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I don't buy it
Apr. 26th, 2008 07:59 pmAs you may or may not know (and may or may not care) I have a profile up on OKCupid. I can't remember when I first put it up, but it wasn't recently. It just lingers out there, mainly so I can take quizzes when I'm so inclined. I don't hold out much hope for meeting anyone from such a site.
In the last week I've had two emails from them claiming someone scored me high (4 or 5 stars) on QuickMatch. The game is, in order to find out who these theoretical people are, I have to rate people they have queued up for me to rate and if I rate the person who gave me 4 or 5 stars highly, they'll tell me who it was.
I don't buy it. I don't believe for a minute that two different people rated me highly on some dating site. Really, no one rates my personality highly until they really get to know me. My humor in contextual. It takes me a long time to get comfortable with most people. It seems to take even longer for people to begin to understand me. I'm prickly on the outside and not just because I need to shave. About the only people who take to me immediately appear to be people who want to use me in some way. As far as I'm concerned, those don't count. As for looks, well, at least I got brains.
So I think OKCupid is just doing a self-promotion pitch. It's the kind of pseudo-fraud that all personals sites perpetrate.
I hate the concept of rating people. In a way it's utterly rude. Then again, we all rate people in our heads, we just don't tell them. I know if someone mentions Jasper Fforde I'll immediately move them up a star or two. Cigarettes and an abrasive personality can send a sci-fi reading omnivore down the gravity well. But still, it's grossly unfair to judge a human being based on a typed out profile and a couple of grainy pictures. Humans are complex, that's what makes them interesting.
In the last week I've had two emails from them claiming someone scored me high (4 or 5 stars) on QuickMatch. The game is, in order to find out who these theoretical people are, I have to rate people they have queued up for me to rate and if I rate the person who gave me 4 or 5 stars highly, they'll tell me who it was.
I don't buy it. I don't believe for a minute that two different people rated me highly on some dating site. Really, no one rates my personality highly until they really get to know me. My humor in contextual. It takes me a long time to get comfortable with most people. It seems to take even longer for people to begin to understand me. I'm prickly on the outside and not just because I need to shave. About the only people who take to me immediately appear to be people who want to use me in some way. As far as I'm concerned, those don't count. As for looks, well, at least I got brains.
So I think OKCupid is just doing a self-promotion pitch. It's the kind of pseudo-fraud that all personals sites perpetrate.
I hate the concept of rating people. In a way it's utterly rude. Then again, we all rate people in our heads, we just don't tell them. I know if someone mentions Jasper Fforde I'll immediately move them up a star or two. Cigarettes and an abrasive personality can send a sci-fi reading omnivore down the gravity well. But still, it's grossly unfair to judge a human being based on a typed out profile and a couple of grainy pictures. Humans are complex, that's what makes them interesting.
