bluemax
6521
Yeah it hasn’t been an easy situation at all, the past few months since she moved out has been the worst time of my life.
I’ve also signed up for 21 duplicate accounts! Sometimes I respond to posts I created years ago using an account I forgot about. And then I get angry when I don’t get a response!
I moved across the country to live with a girl I met on the Internet and had known for about 6 to 8 months. We talked on the phone, traded some photographs. It seemed like it was time to bump it up a notch.
One of my friends in NYC where I was living at the time asked me if I even knew what the cost of living was in Seattle and I was so embarrassed because I had no idea. I was all, “Yeah. I sure do! What, you think I don’t?”
But I totally had no idea. Of course, if you’re living in NYC, the cost of living for most any place is going to be, “cheaper.”
So contrary to expectations, I have not pulled a Favre and declared my frustrated retirement from online dating. However, I am on a bit of a sabbatical due to:
a) in the midst of a health-related weight-loss diet program, and I’d rather get back into the game as a better version of myself as opposed to my current status of “30% butter”.
b) recently shaved my head, so all my photos are outdated. Yes, I plan on having a friend take new ones once I have something resembling a better hairstyle. Yes, I will probably also post them to the public excoriation/evaluation thread for QT3’s amusement.
So I figure with about 2-3 months of what we’ll call “spring training”, I should be ready to reassess my priorities and drop back into the pool. Some things that have come to mind, though:
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It’s quite difficult to write a first contact email that’s more than a cookie-cutter Jersey Shore mentality “You seem interesting, let’s chat and get to know each other” but without going full-blown overboard into a James Joyce epistle. I’m naturally a rather wordy and chatty person, so brevity is a bit of a challenge for me. What’s worked for people here for first contact messages?
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Trying to meet women in Kansas City is apparently like a game of Stratego where your opponent has one general and thirty-nine bombs. It’s like you can choose from “Attractive”, “Intelligent” and “Stable” - but you can only pick two.
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Stupid OKC keeps showing me women in Minneapolis and Milwaukee. In what way, shape, or form is that “Local to KC”?
So yeah, hints and suggestions and advice are always welcome.
From what little you’ve said about your occupation you are probably a 5/10-6.5/10 tops in the eyes of an “attractive, intelligent, stable” single solvent middle-aged women. If I were you, I would count my fucking blessings if I could bag “intelligent, stable, and employed” and completely forget about attractive. My 2c.
Which is the killer: marketing or veterans’ affairs?
I thought you only worked at VA. How much money are you making? You don’t need to tell me, but if: a) it’s less than $60k and b)you’re not a licensed professional who has the potential to make more but chooses not to, than I would lower your self-rating from an 8/10 to wherever it needs to be for you to start going on dates.
How the heck do you read that out of his occupation? Or are you just assuming that because his occupation isn’t doctor, lawyer, or stock broker that intelligent stable and employed women won’t be interested?
EDIT: NVM, I see you already posted the clarification on that.
Not an inaccurate depiction. Hence the need to drop about 20% of body mass before attempting real social interaction.
WarrenM
6532
I gotta say, it’s tough for a white guy to pull off the shaved head look. Really tough. I wish you luck.
Oh bullshit. Social interaction takes practice, and how you look or how much you make isn’t nearly as important as how you carry yourself. Martin’s full of shit. Confidence goes a long way. If you don’t have that, fake it. I know some poor, ugly motherfuckers who do pretty well with women because they carry themselves like they’re worth a damn.
Then again, while I’ve done the online dating thing from time to time, I’m a much bigger fan of actual, real life meeting people. Go to a bar for cryin’ out loud. Everyone bitches about “the bar scene” as though it’s entirely populated by the cast of Jersey Shore. Protip: IT ISN’T. I’m a nice guy, and I go to bars. My friends, male and female, are nice people, and they go to bars. Walking in the door of your local watering hole does not transform you into a bitch or douchebag, as the case may be. You’re still the same person. Why wouldn’t other people be the same?
Can you get bottles of Lone Star beer in KC? It’s a shitty beer, but they have these little word puzzles on the inside of the bottlecaps. It’s an excellent icebreaker (“hey, what do you think the answer to this is?”). I’ve met some cool folks (both men and women) with those as a conversation starter. (There’s an Iphone and Android app if you get stuck).
Protip: don’t start conversations with the expectations of getting a date or hooking up or whatever. Just start a fucking conversation about whatever. If it goes well, then get a number (or, depending on how it’s going, go for a kiss, or offer to take her home, you lucky dog). But don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t go that way. Most of your interactions won’t. Be content with just having a nice talk with another human being (and, for that matter, talk to men as well as women; they’re people too, and you look a lot less creepy if you talk to everyone regardless of their plumbing). The better stuff will happen; it’s just a numbers game.
Yes, get yourself in better shape, and yes, try to improve yourself all the time. But don’t cut yourself off from the world while you do it.
I do, and man, I look gooooooood.
WarrenM
6535
It’s funny. Whenever I see a bald black dude, I think he looks cool. Whenever I see a bald white guy, I think “he’s going bald and is covering it up”. :) Silly, but it’s how my brain works.
JM1
6536
Who would’ve thought the P90x-fanatic lawyer has a lot of self-confidence? :)
mkozlows
6537
That’s an awful mercenary view of women you have there.
(And even at that: $60K? Median family income, which includes many, many two-income households is only $60K, so for a single person, that’s well above average.)
Crossfit, not P90x. :)
And you’d be surprised. I’m a lot more confident than I used to be, but I’m nowhere near where some of the other guys I know are. IT IS HARD. Like anything you want to be good at, it takes practice. Faking it til’ you make it isn’t a bad way to go.
What’s worked for people here for first contact messages?
I pick out something concrete from the profile (usually an interest we share – a movie, a book, a sport, a place they lived/visited whatever) and ask a question related to it, so they have something easy to work with if they want to continue the conversation. I write enough to show that I’m literate but I usually keep it to a couple brief paragraphs at the longest.
Bruce Willis is a badass even if he is covering for a receding hairline. Just sayin’.
