Entry Nineteen. Ukel-my-lele

     Happy Holidays readers! Hopefully you are all somewhere snuggled up, warm, with your significant others, while I'm sitting here out in the cold by my lonesome.

     Nah, I kid - I'm at home with my wonderful family enjoying their company, and it's kinda quiet so I decided to do some writing.

     The German was kind of a fluke. I wasn't really trolling the website for anyone when I went out with her (she had messaged me, remember) and it also took us a couple weeks to nail down a date. It was also nearing the Holidays, and I figured it would be hard to coordinate anything with anyone, so I wasn't really looking for anyone when I stumbled upon The Burlesque Dancer. Her profile was the first in awhile that inspired me to write a message, so I did so. The Burlesque Dancer was a tall, red-haired, Ukelele playing, homeless, racoon-hat wearing, burlesque dancing, child-studies studying, East Coaster.

Entry Eighteen. Das German Ist Gut

     My date with Das German happened one night a couple of weeks ago in late November. I remember it being exceptionally cold that night - like, foreigners dressed in Canada Goose Jackets cold.

     Let's recap, Das German (DG) had messaged me on the site and we exchanged a few quick messages before adding each other to Facebook. She was couchsurfing her way across Canada before moving on to the rest of North America. She was really hot, in a blonde haired, blue eyed kind of way - like someone in a David Hasselhoff music video.

Das Deutsch Frauen
     Age: 24  Height: 5'5''
     Stats: ESL, blonde hair, blue eyed, tourist

Outgoing Message

Dec 01, 2011 – 5:01pm

"I think precariously perched penguins might be a worry on wine Wednesdays - you should check in on that. And by the way, the alliteration in that last sentence wasn't an accident. How's your Thursday going? I think your profile is just fine, it's important to mention things like metacognition, shy weirdness and time travel up front. Just like insect phobias and facial-hair drama.

Have a good weekend, " 

To: 88% Match 81% Friend 10% Enemy

Update Loneliness, Statistically Proven or How to EXCEL at Dating

Hello Readers!

     So I'm going to continue my statistical analysis of my profile, maybe it will shed some light as to why I'm still single or how I should continue in the future. The first thing I decided to do was create word clouds. They're pretty hot right now in the whole blogging/web 2.0 scene and I thought they might prove useful. In order to find a use for them I started looking through my messages.

     Right away I noticed two distinct populations (or datasets). Messages which were unsuccessful at obtaining a response from the solicited girl (Unanswered Messages), and messages that were successful at obtaining a response (Answered Messages). It was quite clear that I've become more successfull with time, and the majority of unanswered messages I've sent were at the beginning of my tenure on OkCupid, so I wondered if my message writing had improved and evolved over time. The first thing I did was plot my success rate over time (in this case months). Graph after the jump.

Update It's Definitely You, Not Me

     Since logging back into the site I've been looking through my match searches, and my history on the website. It's kind of comforting to see that some of the girls who rejected me early on are still floating around the site trolling for men. Maybe it's because it indicates that they were the issue - that they were too picky/not very compatible. It's not me, it's them.

     I'm going to go ahead and try to do some OkTrend type stuff on any data I can pull from my account. Some statistical analysis if you will - hopefully you guys find it interesting.

     All of these ideas come from the OkTrends website, which is a blog that the operators of OkCupid run. They perform a bunch of statistical analysis on their huge database of account holders to determine trends in messaging patterns and success rates. It's super interesting and I highly recommend it to anyone with a few free minutes. It's what brought me to the website in the first place. More after the jump.

Entry Seventeen. A Crazy in Lion's Clothing

     This is the tale of my first date which occurred without aid from an online source. My friend likes to call these girls "Normies," as opposed to their crazy online counterparts. I think this term is generous, to say the least - I don't think girls in the real world are any less batsh*t crazy then the online versions.

     This particular normie I met while at the annual grad school Halloween party, so it's a little out of date, and for whatever reason I was hesitant to write about it, but here it is.

     The following is the recounting of our meeting, as well as our first and only date the following weekend. Enjoy...

Update

Yeah, so I caved.

Pretty quickly too. I have no self control.

I went a good couple of days without using my account, but I think I restarted it for good today. We'll see what happens, but no guarantees. I started receiving messages almost immediately too, so that helps. Either way, I'm not going to keep putting all my eggs in an online basket. With that in mind, I'm going to write up about my first offline dating experience in Montreal, stay tuned for that.

Anyway, onto more pressing matters. I talked with Das German today, and we're planning on meeting up soon. I don't know if it's her horrible English, but her messages have a lot of innuendo to them. Either way, I'm not expecting much from this contact - since she's just couchsurfing in Montreal at the moment, and moving on, to the West coast, in a couple months.

Yours truly,

Be Good. Goodnight

Evening readers.

I think I've burnt myself out with all the dating lately, so I'm gonna step back from the online dating scene for a little bit. I've disabled my account for now, and this will be the last post for the foreseeable future. I'll probably cave at some point and reactivate it, but for now I'm letting things be.

Thanks for reading, and if I ever go back to it, I'll try to keep track on here as I've done.


Be good folks. Goodnight.

Entry Sixteen. Night 2, A Not so Silver Lining

I talked and exchanged messages with the Silversmith for over two months. The conversation turned almost immediately to our mutual frustrations with dating, and the online variety in particular. At the same time, I was meeting other girls, including Gamer Girl, so I wasn't necessarily interested in seeing her right away. Her profile was mysterious and elusive and I found it intriguing more then anything. We talked about my job, her school, dating, life in general and our dreams and aspirations.

We eventually decided on seeing each other in real life after awhile of hemming and hawing. I wasn't sure what she'd be like in real life. I was really worried that I wouldn't be as interesting in real life. The nature of the medium can lend itself towards a cleaner, more polished discussion, and I wasn't sure if I could replicate my candor in real life.

Incoming Message

I've been getting a lot of messages like theses ones lately;

"Hey _____;

Sharing stories sometime is possibility, but it seems that something just got kind of serious with someone for me here, so I've decided to close my account. It has nothing to do with you, if I wasn't knee-deep already I would totally want to meet you. And who knows, I could be back at any point. We'll see.

Take care,

_______"

And this;

Entry Fifteen. Night 3, Failing the Class

     As I said in my update, I thought my date on Night 2 went very well, and I have plans to see her again. Therefore I'm skipping "Entry _______: Night 2, The Silver Lining" for now.

     Night 3 belonged to Must Love Dogs (MLD) and it came in the wake of two other dates. By Saturday night I was already pretty tired but this date had been planned for awhile and I didn't want to cancel last minute. It was also on the heels of my more or less successful date with The Silversmith so the night's company had a lot to live up to.

Must Love Dogs
     Age: 22  Height: 5'7''
     Stats: Undergrad, dog owner, looking for short-term dating

Entry Fourteen. Night 1, Project Runway

     First up;

The Fashionista
     Age: 25  Height: 5'3''
     Stats: Racially ambiguous, artist on the side, good taste in music

     I actually messaged this girl twice. When I first started on the website she was one of my first matches and I tried to contact her unsuccessfully. She subsequently deactivated and reactivated her account, so I tried again. This time I got a reply and we exchanged a few messages before we made plans to meet up.

Update 3 Nights, 3 Dates, 3 Girls or Two outta Three Ain't Bad

     I am exhausted.

     Today is Sunday and it marks the first day in four that I don't have a date. Phew. I actually I could have had a date, Das German invited me to a "bacon party" a la Epic Meal Time but I need time to recover, and not to destroy my body.

     Anyway, I'm gonna break down the last few days before I get into each date individually. It's also interesting to note that for all of these dates I've been rocking a dirty 'stache for Movember.

     Scorecards after the jump. This post contains spoilers, so if you'd rather read about the dates before knowing how they ended wait for the next couple posts.

Update

Been awhile.

So I haven't been super active in my online dating life since East Coast. I actually met someone in real life at a Halloween party and I went on a date with her. That story isn't done yet (or maybe it is), and it's also not an online dating story so I may or may not write about it at some point.

So I've been talking to a few girls on the Internets and I have one date scheduled for tomorrow night (actually was rescheduled from tonight, what up wit that?). I also have up to 3 more dates upcoming for this weekend and/or next week but we'll have to wait and see if they materialize.

I'll add them to the Scorecard as applicable.

Incoming Message

Oct 30, 2011 – 9:27pm

"I just have to say that's a rockin' Russel Brand costume. I do hope you went all out and acquired many sexual partners and did lots of drugs, à la his style. If not, I am only slightly disappointed." 

86% Match 87% Friend 6% Enemy

Incoming Message

Oct 29, 2011 – 3:33pm

"hi there. you seem like a nice, decent guy. i would like to get to know you some. would u like that? i may not be the best looking or your type, but i am a great friend. im _____. and im 25. hope to hear from you." 

54% Match 70% Friend 31% Enemy

Entry Thirteen. Clean Slate

     Following my crazy date with The Activist on Wednesday I reconnected with East Coast. I was glad and relieved that I wouldn't have to juggle two girls at once. I don't know if I'm ready for that, or if I'd ever want to handle that sort of thing. I'm looking for something serious, so why jeopardize anything? I've said this before.

     Anyway, we still had our date set up for Friday night - dinner then drinks with her friends who were visiting - but she suggested a movie night for that evening. I rebutted, I had a basketball game later on, so I suggested a hike up the mountain instead.

Entry Twelve. Ménage à trois + One

     A few updates tonight, first one being a recap of my 8th date off of the Website.

     I had my first date with The Activist on Wednesday. Let's talk a little pregame. She messaged me first (Instant Message to be precise), we were matched up by OkCupid with the highest possible value (99%), she wanted to be a civil rights lawyer and was pretty attractive. At this point I was in between my second and third date with East Coast, but I was really looking forward to this date.

     Scorecard after the jump;

Update

     Quick update tonight.

     Ok so, Scorecard added at top of page now has a new entry. A super attractive girl, who according to the website, I'm a 99% match with, messaged me on Sunday night. We talked for awhile and scheduled a first date for tomorrow (Wednesday) night.

     Also received another message from a potentially good match. That puts me up to 5 girls who I'm currently exchanging messages with. They aren't all promising - I have plans to make plans with one a week or so from now, another is 150km away in Trois-Rivers, and a third sort-of half rebutted my attempt at broaching the subject of a date. Probably a good thing, this week is hectic with me trying to juggle EC and this new girl + Halloween plans this weekend.

     Finally, the third date with EC keeps getting postponed. As of now we have dinner plans on Friday and potentially meeting up with some of her friends after - we'll see how I play it depending on how my date tomorrow goes and if it doesn't get postponed again.

     Have a good night folks,

Incoming Message

Oct 25, 2011 – 3:48pm

"You sound cool and I enjoy climbing the mountain, although I never do as much as I'd like... Also, in my beloved 5 inch heels I'm not that much shorter than you!

On second thought heels and the mountain don't seem quite so compatible."

90% Match 82% Friend 8% Enemy

Update Post-modern sex

     I was perusing the Internets, as I often do, and I came across another blog like mine. The author is a women in Philadelphia, who like me, created a profile when she moved to her new city. It seems like she was successful in finding someone, the last update was from July and the last few updates she posted described the dates she'd been on with a particularly promising gentlemen. Must have worked out. Good for her, it gives me hope to see it work for someone else, especially someone who seems to have the same mindset as me about it. More after the jump.

Incoming Message

Oct 20, 2011 – 7:39pm

"It is such a flattering look when the length of ones beard is at par with the rest of his hair."

 94% Match 77% Friend 6% Enemy

 

Entry Eleven. A Mad Woman II

UPDATED 2011-10-23 T21:38

      Evening readers. I don't usually do this, but I'm bored, and I'm in on a Saturday night, which is depressing me. Last post I described my first date with the East Coaster (EC for short?), and mentioned that we had made plans for a second date. Even though I'm still seeing this girl I've decided to write about the second date since I had so much feedback from that post (a whole 4 comments!).

     I've been pretty active on the site lately as well. There are 3 or 4 girls who I'm currently exchanging messages with, which will hopefully turn into at least one date in the near future. I'm finding it harder and harder to find the motivation to message new people, but every once in awhile I come across an interesting profile - but they're starting to become fewer and farther between. I'd rather meet people in real life, but I still don't have a large social group here, at it's mainly confined to work colleagues - which I've stated already I want to avoid.

     Anyway, on to the more interesting aspect of this evening's update; "A Mad Woman II," after the jump.

Entry Ten. A Mad Woman

     In the dying days of my last e-fling I received a particularly interesting, though brief, message. Don't get me wrong, over the duration of the last, whatever you want to call it, I received a couple of messages, but this one stood out because of the sender - she was actually attractive. Don't get me wrong again, the other girls weren't downright ugly - let us just say, not my type.

     At first I didn't reply because I was too busy trying to make something work with the G Girl, and there was no reason to jeopardize it by fooling around and going on other dates. I'm looking for something serious, and I like to think I'm a pretty stand up guy - which probably makes this blog that much less interesting - but it means I'm not going to try and juggle "relationships". Maybe I'll become a little more slutty and a little less honorable in the future for the sake of my readers (hah).

     Anyway, once things ended with the G Girl, there was no reason not to respond and see where things went;

Entry Nine. Juggling a Career and a Personal Life

    This post is going to be used to wrap up my last "online relationship". Recapping where I left off with my last entry, I had gone out for coffee with the Gamer Girl from Ontario. It went well, and we made plans to meet up again.

     Right from the get go, there were problems. She worked in a very fast paced industry, which apparently required a large time commitment. Because of this, our second date would have to wait a whole week, until the next Saturday, when we planned a redo of the first date we never had...

Update

     Hello loyal readers (hah). It's been awhile since my last update, but I don't like writing about girls I'm currently seeing, which had been the case. Anything that gets too serious, I'm not to comfortable writing about on the internet. Things with the gamer girl didn't work out, at least for now, but that's all I'm really going to say at this point, though I may write something up later.

     I have another date tonight, with a girl from the east coast (of Canada). She messaged me while I was still in limbo with the last girl, but I messaged her back and we got to talking pretty quickly. She's brand spanking new to the website, and I believe this to be her first meeting off of it.

     It's starting to get cold here, and I've been warned it's going to get worse then I can imagine come winter. Maybe the weather will inspire something between this evening's guest and myself.

     I shall report back, until then, happy hunting.

Entry Eight. When it Rains, it Pours

     I'm finally caught up! I can talk about topical things now!

     This past weekend was a busy one. High-school themed grad student party on Friday, date with gamer-girl on Saturday, which was postponed to Sunday and on top of that I also received a record number of messages on the site.

     Record number being 4. Which is a lot for a guy. I think. Two girls messaged me back after a couple weeks of no contact, one unsolicited message and one new reply. This seems boring, on to the interesting stuff:

Entry Seven. My New Friend, the Composer from Denver

     This is the last of the "catch-up" posts and a proper entry into this online diary of my Montreal dating life.

     I started chatting with the composer a couple weeks ago, in the wake of my first few failures. I remember we originally didn't have that good of a match, something like 70%. But I tend to play around with the answers to my questions a lot, so by the time of this writing we currently sit at 93% Match, 93% Friend, 1% Enemy. She wasn't the first Black/Asian/Hispanic/non-white I've messaged or talked to, but shes the only one I've ended up on a date with. She had good pictures, she was cute, and had crazy cool hair.

     I started off with a simple, casually funny message:

Updates and Jackets

     Hey folks, I decided to write a short post tonight instead of a full length one. Hopefully I'll be able to put together the next story tomorrow if I'm not too busy.

     I still have two more dates to write up about, two more music type students. The website is lousy with music and artsy types. I'm not really against dating artsy types. I think every guy should date a few certain types of women before he settles down. I think it'd be interesting to date a thespian. Not for a long time, just a few months maybe, slum it a little bit. They may be pretentious but they'd probably be good in the sac.

     I have a party for grad students tonight, should be good time. If anything interesting happens I'll be sure to write it up, but we'll cross that bridge if we get to one. I'm trying to avoid my fellow scientists and colleagues but there should be a bunch from other faculties there tonight.

     Btw I want Ryan Gosling's jacket from his new movie, Drive. Picture after the jump.

Entry Six. How I Learned to Juggle, and Rejection

     Hello once again loyal readers! Beautiful fall day in Montreal today. I went for a run last night, I'm thinking I might reconsider not running a marathon again. Montreal has one every September, maybe I can work my way up to the full marathon for next year.

     Anyways, onto to more pressing matters. Last I left you, I was telling you about my second date. I'm going to continue along and hopefully by the end of this we'll be just about up to date.

     After The Ontarian, I started getting ambitious. At this point I was comfortable using the site, my profile had grown into the more complex, well thought out and complete version it is today. I was messaging girls more regularly and with greater success, but I was still not convinced of its eventual payoff. The only girls I had seen up until this point both had... issues, and it was making me think the website was full of girls like that. That was right about the time I experienced my first real rejection.

Entry Five. Date Numéro Deux

     For my fifth entry I'm going to continue the date by date recap of some of my experiences and try to catch up my loyal readers/fans to the current affairs of my love life.

     My second date off the website happened about a week after my first fling flamed out. I had been messaging a few girls since the Separatist. One incredibly hipster girl (donning hipster glasses and in a bridge club), who I messaged after stalking her for awhile, found true love before our first date and canceled. I fear her mother would not have approved of my gentile background either way. As well, I had several girls messaging me, but one particularly titillating conversation went something like this:

“you have gorgeous eyes... ”

-       (56% Match, 38% Friend, 36% Enemy)

Entry One.

Let me begin with a quick disclaimer. This is my first foray into the world of, whatever this is, so I’m going to play this by ear and see where it takes me. Lets get crackin’, and do this dance. I am not a writer.

            I’m starting this on the behest of several friends of mine who have pushed me into writing about my exploits so as to brighten their sad, pathetic, Southwestern Ontario, monogamous lives. Here’s to you, chin-chin.

           

So, here we go. Montreal - le Ville de Montréal - city of bilingual, artistic, beautiful people. I moved here for school, for my career, for science. I really moved here because Montreal is awesome. My birthday is coming up soon, and that’ll mark the two month mark since I moved here.  I’ll begin with some background on what this blog is about, and hopefully I’ll fill individual blogs with individual expeditions into the world of dating. Hopefully I’ll have enough interesting things to say to keep this going.

Entry Four. The Sexy Slender Seperatist who broke my heart.

I was going to write about my initial failed forays into the website, but its depressing me too much to look back and review the material.

So I instead, decided to write about the first successful foray I had. I won't refer to her by name, to maintain her anonymity, and several details will be changed for what I would assume are legal purposes.

She was cute, and french - that was the dream. I had always invisioned myself moving here and dating a cute french girl - she could teach me french, then french kiss me. When we began talking I was still in Ontario, so we maintained a bit of a penpal relationship for a couple weeks. We got to know each other a little bit, and flirted a little more. I think in the end, this was really helpful, especially when it came to the first date, which is even more important given that it would become my first, first date from the internet.

Oddly, she message me first, and the rest is history....

Entry Three. The Bachelor Pad

Starting my new life in Montreal, I figure I need an adult apartment.  I'm living in a small walk up, Le Arvida, on the east end of Downtown and the edge of the Plateau. It's a quaint little building that smells exactly like urine, but its home.
Apartment is courtesy of IKEA. This was amazingly the first time I've ever been to the Swedish mecca, and I became instantly addicted - I've been 5 times in the past couple of weeks and my apartment still isn't complete.
After the jump I've included a virtual tour of Le Bachelor Pad, or Les Maison Max:

Entry Two. OkCupid – “The Google of Online Dating”

About 4 months ago, I opened an OkCupid account. This was less out of lonely desperation and more out of anticipation of being single in a new city. A friend of mine once did a similar thing when he went on exchange to Boston and had only good experiences, so I decided it might be a good idea. In this new world of Web 2.0, our generation does everything over the internet, so why not dating? I could meet some people, go on a few dates, and maybe meet the women of my dreams/love of my life. Or experience a torrent of rejection. Win-win. 
At first it was a weird experience, looking at profiles, trying to imagine the real people who made them. Were they actually the age they said? Was I messaging of bunch of 14 year-old girls? Or 40 year-old men? This is the question we all ask of the Internet, and it's a good one, and one we should always ask. Even if they were truthful, flirting with girls via anonymous messages can be awkward, and as I’ve found out, requires more skill then you might think. It requires certain techniques that I would gain as I went along, but did not have when I began.
I started my profile when I was still in London, Ontario, but set my location as Montreal. I figured I could get a head start on the Montreal dating scene. Filling out the profile was awkward, I mean, who really likes talking about themselves, except pretentious bloggers. I filled out the bare minimum, uploaded a picture, answered the basic questions and left it at that.

At first I just looked around. Window shopped. I couldn’t bring myself to message anyone, because then it would be real-o’clock and not an anonymous Facebook, of dating. Then I started getting messages.