I commented: "I like the way this flowchart actually visualizes all the profile characteristics and date requirements of a user, sort of like seeing a favorite book become a movie."

That being said, I still have a problem with flow charting the unpredictable.

 Dating would be absolutely easier if everything, including the date, turned out to be as 2D as a flow chart or a profile on a computer monitor. While the "flowchart to my heart" is a minor part of okCupid, it is representative of the larger issue of how useful such a website is as a dating service for people.

I have to admit that I am only on this internet dating site nowadays for simple entertainment. I naively thought at first that I might actually find a good date just by clicking, typing, and watching. So I signed up to okCupid. (I'm also on a couple of other dating websites, mostly just for cross referencing and making sure my experience was more diverse than just one site - all in an effort to come to a  more valid conclusion regarding the utility of online dating... for me at least.)

Since I joined I've given plenty of thought to exactly what  I hoped to accomplish here. I've come to the conclusion that I am not the type to date someone I emailed or chatted with a few times in a small chat box. Of course by no means am I suggesting that such websites are not right for everyone, but for me the personality questions, tests, and "mad-libs" have actually given plenty of insight into my own personality. If not someone else, I have learned plenty about myself. In this way, okCupid (and other websites like it) did not succeed in its main goal of helping me find a date quicker, but it does still offer the valuable service of diagnosing my personality. (Hence this comment.)

Dating is flirting with the unpredictable. You may not know if your life style or likes and dislikes are the same, and you may not at first realize that the two of you may like the same movies or are more introverted than extroverted. But what you can be sure about is your initial feelings about the person, for example feeling chemistry, and chemistry can happen even between opposing personalities - sometimes a great thing could happen between opposites.

Dating outside of the computer monitor is an adventure, filled with new people, new places, feeling old fears, exploring new ones, and forces you into the ultimate test of personal courage: the unknown. The main point to understand is that in the end we don't know how to find our short term or life-long partner. Dating websites make use of personality research and some fairly good psychological tests, but in the end they are comparable to alchemy in their promises to the masses of being the best dating "goldmine".

We don't know how all the combinations of personality traits, backgrounds, and future outlooks will mix and be represented in a real person. We cannot really be sure that the "50% Enemy" is an enemy, and the 98% match is someone who is 98% the best person for a date. And for me (personality belonging to 0.05% of the American population, from a great test, forgot which one) it has not worked and has actually reverted me back to "real" dating. The flowchart is great guide to see your okCupid personality profile and match questions, but that is all it is good for. I wouldn't use it when in the gladiator pit of the real-world dating. You may even miss THE person you have been looking for, because you limit your search possibilities by listening to other people tell you who to date.

Again, I am the exception, and such a website does get other people into dates and relationships, but how many opportunities do we lose by using such a dating service? Is it representitive of modern societies problem of losing the means and ways of relating to each other? For me a little more of an effort and hope is in line the next time I get off my computer chair to go out and find a date.

Instant gratification mentality will never give us the love we look for.

So, back to the "Flow chart to my heart", as with many movie adaptations, the script looks and reads good, but the end result may only be half as effective as the imagination you use while reading the book

Wow. Online dating seems to be a lot of work. I guess the impersonal aspect demads that more work be put into selling who you are... which sort of sounds an alarm in the back of my head. Should I be trying to find a date online? Is this the right avenue for me? Is this right at all, despite how many people are participating in it at any given time? Feels like one of those scripted "reality" shows that litter modern television.

Shyst!

So, online dating huh?

You figure people (girls) would find it more accommodating to just chat online via emails or text, since the actual meeting physically part is not necessary - therefore techno courage (I just made this word up, no stealing!!) would allow for more interaction...right?

WRONG!

What kind of people do online dating? Hell, I do it because I don't go to bars or clubs to meet girls, and my current job... well, lets just say is not very equal opportunity and does not impress the panties off of girls. So, since I spend most of my free time slaving away for money or working on the compuker on a myriad of projects (because I have no life or girlfriend), I figured "What the hey!", might as well try the online dating nonsense.

So I post a good picture, (in my estimation, one of my interests is photography so I know how to tool around with pictures, more on this later), pour my being onto scant and marginalized profile boxes, answer some tests (some of which are clearly just-plain-bad) and read a bunch of matching profiles. I find a couple attractive girls and send them an email each, inviting them to talk so we can get to know more about each other. Simple, truthful, and safe, and better than the all too familiar bar scenario of hitting on some random half-cocked barfly. Of course they'll respond easily, after all, I AM THE INTROVERTED SHY ONE, RIGHT?

NO.

Apparently what online dating does is put people into a cliche category. It dehumanizes them to the point where each individual becomes a random segmented file of attributes and ambiguous descriptions (half of which may be pure lies). Of course the utility of online dating is exactly this; being a simple picture with a description should make dating easier, but it does not.

So far, it makes each potential match easier to discard since there are so many other choices and a digital me is less memorable than the real me. Each profile ends up looking the same and reading the same: "Lets see, should I pick the one with light brown hair and 'fun all around' description, or should I pick the dark brown hair and 'awesome to hang out with' match?" And since there are so many choices, each choice being easy to discard, the dating game becomes too easy and the same dilemma unfolds as in the bar scenario.

I thought my profile was pretty good, I put the truth, I don't lie, and I thought my profile picture was fairly professional and attractive. This is what girls look for, right?

Well... I might have to change tactics. I think maybe I should either lie about some of my qualities or just make them seem bland and normal - like all the other ones. I think I might also have to change my profile picture to a blurry, over-exposed, deuche bag shot like 90% of the other males on the website. Oh, and my profile picture, lets just say someone said I look like a murderer from a movie script... PERFECT! Furthermore, maybe I should send overly chauvinistic, sexist, unimpressive, pathetically stereotypical, think-with-the-cock message to the next loose bimbo who I pick based on the picture and absolutely does not match with me otherwise. Then again... I might as well get up from the chair and go back to the bar.

Then again, I'll just keep everything on my profile the way it is and maybe some girl with a functioning brain and some doubt will venture to read and look beyond the digital me and email me back.

(I am Agt336's raging sense of rejection.)