Project Koi: Beverly

Another project update, this time, with regards to my attempts at online dating. Believe it or not, I managed to talk to a woman who was interested in going on a few dates with me. She was fairly cute, slightly quirky, and very shy. Her name was Beverly and online she seemed ok and so I agreed to meet with her in person.

I know some of you are tensing up in anticipation. Did Damian accidentally date a crazy cat woman? Is Damian typing his last blog post from a dumpster? Is Damian now homosexual after one too many bad dates?

No, unfortunately Beverly wasn't nearly as exciting as that. She was a bit disappointing really.

I can hear your collective sighs from your computers already.

See, Beverly was a nice guy girl (nice catch Fang). But excessively shy and indecisive. She was so strong willed and much more vivid online in her messages and conversations. But in person? She withdrew. Quiet, difficult to engage in a conversation, and was ok with everything.

At least, I think she was. I really couldn't tell you. I made so many of the decisions of what to do, and where to go, and she just kind of went with it. And it was a bit difficult to again, have a conversation with her in person because so many of her responses were "I don't know" or "I guess".

I won't lie, I have a thing for shy, demure girls. But this, this is a bit too extreme for me.

I also have a thing for pale girls with red (not ginger) hair. Shhh....

So, I don't know what to do with her. On another date we ended up sitting in a field, with grass, trees, blah blah blah, I'm trying to talk with her. She's being her usual, quiet, mumbly self. It was here I decided to push it a bit. I gently grab her head, and kiss her on the cheek.

Younger Damian wouldn't have been as ballsy, I can tell you that for certain.

She get very flustered, blushes red, this is getting very cliched, very quickly. I'm not sure what to do beyond this, I think I asked her what was on her mind, to which she responded "I don't know". Eventually I managed to get out of her that she liked it. Well, at least, she wasn't going to call the police.

And I didn't get slapped either, so double points for me.

For anyone curious, I managed to properly kiss her later that day as well. It was, awkward. She claims she had a boyfriend before but I wouldn't have been able to tell based on her kissing skills. It was like she was a goldfish.

Also, her head kept tilting up. Did she want me to bite her neck or something? Sorry, I'm not into that sort of thing.

I think she was interested in pursuing a relationship with me. That was made clear during a drunken Skype conversation. Unfortunately, after a few dates, I don't think I'm not interested in her. She's a nice girl, I will not deny that. But her personality is just, very offputting. I like people who can tell me what's on their mind and tell me what they want.

Maybe I should lower my standards a bit though, least I be single forever.

In the meantime, it's back to the dating websites. Another woman just messaged something along the lines of "Lol, u r cute". Anyone wondering why I'm cautious about this should read my previous online mishap with Cheryl.

I wasn't aware that it was a common thing for Caucasian women to have yellow fever.

Project Koi: The Bachelor (Part 2)

And now onto the conclusion of Project Koi. Part 1 is over there for those who haven't read it. Basically, I'm a lonely University student who has been dumped and am now trying online dating sites. While most people I tried to contact on said sites didn't respond, today we'll take a look at those who did.

Also on an interesting note, it's always funny to find someone you know in real life. I took the time to message said person but they never replied back to me.

I guess they were just embarrassed?

Only two sites had people within my preferences: OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish. Actually to be honest, only Plenty of Fish had a decent number of "matches" (aka, more than 5). I had roughly 3 conversations going out of the ~dozen people I contacted. 1 girl didn't seem all that interested in the entire online dating idea, never updated her profile, and took weeks to reply to my messages. I wrote her off fairly quickly.

On Plenty of Fish, there's a function called "Meet Me" in which you are given pictures of users and asked if you'd be willing to meet them in person. One woman said yes to my profile and so I started a conversation with her that quickly died. I don't know what I said wrong, maybe she thought I was too boring or asked too many questions. She was willing to meet me in person but not willing to talk to me? Weirdo.

The last and final person was my best hope. She was fairly attractive, quirky, and actually responded. Well, she responded when she had internet. Apparently she could only use the WiFi from her phone from work. Our conversations were enjoyable, at least it appeared that way from my end. Then suddenly her profile disappeared. I'd like to blame finals (she claims she's also a University student) but a small part of me feels like she deleted her account because she gave up on online dating.

0/3. I was ready to throw in the towel and call it quits.

And then, someone named Cheryl messaged me.

Hello, what is this?

Someone contacting me? This was an unexpected surprise and it seemed innocent enough. Two words "You're cute". Maybe I was still feeling lonely, disheartened by all the failure I was getting. And yet here, someone had found me physically attractive enough to send me a message. I was so flattered that I messaged her back thanking her.

The conversation initially started off fairly standard. Exchange of some basic personal information, etc. etc.. Turns out she lived in a small town several hours away from the city. That immediately eliminated any chance of a date. But that was alright, I was content to talk to someone who enjoyed my company. At least someone was interested in me after all these lonely months.

But before I continue, does anyone here watch Archer? It's a great show.

Funny how the crazy secretary is also named Cheryl.

If this were a book, this would be called "foreshadowing".

The signs were small at the beginning. Little quirks that you, didn't pay much attention to. For example, after the first conversation, she said she wanted to move in with me. Or if she came up to the city, she wanted me to move in with her. Not a big deal, i took it as a joke. I humoured her and then laughed it off.

Red flag #1.

After the second conversation, she told me she was having fantasies of us getting married.

Red flag #2.

Then she started messaging me fairly frequently, asking me why I wasn't online, why wasn't I responding to her, why was I so busy? She missed me and was lonely and wanted to talk. Then she would start getting mad and passive aggressive. Remember. This, was after 2 days of us coming into contact with me.

Red flag #3.

Because I insist on having my blog worksafe I can't mention some of Cheryl's other fantasies. Needless to say I was fairly disturbed and by that point you may as well have thrown me into a pool of red flags. I am very glad that she doesn't live nearby, and has no way of moving to city anytime soon.

ABORT. ABORT.

I am also very glad that I had minimal information about myself there. I used a fake name, my profile picture has my face partially obscured, dummy email, etc. etc.. I slowly stopped responding to Cheryl (much to her dismay and confusion) in hopes that she'll eventually give up and move onto another target.

And so, I think I have to end Project Koi. It was an uh, interesting experience but ultimately a failure. Looks like I'll have to find a new girlfriend with a different method.

Project Koi: The Bachelor (Part 1)

I've been single for nearly 4 months now. It's been an uncomfortable and fairly painful road to walk on but I think I came out mostly in one piece. But I still craved the companionship of a significant other, something that I couldn't get with normal friends. But my circle of friends had diminished, most of the single people had hooked up with someone already, and now I was all alone. I needed to expand my social spheres if I wanted a chance.

And so, I decided to try my luck, at online dating.

Hey there single ladies!

I knew the chances of success would be slim, and it became more apparent the further I looked into the entire process. They did a study once where men and women were asked what they looked for in potential partners and everyone said personality and all that good stuff. But, turns out the men rated women who are younger and attractive more highly and women rated men with money and power more highly. The study has been replicated many times and while this is a generalization, I would consider this to be an important detail to remember if any of you consider online dating.

But just because you're rated lower doesn't mean you still aren't going to get interested people vying for your attention. In fact, I think as long as you're a woman you will almost always will get messages and chat requests from interested guys. As a joke, people have created online dating profiles of the most unappealing and unattractive adult women they could conceive. We're talking pictures photoshopped to have them physically unattractive, shallow and vapid personalities, STDs, if you can think of an undesirable trait, they made a profile with it.

And all of them, ALL of those profiles received requests from interested men. One person I think even took a picture of a lamp, declared the profile gender as female, and put one line of text in the description. That profile still got messaged by multiple men who were interested.

Yes, men can get bombarded with messages like this too. But you're probably going to have to make it look like you're loaded. And like Joe said, do you really want a woman who only wants you for your wallet? Well, I guess being a sugar daddy is good enough for some guys.

Now, you might think that women have the advantage here. But in reality, it may not be all that much of an advantage. You see, most guys on these online dating profiles, are perverted creeps. So now, the woman has all the fun of sorting through all of these messages.

But at least the women are generally going to have people coming to them. There are normal, nice, and friendly guys on these sites too. But these men have to try their best to tailor his message to differentiate himself from the perverted creeps. It's not easy trying to come across as friendly, in the hopes of starting a conversation without being labelled as the complete opposite.

I don't bite, I promise.

Perhaps I'm too picky as well. Is it too much to ask for women who are my age who can spell properly and use proper grammar? I don't want to start a relationship with a person who has the mentality of a 12 year old.

I hoped around multiple sites and in the end only two sites had anybody with my preferences. I messaged close to a dozen different people, and barely any of them replied. One of them didn't even qualify as a conversation if you ask me. It was getting a bit depressing really.

But that's where things get interesting. This is also where things go bad for Damian. The more observant of you will notice that this is part 1, simply because this post would get way too long otherwise. Part 2 will take a look at the people who responded to my messages.

And the girl who messaged me first.