Digital Dating

i am part of a secret Facebook polyamory group.  Some of the people, for lots of different legitimate, (though often sad), reasons can not be public with their sexual identity.  The other day a new person was added to the group and the way they were introduced is with a link to their OKCupid profile.  i clicked thru to look at the profile and was told that i could not see it, because i did not have a profile on OKCupid myself.  i had been thinking about making a profile for a while, not because i need more romantic relationships, but because i believe the platform is extremely powerful and i wanted to understand it better.  So this restriction set me to crafting one for myself.

i have lots of profiles.  i have a Facebook one, a LinkedIn one, i have both the official one on wikipedia and the banned one (which is much better).  So i did not think it would be a big deal to craft one for OKC (as it is often abbreviated).  i was, once again, completely wrong.

The first thing that happened was OKC matched me up with a gal from Twin Oaks, who while i quite like her, would be a terrible romantic partner and both of us knew this instantly.   And she is not polyamorous.

OKcupid had a lot of trouble matching me to anyone else.  i thought at first this was because of my age, and being married, and being poly and being located out in the middle of no where.  But again i was wrong.

Cassandra looked at my profile and started to tell me all the things that were wrong with it.  i realized that i had done it poorly and she offered to help fix it, including answering questions for me to filter out non-poly people from finding high matches with me.  Unsurprisingly, after she answered a bunch of questions for me hers and my profiles matched much better.  She also added a bunch of pictures and edited my bio and other identity questions.

“does it work for you to post pictures of you kissing other women?” – Photo credit Cassandra

And then once Cassandra made these enhancements i started to get more people responding to my profile, despite the basic information still being the same.  i did not even see that Cassandra had put in this beautiful picture (which she took) of Mac and i kissing.

One of the women responding to my profile asked if including this image actually helped me find new intimates.  When she asked i was unaware the picture was on my profile, but i assure her that it did work effectively as a filter for people who have jealousy problems – which would be a total deal breaker for someone thinking of getting involved with me.

R to L – Casandra and her Mom – circa 2013

So now that i have worked with OKCupid for a while, i have a less rarefied attitude towards it.  Many of the questions are weak, it has been bought out by Match.com, so there are endless ads on it.  And while i am not actually looking for a new girlfriend it is a bit depressing to see myself so poorly matched.

But i am going on a double date with Mac and Cassandra and her partner tomorrow.  It turns out Cassandra and i have a high match.