Deconstructing Chick Flicks (Is a Bad Idea)

So tonight I watched The Decoy Bride. Don't feel bad if you haven't heard of it. In fact, feel good. I only watched it for David Tennant and that didn't even make it okay. Anyway.

Tonight I have confirmed with myself that watching any kind of chick flick while simultaneously having a bachelor's degree in English is a bad idea. I have been accused, on more than one occasion, of being unable to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy rom-coms for what they are -- light, easily digestible, and with a minimum of gastrointestinal distress afterwards.

"Oh God, Maid in Manhattan is coming back up!"

But you know what? I'm not even going to try to suspend my disbelief anymore. I have a problem with chick flicks and I am not ashamed of it. Not just because a misunderstanding always breaks the couple up and he has to go running after her to Italy or Neptune or whatever. Not because everyone is a cardboard cutout of what some coked-up Hollywood exec thinks is a character. Not even because of the simplistic "And everyone lived happily ever after" bullshit.

No. It's because love in chick flicks is the worst thing ever.

And not just because of Matthew McConaughey.

For some reason, chick flicks have this tendency to create the same situation over and over again. A guy is going to get married. His fiancee is beautiful but crazy and pushy and shrill. He meets a woman who is plainer (which in Hollywood means she's still gorgeous, just brunette) but with that indefinable something, and within a day he is deeply in love with her. Now he must choose between his word as a gentleman and twoo wuv. 90% of the time he decides to Do The Right Thing and go through with the wedding but his fiancee lets him off the hook. The other 10% of the time his fiance simultaneously falls in love with someone else, again relieving him of his duties.

"Well fine. I didn't want to marry you anyway."

I don't know why this is such a popular trope. In romance novels it's the straight-up "I banged lots of women but never loved any of them" trope. In TV sitcoms it's the "We're so in love until something breaks us up, but now we're back together" trope. So why is borderline infidelity so popular with the movies?

I don't know, but I don't like it. So now I am going to systematically break down why chick flicks should never, ever use this "choose between your fiancee and the exciting new romance" story line ever again.

5. He's Either Shallow or Has Bad Taste in Women

I'm just going to pick some chick-flicks that have the whole "he's with the wrong woman" theme. Men in serious relationships, either about to move in with their lady or straight up marry them. Let's check these ladies out:

Never Been Kissed, looking like a blonde business woman who does business for business reasons.

Wedding Planner, more unflattering and aggressive clothes, stuck-up bitch blonde hair and surly man face.

The Decoy Bride, Blonde. Insane Blonde.

See a pattern? All of these women represent what audience members of chick flicks hate: beautiful, successful, blonde women who clearly don't deserve the men they have. These are the bitches that picked on us in middle school and forgot our existence by high school. But the problem with casting them as the fiancee is that you're making a statement about the groom, whether you want to or not.

First of all, why is he with her? If it's because she's beautiful then he's shallow. And if he's only with her for her looks or her fame, why on earth is he now paying attention to the mousy little shop girl with a heart of gold? The chance that it's due to a lasting connection seems slim.

"I vow to love you at least until another person walks by."

Okay, so you don't want him to be shallow. So you make the fiancee a shrill, needy, demanding bitch who always orders him around and keeps him from living his dream as a singer/songwriter/hobo. Problem averted!

Except that now what kind of man is this? He's either with her because he's weak and can't find a way out, in which case he'll probably end up crawling back to her five minutes after the movie ends, or he has phenomenally bad taste. He picked a woman like her and has plans to marry her even though she's vindictive and belittling. Maybe he's really into being put down and insulted?

"I am so hard right now."

Which actually makes sense, considering...

4. The "Romantic" Banter is Always Mean-Spirited

So I'm twenty minutes into The Decoy Bride. We've awkwardly shoe-horned the two leads into a situation where they can finally let the sparks fly. They can show us how great they are together. Instead she tells him his book was shit, no one liked it, and he's a loser. He responds with, "Working in a shop? Living with your mum? You're a loser." Thirty minutes later, they're deeply in love.

Don't listen to my words. Just look at my beautiful face.

I have never understood the need to have couples start out a romance with vitriolic jabs. It's often not even witty. It's supposed to show that she's spunky and he's not easily cowed. But instead I'm starting to see a pattern. Of course he doesn't want to marry his bitch of a fiancee. She's mean-spirited. But so is the next woman he falls in love with. It's a cycle of sadness and he'll keep it up forever.

On a side note, when is the last time you fell for someone who dismissed your whole life in two sentences and ended it by calling you a loser? Did you really want to show them you could be more than that or did you call them a clitcruncher and flip them the bird while walking away?

3. Love is a Quantifiable, Easily-Explained Phenomena

One of the hard parts of writing a love story is understanding what makes two people fall in love, what makes them compatible and what makes them want to be together for more than ten minutes.

"I sense a lasting connection with you."

Chick flicks make this problem twice as hard because they have to explain why a man's fiancee is suddenly not the right woman for him. Having the man say anything like "She's getting older," "She's not as hot as you," or "I'm bored" tends to make the guy look bad, and definitely not rom-com material.

So they have to make his new relationship "better" because of something really stupid and boring. The new girl makes him laugh in a way he hasn't for years. Or the new girl is a little bit wild and shows him that he wasn't taking risks in his life. Or his fiancee gives him writer's block and the new girl doesn't (seriously, that's a real thing.)

None of this explains why people fall in love, though. And it never will. People fall in love for all sorts of reasons, but if the reason is "We were trapped in a room together for 24 hours under wacky circumstances," there are some serious underlying psychological problems that aren't being addressed.

And again, he's just one of them.

2. It Glorifies Cheating

Take any "he's marrying the wrong woman" scenario in a chick flick and just tweak it a little bit. A man has been with a woman for years. She's beautiful and famous and successful. She's kind of a blonde ice bitch, but he thinks he's happy. Then one day he meets the girl who is so much more right for him. She's sweet and down to earth and definitely not blonde. They talk and laugh and fall deeply, perfectly in love.

The day after his wedding.

Oops.

"This is somehow not okay anymore."

1. It's a Horrifying Cycle

Relationships are hard work. And it's scary to imagine marrying someone and spending your whole life with them forever and ever amen. It can make you think that they're not the one for you. It can make you think that no one has the horrible flaws your significant other has. It can make you think that literally the next person you see on the street is a better match for you.

"Sure, you'll do."

The problem isn't that movies make the lead male character have these second thoughts. It's that they have him acting on them. Throwing away years of effort and a planned life on a woman he knows nothing about. You think he's going to do this just the one time? What happens when this new girl realizes that she too disapproves of his ambition to be a singer/songwriter/bohemian because she has to support him and his filthy habits? Is he going to work on improving himself or pick out a new partner?

These movies are basically saying, "Love isn't hard work. And when it is, you should just get rid of it. Because real love is flirting and that first kiss and has nothing to do with mortgages or childbirth or being in debt. Once you hit the boring stuff, just move on."

"Honey, I'm out of change. Can you feed the meter?"
"I want a divorce."

The only thing that makes these chick flicks interesting is to imagine them as sequels to other chick flicks that originally starred the spurned fiancee as the "other girl."

Now that's actually something I would watch.

4 Ways That Written English Needs to Catch Up

Allow me to start this article by saying that grammar is stupid. Or, rather, that grammar is not stupid, but we have made it so. Grammar, spelling and conventions were made for the sake of clarity, but the internet has turned some of us into incoherent idiots and the rest of us into nit-picking egomaniacs who care more about the use of "their" than the content of a post.

Who cares about his genocidal warmongering? Look at that terrible conjugation!

Over the years and with the advent of texting and WhedonSpeak, spoken language has veered away from standard English. Sometimes this is a bad thing. I don't ever want to see "Me and her went to the store to see where Mike was at" written anywhere near me. Actually, I don't want to hear it spoken near me either.

In fact...no. Just no.

That being said, there are some ways in which written English just needs to relax some of its standards. This could lead to less confusing blog posts, fewer pointless fights in comments sections, and, most importantly, less boring poetic theory essays.

4. "Y" is Not the Only "Sometimes" Vowel

The letter 'Y' is a tricky little bastard. Sometimes, like in "Very," it acts like a vowel and creates an "E" sound. Sometimes, as in "Young," it acts as a consonant with the harder "Yuh" sound. Y is the gender-bending hermaphrodite of the alphabet and is listed as an afterthought in the catalog of vowels.

"Sure, sailor, I swing both ways...for a price."

What people aren't really taking into consideration, though, is that "Y" is not the only one guilty of dabbling. "O" and "U" are just as bad. And now we have a sad number of people who would say "A union," "A once-in-a-life-time change," "A university" and "A one-time thing" without thinking a second thought suddenly trying to write the same sentences with "an." Because obviously "an" precedes any words that start with vowels. "An university" might look right when you write it, even if you'd never say it out loud.

In this case that just isn't true. Written English has no real rules, just desperate attempts at rules, like a substitute teacher in a 5th grade classroom after recess. Words like "union" and "university" are actually employing the "yuh" sound from the letter Y, and "once" is borrowing heavily from W and acting like he'll pay it back even though he won't.

This is the fault of written English being a stuck-up bitch. It's time to just say things out loud before we write them down and to feel okay about doing that.

3. "Nother" is Totes a Word

The English language is constantly changing to keep up with slang. "Ginormous" recently made it into the dictionary just because people were enjoying playing Frankenstein with our standard lexicon. That's a fine thing to do. Lewis Carroll made up the word "Slithy" to be a cross between "Lithe" and "Slimy" and it totally worked for him.

All that acid helped, too.

So here's the thing. "Nother" is a word. It just is. We've already started a trend of shoving words into other words like the world's least appealing turducken. "Abso-fucking-lutely" is a prime example. It's called expletive infixation, which just means that you enjoy swearing so much that having "fuck" be every other word in a sentence just no longer works for you.

"My day has come."

So we have a term for putting the word "fuck" in the middle of "fantastic," but nobody wants to talk about "nother."

I would not have thought of it at all, except that I found myself, as so many of us do, writing out the transcript of the movie "Star Wars." (Because, as I believe I have stated previously, shut up, that's why.) In said movie, there's a moment where Luke is whining to his uncle like the little bitch that he is. His uncle asks him to stay on the farm for an additional season to help with the harvest.

"You know. So we don't die of thirst in this never-ending, godforsaken desert."

Luke responds with, "But it's a whole nother year!"

Which got me to thinking. Technically this word is "a-whole-nother." The word "another" is broken up by the word "whole." But that's not really what it is. It's "a whole year" and the word "nother" is giving it emphasis. I vote that we embrace this curious little quirk. Let's make "nother" a word. We want to. We're not saying "An-whole-other year." We already use it when we say "That's another thing." What we should be saying is "That's an other thing," but with spoken English it sounds like "That's a nother thing." So screw it. Let's just say that "nother" means "additional" and be done with it.

2. Let's Decide Right Now How "H" is Pronounced

Quick lesson about pronouncing words that start with "H." If the first syllable is emphasized, you would use the word "a" before it. If it's the second syllable, you write "an." For instance, you write a history, but you also write an historical account. A history. An historical account. A hospital. An hospitable environment. Etc.

Oh, but if the "H" is silent then the word is "an" no matter where the emphasis falls. So it would be an honor. To stop talking about this now. Got it?

Good.

Writing all of these different things out is a huge pain in the ass and confusing to boot. Spoken English has a handle on it for the most part, but it feels really stupid to say "An hospitable environment," even though that's technically correct. So I vote that we just make it "an" when the "H" is silent and "a" when it's clearly pronounced. Then we can say and write "A historical event" and not feel like jackasses. Because we'll all be on the same page.

Assuming anyone can even spell "historical" anymore.

1. You Can End a Sentence With a Preposition (Seriously)

Douchebag trollers and pedantic college freshmen will tell you that you can't end a sentence with a preposition. This is any word that relates to space and time. So "with," "up," "about," "since," etc. While you might feel totally comfortable saying, "Who are you going with?" or "I wish you'd lay off," many people insist that this is incorrect. A lot of people won't write it that way, just in case. They'll write "Under what were you sitting?" or "By whom was the book written?"

Which leaves you with extremely archaic, unwieldy and ridiculous sentences. "With whom are you going?" is not something I would ever say to anyone, unless I hated them or had somehow found myself trapped in a Jane Austen nightmare.

"Off is the direction I wish you to fuck."

Language is meant for communication, and frankly, written English is lagging. We are behind the times with the dynamic ways that people interact with each other, and it's time to step it up. Relaxing our standards seems difficult, but that's a historical trend that's going to be a whole nother issue to deal with.

4 Things You Aren't As Soon As You Think You Are (Or: What?)

Most people devote a moderate amount of time to self-assessment, which I believe is generally a good thing, a practice that leads to better behavior. Sometimes you need to stop yourself between the third and fourth puppy beheading, take a good hard look at what you're doing, and ask yourself, "Am I getting enough fiber?"

They do look awfully stringy.

What's interesting about self-assessment, though, is how noticing and acknowledging your traits can change how people see you. Really self-aware people should be able to see themselves clearly and own up to their own traits, good or bad. For the most part if you get feedback from a solid number of people that you are an average, down-to-earth person, you feel okay saying it to others. In job interviews. On dating sites. Whatever. "I'm just a regular Joe!" is an okay thing to say.

Okay, but maybe not "I'm a regular Joe."

If you try that with any of these, though, they suddenly make you a braggart or a liar. It is not that you suddenly appear to be something other than you say you are due to societal conventions of modesty and tact. You actually cease to possess the quality as soon as you say it. Observe.

4. "I don't care what anyone thinks about me."

This is a personal favorite of wannabe rebels and the criminally adolescent. When you think of people who gave one single fuck once upon a time and it turned out to be counterfeit, you might think of say, this chick:

Or dude. With all the punk/emo/goth crossovers it might as well be Boy George.

Her steely-eyed stare says "I will end you," and the direction she is looking says, "Perhaps I need glasses." Her hair actively embraces ugliness like it was a rich, dying great-uncle. She might as well have shaved the words "I don't care what you think" on the back of her head, just so that you know how much she is devoting absolutely no time to either your opinions or her daddy issues.

The problem with this sentence is that you have to be saying it to someone. If you're posting it on Facebook, what are you expecting? 200 "Likes" or everyone to go, "Oh thank god, what an independent human being not controlled by society's puppet strings"? Either way, you seem to care an awful lot that people know that you don't care if you're taking the trouble to make it a public announcement.

You know what I don't care about? Iceland. I have no feelings, one way or the other really, about Iceland. Do you know how often I tell people that I do not care about Iceland? I'm not going to lie to you, this is the first time. But I really, really want you to know how much I don't care, okay? I don't care at all. Like, even if Iceland offered me a job or asked me out on a date, I wouldn't care. I am so over what Iceland thinks of me.

Okay, but seriously, you know who actually doesn't care, possibly about anything? This guy:

"I made this shirt out of your grandmother's curtains."

Look at him. He is just totally wearing that shirt. And he's not even ashamed. He looks like he wants to do something vaguely sensual to you, and he also seems to be under the impression that you will like it. He is never the guy saying "Whatever, I don't care what people think." He's the one saying, "Hey baby, my Geo is parked like, right out back."

Seriously. That is not caring what people think.

3. "I'm not a racist..."

I put the ellipses on the end of that phrase because I'm pretty sure that just stating that you're not a racist can be an honest claim. Then again, I have my doubts about the validity of it as an true statement when I think about what scenario you'd have to be in in order to be announcing that you are most certainly not a racist. It sounds kind of defensive. Most of the time, people on the defense have a reason to be.

"Wait. Go back and define 'racist' for me."

No, the ellipses are there because people who start a sentence with "I'm not a racist" almost inevitably follow those words with "but." Seriously. How often have you heard the phrase "I'm not a racist, now let's go get some ice cream." Or "I'm not a racist, so let's elect an Asian-American president."

This phrase might just be the biggest red flag out there for not only racists, but homophobes, misogynists and pop lit fans.

"I'm not an idiot, but I love Twilight."

 No, most of the time it's a springboard for launching into the hilarious stereotype about which race can't drive or park or which one is secretly trying to get children addicted to crack and/or South Park. The problem with "I'm not racist" is that it's used as a preemptive "Nu-uh" to other people's "You're a racist prick" reaction.

"Of course I'm not anti-Semitic. Didn't I explicitly say that right before the joke about the Holocaust?"

What's really funny to me is that these people clearly realize that what they're saying  is racist. They just don't want the catch-all "racist" to apply to them, so they deny the way their own words might identify them. It allows them to  say whatever hurtful, stereotypical thing they want without branding or labeling themselves as something as shunned and unaccepted as "racist."

"You don't get to call me racist! Only we get to use that word!"

2. "Women like me because I'm the Sensitive Guy."

The above statement is not necessarily a definitive statement of The Sensitive Guy. It's just an example of the typical bullshit that comes out of his mouth. Other entries that are accepted are, "I'm not like other guys,"  "I really like to listen to girls' problems and make them feel better," and "Hey, why don't you come into my room alone and tell me all about your feelings."

"Here, breathe deeply into this paper towel."

We all know this guy. We all know women who have dated him, although we never seem to know them personally. This guy has figured out that he can't do the Tough Thing. He can't do the Hot Jerk bit. He may even feel strongly against men that use these tactics. So he decides to be the Super Ultra Sensitive Guy.

And he decides to tell everyone about it.

The problem with telling everyone how sensitive you are and how much you care about other people is that you almost always come across as caring only about yourself and your reputation. You're just sitting there talking about how great you are. It starts to sound like you're doing everyone else a favor by being so awesome. Especially when it's not specific people that you care about.

It's Women.

All of them? Really?

I personally can't stand The Sensitive Guy because of this sweeping generalization. It's condescending and it generalizes women into this category of people who are all alike and who are all, apparently, acceptable targets for the Sensitive Guy's "charm."

I know plenty of sensitive guys who are very respectful of people and listen when their female friends talk and then sympathize with their feelings because most of the time life is not a sitcom.

"Of course I pretend to listen. That's how I get them into bed."

These men just are sensitive. The minute they feel the need to tout it as a fantastic virtue it becomes something else. It becomes bragging and it becomes skeezy. By focusing their attention only on "women" it becomes just another tactic to get them into bed. And it's not even choosing a specific woman. It's just the scatter-shot effect.

"Oh yeah, sure, any of these would be great."

1. "I'm really very humble."

Are you really humble? Do you never ever think about yourself? Are you not even aware of how humble you are because of the aforementioned never thinking about yourself and only caring about others?

Try saying it without making it not true.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

Why So Ser--Oh God, Now There's Salt in the Wound!

European Football: Douchey or Extra Douchey?

I was recently in London, the hub of an Empire that is no longer connected to any sort of wheel. As far as tourism times go, it was pretty big. Mid-June, just after the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and just as everyone was ramping up for the Olympics. In the midst of all of this, what would you think would be the biggest event on everyone’s mind?

If you said Euro Cup, then I suppose I should feel really good that someone in the U.K. is reading this.

Americans don’t care at all for the sport they call soccer. In the mind of Americans, if scoring happens less often on the field than it does in a high school prom parking lot, it probably isn’t worth watching. But pretty much everyone else in the world is, like, a really big fan of football. For the sake of clarity I will refer to soccer as football, because most of the world believes that “football” should refer to a sport where the key body part used is the (wait for it) foot, rather than somebody else’s skull.

"I'm sorry, what? I couldn't hear you over all the brain damage."

So I’m in a pub (seriously, step off the plane and you have two choices of places to go: the underground or a pub. I was once convinced that I was actually in a pub within the underground, but it turns out I was just absolutely sloshed and experiencing the spins. Long Live the Queen!) 

Now, this pub is full of people who are adamantly supporting not only England, but Scotland, Ireland and (if they must,) Wales. That's how much the Brits love football. They will support terrible teams, or the teams of people just remotely related to the British Empire, who, I have been assured on separate occasions, shag sheep. It's kind of beautiful, really. Americans aren't like that. We will disavow just about anyone unless we feel that they are worthy of our love. We will forget almost any team that fails us.

Excepting Red Sox fans, who are just insane.

So we all know that England is going to perform terribly in the Euro Cup. We do. But everyone is in a pub anyway, waiting to get way too worked up about it. Everyone is intently, and with the underlying promise of violence, staring at the television screen, waiting for the nations' heroes to bring the pain.

And out come their superstars. 

I used to think there was nothing worse than American Football players: big, thick, and unable to string four words together that weren’t “Yeah” “So” “Um” or “Crazy.” American Football was always my least favorite subject taught in college. Then I was introduced to European Football players.

Football players in Europe, from any team, are the douchiest looking people on the planet. 

It's

Important

To

Cite

Your

Sources. (Wait, is that Flea?)

I don't know how this is possible. I used to get mad about American Football players wearing so much padding and such thick helmets when the whole point was to beat the snot out of each other. When I saw the European Football players come out, though, I found myself wishing for helmets with visors, or possibly just a paper bag.

They have dreads. And ponytails. And braids. And weird shit shaved into their skulls. They have tragic soul patches and creeper mustaches. They look weird. Most of them are probably not allowed within 100 yards of a playground. They have bizarre personalities that they're trying to promote, which just seems like a terrible idea. Not one of these men is going to bring the pain, excepting my eyeballs bleeding out of my skull.

I suppose that shouldn't matter so much as their abilities. But the other strange thing is that they're all great athletes with the same annoying tendencies that absolutely ruin the game.

Here is how to become a world famous football player:

1.  Examine your hair in the mirror. Ask yourself, “How could this be douchier?”

2.  Find some gel. Go nuts. 

3.  Get the razor out and shave the sides of your head. Leave the top untouched for women's headbands and stupid mini-hawks

4.  When you get onto the field, focus on the time-honored tradition of tripping people, blocking the ball with your hand, and fouling other players in the dirtiest fashion possible.

5.  Before anyone even calls you on your shit, put on your best “Who, me?” face with your hands raised to prove that you were absolutely not touching anything, possibly ever.

Perfect.

Bonus points if you can convince yourself that you’re really innocent and that everyone is against you.

6.  Get the ball. Act as though you might do something with it.

7. When an opposing player gets within 10 feet of you, fall over and roll on the ground in agony. Clutch your shin for dramatic effect. Hope that this is enough to get them red-carded.

8.  Look around and realize that everyone is rolling around on the ground and moaning in agony and that you have now been scored on 3 times (Don’t worry, none of them will ever count, because of reasons.)

9.  Jump up and yell at the ref for being a biased pig.

10.  Repeat.

There's so much potential for brilliant, brutal, choreographed talent here, when no one's playing opossum. And there might be someone out there who remembers that they’re playing a game of skill rather than a contest of “Who Looks More Like a Meth-Addled Pedophile,” but those people don’t tend to get camera time.

Don't get me wrong. Football is a great sport that occasionally involves people voluntarily smashing their heads into flying objects. Sometimes they kick things upside down. But what is this great ritual that everyone must observe? Why try to milk every foul, every misconceived injury? Why must that keeper from Italy look like he wants to do horrible things to me in his sound-proof basement?

"Of course I own a meat locker in my house."

I hate to say this, but it made me miss the States. I love the game of football, especially when it's beautifully and cleanly executed. But I, unlike my fellow pub patrons, grew very quickly tired of the game stopping every few seconds because a dude fractured his ponytail. At least with American Football, if something gets through 2 feet of padding, 6 inches of fat and another mile of muscle, you know that that man is actually in pain.

And that's all I'm looking for.

Bad Catholic

"Do they have a code clearance?"
"It's an older code, sir, but it checks out."

5 Reasons Why (I'm Pretty Sure) Internet Dating Sucks

As someone who is post-college and who works from home, I very rarely have the chance to meet new people. This includes people of the opposite sex whom I may occasionally want to mash faces with. Internet dating has lost quite a bit of the social stigma that always pigeon-holed users as fat, nerdy virgins and lying douchebag assholes.

So I tried it. I signed up for an account on OKCupid since it was free. I talked to a lot of nice people, and even met a few in person. And I can honestly say that we don't need to worry about the old stereotypes concerning internet dating because they are, for the most part, completely untrue.

However, there are a whole bunch of new problems that you should probably be aware of before you enter this mucky new territory...

5. It's the Internet, People. C'mon.

In case you haven't met the internet, most of the people you will interact with there are frightening. It has something to do with distance. If I were walking down the street and overheard someone say that they don't like Star Wars, I would not interrupt their conversation to explain, in detail, how genius it is with archetypes and Harrison Ford. I would not scream at them or call them names.

Mostly because such people deserve no warning.

Were I on an internet forum, however, I probably wouldn't think twice about posting my vociferous opinion, along with several uncouth and anatomically-impossible suggestions for the dipshit that happened to disagree with me. The thing about the internet is that you can be a horrifyingly honest person about your bigotry, hatred, lust, violent tendencies, etc. without reserve because there's such a huge distance between you and the people you're conversing with. You never have to feel bad because you're not looking anyone in the eye.

Unfortunately, the same is true for internet dating. Yes, when you're trying to get matched up you want to know the answers to questions like "Is it important for your sexual partner to lick butter off your toes while wearing a leather collar?" but is that really one of the first things you want answered about a person? People reveal really private information voluntarily because it's easy to just fill out a survey about yourself, addressing no one in particular. It's a lot harder when you meet a date face-to-face for dinner and realize that now they know that you're into S&M and that you've had over 100 sexual partners.

Although apparently that works for some people.

I think internet dating is good in theory, because you're not doing the scatter-shot approach of the bar scene, where everyone is skeazy and gross and just looking for drunken hook-ups. But while society is being really vocal about how internet dating isn't just for the losers anymore, we're all still kind of thinking it. Because, c'mon, it's the internet, where all the chicks are actually dudes and all the dudes are incredibly creepy.

For example: I had someone send me a message on OKCupid that was slightly icky and entirely too suggestive. When I ignored him, he decided the best way to get a response from me was to write another message saying "I'll give you vagina butterfly kisses if you message me back."

I'm assuming this is what he looked like while typing that.

Now, to me, while really fucking gross, that is not the worst thing he could have done. What would have been worse is if he had acted in a gentlemanly manner at first. Had I simply read about his interests and conversed with him a bit, I might have been duped into seeing him in person. I'm assuming that at the end of that date I would have found myself in a surprising cameo on To Catch a Predator.

Not that predator. Think douchier.

4. You're Self-Representing

There are two totally separate downsides to having to represent yourself in a profile, and you never know how you're going to come across to anyone looking at your site. Being unable to talk to a person face to face means that you rely on what they have to say about themselves, leading to one of two problematic groups:

The first group is the hardest to figure out. They shall henceforth be referred to as "The Stans" (regardless of gender) because of the way their brain functions seem to switch off when dealing with members of the opposite sex.

Pictured here.

These are the people that are probably pretty cool but have no idea how to talk about themselves without worrying that they're being self-degrading or self-aggrandizing. It becomes this incredibly awkward little apology on their profiles that mostly consists of, "Um, it's really hard to sum myself up. Just ask me, I guess. I like Crocodile Dundee, I guess, and some people think I'm funny? Maybe you won't."

"Here's a recommendation from my mother. I'll be in the corner."

Because they don't know what to highlight or how to sell themselves, The Stans focus on the totally inane ("I like cheese, lol") or just freak out entirely ("Something private about myself that I'm willing to admit? Well, it's private, okay? Why would I tell you?") The Stans feel that they can't say that they're great at philosophy and rhetoric because they don't want to seem pretentious, so they'll say something like "I'm great at breathing and blinking at the same time" and hope that it's funny.

It's not.

Which leads us to group two. These are the people that are total twat-chisels, but have absolutely no self awareness. They'll post things like "I'm really funny and good at making people laugh. I'm super sarcastic, lol. I know you're not supposed to say you're smarter than other people, but sheeple are stupid, and haven't read Nietzsche, and if they have they don't understand it like I do."

The self-important dickwaddery is one thing, but mostly the problem is that it's showing rather than telling. These are the sort of people who buy T-shirts with clever or sarcastic one-liners on them. They don't realize that by doing so, they are not actually being funny, and that mostly they're making themselves look dumber and lazier in comparison.

This girl, for instance, is completely brain dead. But you knew that already.

The problem with this group is that there's no way to tell if they can back their claims up, so they look clumsy and ridiculously transparent. They think they're just being honest and suave, like so:

I shall never tire of posting pictures of this man.

Tragically, however, they're just caught up in a fantasy of perceived awesome, that comes across like this:

"Ladies."

That's right. Group One are The Stans. Group Two are The Star Wars Kids. At some point, someone looking at your profile is going to picture you as one of those two. Try not thinking about that during a date.


3. Multiple-Choice Matching (Is Weird or Dishonest)

Sites like OKCupid match people based on their answers to multiple choice questions. Some of them are fairly straightforward. I would like to be matched with people that answer "yes" to "Should homosexual couples be allowed to marry?" and "no" to "Do you like to set small puppies on fire?"

The big ones are a better source of fuel, anyway.

But there are some weird-ass questions floating around in there, and some that just don't have a multiple-choice answer that works for you. For instance, one question wanted to know if I was outgoing or introverted. I wanted to write down that I'm a fairly outgoing introvert, but that was not a choice. Then I was asked to choose between ridding the world of all the dumb people or else all the unattractive ones. Unfortunately there was no "WTF" option for that particular question.

Okay, but yeah, fewer dumb people. Totally.

That led to the question of honesty. There were a lot of questions that I hesitated about answering because of the way I felt it would portray me. I untruthfully answered "Yes" to the question "Do you shower everyday?" because hygiene is important, and I don't want to be perceived as a filthy hippy. But let's face it, sometimes you have an Arrested Development and pancake day, and showering just does not happen.

The story of this man's life.

Total honesty leads to some weird reactions. I met a very nice man and I almost didn't talk to him at first because he'd answered "Yes" to the question "Have you ever eaten food out of the garbage?" It turned out that the food had been candy in a sealed package and he had known beforehand when and where it was going to get chucked. Multiple choice did not allow for that sort of elaboration. So I was left with the initial impression that he was one of the following things:

Okay, that last one was adorable, but you understand. This guy was just trying to be honest, and I don't think it was working in his favor. Which leads me to believe that either everyone is lying and therefore rendering the system pointless, or that the people who are being completely truthful are going a little overboard.


2. It's Not Helpful


I like to think of myself as a fairly logical person, who wants certain things out of a relationship. I like to have interactions with people who are intelligent, well-read, funny and into Star Wars. I've always figured that people who fall into those categories are people I will get along with well. Online dating thinks along the same lines: if you can narrow the parameters of your search to shared interests, you'll find someone you'd want to date.

But really, who are you kidding? You go out with people because you're attracted to them. I'm not saying they have to be what you usually think of as typically attractive, but there has to be a spark, and it very rarely has anything to do with the fact that their favorite movie is also Weekend at Bernie's.

"I can just tell that we have so much in common."

If we all went out with people based entirely on shared interests and the fact that they were really nice and funny, there would be no such thing as the "Friend Zone" and cancer would probably be cured or something. At least in a bar, before you even talk to the person you can tell whether or not you find yourself attracted to them. That matters.

The other problem is that knowing someone's likes and dislikes doesn't really tell you what kind of person they are. There are a lot of people who share my beliefs when it comes to religion, social policies, music, movies and literature whom I absolutely loathe. Sometimes it's because they're just too much like me, which causes us to clash, and sometimes it's because our personalities just do not fit well together.

Or they're my evil doppelganger.

At least when you get set up on a date through a friend you can trust that your friend knows the two of you well enough to believe that you'd be a good fit together. There is no such guarantee with internet dating. Your matchmaker is a computer (that has probably never known love, I might add) with a weird idea of compatibility.

"I set up the two of you because of your mutual preferences for light whipping and Atlas Shrugged."

1. Expectations


To be clear before I start this section off, I am not talking about the expectation that you will sleep with someone after a certain number of dates. That is a disgusting, shallow policy that is only rigidly maintained by sitcoms, for reasons that are unknown to me.

Friends: collectively responsible for all the STDs in New York.

First, there's the shallow sort of expectation, which is the expectation that your date will in some way resemble the picture they have posted to represented themselves. I think guys and girls have to deal with very different sorts of ruined perception in this case. The problem with guys' profiles is that they are filled with what single men think are cool: close-ups of tattoos, pictures of them shirtless, climbing trees, wearing hats/sunglasses, fighting bears, etc. This does very little to accurately portray what this man will actually look like.

"This is my best angle."

Guys have to deal with a totally separate problem when it comes to women. Women hate pictures of themselves as a general rule, and so will mostly post pictures of themselves that will be considered flattering. Maybe a high angle shot to slim the face, or the clone stamp tool to remove blemishes, etc. They tend not to be terribly honest photographs. I'm not saying that this is what really matters, but you go into a date expecting a person to look a certain way, and adjusting suddenly can make the whole thing more difficult. Especially when you think you're getting this:

"OMG, I'd just woken up and hadn't even brushed my hair, lol, what a bad pic."

But you actually end up meeting this:

"Buy a girl a drink, sailor?"

Mostly when I talk about expectations, though, I'm referring to premature full disclosure.

Internet dating is different from meeting people at bars, coffee shops or parties in one important way: you have already announced your intentions. You can meet someone through friends or work and spend time with them. If you like them, you make it known and proceed from there. If they make a move and you don't like them, no hard feelings, you're just not looking for a relationship right now, or whatever cliche you feel like offering to soften the blow.

"It's not you, it's me; I hate you."

With internet dating, though, your date already knows that you're looking to get married and procreate with the next creature that isn't completely brain dead and doesn't make you vomit in your mouth. So you're expected to like them and if you don't like them then you're expected to say it. It's like having to break up with someone you don't even know.

So with all of that on your shoulders, I say screw it. Just nut up and ask out that cute girl at the coffee shop. It's actually way less stressful, and there's only like a 5% chance that she's actually a man.