363: A little experiment

Once, a friend told me to 'do one thing that scares you every day'. I tried to remember that but I always get chicken shit scared of doing some things anyway, if not get all nervous and talk about it all the time and then blowing away the chance of actually getting something out of it. But never mind that, now.

I did something out of the ordinary yesterday. I wouldn't say it's something entirely scary, but still, not something I would do at all.

I created a profile on an online dating website.

Before you think I'm all desperate for a man, I am not. I am simply curious how an online dating website works, what kind of people you get in there, and partly also because I've been watching (a reality TV show) and reading on successful career-driven women (and men) turning to such sites once in a while, to either look for potential partners or short flings.

Still, I was kinda scared - scared that I'll get unwanted attention. So I first created a fake profile, with the first name that comes into my mind as a username, and did not upload any photo - cos I just wanted to 'browse through' :P Naturally, I did not get any messages and had only 1 or 2 visitors.

Two nights later, while reading more of Catherine Townsend's articles, I somehow got inspired to just do it. So I did. This time, I carefully picked out a username that wouldn't reveal my real name and doesn't sound desperate, picked out the right keywords and wrote a little something about myself, and uploaded a photo - just to see who and how many messages I would get =D

So I put up my new photo of fake pouty lips and eyes that looked elsewhere.

I set all this up before I went to bed close to 3am. I woke up the next morning at 10am, I had 7 new 'lovemails' waiting for me to open. In the next 2 hours, I had 4 more new mails. And after that, they just kept coming in 3s and 4s. I was so excited about it and the messages I got were hilarious, so I shared this with one of my best friends who lives in London at the moment and had a good laugh about it.

Most of the men who wrote to me lives in Sweden and wrote to me in Swedish. Some in Norwegian and Danish but mostly Swedish. Scandinavian languages are somewhat unique. So unique that when you use Google Translate on them, the English translation becomes ridiculous and makes no sense.

For example:
'Are you a girl/woman who is mobile?' whaaaat?

And the funnies:
'Cute. How email it? See you tomorrow in Gothenburg?'
'would you keep up to Copenhagen today?'
My profile clearly says I live in Helsinki, dudes.
'Move right to norrköping .- let me know if you want to be seen' No, I don't want to be seen lol.

And then the cheesies:
'Do you know a good, nice guy like me and maybe get together and see what it leads to.' Really??
'Hello! How sad to see that the mail basket huh even when logged in ida But know one thing! YOU are out there and waiting just for me!' Uh, I don't think so...

One friend decided to tweak my profile by adding the lines 'Please send me messages in English. Swedish is a great language but it's not one that I master.' It did not work.

The youngest who wrote to me was 19 and the oldest 47. Average age was 30. Most of them were not exactly very attractive but there were a handful of them who could be eye candies. Some have kids, some were clearly looking for hook ups (most of them are anyway), some looked miserable, and there's even one guy who clearly wrote in his profile 'looking for a mistress'. He sent me a virtual flower. ...

Unfortunately, this was a site that's sustained by a membership fee and I had only 24 hours of free trial. I couldn't reply anyone even if I had wanted to. By 7pm, I decided to update my profile a little bit to see if I would get more responses, since I did not know what was going to happen to my profile after 24hours (no, it did not say in the website). So, I uploaded another photo. This time, an old and infamous photo of mine I've used frequently, on Facebook and sending out for casting opportunities.

In the next 3 hours, I got another 11 new 'lovemails'. Yea, they call it lovemails. And then again, they kept coming in 3s and 4s and 7s. By the end of the 24 hours, I've had a total of 49 visitors and 55 mails, 6 of which are from the same people. So that makes up to 49 new mails. Not bad. I got more than what I would've expected.

It was good laugh for a while. And then I got sick by just looking at it.

It's truly a cheese fest and a perv nation.