What women seem to think men want

I've exposed myself to Internet dating on and off for around... I don't know... 6 years maybe... and there are a few things that really does not make me want to contact a woman. And by a few I mean a lot. So I thought that instead of whining about it in my dating profile(I have done so in the past a few times with something around zero women throwing themselves at me as a direct result) I thought I would not do that and instead whine about it here. Because here nobody actually reads it and thus does not get offended. Yada yada, Puck something something mended.

A quick tip to the men: pointing out any of the things I mention here to a woman on a dating site will probably not be the start of a wonderful, long lasting, exciting and fulfilling relationship. None of them are great conversation starters. I tried. I'm kind of a trial and error moron that way.

But if you're a woman and want to increase your chances of bagging me (it seems not everyone does for some strange reason) you may at least increase the chances I will contact you by taking note now. Perhaps that special guy you have been waiting for suddenly drops you a line.

Poems

Fuck poems. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong with poems. Like songs there are good and bad ones. And like songs there are ones directed at thirteen year old girls with severe damage to the frontal lobe. These are generally the poems women put on their dating profiles. The kind that the devil puts as texts about roses and violets stupid color in GIF images depicting sad teddy-bears and googly eyed kittens holding hearts. Sorry for the profound language, but they started it. And speaking of teddy-bears...

Teddy-bears

I am a man. I am looking for a woman. I am not looking for a playmate. Wait a minute... or rather... never mind. No matter what you think of when I mention the word "playmate": That is not what I'm looking for. Teddy-bears are for children. And maybe collectors. I'm not feeling at home in any of those categories.

Cats and dogs

I'm a cat person, and I can stand dogs and even become quite fond of them if they have the right personality. But pictures of your... cuuuuuteeeee doggywoggyyyy! Yeeesss hesss a goood doggywoggyyyy! Yes he isssss! ...on you'r profile? Sure: a picture of you playing with your dog, that can send a positive signal. You have a dog and you like it, fine. But five pictures of your dog? Wearing clothes? Sitting in cute places? Seriously?
On the other hand, if you are that serious about your pet: Maybe I should just be thankful for the warning...

"I love to work out"

There is nothing wrong with keeping fit. Quite the opposite. But when that is the only information about a persons interests, that is probably not someone I will have deep conversations with. Yeah but great sex you say? Sure. One time perhaps, but then what? If you are looking for someone to spend a huge amount of time with, perhaps the larger part of your life... I'd like something more.

No description, lots of pictures

This is so sad. Women I've talked to about the messages the get all say the same thing: They get tonnes of mindless messages from men with the imagination of dried bones and the vocabulary of retarded chimpanzees. The women with only pictures must be the saviors of the regular female Internet daters as they draw the attention of the most shallow of the mail bombers. Then again, these male daters probably copy-paste their cheerful greetings, giving them ample time to pester the rest of humanity as well.
It would be nice of dating sites to offer the filter "Only show results with a description" along with the more standardized "Only show results with pictures".
This angers some(in quite the same way as it did me, resulting in this current rant) to the point where they start...

Whining

This one is priceless when combined with the above. But even for women with otherwise good descriptions this is common. Hell, I've done it myself more than once.

I can't really complain about this one because I've heard stories about the staggering portion of mind-boggling stupidities that men in general seem to revel in sending to women. Really guys... shape the hell up. I'ts a scary concept that if you walk down a regular street in a regular city... a overwhelming amount of the seemingly normal guys you meet will become total ass-wipes when they talk to women behind an alias.

Trolling an Internet forum I can understand to some extent but on a dating site... aren't these women actually people you are entertaining the possibility of meeting in real life? Or are there really a bunch of people trolling dating sites just to be assholes?

Duck-face

At first I thought it was some Internet meme. But I've seen them... Don't they have friends that tell them when they do moronic things like that? Or do industrial strength morons naturally flock together, bereaving them of any chance of constructive feedback on their erronious behaviors?

Platitudes

In Sweden there are two words/expressions: "Busig" (Something like "mischievous" but more cute and feminine) and "Skinn på näsan" (Meaning "Mind of her own". Directly translated it becomes "Skin on the nose"). These are so common and has lost their meaning so utterly that I think a good dating site should allow women to tick a box to automatically display a text like "I'm a mischievous girl with a mind of my own" at the start of the presentation.
That way they could also offer men the search filter "Don't show women with platitudes".

"I don't know what to write about myself"

Describing oneself is something people are not generally used to. It can take a while to create a description that fairly accurately describes something that is even close to the wonderfully complex collection of thoughts, dreams, history and environment that is you. But talking at length about how hard it is only describes one or both of two things: your self-knowledge is pretty low and/or you are bad at putting thoughts into writing. None of which are obvious selling points.

Trying to look like you have a kind and caring heart(and failing miserably)

A few years back, an organisation (I think it was the Swedish branch of Ecpat) had a drive where they used TV-ads, billboards and he Internet to raise awareness of child pornography. Among these were a link that was spread with a message like "Help stop child pornography, go here for information" and the URL under it.
This message and link was posted on a lot of presentations during that time.
The sad thing was that after the drive ended: the link was taken down. But quite a few women still had the link on their presentations. And I'm not talking about weeks or months here. I think the last one I found referred to a page that had been removed 4 years ago.
That, to me, does not signal a deep commitment to a cause that is close to your heart.
And besides: If it was ever important to you, I think bringing up the issue with the operator of the dating site and or reporting any illegal activity you witness is a tad more effective. Also: liking pictures on Facebook may not actually core cancer/stop hunger/stop wars. If you truly care that is.

I'll stop whining now

Thank you. I feel better already.

There are a lot of reasons that do make me interested naturally, but the examples above hurts my eyes and make me loose faith in womankind. And that is something I would like to avoid if possible.

Flash mob psychology

Edit: This post is a rather old, I just found it in my post list and noticed I had forgotten to publish it.

Just "witnessed" a flashmob at Stockholm Central. And by "witnessed" I mean it failed mierably. The wierd thing is that I knew it would fail and I was only there because I was on the way to work anyway. So why did it fail?

Well... several reasons... lets just go over the basics of this flashmob in particular, here is the instructions(translated from Swedish):

"Stomp Flash Mob

Create confusion and joy in the morning stress! Wednesday December the 3:d, Morgonpasset arranges their very own flash mob in central stations all over the country. At exactly 08:10 we will start clapping or stomping the rhythm in the morning rush. Let us make this morning into an unforgettable experience!"

OK, what was the problem?

• Vagueness 1 - "Exactly 08:10" sounds pretty exact, but it is not. Everyone has their own watch (or cell phone or sun dial or whatever). Had they said "Exactly 08:10 according to the central station clock" there would be no doubt. And most of all: there would be no doubt in anyone's mind that everyone else knew the correct time to start.
• Vagueness 2 - "start clapping or stomping the rhythm". Stomp or clap? And to what rhythm? As it was called a Stomp Flash Mob I'd suggest skipping the clapping. And as for the rhythm, either make sure a clear rhythm is present or state that the goal is a single stomp.
• Time - The mob was announced (I base this on the Facebook wall post dates) just 9 or 10 days before it was supposed to occurr. Too little time for it to obtain a large following.
• "Shyness" - All the unceritanty in the flash mob definition above creates an unceirtanty in the potential participants. "Will I be the only one?". This will make people wait just a second extra in fear of looking like a fool. The "Will I be the only one?" question is one of the features of a flash mob that makes it exiting and interesting, but if the doubt is too large, it will just fail miserably.

Domestic rock'n roll services

I never win anything... usually because I never enter any competitions... usually because they are stupid. But last night I actually entered a competition and won!
So today a rock band came to my apartment and did my dishes.

No: really... A Sudden Burst Of Optimism did my dishes :)

And yes: it may be one of the most stupid competitions ever. But stupid in a fun and creative way. That's the kind of stupid I like.

If you don't know who A Sudden Burst Of Optimism are; you should check them out. Great songs, and a ton of happy-vibes in their live sets. Some songs and videos are available online on their Myspace page.

Facebook is...

Recently there has been an uproar in the news (and in a funny way if you appreciate irony: on Facebook) about the Facebook terms of use.
First of all: you did check the "Yes, I read the terms of use" box, did you not? Should we not have a headline that reads "Millions of users lies to Facebook"? Sure: I did not read it. I did not read it after the news got upset either. And I will probably never read it. And while I'm at it: I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I will never read ANY terms of use-text for any product or service. Ever. For one simple reason: I'm pretty certain they all say the same thing: "You are screwed, we will screw you even more, and by checking that box, you just pulled down your pants and bent over".
But I'm fine with that. As long as they provide a service that makes up for it.

But here is the real problem. That people think that they can control information that they place on the Internet.

I go all The Scream-faced when I realize people are actually surprised that they have lost control over their data when they upload data to Facebook (or any other place on the Internet). Grow up and pause to think for 5 seconds before you upload that funny picture of your friend passed out drunk, smeared in ketchup with his wiener hanging out, freshly painted with a permanent marker. Often you will realize that it may be funny, but not "ha ha"-funny

And if you think "I can just remove it and it will be gone": Say hello to the Wayback Machine.

The results of TV deprivation

As I wrote in an earlier blog entry: I've now been without TV for a week. It was not hard at all, and I'm in no real hurry turning it back on any time soon. I've actually gotten a lot out of not staring at that stupid box:

• I've been on two dates and cancelled one because I met this awesome woman. No Idea where this will end up, but just meeting her was wonderful. I'm kind of waiting for someone from The Hidden Camera to pop out and tell me she is just a joke and I've been had.
  
• I watched the entire "League Of Gentlemen" TV series, on DVD (on my laptop). It is awesome in every way. A strange mix between twisted comedy and horror. Also a few episodes of "Dexter" and "Flight Of The Conchords"
• Been to an excellent festival and discovered the exquisite music of "Wildbirds And Peacedrums", a band that is based on just a girl with a beautiful voice and a percussionist.
• I've been so totally drunk that I'm amazed I woke up at all the day after.
• Fixed up a corner of my balcony with plants and general coziness. The furniture is still awful, but its about a gazillion percent more cozy now. I've actually started using it, something I hardly ever did before.
  
• Read a great deal more of The Man Who Killed His Brother, and its pretty good. I think I'll have to read the entire series.

So if I gained all this: what did I loose?

Well... If you don't consider missing an episode of MacGyver at 02:00 each night a loss(I don't): then NOTHING!

Me: a criminal?

I got a little reminder from the Police today. They reminded me to my great joy that I am indeed a criminal. Perhaps one of the worst kinds of criminal.
I have been found guilty of offensive behavior and for this must pay 800SEK to become a better person. I doubt this fine will make me a better person, in fact I'm pretty sure I'm kind of a pretty good person already.
Here is what I did: I was sitting with a couple of friends from work, having an after work beer on a Friday night, at a bar on the edge of Humlegården and after 2 beers I really had to go all of a sudden. So I jumped over the really low fence and went over to this huge tree and did my stuff. This is where the fun starts. I hear some shouting behind me as I'm getting ready to return to my friends: Three Police officers are jogging towards me with faces full of non-smiling.
They never shout at me, but for a really long time they stand around me saying stuff like "Didn't you know this was illegal"
, "What were you thinking", "We can't accept this as an ID" (my drivers licence had a crack in it) and "We'll have to wait here for a while" (They needed to call station to make sure I wasn't convicted of some other heavy crimes). All of the time these guys had the facial expressions saying "This is a very serious situation, we must be serious and
alert, this guy may be very dangerous".

All I could think about all this time was "NO: Don't say it!, NO: Don't start smiling, NO: Do NOT make a joke now, they will NOT appreciate it and will NOT think it is funny".

All in all I took up 30 minutes of three Police officers time on a Friday night because I peed on a tree in a park. A big tree, nobody could see my thingie ( the tree is located at GPS RT90 coordinate [X=6581868,Y= 1629082] b.t.w, pretty big huh :) ). Was this well spent tax money? Did I waste this tax money, or did they? I know they were wasted.

Where is the line drawn between silly and offensive?

Cellphone: Human interaction resistance +20?

I just took the tube ( tube = metro, subway, sossesnöret, grävlingen, bunneltranan) home from a nice date just now and noticed a behaviour that I've got myself. That does not make it any less weird. Cellphones are used to make the user look occupied. I mean: sometimes you probably play a really cool game, but I suspect that most of the time people just click back and forth between menus/flip between SMS:es/do nothing at all really. I've seen people do it, I've done it myself. It's kind of the same behavior that makes me uncomfortable sitting in a café alone unless I've got a book or magazine to read.
It's kind of a new version of staring with huge ( fake ) interest at the commercials. Both the new and the old versions are tools to avoid eye contact with your fellow travelers... Why are we so desperate not to interact?
The last time someone spoke to you on the tube/bus: was your initial reaction "Oh no"? I mean that split millisecond before your brain sorted out that the guy just asked the time... And as you started fishing out your cellphone to see what time it is: did the thought "Is my cell too cool, is he just checking if I'm worth sticking up later?" cross your mind?

Why haven't I ever asked the lad/lass across from me: "Hey, I'm meeting a friend for coffee in 10 minutes, do you know a cozy café in the south part of town?"