Thursday, March 8, 2012

The Interviewer

I feel the need to share a recent email I've gotten from a guy on the dating site.  Please note that this guy has emailed me before at least twice and I've ignored each email, as I'm not interest. The comments in red are what I would say if I were to bump my head and write back.

Hey,

I"m --------- a recent addition to the Upper East Side Neighborhood which was a dream of mine for years to live in Manhattan but a life long born NYer. I'm from Upstate Poughkeepsie where my family and my best friends still reside and they both mean the world to me.

I am very laid back, outgoing, ambitous, caring, love to laugh at myself and others of course. A typical guy guy who loves his sports, sportcenter but I would like to take advantage of other things that NYC has to offer.


Some questions for you.

Where do you like to travel to? 
Me: I love tropical places and would love to explore Europe more.
Iran. I hear it's beautiful this time of year.

What do you find most attractive in a guy?
Me: In a lady I like a great smile, cute laugh, family values and educated.
His left testicle.
Who would you have as a dinner guests if you can choose anyone? 
Me: Jamie Dimon, George Washington and FDR
You, big boy!


What is something about you that would be surprising? 
Me: I won a spelling bee in the 4th grade
I used to be a man.


Maybe it's mean of me to laugh at his expense.  But, come on...what are you thinking sending this to girls?!? (Especially to one who has already ignored your attempts at Q&A conversation!

4 comments:

  1. Exercise for you, how would you re-phrase this guy's effort into one that would prompt you to respond? In other words, how can this NY dude express himself in a way that you might find appealing? Is is the lack of humor that irks you the most?

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    1. It's not the lack of humor, it's the lack of effort. His email is clearly a generic form email that he probably sent to several girls. I understand that someone who dates is generally dating more than one girl/guy at a time (at least in the beginning). But, it's still nice to know that he took the five minutes to look at my profile and say something specific to it. Or even just a simple "hey, how's it going...how was your week?" at least might allow a casual conversation to develop. Dating is awkward enough, you don't want to feel like you're on a formal interview before you even meet the other person.

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    2. Ahhhh, I see. That is useful feedback, to personalize initial communication. If he had, would you have responded? I'm guessing the answer is still no :)

      I had a friend call me out on the whole "they have to demonstrate effort" angle. In essence, it is defeatist to have expectations of what level of effort another person _should_ meet before it's OK to pursue because we're all starting from different places. From the boy's point of view, this is even more tricky than the girls because most girls don't pursue even when they are interested, so the boy often has no way to measure effort.

      I admit I fall victim to this myself, the "they just aren't interested" way to write someone off. It's good to have friends who challenge you when you do that because we don't always see things objectively, especially with people we don't know all that well yet.

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    3. Personalization is always good. But, sometimes you're just not interested, which is why I didn't respond the first time. I've written to guys I was interested in and some didn't write back. And, it's fine. You don't have to like everyone.

      Hope I'm making sense without sounding mean.

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