:

a.) Message back that she’s not interested

or

b.) ignore you.

 

Ladies, you can answer this too, but I’m especially interested in what the guys have to say about this.

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Why OKCupid is terrible.

fred astaire barri chase hollywood film set

Disclaimer because this post will probably upset people: to the guys I’ve been out with on OKC lately, who are probably not even reading this, this doesn’t refer to you, so calm the fuck down, even though you pretend you don’t care, but you totally do, because all anyone wants is to be flattered, especially on the Internet. This post is about OKC and my experience with it in general, not the exceptions.

I am tired of doing this. I am tired of dating. Tired of OKCupid dating, mostly. I can’t. This is getting ridiculous. Guys, hot tip: if you don’t look like Chris Pine, do not use the photo that someone took of you on that one day where the lighting was just right and you looked, for once in your life, like Chris Pine for two seconds. Especially do not use it as your main profile photo. You have to let us know right away if you’re ugly. (And maybe you’re not actually ugly, maybe you’re just picking terrible photos that you think are flattering.) And here’s the thing, before you yell at me: I have very specific, crazy standards. Most of the guys I consider ugly are men that most people consider attractive. So don’t get angry with me, like I just sent you an email saying, “Hi, ______, I was just looking you up online and you are ugly.” No. And I’ve been called ugly. And I get it. I look like Mick Jagger. I get this. I have a weird face. Some people consider my weird face weird enough to somehow work and be beautiful. Other people see my face and think that nothing works and it’s a mess and that it’s ugly. And that’s fine. I don’t give a fuck.

Everyone tells me to change my standards. No. How about you stop being ugly? Why the fuck should I change my standards? If you don’t like my standards, then don’t date me. Find someone else who sees you and wants you for you who are. I like men who look like this. Or this. And this. I do not like men who look like this. Or this. And those last two men are men that lots of women think are insanely attractive. See? I’m not asking for Ryan Reynolds-Gosling. That isn’t my type. Do you get what I’m saying here?

Be thin. Yeah, sucks to conform to the same standards we’ve had to deal with for years, doesn’t it? Go fuck yourself. Be thin. Be creative. Be smart. Be able to play an instrument, even if it’s just barely. Be able to have an awesome conversation with me. Be kind. Be generous. And I don’t mean just with money. I mean with your time. With your patience.

Almost every time I meet a man who fits these standards, they either 1. live in New York, 2. Leave me for an ex, or 3. Both. I’ve tried long distance. If you’re worth it, I’ll do it. I visit New York a lot now that my dad lives there. But you give up on me. And I go back to OKCupid and try again. And I don’t find anyone I like, and if I do like them, they of course do not like me.

Or maybe, I hate you. Maybe you hate me. But if you’re hot, and we have heated arguments, and then hatefuck each other, I’m okay with that. Because at least there’s passion in hate.

If you want help with your OKCupid profile, I can help you. Because I really just want you to find someone who loves you as you are. I don’t want you to be an asshole like I am. I want you to be happy. I want to help you be happy. I won’t judge you. I will find the most attractive and awesome thing about you and amplify it times a thousand. And why? Because I am sick of these stupid, inane, misleading, diabolical online dating profiles. So help me help you.

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How I met my boyfriend on Google+.

This isn’t me and my boyfriend but you can totally pretend it is, I’m fine with that.

Google+ is great for posting stuff that you’re too embarrassed to post on twitter and facebook, since no one uses it. What is the sound of one hand clapping? Google+. Where do good statuses go to die? Google+. Where’s the best place to hide a dead body? Google+. And so forth.

So who would have ever thought that Google+ would help me find my boyfriend? Most people don’t even know what Google+ is. I explain that it’s like Facebook if no one used Facebook. You connect with people, post statuses, and you would use it to procrastinate if it weren’t so horribly boring.

But that’s not important right now.

My friend posted a status of a ridiculous iphone cover that looked like real sushi. I wrote about it on Hello Giggles, but that’s not what this story is about. And now I’m hungry. Why does everything bad happen to me? Anyway. He posted this photo of this sushi phone and I commented on how awesome it was and then found other awesome things on that website and posted those on his Google…circle…wall…whatever, as well.

Then a message from someone else popped up. Because Google+ is as dead as any graveyard, the bones of interactions past still remain. Here is exactly what I saw:

“Is this the Almie that went to Emerson for a little while back in ’03? I think I may know you.”

Rather than say something like, “No you must be thinking of another Almie who went to Emerson in ’03” I decided not to be a sarcastic jerk for once and responded that yes, it is the same Almie:

“You’l [sic] have to forgive me, my time at Emerson is a blur. Did we have the same classes or something?

 Fucking suave, Uncle Almie.

I want to add that my time at Emerson was very brief and very blurry. I was going through a serious depression at the time. We’re talking Kirsten Dunst, can’t bathe for herself, “It tastes like ashes” Melancholia depressed. I was there for one semester. I did manage to be pretty involved in the community. I auditioned for and got one of the two newscaster roles for the SNL Weekend Update type show EVVY Update to be aired on the Emerson school channel. We would report on what students were doing for the EVVYs which was some kind of student run award show for students and I don’t remember what EVVYs stand for or what we actually did but I do remember that Chloe’s dad was kind enough to film a “Congrats to the EVVY winners!” clip for the show, that I’m wondering if they ever used, and Chloe’s dad has a secret bathroom in his office, where the bathroom door looks like a wall and you don’t know it’s a door until he presses it in and then you’re like, “Holy shit, Chloe’s dad is Batman.”

But that’s not important right now.

I also managed to get on the writing staff of the comedy magazine. It was here that I met my friend Dave Horwitz — but I don’t remember us being friends at all. Years later we connected back in LA (via MySpace, MY LIFE IS THE INTERNET) and he told me, “Don’t you remember me? We were on the comedy magazine together.”

I blinked.

“…We sat next to each other every week.”

Blink.

“I saw you doodling pigs wearing top hats.”

“Oh yeah!! I remember those!”

My point is, I sat next to this guy every week for months and I didn’t remember him at all. This is important to the story. The story of how I met my boyfriend on Google+ not how I met Dave Horwitz on MySpace. That’s a good story too, but I kind of just told it. Oops.

So. My future boyfriend just told me that he remembered me from Emerson and I told him, basically, “Who the fuck are you?” [“Did we have classes together?”] He said:

“I don’t think so, actually. I think it was even vaguer than that. Like we were both commuter students and met at a commuter event or something maybe…”

I wasn’t a commuter student. Like, not even close. I decided it was time to kick this shit into full gear. It was time to take this to Facebook.

I contacted him on facebook and we exchanged flirty messages back and forth, the kind where I would be giddy to see that little “1” in my inbox and I would ask my friend Katie, “How should I respond??” and she would say something and I would ignore it and then do whatever I wanted.

So we arranged to meet. We met at a trendy wine bar on the border of Los Feliz/Silver Lake/Narnia where the bartenders had old timey barbershop quartet mustaches and the patrons were loud and recorded themselves having fun on their iphones. We had a wonderful first date, and I will tell this story at some point, if anyone cares.

A few dates later, he confessed that we had indeed met before. We’ve since determined that it was likely outside a showing of “Lost In Translation” near my dorm. Apparently, we stopped to chat and we even exchanged numbers. And I don’t remember this. By the time he called me, I had already dropped out and moved back to LA, which I told him on a message I left him. And again, I don’t remember any of this. But through the magic of the internet, we found each other again.

Aw you guys, right??

So without Google+ I never would have (re?) met this great guy. Thus, I can never leave Google+. I will go down with this ship.

How did you meet your sig other? Do you believe in fate?

Boom.

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