Bad Words For Personal Ads

I met my wife on Match.com. A number of years back, that might have been something people were ashamed to admit, as if using an online dating site implied an embarrassing sense of desperation, but over time, people have started to accept dating/singles sites as a useful tool and they're no longer the secret shame that they once were.

My sister met her husband online (after my wife helped her re-work her profile). My friend George, a cop who reminds me a lot of Patrick Warburton, met his wife online. Meeting people through online dating and online singles sites is becoming more common and more accepted.

Recently, my wife and I were discussing words and phrases that automatically raised red flags when we'd been looking at personal ads on dating sites. I thought I'd share a few.

"SARCASTIC": Usually this did not mean "funny" or "witty". It meant that the person would say incredibly rude and insulting things, then when you took offense, they'd get upset and say "I was just kidding. Jeez, can't you tell?" As a matter of fact, no. I don't know you very well... and I don't think I want to change that.

"SASSY": See "Sarcastic".

"BRUTALLY HONEST": This actually means "tactless". Much like "sarcastic" people, "brutally" honest people would say rude things, but try to excuse it with the fact that they were "just being honest." Some people can be honest without being offensive and can determine when some honesty is just best kept to yourself. "Brutally" honest people lack that skill.

"NO GAME PLAYERS": This tells me that you're one of the walking wounded, still carrying injuries others have inflicted on you, and that I'm going to be "tested" to prove my honesty and sincerity.

LISTING WHAT YOU DON'T WANT: I saw lots of ads where women spent more time talking about what they didn't want than what they did. It's an easy trap to fall into. If you're a woman, no matter how much detail you put into describing your ideal, you'll get contacts from men who are so far from it, you wonder if they read your profile at all or if they just looked at your photo, said "oooh, she's pretty" and e-mailed you. So women start feeling like they have to be emphatic in listing all the things they're not looking for in a man.

Problem is, the "ooh, she's pretty" guys are still going to ignore what you wrote and e-mail you anyway. The guys you might like are going to see all that negativity, think "ooh, she's bitter" and move on. Your ratio of losers to good people goes up and sometimes prompts you to try harder to weed out the loosers with even more strongly emphasized negative statements, which just scares off even more good people and gives you an even higher percentage of losers.

Define positive qualities you look for, things you want, and consider sorting the wheat from the chaff via a couple of follow-up e-mails as a cost of doing business.

"PLUSH": Women and men use a zillion euphemisms for "fat" or "overweight" instead of just saying that they're overweight. Some try to convey a "yes, I'm fat, but I like myself and think I'm beautiful this way" through their use of euphemisms. But if you're that self confident, be open and honest, and don't try to make people decode the secret codes.

"FULL-FIGURED", "ZAFTIG", "HEALTHY": See "Plush".

"ECLECTIC": This word just has a wide variety of interpretations, it seems. It can mean that you can enjoy listening to both Rachmaninoff and JayZ, or it might merely mean you're a goth with an Anne Rice fetish. If you're going to use the word, qualify it.

That's it for now, but please feel free to leave a comment on this post, noting your favorite "red flag" words and phrases that tell you not to answer someone's ad on a dating site.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 2:18 pm and is filed under Techno Thoughts, Technology & Life.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.