Seriously?! Pictures That Shouldn't Be Used in a Dating Profile

After a few months of online dating, I've seen more than my share of dating profiles.  My emotions have run the gambit from being offended to entertained to horrified.  My list of things that I don't want to see on a profile is long.  Below is a condensed version...partially so that I don't come off as a picky betch but also because I like to list things in tens. 

Photos I don't want to see on your dating profile:

1. Your guns (weapons)--I can appreciate guns.  I will even go to a shooting range with you (once I determine that you're not some psycho who's going to kill me).  Heck, the fact that you have a gun is a good sign you're normal (ironic I know, but you can't get license for a gun if you have a criminal record), but I don't want to see pictures of you with an automatic weapon in hand. 
2. Your guns (muscles)--I'm glad you work out.  If your muscles are so impressive that you have to show them off, then I should be able to see them in pictures of you wearing normal clothes.  If they're not impressive enough to see under clothes, why are you showing them off?
3. Alcohol--One picture out at a bar holding a beer is acceptable, but please have have a decent picture without a drink in your hand.  If you're kissing a bottle of booze in one of your pictures, you've got issues.  If you're kissing a bottle of booze in a liquor store, I will only repond so that I can provide you with some social resources for your alcoholism (see Social Resources tab above for links).
4. Outdated pictures--I don't care how great your senior high school portrait was or how hot you looked in that college football uniform.  If your pictures are more than a few years old or you live for those quarterback glory days, move along.
5. Professional photos--Even if the photoshoot you posted wasn't for the purposes of an online dating profile, I'm going to think it was...and I'm going to wonder what kind of person you are.  The exception stands with models (why are you online dating anyway?) and young professionals (like lawyers) who use their law firm profile photo...but still, do you not have any other decent pictures?  Along these lines is posting pictures wearing the same outfit--If you're wearing the same clothes in every picture on your profile, move along.  It's obvious you had one "hot" day and made a friend take pictures of you in a few different settings for effect.
6. Offensive things you think are funny--While you may think that your Halloween picture dressed as a Sheik slitting the throat of an Rabbi is funny, I can assure you that it's not.  There are ways to show your sense of humor without offending people...and if you can't then you're just an ass.
7. Action shots--I'm glad you play golf, football and hike, but pictures of you as a tiny speck on a mountain or your contorted and/or blurry body playing sport don't impress me.  Hunting pictures (common in the Southern states) are a no-no for me too.  I like men who hunt. I think it's sexy. But I don't want to see you posing with a dead 8-point buck.
8. Selfies, mirror shots, and web cam photos--There's a whole website dedicated to the mirror shots (here) so I won't even touch those.  Please, leave your house, meet up with a friend and have them take some pictures of you...just don't wear the same outfit in each one (mentioned in Number 5 on this list) or be participating in some sport where I can't see your face (Number 7 on this list).
9. Exes and/or rings and/or kids--We all have exes, some of us were even married.  I don't care how tan or hot you looked at the time, no one wants a pic of you on your honeymoon with your wedding band on and your ex cropped out.  If you're a single dad, I'm sure you love your kids, but you're not doing yourself any favors by posting their cute pictures on your dating profile.  I have strong feelings on personal privacy and you're violating them.  Pimping out your offspring for a date does not highlight your parenting skills.
10. Pictures of objects--No pictures of cars, houses, boats or pets. None of these things show me who you are, unless you're materialistic or look like your dog.  A man who recently emailed me had a screen shot photo of a MyPeriod app--apparently he ovulated on February 24th...and March 2nd.  Fertile guy.
    
    

    

    Actual screen shot from his POF profile

"Thou Art More Lovely": Dating with Shakespeare

One of the funniest things about online dating is that you will invariably get professions of love thrown your way.  Sometimes they're annoying but most of the time they're just entertaining.  These emails can even make you feel good...if you're the kind of person who lies to yourself and believes that these are genuine emails and not a copy and paste from some bad modernized Shakespeare inspired sonnet that might have been better received if written in iambic pentameter.

Here are two emails from a user whose name suggests he might be the kind of man who has a dog and covers parts of his body in peanut butter late at night.

Lonely in Queens: It would be an honor and a privilege to get to know you better, and perhaps even take you out...your beauty knows no bounds and is beyond compare...please contact me ASAP. I will be waiting anxiously by my computer for your first sweet message, and I will forever cherish the moment at which I receive it and the day I receive you in my arms.
Me: Thanks for your message but I don't think we'd be a good match. Best of luck.


I figured he would move along...but he sent another email a week later.


Lonely in Queens: A lovely lady of your exceptional calibre surely receives countless messages everyday. They are probably so numerous that you likely don't have enough time to open them all, let alone respond to the ones you actually enjoyed reading. Despite this, and the strong likelihood that you will never respond to this, I felt compelled to write to you anyway. I simply had to. Your profile, what you had to say along with your gorgeous pictures really caught my eye. I believe that if we were to meet, sparks would fly and the earth would shake. Planets would become realigned and flowers would bloom. There is something indescribable, something intangible about you that has attracted me very strongly. Hopefully you will be able to wade through the morass of mediocrity in your inbox from insincere players and find this letter, and then like me enough to respond. With any luck we can meet soon and I can romance you all over our great city. If this were to happen I would be the luckiest man on earth. At the very least I hope you enjoyed reading this.


Putting aside the cheesiness, it is a very nice email, but still a no go.  Considering that my profile is 2 sentences about how I value honesty and a zest of life, the fact that he thinks we'd be a good match based on what I wrote is highly unlikely.  Just tell me you think I'm pretty, also value honesty and would like to meet for a drink, dude.  Also, the fact that I don't live in "our great city" (NYC) shows that while he might do a good job wooing, his reading comprehension is lacking.


I did enjoy reading this, Mr. Lonely.  I think my readers have too!

Dating Games (Part I)

My friend, Greta, from Dating Without a Net, and I are playing a dating game.  We rationalized that since we keep picking the wrong men for ourselves, we will pick dates for each other via Plenty of Fish.  Figuring that this plan cannot be any worse than the system we currently employ, we provided each other with our zip codes (I live in NJ; Greta lives in TN), dating radius, a few non-negotiable attributes and gave each other free reign.  


The rules were to pick 3 men from our respective geographic locations who fall within the set criteria (who we haven't dated), email, secure a date with at least one and, of course, blog about it.   Greta and I set to work yesterday, but the first task of finding potential dates was more difficult than originally anticipated.  


While I thought that I had a tough time navigating through the hoards of wanna-be-guidos, the dating pool near Greta posed its own challenges.  In her neck of the (back) woods, I found most of the men to be either in the public service or transportation industry (read: cops/security guards and truck drivers) so it was a good thing that education wasn't a deal breaker for Greta (note: education wasn't a criterion of mine either--we tried to make the pool as large as possible).  I found may of the men in her tri-state area of Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas to be redneck hillbillies that even this country-lovin' girl wouldn't let buy me a beer um....unimpressive.  


Up here in NJ, I deal with men who swathe themselves in the Italian flag, rock fake tans and faux hawks but these men are no match for Greta's potential suitors.  Between the mullets, missing teeth and hunting prize pictures (I stopped counting after 5 dead animals and one hog-tied pig), I can see why she's having trouble picking the right men.  There were a few attractive men, but they either hadn't been online in months or Greta had already dated them.  Our exchanges went a little something like this:


Me: Here you go--let me know if you've blocked or already talked to them: Johnny, SomeDude, OtherDude.
Greta: I emailed Johnny a while back, wanna switch him out for another?  Here are yours: HotDude, BeachDude, SarcasticDude.
Me: I've already met and um, hung out, with HotDude.  We're good friends.
Greta: No way!  The foot fetish guy?  I thought he was the hottest and totally my type.. you go girl!  I'll pick an alternate for you.
Me: No, the guy with the tiny dog.  Don't know if I told you about him.  He drives that hot truck and is super sweet.  No foot fetish.  Ok, sub BadCop for Johnny---if you haven't already talked to him.
Greta: Good one but BadCop guy hasn't been online since October! #notthatmanyfisharoundhere  Ok, sub this LawyerDude for the HotDude.
Me: Ugh, LawyerDude is "JD" the one who got drunk, said he wanted to swing and tried to get me naked!    I blogged about it here.
Greta: Omg, you have dated every guy in NJ already either that or we totally have the same taste, Let me try one more time...
Me: Ok, so what about Sean? Aside from the weird dog pic, he's pretty cute.  Hamm looks promising too, although I see a radio on his lapel (are you done with dating cops?)
Greta: Sean is the cop I went out with on Friday!!  lol  Ok, last try, have you dated NJman?
Me:   NJman is kind of old but we're running out of options.  Is Sean the cop whose partner got shot while you were on your date?!   What about Tim?  Might be a freak--not a good face pic but his tattoos are kind of sexy.  Or what about Frank?  He kind of looks like a meth head but he has a Masters Degree so it might just be the highlights in his hair that are throwing me off.  OMG we both need to move! 


After way too much time surfing Plenty of Fish, Greta and I have our dates nominated.  I emailed my 3 potentials--BeachDude, SarcasticDude and NJman--and now we wait.  

What Not to Say on a First Date

I had a great first date last night.  I went out for drinks with a cute guy in his early 40's.  We met online and had been emailing back and forth for about a month.  It was the kind of witty banter emails that make you wonder if you're going to have the same connection in person.  Still, even if you do have a personal connection, what happens if the person looks nothing like their pictures.  It's all fun and games until someone is 100 pounds or 5 inches off on their body description.

Getting ready for the date, I tried not to psych myself out but couldn't help getting ridiculously nervous while driving to the restaurant.  However I was in luck when I arrived and found my 5'10" date to actually be standing taller than me (in heels, no less), really cute and decked out like a Banana Republic model.

You'd think I'd be golden once the stars had aligned and delivered the exact replica of what I had envisioned from our emails.  It was a really fun date filled with laughter, a couple drinks, a good night kiss and positive follow up text from him...but looking back at it this morning I wonder if I will ever hear from him again.  Why?  Because for some reason I have become "first date stupid" and manage to blow them all (no, not literally blow them you perv!).  

To keep my dumb mouth shut and my head on straight, I have complied a list of things not to talk about on first dates, EVER.  This reminds me of the sorority rush rule where the 3 B's were off limits for conversation: Booze, Boys and Bank Accounts (yes, it was a Jewish sorority).  I may or may not have talked about some of all of these things last night.  ::hands head in shame::  But I still got a goodnight kiss without him trying to undress me--so ha!

THINGS NOT TO TALK ABOUT ON A FIRST DATE

1. You're holding to Patti Stenger's two drink maximum: This implies not only that you're a drunk slut but that you have a plenty of stupid things to say if you do, in fact, get drunk.  Crazy points if you mention the Millionaire Matchmaker herself.
2. You're any sort of "masochist": Even if you're using it to describe something good, "I'm an academic masochist" it comes off sounding like you're a freak.  There are a bajillion other words in the English language to describe yourself as "hard working". 
3. Communication with your exes: Whether you're best friends or he "wants to spit on your grave" this is information that does not need to be disclosed.
4. Therapy: Self-explanatory.  
5. Interwebz Friends: This is especially true if you're dating men over 35, unless they're part of some hobby forum of their own that somehow makes The Nest seem normal.  
6. Write a dating blog: This is all kinds of badness.  Just don't tell them.  
7. Have encountered a lot of sexual freaks: Way to make the freak across from you feel bad about themselves.  Hey, you never know what you might be in to (wink, wink!)
8. Made a book of nudie pics for your ex-husband: Actually this one has been well received but talk of nudie pics is probably better left until future dates.
9. You want to get a dog that can fit into your purse: Regardless of whether you will actually put said pooch in your purse, if you mention you want a tiny canine companion, you will be pigeon-holed into a crazy dog-in-purse lady.  Better than a crazy cat lady, but still bad.
10. You want to open a dog bakery one day: Men do not understand this.  They either think you're nuts or that you want to chop up puppies and bake them into pies.

Anything else I should add to the list?