Tuesday, November 24, 2015

OkCupid: Taking stock

Today marks 7 weeks since I started anew with OkCupid.

I have had conversations with 68 guys, most of which didn't last past a few exchanges before petering out. Out of those, I'm still in either sporadic or regular contact with 16, regretfully turned away 3, and blocked 5 for being dodgy. When I say 'dodgy', I mean asking me if I know how to give a blowjob; telling me he's very well-endowed; repeatedly asking me to come over to his condo so we could meet, right NOW; trying to persuade me that having sex is part of living life to the fullest, when I'd told him it was off the table; and not telling me he was married until we had sat down in a restaurant and ordered food.

I met up with 6, out of which one was the married guy, one fizzled out after meeting (i.e. no further contact later), one told me I win the "best buddies" award (got friendzoned, lol!), one asked for a second, then third date, one I ended up regretfully declining, and one... well, we'll see. I'm meeting him tomorrow.

28 guys didn't reply my initiating email.

19 moved off the OkC app to WhatsApp, including the 5 who ended up getting blocked and two of the three who were regretfully turned away. Of the rest, some have fizzled out, some are in sporadic contact, and a few in regular contact.

I am suffering from OkC fatigue. So much repeated small talk and doing the self-reveal over and over again is a bit draining. My inner introvert is screaming, but I admit I always get a thrill when I see messages coming in. I'm excited to read what a guy has to say, especially if he's replying to a message I sent. It's fun. But I don't think I can keep up this level of intensity for long.

I have discovered that chemistry is very real, and a couple either has it, or doesn't have it. I've also, however, discovered that there are different kinds of chemistry, such as a "best buddies" one. He and I get on like a house on fire, but there isn't a smidgen of romantic feeling in it. There's someone else I have chemistry with, the only guy who asked me out more than once, and that's exciting... we're continuing to get to know each other, enjoying the process.

 
 
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Hear me roar

Alpha is not my default mode -- not even my preferred mode -- but if you will not step up, I WILL end up going all alpha on you, because I just. Can't. Stand. All that waffling around!

Sunday, November 15, 2015

To a certain Mr Needy

This is how texting works: you text me, and depending on what I'm doing, I may see it instantly or I may see it three hours from now. When I do happen to read your message, if I deem it one of those messages which necessitates some kind of response, I will reply when I have a  convenient moment. It's how it works for everyone. Stop sending me texts asking if I'm busy! If I were busy, I wouldn't be able to answer you anyway!

Monday, November 9, 2015

11:41 and STILL in the office!

Setting exam paper with "All I Ask of You" playing on repeat.

(And blogging out of procrastination.)

Facebook is not the Web

I've never thought of myself as an opinionated person, but as I was typing an email yesterday I realised I do have a lot of opinions, quite decided ones, on certain things. It's just that I'm never asked about them, so I don't voice them. Still, looking at the Oxford English dictionary's definition of "opinionated", I think I'm quite safe:


...pretty sure no one would accuse me of either of those things. I hope.

In response to news that I'm developing my personal website, someone commented yesterday that personal websites seem to be losing popularity as they're being replaced with Facebook fan pages. I went off on a rant. Poor guy :p

Facebook is insidiously inserting itself into our lives to the point it's becoming an inseparable part of our everyday existence. Setting up your page there seems like a no-brainer because it's convenient, easy, free, and, of course, right smack in the middle of an existing social network. You're in the thick of things, so to speak, and can easily broadcast important information or updates to interested parties, who can then spread the news quickly through "sharing". The lure is very real.

But what about the downsides? Essentially, I feel we shouldn't rely on Facebook too much because it's a third party corporation. They're motivated by profit and will act according to their business model. If you were to rely on a Facebook page for web presence, and for whatever reason Facebook decides to change settings of how it displays the page, suddenly makes pages a paid feature, or arbitrarily decides to take a page down without notice, you'd be up the creek without a paddle. And there would be no recourse since Facebook is entirely within its rights to do whatever it wants with your page. It has done this before, you know -- stopped page posts from appearing so regularly in newsfeeds... which I personally believe was to try to force people or small businesses to pay in order to be featured in the newsfeed (read: "sponsored content").

I also don't see why my professional content should further help them to monetise; it's bad enough that they're capitalising on my personal content! Hence the desire to have my own site independent of Facebook. Not only that, long-form prose (which as you can see I'm forever producing :p) is not suitable for a medium like Facebook, so if I'm going to pontificate I need to pontificate on the Web proper. Finally, although we may think of Facebook as ubiquitous, if a person has a global mindset he or she will realise that not everyone in the world is or wants to be on Facebook; indeed, there are places on the planet where the site is blocked by certain governments, and so on.

Ultimately, for me, it boils down to this: if you're serious about developing a web presence, you ought to realise that the web has a global reach, and plan accordingly -- there's nothing which frustrates me more when I'm searching for information and come across a website which seems to have only accounted for local visitors, such as an online store which will only ship to domestic destinations. That's called narrow, short-sighted thinking. Anyone in the world could come across your site, but you're still bound by geographical boundaries despite being on the boundless web! What's the point? Okay, so maybe a small store wouldn't want to bother shipping abroad -- it may not be cost-effective to do so. What about sites that, when asking you to fill out information, insist you must be in the US, and demand a US zip code? You'd be surprise how many times I've run into cases like this.

So no, I won't take the easy way out and create a Facebook page. I want to be on the Web. We're talking global limitless accessibility. Why limit yourself by sticking to Facebook? As a supplement to a website, sure, Facebook pages are useful, but they shouldn't be your sole Web presence. This is something I obviously feel strongly about, and didn't even realise it until the subject was brought up!

This is probably why Web developers hate clients

Me: "Basically, I'm looking for a theme that has a static front page and a blog behind it."

Caedmon: "That's nearly every template out there."

Me: "No, it is not!"

Caedmon: "Yes, is! Is core feature of WordPress."

Me: "They don't look the way I want them to look!"

Caedmon: "Ok, so you need one that does what they all do but does it in just the way you want."

Me: "Yes, exactly!"