Dating sites required information, and the OMG risk of meeting a geek.

Finally been spurred to comment on this, after Daisy Deadhead wrote a piece that on many levels echoes precisely how I feel about the whole ridiculous snafu over a blogger @ Gizmodo who called a guy a liar because he didn't mention his love of Magic: The Gathering on his dating site profile. This was originally was going to be a comment @ Daisy's, but it got long and rant-y and wasn't entirely on topic for her post, so I've moved it as my own post over here (where it then got even longer and more rant-y).

Full disclosure: I probably count as pretty geeky. I'm not a big gamer, whether in online worlds or in real-life (I go to a games evening every couple of weeks and have a lot of fun with the things that we play there, and I've designed my own card game that with a little luck I may even manage to sell to someone). But I get geeky about loads of things, like SF, music, language, history, religion, and so on. So I have a little bit of a vested interest here! That said, I am writing this in general terms (mostly) and not focussing on "geeks can be good dates too", but more on, "how is this even a thing?"

I'll just quote the same passage that Daisy did:

The next day I Googled my date and a wealth of information flowed into my browser. A Wikipedia page! Competition videos! Fanboy forums! This guy isn’t just some professional who dabbled in card games at a tender age. He’s widely revered in the game of Magic that he’s been immortalised in his own playing card.

Just like you’re obligated to mention you’re divorced or have a kid in your online profile, shouldn’t someone also be required to disclose any indisputably geeky world championship titles? But maybe it was a long time ago? We met for round two later that week.

At dinner I got straight down to it. Did he still play? “Yes.” Strike one. How often? “I’m preparing for a tournament this weekend.” Strike two. Who did he hang out with? “I’ve met all my best friends through Magic.” Strike three. I smiled and nodded and listened. Eventually I even felt a little bit bad that I didn’t know shit about the game. Here was a guy who had dedicated a good chunk of his life to mastering Magic, on a date with a girl who can barely play Solitaire. This is what happens, I thought, when you lie in your online profile. I was lured on a date thinking I’d met a normal finance guy, only to realise he was a champion dweeb in hedge funder’s clothing.

I later found out that he infiltrated his way into OKCupid dates with at least two other people I sort of know, including one of my co-workers. Mothers, warn your daughters! This could happen to you. You’ll think you’ve found a normal bearded guy with a job, only to end up sharing goat cheese with a world champion of nerds. Maybe I’m an OKCupid arsehole for calling it that way. Maybe I’m shallow for not being able to see past his world title. But if everyone stopped lying in their profiles, maybe there also wouldn’t be quite as many OKCupid horror stories to tell.

I'm just flabbergasted by the idea that you're required to include certain types of information on your dating profile. Time was, I'm sure, when if you wanted to know something particular about a date, that you asked them and got an answer - then you could certainly say they lied about it if it turned out they didn't answer truthfully! And that goes for the "divorced" or "has a kid" thing, or anything else. Sure, I'd quite like to know in advance whether a potential date is a racist arsehole (or whatever) in advance, but I can't call them a liar if they just didn't mention that on their profile - I have to find it out myself.

But, "This could happen to you" - what could? You meet someone with divergent career plans or interests from your ideal? Gosh, that must happen only to EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO EVER DATED EVER, surely? Or is there some weird disease you can only catch from nerdy, geeky types? (of which I, presumably, am a carrier - who knew?) I mean, it's not like "having unprotected sex - if you're not careful you could end up pregnant and HIV-positive and stuff like that". Using a dating website - you might end up meeting someone who thinks differently from you, and has different priorities! Oh noes! The shame, the horror, the suffering!!!

To get back to my original point: there's no information that is obligatory on a dating profile. It's not like you're buying a fucking house, for pity's sake! There's no need for "full disclosure". It's there for you to put your best foot forward and hope to make that first fleeting, tentative connection that, with good communication and a few dates, might spark and flare into something approximating a relationship, and then actually become one, with love and joy and all that good stuff - SOME WAY DOWN THE LINE IF YOU'RE LUCKY.

[Hmm, I just watched a documentary about Bill Hicks' life, and I think my inner voice has picked up some of his mannerisms and delivery, here - hence the shouty uppercase clauses at times]

So, on your profile, you are obliged to talk about NOTHING. You really find it useful only to talk about what you think is significant in terms of finding a suitable partner, because THAT'S ALL THE PROFILE IS THERE FOR. It may well be that "Champion of Magic: The Gathering" guy didn't realise that his gaming involvement was even relevant to whether or not he would be a good partner, or to finding out his chances of being attracted by someone else. Heck, the original piece says that she was the one who brought up the topic on their first date, not him! It doesn't even sound like she even used this as a screening tactic, until he told her his geeky claim to fame, at which point all bets were off.

If it was so important to her not to date a nerd or geek or dweeb, then why didn't she ask about the things that she found unacceptable? There's a free messgaing servcie on OkCupid, for crying out loud, you can check that screening stuff before you go on a date! Only you know what your deal-breakers and must-haves are, no other fucker (or, indeed, celibate person) can be expected to anticipate what's going to turn you off. You pretty much have to do that checking yourself.

If you see a guy or a woman in a bar and you think you might want (them) to pick them/you up, you don't think to yourself, "This person has to tell me XYZ about themselves straight away so that I can be sure I'm not going to accidentally date someone whose outlook is totally different from mine!" No - that's kind of the point about dating: you get to talk about stuff that makes you tick, and they talk about stuff that makes them tick, and if you can live with what they're like, and they can live with what you're like, then maybe it will go somewhere, and if you or they can't, then too bad, it was nice meeting them and the search for love continues. Hell, I've been there, and I'm sure most people who have tried dating at some point in their life has, too - see above.

I don't mind that this woman doesn't want to date nerdy types. I don't mind that for her, it is important for a date to have a college education, a high-paying job, and to be "normal". We all have our deal-breakers and must-haves (one of my deal-breakers is a date having those sorts of priorities, but hey, I'm nerdy/geeky/gamer type, so we wouldn't be in each other's dating pools even if we lived in the same continent).

What annoys me about the whole thing is just that she expects the world to revolve around her, and everyone else should match up to her standards, or admit that they don't, and they should automatically know what those standards are. We're not fucking mindreaders out here! If it's a deal-breaker, then YOU HAVE TO DO THE WORK and ASK them about it.   Savvy?

Sure, google away if you prefer (I know dates google me, and I google dates in turn) but really, it comes down to talking to each other is still the best way to get an idea of if they're a good match for you, and you a good match for them. Sure, you might want to have things to ask about specifically that you found out on Google (one or two dates have actually found my NSFW "And You Thought I Was Sweet", and the more disturbing things my psyche churns up over there - and they've asked me about them, and been satisfied that I'm not going to murder them and do unspeakable things to their corpse, and those people are all living and breathing today, I hasten to add, because we met up and I did not, in fact, do any of that stuff).   But I promise you: the adult, grown-up, healthy, thing to do when you find out is NOT to go away and laugh behind their back and post a blog post calling them a liar because they didn't even know you would even fucking care about it that much!   The adult, grown-up, healthy thing to do is to admit that you have a problem with it and say that you don't think you're compatible as a result.   Make it a fair, clear "no".   If they want to push it after that, then they're the unhealthy, un-adult one.