Social Media

I finally ditched Facebook.

As in, for good.

It wasn’t really because of the Cambridge Analytics scandal, although that was part of it and ultimately what triggered my decision. Instead, I have simply experienced a growing general dislike for social media. I don’t want to sound pretentious, but I do believe social media is having a very negative effect on our culture. There’s just too much social outrage over petty things, too much online mob justice (#metoo, I am looking at you), too much narcissism, and too much plain extremism.

Essentially, we’ve given stupid people an easy platform, and they’re dragging everybody down by their sheer numbers. It’s a digital zombie apocalypse.

(And before anybody whines in the comments: Harassment or even molestation of women – or men for that matter – is never okay, but online witch hunts are not the answer. Too many false accusations that ruin lives. In dubio pro reo is a very important concept and nobody, absolutely nobody, gets to “pick and choose” when to apply it.)

 

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Online Dating

After ditching Tinder, I decided to try more traditional dating sites again. I had, after all, some decent luck with them in the future. I decided not to use any that required payment. I don’t have a problem paying for a service, but most dating sites are essentially scams. They advertise themselves as “free”, but when you want to get to actually writing to other members or read messages from them, you can’t unless you pay unreasonably high fees.

And so it comes to no surprise that many dating sites use fake profiles and fake messages to trick people into paying.

I ended up using two free sites; Plenty of Fish and OKCupid.

Plenty of Fish is, essentially, a haven for scammers and for ugly people. The scammers are easy to detect – they use African grammar or include some obvious mistakes in their profiles. For example there was a profile with a photo of a black chick, who then described herself as “fair skinned, blonde, green eyes”. Stuff like that.

The ugly people are, of course, also easy to spot. I don’t place huge value on appearance but there are limits.

OKCupid has entirely different problems. The biggest of these is that they’ve decided to match bisexual men with straight men. When notified about this mistake, their stance was “we do not enforce what gender our members identify as”. It took me a number of increasingly snarky emails to get the point across that my complaint had nothing to do with gender politics, but rather with practicality. An actually straight man will simply never date a bisexual guy.

I mean by OKCupid’s logic, my profile (as a straight guy) should appear on the list of matches for lesbian women because I like women. It’s so utterly basic and stupid that I’m not sure if it might not be kinder to attribute it to malice on the part of OKCupid.

Sigh.

As for the results, I mostly got replies from female tourists who were either not yet in My City, or were just leaving. The notable exception was an illegal immigrant who was looking to marry someone before she gets deported. I kid you not. And while that might have been an easy way to get laid, I decided I was simply not desperate enough for that.

I’m not exactly optimistic online dating is going to work out for me. But then it might not have to – as you’ll soon find out.

A General Update

Me: “I really need to blog more.”

Friend: “Yes you do.”

Hi there. Sorry it’s been another half-year. What can I say, life’s pretty busy. Let’s get the minor topics out of the way first:

Work: I spent a good amount of time on applying for jobs, but was then transferred from a boss who hates me, to a boss who likes me. Unfortunately the new boss is pretty incompetent, but I guess we can’t have our cake and eat it, too. I’ll probably stay at this company for a little longer, I’ll get into the “why the hell would you do that” in a separate post. Meanwhile, I have started working on a side project in my spare time. It’s really ambitious, but if it works out it might become my main job in a few years. We’ll see.

Tinder: I ended up ditching Tinder again. Got a decent number of matches actually, which really surprised me, but what good is that if conversations never go anywhere? I get that Tinder is supposed to be a casual dating app, but I simply can’t get myself to go down the “How you doin’ – let’s frak” route. Call it a character flaw if you want. I have plenty of those.

Weight loss: I am doing pretty well in this regard. I stopped eating chocolate at work, and in general really fixed my dietary habits. I can’t be arsed to actually weigh myself, but I’ve punched new holes in my belts. The beautiful thing is that I am not actually on a diet of any kind – After years of work, it seems I finally trained myself to simply not eat too much anymore. You (probably) have no idea how proud I am of that.

 

Hello 2018!

My unexpected New Year’s date got cancelled again (big surprise), but the girl asked to meet me on January 1st. I almost told her to go to hell but then I decided it’d be nice to start 2018 with a date.

Met her for dinner, decided she was boring and fat, and left as soon as I could reasonably excuse myself. (And I apologize for being harsh, but really, she was obese. And, much worse, as dull as one of our two hour team meetings.)

Speaking of dating and fat people: As you guys may remember, I, too, am trying to lose weight. But I am doing it in a slow fashion, trying to re-train myself to eat better rather than chasing a diet fat or forcing myself into a gym.

Well, I signed up for Tinder again on a whim (and, likely, a desire for mental self-harm) and lo and behold, I am actually getting matches. Of non-bot female users who then actually talk to me for a little. So I guess I am actually losing weight.

Either that, or my selfie skills have greatly improved.

Happy New Year 2017 -> 2018

Just dropping in for two reasons. One, to wish you all a happy new year. May it be better than 2017, no matter how good or bad 2017 may have been for you.

The other thing:

About two hours ago, I actually got a date for New Year’s evening. 30 minutes ago, she cancelled again. And just before I posted it, she un-cancelled again. Oh and if the date happens, she’s bringing her sister, which leads me to think my chances of actually scoring are abut the same whether I go or not.

At any rate, with 5 hours and 40 minutes left to the year, 2017 ends with a fitting commentary on my life.

Good riddance 2017. Hello 2018. Play nice, k?

Secretgeek Updates

I’ve been bad about following up on my posts. Or even just posting. So here are some updates.

My visitor came and went. Of course, it was all a big dud. Who would’a thunk?

Sarah started emailing again. For a while, anyway. She would visit [my city], she wrote. My stance was, “cool, let me know and I’ll show you around”. She was very eager, but seems to have gotten cold feet. The trip to [my city] wouldn’t, she explained “bring me your way”. Since it is impossible that she meant this in a geographical sense, I assume she meant “no fucking way will our paths cross, you nerd”. Not exactly sure why she contacted me in the first place, but if there is anything we’ve learned in the eleven years this blog has existed, it is that women are a mystery.

Twists and turns twist in unexpected turns. While I was re-hired, I was placed under a boss who simply does not like me. I mean as in he had a negative, hostile attitude from day one. I eventually found out why at my performance evaluation: The man’s body language leaves no doubt that he feels threatened by me. You can imagine what chances I have for personal growth, raises, or any other improvements to my career. So I’m looking again. I have frankly lost track of how many jobs I’ve had in the past ten years. Six, I think.

Updates within Updates. My noisy upstairs neighbors were finally kicked out, to be replaced by a new, even noisier upstairs neighbor. Who moved out after a while. Now I have peace and quiet again. My neighbor lady asked to “have a coffee” once more and suggested that week’s Saturday. Not believing anything would come of it, I said “sure” and promptly forgot about it. The following week I met her in the hallway and she complained I had not been home at the appointed time. Karma, I guess, though I assume she sees things differently.

I’ve continued losing weight, but at a very marginal rate. I’ve improved my diet somewhat, though. Most importantly, I hardly drink anything but water these days. My next biggest challenge: Stop eating chocolate at work. My hope rests on I finding a humane job.

 

A Visitor Intensifies

It took her two days to go from “I will be in your city” to “By the way, would you be open to having sex with me?”

To her credit, she didn’t take my reply of “You’re kidding, right?” the wrong way.

 

A Visitor Announces Herself

Some Female Online Friend just sent me a message.

“Hey Secretgeek, sorry for not e-mailing you in a while. I just wanted to let you know I will be in [Secretgeek’s Home City] this summer, and by the way it’ll be my birthday then. Hope you can show me the city and celebrate with me!”

We’re talking about a woman who, when asked about her hobbies, replied “lots of sex”, which she added was “natural” for a Latina like her.

This is either going to be a big dud or an interesting couple of days.

 

Is this Tech Support?

Wilma contacted me today. By email. Let’s just say she is not my favorite person in the world, but, like the polite person I am, I read the mail. It consisted of many, many paragraphs of her telling me all about how horrible her husband is. Still the same guy she married years ago. He’s jealous (gee I wonder why), mean, sometimes violent.

“So, why are you writing to me,” I replied.

The answer came five minutes later. “See, I have this six years old PC and I don’t remember the password or how to change the settings, and you know all about computers. Can you help me?”

I may have been very explicit when I told her what to do with her six-years old computer.

Odd.

Sarah contacted me out of the blue. I think I haven’t talked to her in eight or nine years.

She said hello, and asked for my photo, which I sent her.

She said “You’re cute, Secretgeek!” and inquired whether I was married with children by now.

After I said that I wasn’t, she stopped replying again.

 

It’s a magic, whimsical life I lead.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯