Lies behind okcupid

*Names have been changed to protect, well, myself.

My first gig had 13 other bidders. The message was poorly written (by a man named Jose) with atrocious grammar, but the message was simple: I don’t have time to write messages on dating websites, so write them for me.

Now, I had successfully gotten a friend out on a date only a few months prior, although they didn’t like each other at all. “She’s too intellectual,” he told me. I had polished up his grammar and written carefully crafted, witty messages. 

Jose, 42, who was running a real estate company, used POF (Plenty of Fish), which had a much simpler, slower, and in my opinion, less desirable interface than okcupid, which was the dating website I was more acquainted with. He only had one or two pictures up, and had a slew of poorly-written, copy-and-paste messages sent to several slender, blond, attractive women. 

I first advised him to get okcupid, instructed him to upload at least 5 more pictures, and answer the “match” questions. I also helped him fill out his profile, and deleted the part where he said he was a “very honest man.” I just couldn’t bring myself lower than I already was. 

He was really quite irritated by my questions and requests. “Another girl,” he explained, “didn’t need ANY information from me! AND she got good success!” Most of his previous messages had atrocious spelling, cheesy pickup lines, and a 0% success rate. I dared not question why he was still single.

I finally identified several women who were relatively attractive, and seemed to be a good fit. I sent them messages with a pretty good return rate; ~40%. He complained to me immediately. “Stop sending these messages to people I don’t connect with! Use the ones I favorited!” 

I took a look at these women he liked again. Many were consultants, doctors, and lawyers with well-written profiles and low tolerances for bad grammar. I couldn’t see them getting along with a man who wrote “I have gud since of hummer” without trying to be funny. How in the world was I supposed to do a job that would achieve impossible results?! 

I patiently explained over the phone that personality matches were also very important. It’s important to have matching religious and moral values, I explained. He went to church every Sunday and found God to be important, and he was “liking” the women who dissed all religion on their profiles.

After a week of working with him, we had a mutual breakup. He messaged me with cracked words and sentence fragments about his disappointment, and I called him and told him I’d be happy to refund the $80 he had given me for 10 hours of work. He told me the money didn’t matter.

We ended our (virtual) relationship.

A few weeks later, I came out of teaching a tango class at 11pm on Saint Patrick’s day. The BART was still bustling, but I managed to get a seat. I had been working from 7am that morning until 11pm and my body was ready to sink into the cushion. I suddenly heard a loud, boisterous, and familiar voice from behind me.

I turn around, and a man somewhat older (and less attractive) than the one in the dating pictures was sitting there, with a woman koala-ing his arm.

Five minutes later, I took a deep breath, looked directly into his eyes, and said, “Hi, I’m Kim.” He didn’t flinch at all. “Hi. I’m Jose.” The woman introduced herself, also, as Jessi. I studied her. She looked significantly older than the population of women Jose had been targeting on okcupid, but still attractive. After chatting for a while, they explained that they were out for fun, that Jessi was his ex wife (but they still had a lot of fun together) and asked me what I was doing. 

“I was teaching tango.” 

“OOOOOOOHHHHHHH!!” Jose's eyes bulged out of his head. “KIM!!! Oh, my gawd you look JUST like your photo!” 

“You know each other?” Jessi asked. 

Jose waved his arms dramatically and mouthed “NO, NO, NO” behind Jessi.

I smiled. “I helped him with some writing. Jose can be a busy man.”