2008 Woodie Awards
Age, Sex, Location Please: An Introduction to Online Dating
Lindsey Lee
Issue date: 10/7/04 Section: Features
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One of the quotes taped onto my computer says, "The heart has its reasons which reason does not know." Some guy named Pascal said it about four hundred years ago, and though it's a bit corny, I can't help but agree with him. Look at the things we do for love: move from New York to San Francisco to be with a guy we've only known six months; max out our credit cards to fly to Paris for the perfect proposal; or go to a weird dark place every Friday night to drink a liquid that makes us puke in the off chance we'll meet the love of our lives by catching someone's eyes across the crowd. And it seems that every day the things we do get even crazier.
The computer-age craze: Internet dating. Sometimes, with the plethora of advertisements you see on street corners and subway cars and TV commercials, it seems like everyone's doing it. Or at least everyone over the age of 35-because of course, college students would never have problems meeting people. But, what if some college students weren't good at the bar scene, or even if they were, just felt like having had to wait in line at 2 a.m. for the bathroom where some girl was puking is not the best story to tell the grandkids. Could a college student then consider meeting someone online as a viable option?
In hopes of answering this question, merely for journalistic curiosity, I've begun to do some online research. My first stop: craigslist, the New Yorker's best friend. I figured since it's the place where I found my job, my apartment and even my mattress, why shouldn't it help me meet someone to do a little mattress dancing with? Of course, by mattress dancing I mean a committed long-term relationship full of love and mutual respect.
Craigslist is really just glorified classified ads-but they're free, so it's less creepy than paying to put an ad in the paper. I began my journey by browsing the "Men Seeking Women" section. A few (a very few) of the ads were intriguing. I couldn't help but be charmed by "Complex Simplicity" who recently got out of a relationship because "she got deported," whose ad actually had a sense of humor and some words with more than one syllable. But I couldn't respond to the ad because I have this image in my head of sending the obligatory picture to the supposed "stranger" and finding out it's the guy who sits next to me in Shakespeare, picking his nose. So, I decided to let the men come to me.
For the sake of my curiosity, I decided to post two ads. One (a complete joke) would be offering causal sex. I was dying to see how many guys would respond to an ad that was clearly just for sex: I'd said I'd just gotten out of a long-term relationship and needed some "intimacy." The other ad would be something that if I were to do this, I might actually use to meet guys. Needless to say, the casual sex ad was incredibly popular. Within a half an hour of posting the ad, I had more than 40 responses. While things slowed down after that, I did receive more than 100 responses to the ad in five days. The other ad ended up just giving some factoids about myself, but I was still impressed that I got more than forty e-mails from it. The guys that I found most interesting were those that responded to both ads-though I can hardly blame a guy for trying to hook up with a 21-year-old girl that just wants sex.
The responses in and of themselves made the entire thing worth it-my roommates had quite a laugh at some of the e-mails I got. If I never read the words "ready for some hot action" or "let's put my tongue to use" again, I can die happy. The responses to the casual sex ad were, of course, the worst. I got three pictures of guys' penises-something I did not need to be shocked with when opening my e-mail. It also makes me wonder if guys really think you can't tell that they've pasted their head on someone else's body.
Moving beyond the just for amusement ads, I can say that I was pretty disappointed. Of the forty-five or so e-mails I got to the "real" ad, only two guys piqued my interest enough to respond. I followed the formula and sent the guys a picture of myself, the idea of which kind of creeped me out. And while both guys did respond after seeing what I looked like (thank god), neither was particularly interesting. It's pretty hard to tell what someone's like in an e-mail. I could tell that one guy was super sarcastic, which could be a plus, but maybe the reason he's looking online is because he's not sarcastic, he's just plain mean. And the other guy: Not to be a snob, but I was a bit turned off when he couldn't figure out Instant Messenger.
I never quite made it to the point of trying to meet one of these guys face to face, something I must admit I'm a little grateful for. If we were to meet, would we go to some Starbucks? And I'd wear a red rose, and he'd be carrying a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera? I guess I can't really say if the whole craigslist thing would really work since I didn't complete the final step, but I think it says something that I didn't get there. So, in the end, I wouldn't suggest trying to find your true love only by posting on craigslist. But, if you're looking for a good laugh, casual sex or maybe even a first date, you can probably find it at http://newyork.craigslist.org.