jjcobwebb

Before I sleep I have something to share. I got this article from Tom's blog. I asked him if I could repost it here and he said yes. Thanks Tom! Don't worry I added a link to your blog. The credits are all yours :-)

Here are my pet peeves with using personals. Can you relate? Or are you one of these guys?

10. Useless Profiles

So you've taken 5 days to perfect the words for your profile. You've had your friend read it, spell check it, and edit it. Now everyone who reads it will totally understand you. You post it online and start searching other profiles for your perfect match. And you start to realize, you've spent too much time polishing your profile, because everyone else decides not to write about themselves, but either a) posts the lyrics to their favorite song, or b) to write about someone they hate, or c) write what they don't like, or d) write something that makes no sense, or e) leave it completely blank.

9. "Can we be friends?"

Perhaps the most bizzare question conceived by the Internet population. Whenever I get posed this question I usually reply "Possibly, but I can't guarantee it." When I do, usually they don't reply back. I mean really, how am I supposed to know if we'll become friends or not?
Personals sites were made with a few things in mind... to help you look for a lover, an activity partner, sexual partners (gasp!), and yes, even to look for friends. It's really now up to the parties in question whether they will hit it off or not. In short, finding friends is among the fundamental reasons why these sites were built. Which renders the question moot.

8. Unreadable Profiles

The magic of network building websites nowadays is that you can customize your page to suit your tastes. Perhaps the most popular customization is the background image for your page. This is all well and good, if you use it judiciously. This is not the case however for most profiles. A lot of profiles use images that are so jarring that nothing else on the page remains visible. But then again, most people really don't read anything written on your profile anyway.

7. The Friend Farmer

There are people who have a lot of friends. And there are some people who simply look like they have a lot of friends. So many in fact, that they had to create 2 more accounts to add their thousands of friends. But the truth is, they don't know the people in their list. They add someone they think is interesting simply as a trophy displayed among their list of friends. Attempts to have conversation with them are futile, because they're too busy harvesting the site for more so-called friends.

6. Chatroom Prima Donnas

Most personals websites usually have chatrooms where you can participate freely. It's another way of getting to know the people around you (virtually anyway). But sometimes the chatroom becomes the venue of people who live out their delusions of grandeur. They lay their claim to the chatroom as the unopposed king or queen, and that their rule there is absolute. Oh, and they'll have a posse to back them up too. Thus, the chatroom becomes nothing more than a place of bitching and/or machismo, and you, nothing more than a bystander, or worse, a victim of their ire.

5. The Response To Your Refusal

When you start out with your own personals page, you'd probably be excited in answering every question thrown at you. You'd give out your address, phone numbers, etc. Then you  realize that there are a few crazies out there on the Internet, so you had to change your number, move to another house, change your name, and have a sex operation. However, the next time around, you refuse to give out information, they call you "Suplado," "Masungit," and what-have-you. It's really a lose-lose situation. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. On the bright side, if you refuse to give information about yourself, you don't have to go through another sex change.

4. Bizarre Letter Case

haVe yOu eVEr trIed reAdiNG pARagRapHs tHat haVe nO reGaRd whAtSoeVer wItH tHe coRrEcT UpPerCasE anD LoWercAse lEttERs? NoT veRy nicE iS it? qUitE anNoyInG iN fAcT. iT's inTeResTinG to nOtE thAt iT tOoK me tHreE tO FOuR tImeS loNgeR to tYpe thIs wAY tHan THe uSuAL wAy, sO wHy gO tHroUgH aLL tHis efForT to BeGin WiTH?

3. Bad English... and heaven forbid, Bad Tagalog

The Philippines has tauted English as its 2nd language for the longest time. So it's really quite baffling that there are a lot of Filipinos that can't seem to get it right.
Even more baffling, is that they seem to think that they're rather fluent and have a strong grasp of the language, and thus, write their entire profiles in a completely incomprehensible manner. Apparently, they've lost grasp of reality.
As if that wasn't bad enough, some Filipinos can't even get their Tagalog right. GASP! The Philippine's national language, and they still manage to screw it up. AMAZING! Now I know that Filipinos have various dialects, but if you can't manage to get 2 out of 3 languages right, just stick to what you know - at least you won't look like an idiot.

2. The Poser

The hottest hunk/babe has just started a conversation with you, leaving you with no room for doubt that they are interested in you. Your conversations are long and sweet. You've fallen in love. It's almost like a dream... Chances are, it's just that - a dream. Cuz one day, you two finally decide to meet up and find that the hunk/babe you had fallen for is a complete toad using someone else's picture. You could try to kiss the toad in the hopes they'd turn into the person of your dreams, but you don't want to realize that it really was a nightmare to begin with.

1. ASL (Age/Sex/Location)

Most personals sites ask you to fill out lots and lots of information about yourself, short of your eating habbits. Yet despite this, people are still too lazy to read your profile and still ask you "ASL?"
I mean really, is it all that difficult to read? Has the internet introduced a whole new level of laziness that people can't even decipher whether you're male or female by simply looking at your picture?