kicking puppies is bad

I decided to post a fifth picture and make my profile 100% complete (again). The indicator on my homescreen stating that my profile was only 98% complete was starting to make me twitchy. I’m a perfectionist. I don’t like 98%.

Thinking about profile pictures reminded me of a book I read last year titled, A Round Heeled Woman**. The book was a memoir written by Jane Juska. It discusses her life following her decision to place an ad in the New York Review of Books stating, Before I turn 67-next March, I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. Keep in mind that print ads charge you based on length so she was not able to be nearly as verbose in her ad as OkCupid encourages us to be.

Her adventures were fairly interesting. Her logic and the amount of thought she put into the process were also interesting. Apparently I wasn’t the only person who enjoyed her story. She now lives in Berkeley and supports herself giving lectures relating to her memoirs. One question that repeatedly comes up in interviews is, “What advice do you have for other people posting personal ads?” She doesn’t have much advice. One of the few things she says relates to exchanging pictures. Her advice is to send your third best picture.

Her reasoning was that if you send a terrible picture, you will get written off. If you send your best picture you will be a disappointment when you actually meet the person. But if you send your third best picture, you generally won’t get written off, and you also won’t be a disappointment. I’m not sure if her advice is sound, but she seems fairly smart. She has a lot of experience. She is certainly interesting.

It is insane how much a photo impacts your profile, so she is probably right that you should put thought into what you post. Posting an insanely clever and insightful journal entry usually results in a slight increase in hits to my profile. I get a few comments and possibly an email message. But posting a mediocre, no-make-up, third-best picture results in a *crazy* number of stalker hits and several new messages. It doesn’t really matter in my case, since I’m not really looking to meet anyone right now. But I like to think that people would be more interested in my charming personality than my appearence. And it makes me slightly sad every time this illusion is shattered. I think I’ll go eat some gummi bears.

**’Round-heeled’ is an old-fashioned term for a “promiscuous woman of easy virtue”. I think the reference was supposed to make women sound like weebles. Weebles were those toys that had the slogan: weebles wobble but the don’t fall down. I guess “round heeled” women had the magic ability of rolling back so they were in a “sex ready” position, and then popping back up like a weeble when they were done. I am including a photo of a weeble in case you are unfamiliar with them:

Please note that while the weeble photo I included contained disney characters, I am in no way implying that these characters are “promiscuous” or “of easy virtue”.