Saturday, November 26, 2011
Scratching the Surface
Alright, I'm a few weeks in to this online dating thing and I've gotten quite a few messages on my fabricated profile already. The interesting pattern I've noticed is that nearly every guy that has messaged me has sent a message that goes something along the lines of this: "Hey, you're really cute! Would love if you messaged me back!" Which is a perfectly respectable message on the surface. A bit boring, very generic, but perfectly acceptable. Until I really think about the fact that out of the maybe fifteen guys who have messaged me, only one or two mentioned anything about my interests from my profile or asked a question not involving my appearance. Sure, flattering a girl is a sure way to win her over, so it is a good move on their part, but if they're really looking for a relationship shouldn't they put SOME stock in the girl's personality? Even from the first message?
Maybe I'm being idealistic here, but I know that if I were looking for a potential relationship online, I would definitely be checking out their personal information as well as their pictures. Physical attraction is important, but compatible personalities are what's going to make it last. So, this has basically left me wondering if online dating settings work on a much shallower level than traditional dating? Or do we work on that same shallow level in the real world? A person's first impression of you is your appearance, after all. Do we gravitate to those we find physically attractive and THEN take the time to figure out their personality? Or do we gravitate towards those with compatible personalities and then find them more and more attractive over time? What do you think?
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We just talked about this in social psychology. Although we all say we look for a good personality in a partner, that actually is not true. We look at physical attractiveness first. For men it is more acceptable to say they look for that first. Which may be why they say hey cutie instead of talking about common interests. However for ladies it is not socially acceptable to admit we look at physical attractiveness first. There are exceptions of course. And as humans we rate others often subconsciously and quickly.
ReplyDeleteMaybe its just my naive side but to me its seems like people probably do look at the personality traits of the person that they are interested in. Although they are first drawn to the profile by looks which i think it pretty similar to real life. if it were me i would look at their personality traits but i might not mention it in my first message to that person. maybe its just easier to start off with something flattering to attract that person and wait to talk about similar personality traits once they being talking to each other. I think there is a less shallow side to online dating because going into a conversation you already know some background information on a person where in real life its 100% on how they look before you have a c conversation with them.
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