Am I Dating Myself Here?

(that was a pun, for those who aren't as ecstatic about wordplay as myself)

This blog is hilariously relevant to a recent online endeavor of mine, one which I've decided to not be embarrassed about. So there.

Upon yet another utter disappointment in the real-life version of dating, I took the advice of a good friend and decided to take my venture to the web...a place where the world works on my schedule, where I can't be held personally accountable for taking my time (unless you happen to be taking a class that grades blog submissions).

He recommended a free site wherein I could find "plenty of nice hipster boys": OKCupid

The first challenge given to the user being to choose a username and then to create a profile.

I instantly started scanning my iTunes collection (a daunting task, mind you) looking for obscure lyrics or song titles to appropriate-my logic being that it would weed out anyone who didn't get the reference, and therein be a double-bird-killing stone to narrow my criteria.

Creating a profile, however, became a considerably more daunting task.

These profiles prompt such explanations as "On a typical Friday night I am...", "The first thing people usually notice about me...", and "The six things I could never do without". As well as the option to upload pictures of yourself (an element necessary, I found, to showing up on other users' search results).

It was that point when I first realized I was dating myself. My generation is arguably the pioneer in online interpersonal communication, and growing up I shared the phenomenological scare-propaganda of "don't EVER tell anyone your real name or where you live" substantiated by after-school specials (or our contemporary version of them) informing us frightened young Americans of the dangers of accidentally meeting a 400 pound child molester who will inevitably trap you in a hotel room and try to do horrible things to you until the authorities conveniently bust down the door in the nick of time, somehow.

To avoid this nightmare-embedded possibility, I cleverly skirted the requirement by posting this picture I took in Paris a couple years ago:

This way I could be found by other users' searches and simultaneously "protect my identity", a concept which is pretty hilarious considering the context, and probably faaaaar too telling of how I ended up looking to the internet for a boyfriend in the first place.

While I realize that this blog prompt is probably intended to have us discuss identity construction on the web (and believe me, I'm interested-I almost wrote my thesis on it), I find it more interesting, in this context at least, to note how I "read" others' as possible dating prospects.

I spent a week going back and forth on quitting the site, one of my reasons being "what kind of guy posts a detailed profile on an online dating site?" And then realizing, I guess I'm one of those kinds too, and I'm not totally creepy and awful (most of the time).

I learned that my priorities in scanning these profiles went like thus:

1. Photo(s)-Superficial, I know, but it's kind of the beauty of this website as no one has to know how superficial you actually may be.
2. Interests-Music being the main factor, as it's actually been a deal-breaker with many of my past exploits.
3. Self-Summary-This falls last on the list because of my penchant for self-reflexivity. I thought about how difficult and tedious it was for me to write that part (and how half-assedly I did it) and took that into consideration when reading others'.

Herein I realized that none of this information mattered all that much.

I found that I approached these profiles the same way I approach meeting men in real life, being that I make my first judgement (in real life by that esoteric "chemistry" factor) based on username, photo, and turn of phrase, basically, and from there appropriate all other information to fit into my preconceived opinion about the person. "You like the situationists? Well, it could be worse, at least you like social theory...and you are wearing a nirvana t-shirt in that one photo..."

So to end this post that could go on forever, the moral of the story is...regardless of how we present ourselves on the web or in real life, we're going to see what we want to see, and therefore others will see us subjectively as well. So does it even matter if you're "being yourself"?