Bad Match, Poor Odds

I've stated before that my personal vice is reading personal ads and giggling.

The best sites to indulge my vice are the free ones, of course. This is not just because I'm frugal. This is because pay sites screen out a lot of losers. Losers that flock to the the promised land of not having to pay to meet women. Thus, if you want to make fun of people, make fun of the cheap ones.

Of course, I haven't done a real scientific survey, but I've skimmed a lot of profiles and let me tell you: The majority are single for a reason.

I'm not saying a dating profile is a complete, in-depth assessment of an individual's personality. However, given that the user has pretty much unlimited time to think of something clever to say, or even get help from his friends, it's not a good sign when the profile is generic. It says to me he's boring, lazy and possibly stupid.

And not surprisingly, most people on the internet fall into those categories.

For example, on OKCupid I can use the search function draw up a random selection of 100 people in a given area or age range. Out of 100 this was the breakdown of the last run:

9 people I wouldn't want to run into in a dark alley (or anywhere else)
3 guys I'm sure were related to each other (or at least shared the sad-looking, unkempt appearance)
1 boy that looked 13 years old (but claimed to be 20)
1 person who thought "I'm hella introverted" was a good thing to say
1 white guy who flashed "gang signals" that at first glance made me think he was missing a few fingers from an industrial accident
1 man who was holding another woman in his photo
1 man who had two women in his photo, one of which was kissing him
3 men that looked angry
1 guy who proclaimed "I'm not your average pretty-boy type, and goddamned proud of it."
1 guy who was good-looking, but incredibly bland
1 guy who had an interesting profile, but was obese and included a photo of himself putting a mouse into his mouth
1 guy who was good-looking, intelligent and interesting, but seemed "sketchy"
76 people too generic to remember

Yep, plenty of fish in the sea. Too bad most are starting to smell.