Dinhternet

So like I men­tioned yes­ter­day, my Lunar New Year’s for­tune said that I should have bet­ter luck with the ladies this year, so I guess that’s good news for res­o­lu­tion #8.

The thing is, though, I don’t really know where to start. I’ve never been com­fort­able approach­ing strangers in the bar/club scene, let alone other “non-threatening” pub­lic places. I don’t have class or APhiO to force me to meet new peo­ple any­more. So where does that leave me? Of course, I turn to a geek’s best friend — the inter­net. Noth­ing so shady as Craigslist, although it’d be con­ve­nient, since I spend all my time on there any­way look­ing for jobs.

I did some research, and sup­pos­edly the place to go is Plenty Of Fish. It’s free, and the guy who made it is appar­ently a math genius who was cited in a Fields Medal paper. I’m not sure if that par­tic­u­lar algo­rithm is actu­ally used on the site, but I’m sure math is good for some­thing on a site of this sort. So I signed up last night.

And that’s when I hit the first hur­dle — writ­ing a com­pelling pro­file. I really hate writ­ing about myself. I know, ironic, since I’m blog­ging about this. But I mean… I never really know how to describe myself. I cer­tainly don’t like to or know the first thing about how to sell myself. My per­sonal state­ments for col­lege apps were a joke. My pro­files on the usual net­work­ing sites are blank. My resume is hor­rid. I even had trou­ble writ­ing the lit­tle bio-blurbs to intro­duce myself in Expres­sions when I was an offi­cer in APhiO. But this is a dat­ing site; I know my pic­ture isn’t enough to win me points, so I’m going to have to earn them with the pro­file. POF gave me a check­list of things I should men­tion, and I tried to hit all the items, but I know it’s weak.

So, I turn to you… Do you think there’s a social stigma against online dat­ing ser­vices and should there be? Oh, and does any­one use generic net­work­ing sites like Face­book to meet new peo­ple? (Per­son­ally, I only use it to talk to peo­ple I know already.) Any other com­ments or advice to offer?