Do I Know You?--

--No, you've just been stalking my PoF profile long enough to recognize me in public. Scary, creeper man...

No, but really, this kind of actually happened. I was hanging out with my friend, Amanda, and we went to Walmart to get a few snacks for our movie night. By the time we were back at my apartment settling in to push Play, I received a message from a guy on PoF asking if I'd just been at Walmart, as he thought he saw me down the adult beverage aisle. As I glanced over at my newly opened bottle of wine, this is the face I made -->  :0  Yes, a panic-stricken ghost face.

While I'm sure the guy meant no harm, I don't think he realized how creepy that seemed. Plus, as I understand it, online dating is supposed to broaden your spectrum of people you may not otherwise run into. But if you actually run into a woman that you find attractive...why would you email them? Here's an alternative, TALK TO THEM IN PERSON. Just saying...

Due to the awkward circumstances, I didn't reply back to him.

However, I apparently have a twin out there...I'm really bummed that I don't have the screen shot any more but I was messaged a month or so ago asking if I worked at a specific Subway location? My suggestion to you, sir, is before you ask such a presumputious question, maybe you should check out my Occupation Info to confirm or deny your suspicsions. Mine reads: "Marketing Manager"...now would the MM of Subway be making you a sandwich? I think not.

On to the next sighting of my potentially evil twin...

Geez...imagine his conversing skills if he had tried to talk to "me" Friday night after a few beers?

And no, for those of you who are wondering, I wouldn't be caught dead in Vintage...Any more. Don't judge me... We all had our college days.

Now that mistake I don't mind!

Speaking of running into people you don't actually know, what about the probability of virtually running into someone you DO know? Oh, it's happened. -- I mean, it happened to a friend of mine.

Most Awkward Run-Ins

Actual Scenario #1: You meet someone from the site and begin casually dating. After date three, he deletes his profile. Soon after, you end things when you realize he’s really not that into you as a person, just your physicality. A month later, you click on a “new” person’s profile that looks interesting and turns out he has made a new one! ...well, Hey there Blitz**!  ;) (Damn, now I’ve been unjustifiably caught by the “Recently Viewed You” list! I didn’t mean to cross paths with you again, I swear.)

Actual Scenario #2: Stumbling upon the profile of your friend’s attractive older brother…eek! Obviously there is no harm in looking it over but anything further would have to depend on how close that friend is. In this case, this friend is really just an acquaintance so no permission is really needed. Plus, he just moved to Poland so really what can he do about it? :)

Actual Scenario #3: You know that guy you met ages ago because he's a friend of one of your good friends?(wait...what? exactly.) Well, you met him, instantly fell for his gorgeous smile, and then was introduced to his blonde skinny girlfriend. Awesome. But wait! Don't fret! You don't know it now but you will one day run into him on an online dating site. Win! He's obviously single. Now to message him: "Hey I don't know if you remember me..." Yeah, that conversation is not gonna happen.

Internet Ink

Tattoos are a very popular topic these days. Everyone seems to have at least one, even if it's hidden behind their ear or just a tiny phrase on their finger. It’s rarer these days to not have a tattoo in our generation. They’ve become widely accepted, even among many work places. However, that doesn’t necessarily stop you from staring at someone’s tattoo and just wondering WHY??

Whether it’s because you want to congratulate them or tell them to kill themselves and stop the risk of procreation, sometimes what people chose to put on their bodies is a little bit of a mind f***. 

I always find it interesting when any non-asian people get asian symbols permanently inked into them. I'm not trying to be rude or anything, I just wonder how connected this guy felt to the Chinese culture prompting him to get this tattoo of the Yin & Yang- a representation of the celestial phenomenon that is the Sun and how its creates the four annual seasons. Then throw in a dragon and a tiger and you have a legitimate Defender of the Great Wall sitting before us. (Ok, now that was probably rude but I'm ok with it.)

I'm glad that this guy thought to leave an explanation for his tattoo in the description, but I still don't know what it means. Does anybody want to get truly philosophical and let me know what they come up with? K, thanks. I do have to admit though, the Bass Clef is a somewhat more masculine looking symbol than the Treble Clef.

All I see is a Tribal Clown. Anyone else? Did I just freak out half of you who have that clown phobia? My bad.



 

Is he trying to be Spiderman?

Work it, work it! Now growl for me!

These pictures aren't even really for the tattoos. I just think it's funny how he's posing in order to show them off. If that’s how you have to stand to show us your tattoos, buddy, then I would have reconsidered their placement.

Male Tramp Stamp

Can you imagine a girl's face when things are getting all steamy? She removes his pants and receives this kind of greeting…? “Hey Sexy Lady”...Also I love the way he is proudly sporting his tattoo, his dog tags and most significantly, his package for not just us, but his super close friend taking the picture on his camera phone.

For those who have trouble reading this, no worries. I read scribble really well. It says "Knowledge, Love, Respect" –three very valuable words in the English language. My only question isn’t so much as to why he chose these words, but rather, why are they so big??

I really don't have much to say about these next few tattoos but I think they're worth displaying anyways.


I'll gladly claim ignorance on this one.



There is so much happening on this Cowboy Canvas...



"If you want peace, prepare for war" in Latin

Be Careful, It's A Jungle Out There

I’ve been on PoF for a few months now and out of nowhere I began stumbling upon profile’s that included photos of the user with a wild animal of some sort. Is there a theme or a bulletin somewhere that I missed that says this is the cool thing to do? I don’t know but either way I thought I’d share these with you. Let’s start with a really ferocious one….

Just kidding. I just thought this was really funny. Hippo’s are actually a really dangerous animal. Although I don’t think we need to worry about this one.

Ok, so this one isn't ferocious either but it's not exactly the common domestic pup we’d find next to a stick-figure family on those car window stickers. Also, this is the same guy as in the picture with the fake hippo. Don't know what he's aiming to sell through these pictures but whatevs.



Here kitty, kitty. Op, big kitty!

I don't know what happened here. This wild baby  tiger became domesticated somehow. But I bet this guy feels really cool feeding a tiger in his sun glasses.

This looks more like he paid to take a picture with the tiger at the zoo and knelt down as close as possible while praying he doesn’t trip and fall on top of the animal. Or he's possibly taking advantage of the poor tiger, but before you call PETA, she seems ok with it.

I know it's blurry but that's the online photo world for you. And this picture is very random, but we all have a secret love of Bambi I guess.

 Now something has clearly gone terribly wrong. But don’t worry, all must have ended well. He lived to post the photo on his profile afterall. Good thing he was wearing nice running shoes.

Happy Fishing! But be careful. You never know what's lurking in the next profile. 

Legitimate Creepers Come With References

So I don’t know if this has been particularly obvious to you, as my readers, but I have a rule about this blog. I’d say, 99% of the people I mention or post about on here, I have NEVER contacted or replied to via message, chat, etc. Whereas, any gentleman that I’ve taken the time to hold a conversation with, get to know, or meet in person, has never been posted about on this site. In fact, a special few of those gentlemen now continue to be friends of mine and even share in this blog often as readers and sometimes even as contributing sources of information. :) And they seem to enjoy it, once I assured them that they themselves, or our dates, have not been included in its posts.

That other 1% came about recently when i decided there was something just too interesting to pass up. More commonly, a guy messaged me with something so awkward or so freakishly interesting, that I had to reply solely to see if they would man-up to their own claims And I’ll admit, I solely opened up that door of communication with your interest in mind. And boy, have I found some doosies. (Is that how you spell that word?)

I have shared the opening statements of these two gentleman before, and now I will unveil what has become an abundance of awesomeness and scary, scary creeper-like behavior.

Firstly, you all should meet MrAwesome**. I first introduced him to you on Sept. 10 in What Are You Hiding Behind That Profile? – which looking back, was precisely the right question to be asking.

It all began August 23, when I received a message so awkward, especially coming from what looked like a really normal profile, that I had to respond. I guess I was just curious to see how’d he explain himself and the way he chose to approach messaging me.

At first, he admitted that he was surprised that I’d responded at all. So I asked him, why would he message someone like that if he didn’t expect them to respond. He said he wants to see if the girl could have a sense of humor. I told him that a sense of humor is relative and that his came across rather creepy. Then he decided to prove my judgment accurate.

From that point on the conversation became intimate and more than suggestive in nature, but also random and illogical. Here’s the kicker though, I never messaged him again and yet I still receive a message every couple of weeks. It’s now October…Here is the majority of September for you.

We have officially reached CREEPER STATUS.

---

The second bundle of awesomeness I have this week is yet another previous visitor that I promised to scope out for further indulgence.

This is John. He offers references to young ladies such as myself to make himself appear to be a more eligible bachelor, despite being of an older age. Now he’s no senior citizen, but 43 is not typically in the range of girls in their early to mid 20s. All I had to do was say that references were an interesting approach to take and suddenly I received a list of friends AND exes! – Whom could “vouch” for him.

Well, believe it or not, I called each of his references on speaker phone while two friends sat beside me filming the whole ordeal. It was quite hilarious.

Most notable about these references was their age range. They were not all my age as he indicated in his inital message above. However, two of his exes were still a decent number of years younger than him, which makes sense if he wants to prove his eligibility for someone my age. However, what can a 16-year-old-boy that he’s known for a little over a year, really say in respect of his character?? In this particular case, not very much. In fact, the kid basically sold him out.

Ryan – “He (John) hits on any girl that moves.”

Even his two closest friends seemed to reveal crucial information, even in their best attempts to defend their buddy. Jessa and Derek happen to be riding in the car together when I called, making it easy to speak to them simultaneously. When I asked them if John could be described as a gentleman, they responded with: “He is in his own way." Apprently, he comes across as "rough" and "obnoxious” but really is "nice at heart." I believe we have a winner girls! ;)

Once I gather those videos from the girls...they will be all yours for the viewing. :)

An Award Ceremony for the Internetly Awkward

I think it's time we gave awards to the Best of Categories once again as there have been some pretty creative profile making and message construction as of late.

These are the Best Openers:

Random but honest



So polite in his request to pounce a woman!

 I'm very excited to share these next "winners" with you becuase I've combined my love for the app PicStitch with my findings for this blog and I think you'll like what I've put together.

I’ve saved a few pictures over time to better display some of the awesomeness that is PlentyOfFish. It has become apparent through my PoF exploration just how far people are willing to go to portray, or maybe a better verb would be to advertise, themselves. Well, at least they’re putting the real them out there for viewers to see. And thank the blog gods they did! ;)

These gentlemen receive the award for Most Revealing!

How much will you reveal about yourself?

Since we are approaching Halloween (ok, it's a ways away but you've already seen the decorations at grocery stores), these gentlemen --and yes, they're all of the male gender-- receive the award for Best Costumes:



Halloween inspiration, anyone?



And the final award is for the Most Ridiculous ManChild:

I know you've seen me use this term before. It's an official term in the dictionary, in case you were wondering. ManChildren are quite possibly my favorite profiles to find because they're so cute and adorable and usually provide quite the laugh. This particular ManChild was just asking to be scrutinized when he first created his PoF username: ****LoveGuru

This was his message:



What.A.Charmer!

So of course, I HAVE to click on his profile to see what kind of a man would deem himself a love guru. Apparently a 21-year-old divorcee. Does that seem right to you?

 

He's very confident in his knowledge of women, as you can read in his catchphrase.

And finally, we put a face to the username: and even learn his favorite flavor for his bottle ;) But really, he looks like a freaking Munchkin from the Lollipop Gild holding that bottle of Grey Goose. It's half his size!

 

Yo Guru,you look like you're 12. Put the bottle down, kid, and invest in some weights.

On a completely unrelated note, below is The Random Thought of the Week:

This is one picture from a man's profile (I refered to him in my head as The Hulk).

 This may not be what I was suppose to notice when the Hulk decided to share a photo of himself, shirtless, in his beautiful kitchen (which he is very proud of, if you had only seen  how many photos he includes in his profile of his kitchen) but anyways…my only thought was, What is up with the hulk's kitchen chairs? How does one sit in those? Seriously, take a second look!

Well, that's all I have for this week. Hope you've enjoyed this month's award session. Oh and one last thing, I found this on Pinterest and thought it was really funny. I'm sure this is how many people on PoF feel if they've been on the site for more than a few months.

Happy Fishing!

 

French-Men-In-A-Box

Online dating is just as popular in Europe these days as it is in America. Are we surprised? Not really. In fact, leave it to Europeans to find the most outrageous form of advertising to lure people into the virtual selection box. Ready for this?

AdopteUnMec.com (Adopt A Man) is a French dating website that has decided to advertise it’s services by creating a traveling showcase of boxed up men, similar to ken dolls. Each of the men (who are models rather than actual eligible bachelors) stand in glass displays that resembles a doll box and are even given nicknames like “The Rocker” and “Mr. Muscle.” The displays remain for ten days until moving on to the next location.

But why is it only men boxed up like male Barbies? Because the world would have a kanipshi* if they put women in there to “sell themselves,” for one. Secondly, and definitely the strongest reason, is that this website has a completely different structure than American dating websites. It seems to resemble a lighter version of sites for Sugar Daddy’s. The site is absolutely free for women. Men must pay for their profile on which to market their strengths and assets to the online female community. Most notably, women must initiate contact in order to “purchase” the men in what’s called a “market of love.”

This site has only been operating since 2010 and yet receives on average, 300 million page views per month. That’s pretty dang good, considering it’s only free to half the population. But it doesn’t beat our beloved PlentyOfFish.com which reportedly matches the French site’s 300 million page views a month from just PoF’s mobile app alone! (thank you datingsitesreviews.com). To be fair, PoF has been in operation since 2008 and therefore had plenty of time to grow and develop. But with strategies like men in a box, I don’t see AdopteUnMec going anywhere soon.

So what do you think? Was this public display of Parisian Ken clever, offensive or just plain ridiculous? And should we do something like this in the US? Put men in a box? I think Justin Timberlake would claim rights to this concept having started a similar trend through his SNL appearance in 2007. You all know what I’m talking about. ;)

I’ve spoken to a few friends in Sweden and Germany for their opinions on online dating overseas and received varied opinions. But if any other foreign friends want to inform me of the most popular dating sites for comparison to US sites, leave a comment!

To read the article on the Men-In-A-Box event, click here:

http://shine.yahoo.com/love-sex/adopt-guy-parisian-pop-shop-sells-men-181500255.html

What Are You Hiding Behind That Profile?

Everyone knows that first impressions are important, whether it’s for a job interview, introducing yourself to the cute girl/boy at a party, or meeting your girlfriend’s parents. They matter. The online dating scene is no different. If you send over a creepy or illegible message, you probably won’t get a response.

Your profile is really your best chance at completely portraying yourself as accurately as possible. You have your profile photos, your basic info, your About Me section, a list of your activities, and an area to talk about your idea of a good first date. That’s quite a bit of information at someone’s disposal considering they’ve never even met you. But are they even going to click to view your profile if your initial message is something like these?

I call this guy Jaded Chicken...



I forgot that people still actually use these kind of pick up lines. These are so 10 years ago!

I've received this exact message from this guy AT LEAST a dozen times.

However, what if you get a decent message, see that they have a totally normal and acceptable profile, are you guaranteed to have found a sane person to converse with? NO! There are plenty of people who are really good at creating a totally normal profile and take the time to construct the perfect first message. The key is to keep the conversation going for a while to see if they’ll let any red flags slip through. Things tend to become less scripted once you get the conversation going. But sometimes, it doesn’t take very long for the creeper to shine through, such as in this case.

I like to call this the prime example of  “Well that escalated quickly…”

The following messages are just single initial messages from PoF users that I found to be pretty awesome:

Don't worry readers, you can be assured that I've asked this man for his references and will report back once I see if there's anything interesting to be found in them.

Thank you! I always wanted to be able to play the role of a Vegas show girl and cloistered Nun!

I braved conversing with this gentleman for a day or so and it only got weirder (shocking i know).

By the way, don't you all love my super professional photoshop skills in editing the usernames in each image? I thought so.

Alright, I hope you all enjoyed this week’s post. Sorry for the delay as it was supposed to be up around the end of last week. Let me know in the comments what theme you’d like me to tackle next. Here are some of the current ideas:

1)      The prettiest men of PoF (yes I said men. I may have found a few cross dressers/ just really feminine looking men)

2)      The Ballsiest of photos gallery

3)      Most awkward profile photos