Are young single mothers fair game?
OK, well, I've only gone and done it. Testament to my wave of New Year confidence, I have created a profile on Dating Direct. It seems to be the in-thing at the moment - well, according to The Times Saturday magazine anyway.
I know there are those out there who will roll their eyes, chuckle or whatever. Yes, it's traditionally a geekily sad thing to do, and yes it suggests a little desperation. Well, before you pass judgement on me, and if you're looking for desperation, you should see how many 28-35 year-old women are advertising themselves! Whatever, I don't give a fuck - the world isn't chocolate-covered candy hearts, it's a jungle and predators act upon instinct - so why not go electro-predatory with the whole mate-selection process?
Well, I did my first search against the standard criteria - fascinating. It's curiously british, how every entry begins with apologia: "I've never done this before, so bear with me..." or "I'm ever so slightly crazy..." Not that you believe a word of this. I'll warrant every single one spent a good hour crafting their spontaneity. In the end, only 2 really took my fancy. One is a girl who looks HOT (an amateur belly dancer, no less) but is a vegetarian. The other is a 27 year-old mother of 2 - picture makes her look lovely, but it's a difficult one when images are a little hazy. My bro' expressed a little concern when I showed an interest in a single mum, especially as he knows I'm not a fan of other people's kids. I'm justifying the interest on the basis of challenging whatever emotional defects I'm carrying at the moment. And in any case, it's just friendly introductions we're talking about here, not life partnership here, right? He has his doubts - I take it, but I'm not deterred. Whatever...
One thing that stuns me about the site is the attention paid to race. The selection criteria forces both race and religion to be set as search parameters - and you'd be amazed to see how many people are looking for "white/caucasian" matches only. It's fair game, I guess, but it probably says a little about how much race still plays a part in the life preferences of society as a whole.
The other thing that blows me away is how straightforward the whole matching process is. I expected a little more mystery - e.g. you send anonymous winks, they get to play guessing games, eventually morsels of your profile get exposed, then contact details etc. No sir! It's as simple as selecting from the catalogue and "adding to favourites" or messaging. No messing about, you get to be straight-up about who you like, they can evaluate and respond/invite/reject.
Well, this is an important test of confidence. If fear of rejection is supposed to be what holds a lot of people back from declaring themselves, this process craps all over that and says: "be in it to win it, or stay a loser". I think it's good - you just have to deal with the daily life decisions, good and bad alike, and this is no different.
Anyhow, I have added both belly dancer and (yummy) single mummy to my favourites - I'll provide updates on progress (or lack thereof) accordingly.
I know there are those out there who will roll their eyes, chuckle or whatever. Yes, it's traditionally a geekily sad thing to do, and yes it suggests a little desperation. Well, before you pass judgement on me, and if you're looking for desperation, you should see how many 28-35 year-old women are advertising themselves! Whatever, I don't give a fuck - the world isn't chocolate-covered candy hearts, it's a jungle and predators act upon instinct - so why not go electro-predatory with the whole mate-selection process?
Well, I did my first search against the standard criteria - fascinating. It's curiously british, how every entry begins with apologia: "I've never done this before, so bear with me..." or "I'm ever so slightly crazy..." Not that you believe a word of this. I'll warrant every single one spent a good hour crafting their spontaneity. In the end, only 2 really took my fancy. One is a girl who looks HOT (an amateur belly dancer, no less) but is a vegetarian. The other is a 27 year-old mother of 2 - picture makes her look lovely, but it's a difficult one when images are a little hazy. My bro' expressed a little concern when I showed an interest in a single mum, especially as he knows I'm not a fan of other people's kids. I'm justifying the interest on the basis of challenging whatever emotional defects I'm carrying at the moment. And in any case, it's just friendly introductions we're talking about here, not life partnership here, right? He has his doubts - I take it, but I'm not deterred. Whatever...
One thing that stuns me about the site is the attention paid to race. The selection criteria forces both race and religion to be set as search parameters - and you'd be amazed to see how many people are looking for "white/caucasian" matches only. It's fair game, I guess, but it probably says a little about how much race still plays a part in the life preferences of society as a whole.
The other thing that blows me away is how straightforward the whole matching process is. I expected a little more mystery - e.g. you send anonymous winks, they get to play guessing games, eventually morsels of your profile get exposed, then contact details etc. No sir! It's as simple as selecting from the catalogue and "adding to favourites" or messaging. No messing about, you get to be straight-up about who you like, they can evaluate and respond/invite/reject.
Well, this is an important test of confidence. If fear of rejection is supposed to be what holds a lot of people back from declaring themselves, this process craps all over that and says: "be in it to win it, or stay a loser". I think it's good - you just have to deal with the daily life decisions, good and bad alike, and this is no different.
Anyhow, I have added both belly dancer and (yummy) single mummy to my favourites - I'll provide updates on progress (or lack thereof) accordingly.
posted by nickwong8 at 1:01 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home