fishing
by rantywoman
This was sent to me today, and I found it annoying because I didn’t break any of her “rules” (and I’m not tall and don’t have curly hair– and btw I would kill for either), and I still had very little success with the whole endeavor:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323374504578217973101313736.html
Oh and if this is the cliche line that reeled them in, I was right to throw in the towel:
Instead of bullet points and résumé speak, I wrote that “my friends would describe me as an outgoing and social world traveler, who’s equally comfortable in blue jeans and little black dresses.”
thebitterbabe 
damn – it’s my curly hair that’s been getting me all along?? the last time I straightened it was 7th grade. *never again*, not even for the perfect 1st date. 🙂
Wow! I have to give the woman her props for trying a completely new approach.
Although it saddens me that this article seems to say that you’re only going to attract the right guy if you are naturally the type of woman that guy prefers (and manage to successfully put that across in your profile) or if you are able to do data analysis to figure this all out.
And, apparently, if you are the average woman and not into data analysis? tough cookies. Which really services as evidence for a lot of what you’ve been saying here: for the average woman, especially as she gets older, finding the right guy is based on luck.
I find it tiring that everything has to be such a competition. Even just finding a decent man to be in a relationship with.
This article reminds me a bit of the book I’m currently reading: “The Happines Project” by Gretchen Rubin. It’s pretty interesting read but her approach to happiness seems also to be of the ‘hypercompetitive’ variety (just like the woman in the wsj article described herself).
I can’t help but think what about us normals?
What do you think, bitterbabe? Would you be willing to try this approach?
I totally agree with what you are saying and have opted out of all the “competing.” Frankly I think things are kind-of doomed if, as a woman, I have to work so hard at “landing” someone. And honestly, I don’t want to make myself as generic, bland, and non-threatening as possible in the hope that some (likely boring if he prefers that kind of thing) dude finds me appealing.
There was a similar article yesterday in Salon:
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/15/how_not_to_die_alone_in_the_internet_age/
I’m tall (5′-7″, so not abnormally tall, just obviously taller than average). It really, really, really sucks. Guys like to look at taller women, and sleazy guys like the sleep with taller women, but decent guys seems to prefer shorter women. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2667-short-women-more-successful-with-men.html
I would love to be closer to average, if only to be able to find clothes that fit properly (although with the popularity of pants that are long enough to accommodate women wearing heels, I’m finding it’s much easier to find pants that fit me in my flats).
I always longed to be your height exactly! I’m 5’4″ and all pants are either too long or too short for me.
” Posing as these men, I spent a month using JDate. I interacted with 96 women, cataloging how they behaved and presented themselves online and scraping data from their profiles (such as the language they used or the number of hours they waited before emailing back one of my profiles). Wanting to learn everything I could about my competition, I kept a detailed database, and I recorded which female profiles were popular. ”
Hello – CREEPY . Have never so much as tried to search online sites for women to take a look at profiles from “the competition” (even though I’ve caught a few straight women checking out my profile, presumably for that purpose). Second the “ick” reaction regarding the equally comfortable jeans vs. black dress thing. Simply depressing to read….
I agree. Only once did I think to look at the women on a site I was using, and I kinda wanted to write some of them and say, “Hey, you want to hang out?” because they seemed cool. But I thought it would be too creepy so I didn’t.
And I automatically used to nix those profiles using those cliched lines!