Do You Have Sexy Pics: My Experience with Online Dating

I really can identify with N’s alcoholic post. I’m now an alcoholic too, and find various excuses to drink. The excuses are pretty tangible, I think. I’ve had a bad day at work. I’m stressed. I’m bored. I’m lonely. It’s so hot – nice day for a cold beer. It’s so cold and miserable – I need a drink to warm me up. This wine goes well with my dinner. It’s cheaper to buy a 6-pack than just one can. My coworkers drink, so it’s fine if I do. This beer might expire (I don’t know where I got that from).

One thing I’ve realised is that I have a terrible drunk-texting problem. Thanks to smartphones, we are connected to the world non-stop. As you know, we use Kakpraat often (note: we are not paid to advertise Kakaotalk haha…), and I’m constantly messaging people. BUT! As soon as I have a bit of liquor in me, I have to tell people “very important” shit – usually along the lines of “I’m drinking hahaha.” Poor N has been on the receiving end of my drunken rants. And…so have many guys. Guys that I have met and also strangers.

This is because another benefit of having a smartphone is that there’s an app for everything, including dating! Or “flirting” as the write-up says. Whatever! I signed up for one of those flirting/dating/friend-making/stalking/perving apps and filled out my profile half-heartedly. I’m still paranoid. Luckily my location is so random and lost, that the app has actually miscalculated where I am. Safe! And the people who live in my town generally don’t have smartphones cos we’re stuck in the 70’s and so I won’t accidently message my co-workers…safe!

Anyways I browsed some profiles. I love doing that. The guys’ profiles are so drastically different to girls’. We girls have to be sexy all the time, because no one is going to message a chick with a pineapple as her profile picture. No. These girls are hamming it up. The self-taken pics (“selcas”) taken from above so we can see the cleavage! A pic of just cleavage! The duck-face pout! A shitload of makeup! The five photo filters! And because I’m in Asia, lots of purikura! I then realised I could search for guys only, and checked out the dudes. Ah yes! They look so cool. There are lots with guys next to their cars. Some angry ones…actually a lot of angry ones. Why would someone want to message an angry person? Were they going for a Bruce Willis kinda vibe? No, no. And because I’m in Asia, lots of purikura! Yes, guys here take purikura too…manly purikura.

This cracks me up every time.

Then the messaging. Most guys start with “Hi”. Nothing wrong with that, that’s how we greet people. Some message in Japanese/Korean. Shamefully enough, I find my Korean ability to actually be better than my Japanese, so I put in some effort nonetheless. But regardless of nationality, there are creepers. At first I was scared/shocked/angry. Now it’s just hilarious.

There are the old guys. These guys think you’ll drop the panties when they say so, and I don’t bother responding to them. They are usually married. I get it…they’re looking for sexy times. No thanks.

Those usual ones who don’t bullshit around and start off saying they’d like some online fun times. Maybe accompanied by a dead arousing penis shot. Wooo! Delete. Similar to these are the chaps who will engage in small talk and BAM! Out of the blue they’ll say something like, “can I see a sexy pic?” or “I want to sex with you”. Who needs actual conversation when you have gems such as these? Gush. These guys I find actually try to negotiate with you when you say you’re not interested. And depending on how much I’ve had to drink, I will try reason with them. Something like this:

Guy: I want to sex with you. Can we meet?

Me: No, sorry

Guy: Please? I’ll teach you Korean

Me: Hahaha! Thanks, but I have a textbook.

Guy: When can we meet

Me: Why are you wanting to [erm] sex with someone from the internet? Can’t you find someone?

Guy: I have never been with a South African.

Me: Oh, I’m sure it’s not that different. Go out and find someone.

Guy: can we meet this weekend?

Now I see the irony of this. In one of my previous posts, I threw the idea around of asking a guy to sleep with me and seeing his reaction. The reason for that was because I thought there was going to be nuclear war! Okay, don‘t judge me! Unless these guys also think they’re going to die soon (which granted, they might) and now ok, I feel kind of bad for judging them.

There are also weirdos who don’t say anything wildly inappropriate…but who’re just boring. There was a guy who couldn’t think of anything to say besides “Hi” and “what u doing”.

However, I’ve had some good convos with guys on the app, also depending where I am. I usually end up listening to some people’s problems and giving advice. I guess they need to get their shit out.

I have met one guy in person. It was my first time doing that. I agreed to meet him because he was ridiculously funny, easy to talk to, didn’t hit on me and enjoyed k-pop. I didn’t care if he was gay or not, I just enjoyed chatting to him. So I met him in Busan. I was shit scared. But decided hey, this isn’t a date. We’re just going to hang out…and we did. It was a great evening, despite our initial awkwardness we ate delicious dinner, drove around listening to Big Bang (most awesome k-pop group ever), walked on the beach and looked at the lights…yes, it sounds extremely datey, doesn’t it. There were times when I had to catch myself and remember we had just met. But I think we were just comfortable. We still talk, and it’s a month later. Mainly just sending each other stupid .gifs.

Also, I told Princess about these apps a while back, and since she’s uploaded a Filtered Cleavage Pout pic, she gets lots of hits. She has also met some of these guys because they “talk everyday” and “have a connection”. She is by far the worst judge of character ever. Not that these guys were criminals or anything. One had no social skills but really wanted a “halfu” baby. Another “seduced” her by speaking Korean and Spanish, it was all so very romantic…and then buggered off to South America the next day. Next guy was probably the douchiest guy I’ve ever met in Korea/Japan (I was present when they met for the first time). And the last one seemed pretty decent (I was there again too, sigh) but never messaged again after meeting, except to say he got a job at Samsung.

I have since deleted the main app and my profile cos I was finding the people a bit too creepy for my liking. I’d find myself looking at all these people thinking, we’re in the same boat. We’re bored. We might not have the best social skills. I use my lonely location (and lack of people my age) as an excuse…but these people are within metres of each other and yet need to initiate conversation over an app. I guess these apps allow us be whoever we want to be…which is great and all, but in real life we don’t have filters.