Ulysse Pence

Honest Dating

March 4th, 2018

I don’t pretend to know the best way to find great sex using an app. That was a secondary objective. I was always more interested in starting a romantic relationship.

Years ago, I went on a few dates after messaging people on OKCupid. My ability to filter people out improved as I interacted with the network more and needed less time to discover if I was compatible with my date. Several years passed, my understanding of empathy and other people changed, and I resurfaced on the dating scene. Below are some rules of thumb I’ve developed for finding a match:

When I look at another person’s profile, most apps put the photos front and center. I imagine it’s based on creating an initial interest through sexual attraction; however, I have become attracted to many people after getting to know them and have experienced many false-positives when leaning too heavily on their appearance. Therefore, I now cover the photo with my hand and jump immediately to the person’s words about themself.

I am guessing that, if I grabbed several million dating profiles, counted how often each topic (e.g. Netflix, a pet, travel, etc) appears, I would find that the significant majority have only topics within the 10 most common. The interesting profiles are the ones whose topics fall outside of the most common 20, 30, etc. Mentioning a desire for good conversation or demonstrating introspective skills / self-awareness also signal an interesting profile.

After making an initial evaluation of the profile, I view the photos as a sanity check to ensure I am not repulsed by their appearance. That’s about it. When I initially skip the photos, the in-person dates move much better towards friendship or more.

Based on these ideas, for my profile, I spent time trying to stand out in similar ways. Here is a snapshot of my “Coffee Meets Bagel” profile at some point in the past:

I am… a good listener, empathetic, motivated, brave enough to be an outlier when needed.

I like… deep, interesting conversation, understanding issues from different perspectives, making people laugh at my expense, to try new things.

I appreciate when my date… is kind to other people, joins me on spontaneous excursions, thinks of how I’m feeling, communicates their thoughts, calls me out when I stay stupid shit.

I put up a couple of my favorite photos of myself, but I also accompany it with a couple honest photos of me that show my body type and how my face looks under unideal lighting. If the other person decides to go on a date with me, they are going to see these aspects of my being, so I try to filter earlier to avoid the time investment in an unnecessary date.

I admit that meeting someone in person can be a different kind of experience than seeing them digitally and one can filter too aggressively at this stage. Still, I find the regret of wasting an evening far worse than the regret of the unknown what-could-have-been.

Finally, on the date, I avoid specific activities like movies, meals, museums, … really anything starting with ‘m’. I often suggest walking around the town or city one of us lives in, which is an activity I have found conducive to good conversation with friends. In that situation, eye contact is at each person’s discretion and the environment presents many topics of conversation when both people are blanking.

Later in the date, if these following things are true, I will say “I think you’re pretty cute and I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. What do you think?” If I am not enjoying the date as much, I will wait until we are near public transportation and say “Well, it was nice to meet you, but I’m probably not interested in going on a second date.”

When I tell friends about this, they sometimes say that I’m too forward, but I am a strong believer in authentic interaction. Even when I tell people I don’t want to go on a second date, regardless of their preference, they usually seem to appreciate the honesty. Who knows, though.

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