In short order, here's another post about my online dating adventures! I'm going to be focusing on Tinder and doing a good bit of analysis about what I've observed/experienced... I wonder if there have been any interesting actual sociological/psychological/etc studies done recently about online dating.
Anyways, some of the things I'd like to analyze/comment on.
Names
Firstly, fairly soon after I started using the app, I decided to keep a list of the different names that I saw on profiles. This was sort of inspired by reading the names subreddit. I noted all of the names (well, most), not just people I decided to swipe right on/accept (I marked those with an asterisk). So far I have 343 names although accounting for names I forgot to record or wasn't near my list to record, that might be more like 375 or so? I'm not quite sure. There were definitely a good amount of Zacks/Zachs/other spellings, I noticed, as well as a good number of Alexs. (that's interesting, that two of the more common names I noticed are at opposite ends of the alphabet. I may have had a little bit of a familiarity bias going on regarding noticing the Zachs/Zacks/etc) Some of the rarer/more interesting names I came across were ones like Holden or Harrison. There was a decent amount of diverse names, that were Indian/Latino/etc. I'm going to chalk that up to the area being pretty diverse; I don't think I would have had that many if I were Tindering in say, Nebraska or something. So far, I think I've only noticed one person that I actually know of in person. I thought maybe I would've seen a few more, but I guess not (so far, at least). I don't really have much of an interest in matching/theoretically dating someone on there that I see and happen to actually know of in person; if I had wanted to date them I would've done it already is how I look at it. I would make an exception for one person, but I don't think that person uses this app. Or at least I haven't seen a profile of theirs yet. If I did, I'd probably scream a little bit internally. Although it's possible that my opinion regarding people I know of in person is shared by other people. Who knows.
Swipes
Out of the approximately 375 people I've swiped on, I swiped right on 24 of them, according to my list. I'll round up to 30 for those who I might not have recorded on the list. That makes about 30 out of 375, which is about 8 percent (did I do that math right??). I think in my recent readings about Tinder, somewhere I read that women tend to swipe right around 15 percent of the time (I'm not sure if that statistic is accurate/came from a reliable source), so if we're to believe that, I'm bit below average (ie, more selective. What can I say, I have standards!) in that department.
Swiping criteria
Here might be a good place to mention some of my criteria regarding which way I swipe.
Some things that make me swipe left (reject) are as follows (especially if there's a combination of these things):
- Clear evidence of redneck-ness/conservative ness (such as pictures that show pickup trucks, hunting, obvious mentions of conservatism in pictures or bio)
- Smoking (cigars, cigarettes, weed, etc)
- Not good looking
- Bad pictures (bad resolution and/or lighting, group pictures where it's hard to tell which one is the person whose profile it is, especially when there aren't any good, clear facial pictures. For the record, I took all of my profile pictures myself and I think they look pretty decent)
- Facial hair
- Tacky drinking pictures (usually also a group picture) or other tacky pictures
- Bio left empty
- Music taste (if they connected Spotify) that's vastly different from mine (basically, stuff that's pretty far out of the realm of rock, which is a fairly broad category that I'd say most of the stuff I listen to sort of fits into somehow)
Some things that make me more likely to swipe right (accept) are as follows:
- No facial hair and generally good looking
- Decent biography (as in, gives you some actual information about them) that's not just some stupid joke or something (for me, that's just not really attractive)
- More than one picture (at least 3 is probably a good amount - clear facial picture, one that shows more of their whole body, then other pictures to fill out the remaining slots. Ideally no more than 2 out of 6 should be group pictures - the person should be easily identifiable. The main picture should be of just them without other people, although animals/pets are acceptable)
- Overall they should come across as thoughtful and intellectual (as I'd like to think I am)
- Similar interests to mine (this would probably be something in the bio, although theoretically, maybe one of their pictures shows them reading a book about murders or something)
- Similar/not too vastly different music taste to mine
- Instagram connected so I can see their pictures and potentially get a little better of an idea of what they're like
I think that pretty much covers it; I can't really think of any other specific criteria at the moment.
There is an overload of dog pictures on people's profiles; apparently guys think that improves their chances. A dog (or cat) picture, for me, does not guarantee a swipe right, but it's not necessarily a negative thing either, as long as it's not somehow a dog/cat picture as well as a tacky (drinking or otherwise) picture.
Matches
Currently, as of late Sunday evening, I have 24 matches in total, which is nearly the majority of the people I swiped right on, at least my approximation of how many people I swiped right on. Again, I can't speak for these people being discerning or indiscriminate in their swiping. I think two people unmatched me, which I only noticed because I remember messaging them. So it's possible there have been some other people who unmatched me, but because I wasn't messaging them, I didn't notice.
Messages
I think it should be up to the person with the less informative bio to message first, for the most part. I think that's fair. I've given these people a decent amount of information to work with that they could comment on/about (ISTJ/INTP, linguist, copy editor, set decorator, good looking revolutionaries wanted, no conservatives need apply, 60 wpm, etymology, crochet, reading about murders/etc, making a pinata with precious documents [that's a reference to something in a David Sedaris book; I'm not sure if anyone would notice]). Plus I guess if they wanted to be shallow they could compliment my appearance.
Out of 24 matches, I have 11 message conversations, so about half of my matches either messaged me or I messaged them. Here's a little bit of analysis on that. 8 of them had at least one back and forth message. 6 guys messaged me first. I messaged 5 guys first. So about half and half so far, which isn't so bad, I think. Pretty equal there. One guy's message I didn't respond to because it was really boring and didn't give me a good impression. I'm looking for thoughtful, intellectual people here, you know. 2 guys I messaged first but they haven't responded yet, aside from the guys who unmatched me. Both of the messages I sent were things that, given that the person is interesting/capable of conversation enough, could be given a decent response to, rather than some boring message like "hey there" which doesn't give the recipient much to work with.
The first conversation I had after downloading the app was with a guy who wasn't exactly that interesting and, upon a bit of messaging, didn't seem particularly compatible to me. So I've stopped conversation with him but haven't unmatched - maybe I should. He also came across as a bit desperate, which isn't so attractive. Maybe he wouldn't have had to act so desperate if he were actually/more interesting. Quality score: 2/5 (vaguely entertaining, but in the end, not that interesting/compatible)
4 conversations, aside from the one mentioned above, haven't really gone very far. 3 of them have (at the time of publication) been left with my response (I guess the other people could technically still respond at a later date, but I'll take it as that they're not that interested for now), but another one is one that I haven't responded to the guy. So that's about a third of the people I've matched with and have conversed with; they've been less than impressive. Too bad. It's probably their loss (does me saying this mean I have good self esteem??). Or maybe both of us just wouldn't have ended up being that compatible.
3 conversations (including one with a guy who unmatched me because I hadn't responded quick enough for him... I left him hanging like... overnight and some? I feel like a day and some is a perfectly decent amount of time to allow, but apparently this guy doesn't. The other commie was more interesting anyways..) have actually gotten somewhere more or less interesting. I'll count those, as far as conversation goes, as wins in my book. Maybe only 2 because the one guy unmatched me.
So, out of these two conversations that are still going (as in, the guy is responsive and hasn't unmatched and I'm feeling compelled to keep the conversation going), one is with one of the self proclaimed communists I matched with and another is with a guy who is the copy editor of his college's newspaper (the "future starving linguist/copy editor/set decorator" line actually netted something!). The communist seems a bit more interesting/better at conversation, but the copy editor guy isn't too horribly bad. Although he hasn't been quite as responsive, I'd say; I've exchanged more/longer messages with the communists. Maybe, instead of delicate, semi-preferably blonde guys, my type is actually communists?? That's news to me!
Both of these guys messaged me first about something in my bio - the communist mentioned my "no conservatives need apply" notice and "Good looking revolutionaries wanted" and the copy editor mentioned about him being a copy editor at his school's paper. The conversation with the communist started off being about politics, basically, which we both noted was a pretty depressing, dark and grim topic although we exchanged some nice meaty messages about it, which I like. It's good that we're not drastically opposed, politics-wise. Then we moved on to food, which is generally a positive topic, unless you're talking about it in the context of "I eat too much and I'm getting fat" or "I think I have food poisoning"... Currently I've left that conversation on a question about what he spends his time doing (so basically, hobbies/interests, that kind of thing) and what he's studying. Given the content of his previous messages, I'm pretty confident that he'll give me a decent response to this question.
As for the copy editor, I asked him a bit about working at his school's paper and does he plan on becoming a journalist after college, as well as his opinion on the AP Stylebook rules, and along with that I mentioned their recent changes regarding terminology referring to drug addicts (a phrasing they don't want you to use). The messages from this guy are a bit shorter, but still not too bad. Although I feel like I'm doing a little more of the work in this conversation and he could be a little more engaged, or something. But still, not horrible. I sort of feel like I'm interviewing him, trying to get some good (or maybe I mean better; he's been decent so far) answers/conversation out of him which is... good? bad? I'm still willing to give him a bit more of a chance; he's giving me a little bit to work with, at least, but maybe not quite as much as I'd prefer. I asked him about what he thought about the media's performance regarding their coverage of current politics, and he maybe could've given me a longer answer there. I asked him to elaborate a little on that and that's where that conversation stands so far. So we'll see where this goes. He seems pretty decent as far as I can tell, and it's cool that he's a bit involved with journalism, but he could be a little better at/more engaged in conversation, I'd say. I can't really say if I should take this small-ish shortcoming as a sign of lack of interest, or if I should just take it as in maybe there isn't as much going on in his head as there is in mine. Not to say that he's dumb or anything, but maybe he just isn't quite at the level of thoughtfulness as far as personality goes that I ideally prefer in someone I'm going to be conversing at length with.
One conversation could possibly go somewhere but it's only 2 messages long so far, so I can't really say. I'm pleased that the guy messaged me about one of the things I had written about in my bio, the part about me reading about murders/unsolved crimes. So we'll have to see where this one goes; I think it has potential, at the very least.
Photos
When I first downloaded the app, I only had one photo that I didn't think was really good, although I still got some matches. Pretty quickly I made it a point to get some better pictures of myself to add to my profile, as well as work on a bio. So, I put up the following 5 photos and removed the one I originally had:
For my main photo, I used one of me that's taken pretty much from the side although my head isn't completely turned away from the camera. It's definitely from an angle though, so it doesn't give the absolute best view of my facial features. I'm wearing this red shirt, and I'm actually at a pretty similar angle/pose like the model in this photo. On the side closest to the camera, I slipped the shirt a little bit off my shoulder and posed like I was adjusting it, pulling it back up. It's not a full profile view of my face, but again, definitely at an angle. I guess I sort of wanted to replicate the feeling of that one picture of Peter Sarsgaard, where the shirt is partially on him and you can see his back and he's looking over his shoulder. To balance the angle of this one out, I have other pictures where I'm looking more straight on at the camera.
My second picture is of me in a striped t shirt looking at the camera with my head tilted slightly. It's just a regular t shirt; it shows a bit of collarbone at the neckline. The third picture I used was one I took in the mirror of a fitting room where I was trying on a bright floral dress; it shows a bit more of my whole body although not really my figure because the dress wasn't super form fitting or low cut. The fourth picture I used was one of me in a crop top, which was sort of revealing (compared to my other pictures) but certainly not scandalously so. Tinder crops pictures to square, so maybe an inch or two of my torso/ribcage area skin was showing. Collarbones, arms, and upper chest area (there really isn't that much to see there, plus the crop top was black which I think has a minimizing effect) visible in this picture. Again, this picture is nowhere close to scandalous, nothing's hanging out all trashily or anything. It was pretty much like this picture cropped to slightly above where this model's waist is, although I just stood there and didn't really pose/smile as much as the model here is doing. For my last picture, I put one of a crochet project although it isn't of me working on the crochet project. I think it's alright in context of my bio mentioning crochet.
All of my pictures I took myself and I don't have any group pictures/pet pictures, which might not be the best, but I think I'm doing alright. I want to convey with my profile that I'm a thoughtful, intellectual (and maybe kind of artsy?) individual and I hope that's what comes across. So that means no tacky group photos where maybe I look like I'm a fun and "interesting" (by what I assume other people's standards for that might be, I guess) person, but in my mind I just come across as tacky. Although I'm sure there are guys out there who like/don't mind what I consider to be tacky. Somewhere I read that it's better to wear brighter colors in profile pictures because they're more eye catching than neutrals, so I tried to keep that into mind a little bit - hence the red shirt and the striped shirt, instead of one of my many gray shirts.
Tinder has a "smart photos' feature that's supposed to show you which photos are most effective. They switch out your various photos and calculate which ones result in the most right swipes, I think is how it works. I turned that feature on to see what the results would show. The results were that my original main photo was the top photo, second was that of my crochet, and third was of me in the crop top, fourth was me in the t shirt, and last was the fitting room mirror picture of me in the floral dress. I wonder why that one was the least popular; I don't think that it's a horrible picture or anything. The reason for the crochet picture being second might possibly be that because I had it last originally, and for people who looked at all my pictures, they just ended on that one and that's when they swiped right. As for the crop top picture coming in third, perhaps that was because showing a bit more skin sealed the deal for some people? I don't know, I'm just speculating here. I probably won't remove the fitting room picture for now, but if I end up taking a better one in the future to replace it, maybe it'll get replaced. I wonder if the order of the pictures is going to change again.
All of this and I've only been using the app for a couple of days! Anyways, that's it for now although I'm pretty sure I'll have more to say on all of this fairly soon. Particularly updates on how some of the conversations are going. I don't think I've noticed any Peter Sarsgaard lookalikes yet, although there have been people who are otherwise good looking.
Monday, August 14, 2017
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Adventures in Tinderland
(clever title, eh? I think it's one of my better ones)
I've been using the app for what, two days? One and a half days? Definitely not that long. There is certainly a large userbase of people in what I've set my age and distance range to. The way that it works means that one has to take a different sort of approach than on OKC. Mainly, there's less information to go on when deciding whether you'd like to accept or reject someone as a potential match, which you do by swiping right or left (but you probably already knew that). The interface is fairly pleasing albeit the features are rather minimalistic compared to the potential depth you can go to on OKC. Partly why I decided to scrap the "PETER SARSGAARD LOOKALIKES WELCOME" notice for this profile, since there's less room for other stuff to balance the... oddness of that out/give it a bit more context. You get up to 6 pictures to put in your profile, and, as mentioned previously, 500 characters to fill out a short bio if you so desire. You can also connect your Instagram account and it'll show recent posts but no captions in your profile. Although it does show the username so if one were really curious, you could just go and look up the username in Instagram and read the captions. Then there's a section where you can choose an "anthem," which I'm not exactly sure the best manner of utilization is (in that I'm probably overthinking what I imagine various song choices would convey about me - for the record, I currently have New Dawn Fades by Joy Division - too depressing and moody?), but that's a feature as well. In addition to the anthem, you can connect Spotify and it'll show your top artists (tracks?) from that. I don't use Spotify so I can't utilize that feature, but if I did, I guess things like Muse and the Killers and such would come up. Most of the people I've seen who have that section on their profile filled out have vastly different music tastes than me, for what it's worth.
Anyways, of the... copious (even in only two days!) amounts of people whose profiles I've seen and made decisions on, a decent amount of them came across as jerks and/or rednecks/conservatives, neither of which I want to date. There have been actually a fairly decent (compared to OKC) number of people who I thought were actually pretty good looking, although I can't say how good or bad their personalities are. There have been a few repeats so I'm not really sure what's up with that, but whatever. Tinder is certainly a good app for instant gratification, I would say. I am curious as to what portion of the people who matched with me were actually discerning (as I am) in their swiping choices or did they just indiscriminately swipe right on everyone, as apparently some (many?) people do? Also, how many of them might turn out to be conservatives (assuming they didn't take the time to read my "No conservatives need apply" notice, or anything else in my bio for that matter) and it wasn't immediately apparent from their profile (pictures, bio, Instagram)?
Scorecard of my matches, if we're going to keep track... 2 communists (!), 1 copy editor at a college newspaper, some other boring-ish people... The "Good looking revolutionaries wanted" line actually worked on one guy! Fun, right?! Although maybe that makes me a commie magnet or something... I'm actually... at the moment, I guess, fairly open to theoretically dating a self proclaimed communist. Which seems weird to write out, but... Maybe if I get to know them better I'll object more strongly to their communist leanings, possibly. I do think that socialism has some things to offer, however. Although maybe not full blown communism. My not-that-informed perspective on communism is that in practice it doesn't work (but apparently, at the moment, I'm open to dating commies... go figure).
In other matters, meaning real life matters, I may possibly try meeting someone to date (assuming nothing pans out with the online dating) in person as the fall semester is upon us. And maybe I'll actually get involved in something and be in charge of something (I would like to be in charge of something) - one tiny step closer to potentially becoming a real writer (meaning, like I've said in the past, that you have a sizable audience and that you get paid). We'll see, regarding both of those things.
Toodles! That's going to be it for this blog post, but rest assured, I'll probably be back with some new online dating updates in the near future. And the next Postsecret review. And possibly a movie review if I happen to watch any (An Education, perhaps?).
Friday, August 11, 2017
Still online dating
It's time for another edition of my adventures in online dating! Hooray! (sort of? I guess?)
Anyways, on pretty much the eve of when I thought I was getting burned out again on online dating, I saw something quite surprising: a very good looking guy!! (he doesn't look like Peter Sarsgaard, but he's still otherwise good looking) So naturally I had to go check out his profile and all, which I did, and a couple of days later I ended up giving a shot at messaging him. So that's been a new and pleasing development. Also in the mix are some other people I've messaged, none of which (whom?) have panned out as well as I'd ideally hope. Alas. Some of those people (but not all) got back to me, but they weren't quite as interesting and/or good looking as my ideal.
Because I thought it might be worth adding some variety in my online dating repertoire, I downloaded the hip, not that new app Tinder, which you can now sign up for with phone number and not Facebook (great!). Since I've never used this platform before, I've been trying to figure out how to do up my profile best. OkCupid has sections, like "self summary" and "message me if" and "I'm really good at" and "I spend a lot of time thinking about" (Peter Sarsgaard, if you wanted to know, which shouldn't be surprising), and so on. Tinder does not have sections and you only get 500 characters for your bio, which is like 3 and a half tweets. Intrinsically Tinder is more superficial but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to at least try to convey that I have and want depth of personality. And I don't want to date conservatives, so the "No conservatives need apply" notice should fit nicely here as well. Since I'm naturally sort of verbose, fitting everything I would like to convey in an online dating profile into the space of 500 characters is a little bit of a task. But I gave it a shot and here is what I came up with:
Notice: No conservatives need apply. Good looking revolutionaries wanted.
5'0", [ISTJ/INTP]
Contemplating becoming a future starving linguist/copy editor/set decorator. I like to think that I'm an interesting person and I want to meet interesting people.
At any given time I might be working on a crochet project, reading about murders/serial killers/unsolved crimes, wondering about the etymology of words, or making a piñata but using precious documents instead of torn newspaper.
The part after "No conservatives need apply" is a saying from on a shirt that Jake Gyllenhaal wore at one point. If you google that phrase, the picture of Jake wearing the shirt comes up. I'm not quite sure if I need to/should include my height - there's a section you can fill it out on OKC but here I just have 500 characters to write whatever, possibly including height or possibly not. Same goes for the personality type thing; I did a little research and it seems that some people include that. Maybe for the heck of it I could put my typing speed... I wonder what it is. [a few minutes later...] I just took some quick online typing tests to find out my typing speed (I've taken some in the past I'm pretty sure but I don't remember what the score was), and apparently it's somewhere around 60 wpm, which is pretty good! Apparently the average person can only type about 40 wpm. I guess it's good to have fairly fast typing speed, especially for transcribing things, like when you've recorded your own voice, or, for people who actually have jobs as journalists, interviews. The last (and only) time I tried that, the direct transcription was not very accurate but it was still decipherable and I cleaned it up afterwards.
Anyways, there's your online dating update from yours truly and sooner or later, ideally sooner, I need to get some pictures of myself that make me seem interesting (which I am, but the pictures I have don't really show that) because I feel like I look fairly mousy compared to the people I've been seeing in my short time on Tinder..
Anyways, on pretty much the eve of when I thought I was getting burned out again on online dating, I saw something quite surprising: a very good looking guy!! (he doesn't look like Peter Sarsgaard, but he's still otherwise good looking) So naturally I had to go check out his profile and all, which I did, and a couple of days later I ended up giving a shot at messaging him. So that's been a new and pleasing development. Also in the mix are some other people I've messaged, none of which (whom?) have panned out as well as I'd ideally hope. Alas. Some of those people (but not all) got back to me, but they weren't quite as interesting and/or good looking as my ideal.
Because I thought it might be worth adding some variety in my online dating repertoire, I downloaded the hip, not that new app Tinder, which you can now sign up for with phone number and not Facebook (great!). Since I've never used this platform before, I've been trying to figure out how to do up my profile best. OkCupid has sections, like "self summary" and "message me if" and "I'm really good at" and "I spend a lot of time thinking about" (Peter Sarsgaard, if you wanted to know, which shouldn't be surprising), and so on. Tinder does not have sections and you only get 500 characters for your bio, which is like 3 and a half tweets. Intrinsically Tinder is more superficial but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to at least try to convey that I have and want depth of personality. And I don't want to date conservatives, so the "No conservatives need apply" notice should fit nicely here as well. Since I'm naturally sort of verbose, fitting everything I would like to convey in an online dating profile into the space of 500 characters is a little bit of a task. But I gave it a shot and here is what I came up with:
Notice: No conservatives need apply. Good looking revolutionaries wanted.
5'0", [ISTJ/INTP]
Contemplating becoming a future starving linguist/copy editor/set decorator. I like to think that I'm an interesting person and I want to meet interesting people.
At any given time I might be working on a crochet project, reading about murders/serial killers/unsolved crimes, wondering about the etymology of words, or making a piñata but using precious documents instead of torn newspaper.
The part after "No conservatives need apply" is a saying from on a shirt that Jake Gyllenhaal wore at one point. If you google that phrase, the picture of Jake wearing the shirt comes up. I'm not quite sure if I need to/should include my height - there's a section you can fill it out on OKC but here I just have 500 characters to write whatever, possibly including height or possibly not. Same goes for the personality type thing; I did a little research and it seems that some people include that. Maybe for the heck of it I could put my typing speed... I wonder what it is. [a few minutes later...] I just took some quick online typing tests to find out my typing speed (I've taken some in the past I'm pretty sure but I don't remember what the score was), and apparently it's somewhere around 60 wpm, which is pretty good! Apparently the average person can only type about 40 wpm. I guess it's good to have fairly fast typing speed, especially for transcribing things, like when you've recorded your own voice, or, for people who actually have jobs as journalists, interviews. The last (and only) time I tried that, the direct transcription was not very accurate but it was still decipherable and I cleaned it up afterwards.
Anyways, there's your online dating update from yours truly and sooner or later, ideally sooner, I need to get some pictures of myself that make me seem interesting (which I am, but the pictures I have don't really show that) because I feel like I look fairly mousy compared to the people I've been seeing in my short time on Tinder..
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Postsecret review 10
A somewhat more timely start on this, as I impatiently wait for people on the online dating website to message me back.
"My husband took me to a nudist resort just to shock me. I LOVED IT! I go often, and I met my girlfriend there. He's not OK with either." That is... something else! I wonder if the secret writer means girlfriend as in lesbians, or as in platonic friends..
"i am secretly married." Straight out of Grey's Anatomy!
"faking it." (amidst smiley face confetti adhered to the postcard)
"I don't want to go to college I'd rather stay home and smoke weed" That's not very ambitious. I doubt this person will accomplish much in life with an attitude like that.
"I'm glad I caught my husband cheating on me so I could finally leave him and our loveless marriage with no guilt and lots of sympathy" That's one way of doing it, I guess. Although I don't really see why one should feel particularly guilty for getting a divorce if they're not happy in their marriage, even without the other person cheating on them.
"my cell phone is a graveyard of failed relationships" That's what the delete button is for. Unless this person means it more symbolically and has already deleted the contacts/text messages from the failed relationships.
"I always give gay people discounts on their coffee" I wonder how this person knows which people are gay so they can give out the discounts properly? Maybe they work at a gay bar, or something... Needs more context.
"I justify my underage drinking by my knowledge that I always recycle beer cans" ... the question I have is if this person drinks (underage) to excess.
"I said that the cleaners lost your favorite shirt. I threw it out. It was ugly and embarrassing." Now that's passive aggressive.
"I had cosmetic surgery because my ex made me feel ugly. I regret it every day." This reminds me of an episode of Law and Order; a plastic surgeon had killed his wife but was now dating another woman who he was trying to convince to get plastic surgery.
The secrets this week were again pretty middle of the road. Not the most exciting. There were some that I sort of wanted to review, but also sort of didn't, and so they ended up not making it into the post. Oh well.
"My husband took me to a nudist resort just to shock me. I LOVED IT! I go often, and I met my girlfriend there. He's not OK with either." That is... something else! I wonder if the secret writer means girlfriend as in lesbians, or as in platonic friends..
"i am secretly married." Straight out of Grey's Anatomy!
"faking it." (amidst smiley face confetti adhered to the postcard)
"I don't want to go to college I'd rather stay home and smoke weed" That's not very ambitious. I doubt this person will accomplish much in life with an attitude like that.
"I'm glad I caught my husband cheating on me so I could finally leave him and our loveless marriage with no guilt and lots of sympathy" That's one way of doing it, I guess. Although I don't really see why one should feel particularly guilty for getting a divorce if they're not happy in their marriage, even without the other person cheating on them.
"my cell phone is a graveyard of failed relationships" That's what the delete button is for. Unless this person means it more symbolically and has already deleted the contacts/text messages from the failed relationships.
"I always give gay people discounts on their coffee" I wonder how this person knows which people are gay so they can give out the discounts properly? Maybe they work at a gay bar, or something... Needs more context.
"I justify my underage drinking by my knowledge that I always recycle beer cans" ... the question I have is if this person drinks (underage) to excess.
"I said that the cleaners lost your favorite shirt. I threw it out. It was ugly and embarrassing." Now that's passive aggressive.
"I had cosmetic surgery because my ex made me feel ugly. I regret it every day." This reminds me of an episode of Law and Order; a plastic surgeon had killed his wife but was now dating another woman who he was trying to convince to get plastic surgery.
The secrets this week were again pretty middle of the road. Not the most exciting. There were some that I sort of wanted to review, but also sort of didn't, and so they ended up not making it into the post. Oh well.
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Movie review: Prisoners
I know I haven't been watching Peter Sarsgaard movies like you might expect, but I did watch this movie which starred Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman. I was debating on which order to list them in and decided to go alphabetically, which then meant I had to spend a few seconds figuring out if G comes before or after J. It comes before. Recently I've sort of gotten a bit into Jake Gyllenhaal in that I think he's a good actor and wouldn't mind seeing more of his filmography. He's not quite at the level of favorite actor for me though.
Note: after writing this, I realized that there isn't really a lot of context in this review, so it might help to go look up the premise (but not the full plot) of the movie beforehand.
Anyways, on to the review. I don't really want to spoil anything because I think this movie is worth experiencing for yourself to find out what happens, and knowing beforehand would ruin it. I thought this was quite a movie and it hit all the right notes for me personally. There was a decent amount of violence interspersed here and there to keep things interesting, although it wasn't senseless violence (which I'm not really a fan of); it served to advance the plot/develop the characters. This movie was 2 and a half hours long, which is a bit on the longer side but it didn't feel slow at any point. It was definitely one of those darker movies in terms of subject matter/things that happen in it, so it's not necessarily for everyone, but I happen to like that kind of thing.
I thought that both Jake and Hugh did a good job in their roles in this movie. It took place in Pennsylvania, and at times, it seemed like Hugh's Australian accent was slipping through a little bit, although if you didn't know he was Australian beforehand you might not have noticed it. For some reason I feel like Jake should have a slightly deeper voice than he does, based on how he looks. Something about his face makes me think that his voice should be a little deeper than it actually is. Regardless, I thought that he talked nicely in this movie.
I had sort of intended to maybe watch Jackie tonight instead, as part of getting more knowledgeable about the Kennedy family, but I ended up watching this because of the whole 'watching Peter Sarsgaard movies is such a commitment because I feel obligated to pay super close attention' thing. I don't regret watching this movie although now it seems like I should watch a really intense Peter Sarsgaard movie (Boys Don't Cry is what I have in mind; he plays a murderer) next that'll compare to this one, as opposed to something lighter and/or less critically acclaimed.
Note: after writing this, I realized that there isn't really a lot of context in this review, so it might help to go look up the premise (but not the full plot) of the movie beforehand.
Anyways, on to the review. I don't really want to spoil anything because I think this movie is worth experiencing for yourself to find out what happens, and knowing beforehand would ruin it. I thought this was quite a movie and it hit all the right notes for me personally. There was a decent amount of violence interspersed here and there to keep things interesting, although it wasn't senseless violence (which I'm not really a fan of); it served to advance the plot/develop the characters. This movie was 2 and a half hours long, which is a bit on the longer side but it didn't feel slow at any point. It was definitely one of those darker movies in terms of subject matter/things that happen in it, so it's not necessarily for everyone, but I happen to like that kind of thing.
I thought that both Jake and Hugh did a good job in their roles in this movie. It took place in Pennsylvania, and at times, it seemed like Hugh's Australian accent was slipping through a little bit, although if you didn't know he was Australian beforehand you might not have noticed it. For some reason I feel like Jake should have a slightly deeper voice than he does, based on how he looks. Something about his face makes me think that his voice should be a little deeper than it actually is. Regardless, I thought that he talked nicely in this movie.
I had sort of intended to maybe watch Jackie tonight instead, as part of getting more knowledgeable about the Kennedy family, but I ended up watching this because of the whole 'watching Peter Sarsgaard movies is such a commitment because I feel obligated to pay super close attention' thing. I don't regret watching this movie although now it seems like I should watch a really intense Peter Sarsgaard movie (Boys Don't Cry is what I have in mind; he plays a murderer) next that'll compare to this one, as opposed to something lighter and/or less critically acclaimed.
Sunday, August 6, 2017
To kill or not to kill
A day or so ago, I got a notification from CNN on my phone about a news story that I only got around to reading now. CNN summarizes the article as "Two decades later, a traffic stop on a country road is still teaching police officers about deadly force – and the cost of hesitation." The article is part of a series, the rest of which is also worth a read.
The article is about the death (murder) of a Georgia police officer back in 1998, which was caught on video from a dashboard camera of the police car. This murder incidentally occurred only two days after my birthday, which is a morbid fact to notice. The police officer was killed while making a traffic stop; the man who he had stopped was apparently somewhat unhinged and started shooting at him. Some theorize that he was trying to commit suicide by cop, which he ultimately failed to do. [As an aside, I enjoy living in a place where most people are not gun fanatics/owners. So you would assume that something like that is less likely to happen here. The most recent local police officer to have been killed was killed by a drunk driver, which is still unfortunate. In somewhat related matters, the local police department hasn't been at the center of any controversies recently, which is good.]
You can actually watch a portion of the video, interspersed with some commentary from the officer's father and other members of law enforcement. The part where he gets shot is out of the frame of the camera, but you can still hear him screaming as he is killed, which is, to say the least, at least a little chilling. For the more faint-hearted among us, it's probably quite chilling and possibly veering into the territory of somewhat disturbing. As they say on television, viewer discretion is advised.
Then the article goes on to say "Most humans would rather not kill, even when society asks them to," which I thought was sort of interesting, especially in light of having watched the movie Experimenter, which was all about obedience experiments and how far people are willing to go in following orders. I suppose the willingness of one person to kill another can vary according to circumstances; the degree to which people were obedient in the obedience experiments changed when some of the conditions in the experiment were altered. The Nazis certainly seemed willing to be complicit in committing a genocide, which is why Stanley Milgram decided to conduct his obedience experiments. Also, fighting in a war sort of entails at least the possibility of having to kill other people.
In general, I think that people would be more willing to kill another person if it were in the interest of self defense. Notwithstanding the whole legal (not to mention psychological) consequences of killing other human beings, self defense seems like the most likely motivation that would bring an ordinary person to kill another person. I know I'd kill someone in self defense if my life depended on it. Of course I can only speak for myself.
Interestingly enough, this particular incident would have been a perfect justification for killing someone in self defense, yet the police officer did not. In contrast to recent controversies where police have killed civilians, this police officer was killed by a civilian because he (the police officer) was too hesitant to kill the civilian. The article says "The line between firing too slowly and too quickly can be very, very thin," which I think is a pretty good summary regarding these kinds of incidents.
The murderer was eventually captured, convicted of murder, sentenced to death, and finally, executed. In his defense, it was argued that he was mentally ill and had PTSD, which caused him to commit the murder, but regardless, the jury convicted him.
I do think that this whole incident and the aftermath could be an interesting thing to portray in a movie. I'm pretty sure there have been Law and Order episodes based around criminals who have killed a police officer, I just can't think of any specific ones off the top of my head.
The article is about the death (murder) of a Georgia police officer back in 1998, which was caught on video from a dashboard camera of the police car. This murder incidentally occurred only two days after my birthday, which is a morbid fact to notice. The police officer was killed while making a traffic stop; the man who he had stopped was apparently somewhat unhinged and started shooting at him. Some theorize that he was trying to commit suicide by cop, which he ultimately failed to do. [As an aside, I enjoy living in a place where most people are not gun fanatics/owners. So you would assume that something like that is less likely to happen here. The most recent local police officer to have been killed was killed by a drunk driver, which is still unfortunate. In somewhat related matters, the local police department hasn't been at the center of any controversies recently, which is good.]
You can actually watch a portion of the video, interspersed with some commentary from the officer's father and other members of law enforcement. The part where he gets shot is out of the frame of the camera, but you can still hear him screaming as he is killed, which is, to say the least, at least a little chilling. For the more faint-hearted among us, it's probably quite chilling and possibly veering into the territory of somewhat disturbing. As they say on television, viewer discretion is advised.
Then the article goes on to say "Most humans would rather not kill, even when society asks them to," which I thought was sort of interesting, especially in light of having watched the movie Experimenter, which was all about obedience experiments and how far people are willing to go in following orders. I suppose the willingness of one person to kill another can vary according to circumstances; the degree to which people were obedient in the obedience experiments changed when some of the conditions in the experiment were altered. The Nazis certainly seemed willing to be complicit in committing a genocide, which is why Stanley Milgram decided to conduct his obedience experiments. Also, fighting in a war sort of entails at least the possibility of having to kill other people.
In general, I think that people would be more willing to kill another person if it were in the interest of self defense. Notwithstanding the whole legal (not to mention psychological) consequences of killing other human beings, self defense seems like the most likely motivation that would bring an ordinary person to kill another person. I know I'd kill someone in self defense if my life depended on it. Of course I can only speak for myself.
Interestingly enough, this particular incident would have been a perfect justification for killing someone in self defense, yet the police officer did not. In contrast to recent controversies where police have killed civilians, this police officer was killed by a civilian because he (the police officer) was too hesitant to kill the civilian. The article says "The line between firing too slowly and too quickly can be very, very thin," which I think is a pretty good summary regarding these kinds of incidents.
The murderer was eventually captured, convicted of murder, sentenced to death, and finally, executed. In his defense, it was argued that he was mentally ill and had PTSD, which caused him to commit the murder, but regardless, the jury convicted him.
I do think that this whole incident and the aftermath could be an interesting thing to portray in a movie. I'm pretty sure there have been Law and Order episodes based around criminals who have killed a police officer, I just can't think of any specific ones off the top of my head.
Friday, August 4, 2017
Postsecret review 9
A somewhat less late delivery date on this one. I can't sleep and I think it's because I had a caffeinated soda with dinner. So here we go.
"I think men who order their coffee with cream are sissies!" (written on a coffee cup) That's a ridiculous thing to be judgmental about (and this is coming from someone who's probably fairly judgmental herself).
"When you were hit by that car, I promised God I'd believe in him if you lived. I never knew it was one I'd have to keep." (with the h in him marked with the capitalization symbol and a question mark) Well, this is something... I wonder what kind of unfortunate consequences this person thinks will happen if they don't keep the promise to believe in God? That the other person in question will get killed somehow if the secret writer isn't faithful enough?
"I like to snoop through other people's medicine cabinets" This is something I can pretty much understand, because I like to look at other people's stuff as well.
"I don't want to lower my standards just because I'm overweight" I don't want to lower my standards because I think I deserve to date a good looking person. Being overweight or not doesn't really have anything to do with it in my case.
"being an atheist was boring" I guess if you like feeling guilty for sinning and not being spiritual/faithful enough, being religious could be fun.. I think being an atheist is more exciting because you don't have to deal with religious guilt over things you do that are considered sinful/unreligious. And (in the case of Mormonism), you don't have to pay tithing, which means more $$$ to spend on yourself.
"My friend buys drugs from people he knows at church!" This reminds me of some article I read in the past about people in Utah (Mormon land) being addicted to prescription painkillers.
"I steal my neighbor's Netflix movies!" Wouldn't this just have you end up with an assortment of movies you very well might not be interested in? I doubt that the neighbors have the same taste in movies as the secret writer. It would be better (in a way) to steal movies from a store, so you could have more choice in the matter of which movies you end up with. Although maybe it's easier to steal the neighbor's Netflix movies instead of doing it from a store. (if you want to take this as me condoning theft, you're free to, but consider the possibility that maybe I didn't mean it that way.)
"I tell everyone I'm happy in my polyamorous marriage... ... but I'm not. And I'll lose my husband if I go back now." Ooh, a polygamy secret!! If this lady isn't happy, then why would she particularly care if she loses her husband from the polygamous marriage? I'm sure there are other men out there who she might like and who wouldn't mind having a monogamous marriage.
Anyways, that's it for this week... the secrets were alright, but I think other weeks have been more interesting on the whole.
"I think men who order their coffee with cream are sissies!" (written on a coffee cup) That's a ridiculous thing to be judgmental about (and this is coming from someone who's probably fairly judgmental herself).
"When you were hit by that car, I promised God I'd believe in him if you lived. I never knew it was one I'd have to keep." (with the h in him marked with the capitalization symbol and a question mark) Well, this is something... I wonder what kind of unfortunate consequences this person thinks will happen if they don't keep the promise to believe in God? That the other person in question will get killed somehow if the secret writer isn't faithful enough?
"I like to snoop through other people's medicine cabinets" This is something I can pretty much understand, because I like to look at other people's stuff as well.
"I don't want to lower my standards just because I'm overweight" I don't want to lower my standards because I think I deserve to date a good looking person. Being overweight or not doesn't really have anything to do with it in my case.
"being an atheist was boring" I guess if you like feeling guilty for sinning and not being spiritual/faithful enough, being religious could be fun.. I think being an atheist is more exciting because you don't have to deal with religious guilt over things you do that are considered sinful/unreligious. And (in the case of Mormonism), you don't have to pay tithing, which means more $$$ to spend on yourself.
"My friend buys drugs from people he knows at church!" This reminds me of some article I read in the past about people in Utah (Mormon land) being addicted to prescription painkillers.
"I steal my neighbor's Netflix movies!" Wouldn't this just have you end up with an assortment of movies you very well might not be interested in? I doubt that the neighbors have the same taste in movies as the secret writer. It would be better (in a way) to steal movies from a store, so you could have more choice in the matter of which movies you end up with. Although maybe it's easier to steal the neighbor's Netflix movies instead of doing it from a store. (if you want to take this as me condoning theft, you're free to, but consider the possibility that maybe I didn't mean it that way.)
"I tell everyone I'm happy in my polyamorous marriage... ... but I'm not. And I'll lose my husband if I go back now." Ooh, a polygamy secret!! If this lady isn't happy, then why would she particularly care if she loses her husband from the polygamous marriage? I'm sure there are other men out there who she might like and who wouldn't mind having a monogamous marriage.
Anyways, that's it for this week... the secrets were alright, but I think other weeks have been more interesting on the whole.
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