Lauren Urasek, NYC’s most popular online dater
Between January 1 and February 14, online dating is in its high season. Whether people have decided to try it as a New Year’s resolution, or they felt committed to looking for love after seeing family over the holidays, or they just want to check out a new dating app – the numbers are up.
So if you haven’t signed up, this is an excellent time to do so. You can see my dating app recommendations here.
On another note, I had the pleasure of speaking with Lauren Urasek, also known as the most popular online dater in NYC. OkCupid dubbed her the most messaged woman on their site – and so I asked her what makes the most attractive and compelling photos in a dating profile to get the conversation started. She’s a make-up pro as well as a consultant for dating app The Grade, so she had some great tips to share.
And if you are wondering what is going on with your New Year’s resolutions, why you can’t seem to maintain the momentum (or didn’t get it started, like I wrote in my last blog post), check out this great episode from The Hidden Brain podcast. A study came out that showed we not only have to decide to commit to a New Year’s resolution, but we must also ask ourselves WHY we want to change—that there should be internal motivation (for example, we exercise to feel better about ourselves, gain confidence) as well as external positive results (slimmer figure, better health). Our subconscious has its own motivations after all, and this is where we get into self-sabotage territory.
So if improving your dating life is a resolution, it’s time to put your best foot forward and try a few new things. Change your dating profile, or at least add some new photos. Go outside your comfort zone. Take some risks. Date someone you normally wouldn’t. Go hiking on a first date instead of to the coffee shop or bar. But most importantly, think about what you really want from dating.
And please, please please – call it what it is. It’s a date. You want to see if there’s a spark. For the love of all, please call it a date. You’re not getting married or moving in together. It’s not that serious. But no more of this murky territory of “hanging out” and seeing what happens. A date is a date. Call it a date. Pretty please.
Then see where it goes.
XO,
Kelly
About Kelly Seal
Kelly is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. She blogs about dating, relationships, personal growth and what "healthy living" means to her. You can follow her on Google+, Twitter @kellyseal or through her website www.kellyseal.com.
I had some interaction with Lauren – she’s a great conversationalist, and very bright. She’s also overcome a serious physical deformity and become the physically beautiful person she is today in spite of it. I met her on Tumblr and we were chatting for a day or so over email, and I asked her to take a look at my dating profile because 1) I wasn’t having much luck, and 2) I respected her opinion, and 3) she’s very much the type of woman that I would be interested in – brilliant, talented, attractive, strong, and independent. She was happy to oblige, but once she looked at it she realized that I had done the unpardonable — I had become old! Yes, Lauren Urasek is an ageist! She then blasted me on her tumblr, called me a creep, and accused me of the most heinous dating site offenses, not because I actually was a creep, or because I had behaved poorly, but purely because I was older. All I did was ask her opinion of my profile to provide constructive criticism.
Lauren is not the only woman I’ve met who behaves this way. I had met another woman, also bright, attractive, and on Tumblr. We exchanged numbers and photos via text and we started chatting and and texting for a few days. We got along great, had much in common – we even discussed meeting up, and hanging out for pizza, beers, and sex – what more could someone ask for? Then she asked me, just in passing, how old I was. When I told her she also got angry, accused me of being a creep, and she also blasted me on tumblr. Moral of the story: don’t try to date women on Tumblr.
I see age as something akin to height, skin color, or penis size – it’s a preference for one party, and something outside the control of the other, but not necessarily a deal breaker in a relationship, or at least something that should not be publicly shamed.
This is one of the major issues with the whole online dating process – people are way too easily offended, their expectations are way too high, they read way too much into other people’s motivations, and they quickly jump to conclusions based on their own confirmation bias (the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities), rather than the actual facts.
There is a fine line in online dating between disclosing too much – I’m a short, middle-aged bald guy who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome who is also smart, witty, and knows how to treat women as equals – thereby severely limiting your already scarce prospects, and not disclosing enough – I’m a smart, witty, discerning, and accomplished man seeking a smart, attractive, discerning, and independent woman – where you risk being publicly shamed when it comes out that you are, in fact, that same short, middle-aged guy, you just didn’t lead with that. It’s not purely limited to online dating – I’ve had it happen in public when it was not immediately apparent from my appearance that I am as old as I am and someone will engage me based on their assumption that I am closer to their age – but it’s far more prevalent online. However, I’ve never been publicly humiliated when it happens IRL, the women usually just walk away – no harm, no foul.
I used a man in the example above, but everyone does similar things – lead with deceptive photos, downplay their reliance on anti-depressants, omit that they are currently pregnant, insist that they are not looking for a hookup but sleep with you on the first date and never call again, fail to disclose that they haven’t left their house for years due to anxiety, that this is their first sexual encounter since they were raped, or in one case that they live in a retirement village.
I guess the point I’m getting at here is that everyone is trying to up-sell the positives, and downplay the negatives in order to present the best version of themselves, so violent reactions are unwarranted when those negative qualities are exposed – it should be expected that the person you meet is not not going to be exactly the person you created in your mind – and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s kind of why you went on the date in the first place – to get “the rest of the story.” And if one of those negatives is a deal-breaker, one should respectfully acknowledge that it is a deal-breaker for you – not necessarily everyone – and move on.
I’ve come to terms with the fact that everyone in the world is bat-crap crazy, so it doesn’t bother me anymore – I just hope for the best, but expect the worst, and don’t get angry when things don’t go perfectly. Sometimes it’s an opportunity to expand my horizons and explore something I didn’t originally think I would be interested in – perhaps others could do the same.