kicking puppies is bad

My OkCupid portrayal of myself isn’t unbiased. I focused on my positive traits, and mostly ignored my negative ones. I don’t actually lie about anything in my profile except that, “If I were a guy I would *totally* date me”. I wouldn’t. I admitted to lying about that in an earlier journal entry. I make a point of avoiding some of my more negative qualities in my profile. For example, I’m bat-shit-insane and have severe road rage issues – but I didn’t feel the need to mention that in my profile. Ok, technically I’m not bat-shit-insane. The term bat-shit-insane refers to the mildly hallucinogenic properties of some guano (like that of the Midwestern Corked Bat). I don’t actually have hallucinations. So technically, I am just your everyday generic crazy. But I like the term bat-shit-insane. “Everday Generic Crazy” doesn’t have the same allure.

However, openly declaring my faults and the limitations of my profile (while tons of fun) was not actually what motivated me to write today. What I actually intended to say was, You don’t *actually* know me! So you shouldn’t presume all sorts of weird things about me. Unless you are one of the few people reading this journal, like my sister, who *does* actually know me. If you are one of those people, you should disregard this entry and presume all sorts of crazy stuff about me. For the rest of you: You may have read the exceptionally long personal description that I wrote on my profile page. Keep in mind that I was trying to sell myself when I wrote that. And If you were *exceptionally* bored at work, you may have read some of my journal. Keep in mind, that I generally journal about things when I am mildly annoyed. And I’m not mildly annoyed *all* the time. Neither source provides unbiased information about me. Just because you read my profile and/or part of my journal doesn’t mean you know me. And it definately doesn’t mean that you know me better than I know myself.

Recently I have been getting emails from people, who presume to know me. In fact, they presume to know me better than I know myself. I find this creepy. One such email stated, “Are you sure you know what pernicious means? You don’t seem like it…(which is a Very good thing.) I liked your profile a lot otherwise. How do I respond to that? I’m a fairly articulate person (which hopefully is mildly obvious from my profile). I actually got a perfect score on my verbal SAT (Whee! Watch me brag: There go your delusions that I am modest). This (hopefully) means my vocabulary isn’t *that* small. For OkCupid, I had to pick three adjectives to describe myself. Just three. Do you really think I would pick one that I didn’t know? And if I were going to choose an adjective that I *wasn’t* 100% sure about, don’t you think I would have used wiki or dictionary.com and figured it out before I posted it? WTF? Why do you think you know me well enough to tell me that my adjective descriptors are wrong? Why do you think you know me better than I know myself? And *really*, how would know if I was pernicious or not — you’ve never met me.

Another individual recently called me, “a paragon of virtue and good habits and altruistic good acts”. I think *anyone* who has met me in person would disagree with most of that statement. When people who actually know me are referencing me, I think the term “standoff-ish bitch” probably comes up much more frequently than “paragon of virtue”. And I don’t even believe in altruism, so referring to my “altruistic good acts” is insane. I’m definately not a paragon of virtue. Where do people come up with these ideas?

Yet another user, felt the need to mention via email that they “hoped I would have children”. You can’t possibly presume to know me that well. But if you are wondering, I hope I don’t have children (and not just because of the exceptionally painful process of childbirth). I occasionally vacillate on this point. I don’t think enough smart people have children. Smart people should have kids. But I generally feel it should be *other* (sane) smart people. The thought of me as a parent is mildly ridiculous. I find my dogs are overwhelming and bordering on too much responsibility. My dogs are probably better behaved than most people’s children. Nadia even has her Canine Good Citizen (CGC). How many kids do you know that “can move about politely in pedestrian traffic and (are) under control in public places”? I don’t know many. And that is only one of the ten CGC test items. Ok, perhaps conforming to CGC standards isn’t a great thing for kids. It priobably wouldn’t be a good thing if children “Accepted friendly strangers” and “Sat politely for petting”. But most of the other test items are fairly applicable. And most kids wouldn’t pass.

I think this came across as bitchier than I meant it to. I just wanted to comment on the fact that people online seem to develop this false sense of closeness and personal understanding. And I don’t like people in my virtual personal space. This is the same reason that when I was actually meeting people via OkCupid, I didn’t want to exchange 400 emails before meeting in person. I didn’t like the weird false closeness that seems to develop after you send / recieve dozens of long emails.