Date-me, Doc!

Tired: flirting with girls in person

Inspired: publishing a “Date Me” doc online

Today in WIRED:

Olah is 29, with the grin and just-finished-hiking complexion of someone even younger. The title of his Google Doc gets right to the point: “Male, Straight, 5’7″, Monogamous, Wants Kids.” His photos draw the eye, but it’s the sidebar that’s remarkable: Olah’s Date Me doc has four “chapters,” and 15 subcategories. […]

Not all Date Me docs are as long as Olah’s. A few are designed to be hyper-efficient. The writer and rationalist Jacob Falkovich has a Meet up/Date me page on his blog, which links to Google Forms for each category, so you can sign up to meet platonically or, you know, go on a date.

Nostalgic for the simple days of arranged marriages and/or circa-2013 OkCupid, Rationalists have taken to writing “date me” documents online. Some are focused on selling the author as a partner, some on what the author is looking for, some are so cringe I couldn’t read past the first few lines. Many of them share two ironies:

1. They do not, in fact, seem to be getting their authors any more dates than one good photo with a puppy would on Tinder.
2. They credit me as inspiration. This is ironic because A, I stole the idea from Aella and B, neither Aella nor I posted dating advertisements. We posted dating applications.

The issue at the heart of date-me docs is the same as that of dating profiles: the first thing they put forward about you is your desperation to find a date and inability to do so through the usual channels. This desperation and frustration are the absolute least attractive things about you. And while on dating apps this is ameliorated by the fact that anyone reading your profile admits to being in the same boat, putting your plea for TFW GF on platforms like Twitter where people go for mockery and indignation will, in fact, likely earn you some mockery and indignation.

Now of course, I have used both Twitter and Putanumonit successfully to find incredible romantic partners. But I don’t host my dating profile on these platforms. They are, in their entirety, my dating profiles.

I don’t write or tweet about who I want to date. I write about what I’m obsessed with, what I’m passionate about. I write insightful and funny things because I enjoy insight and humor. I write with absolute candor, not in service of an agenda or some artificial persona.

I don’t write to find dates. But if you have had your mind blown away by something I’ve written then you would almost certainly have a great time going on a date with me simply because my company is very much like my writing. My date-me page is an opportunity for you to show me what is real and interesting about yourself, to reciprocate the seduction. The page doesn’t have any information about me (aside from a link to some photos); if 7 years of my mind’s curated output didn’t impress you then I doubt a few biographical tidbits would swing it.

None of this is about Chris Olah, the author of the main date-me doc profiled in the article, or Lauren Goode, the author. I don’t know Chris personally but he seems to be a celebrity in the field of AI research and universally-liked by everyone who knows him. Lauren is a popular and talented writer, strikingly beautiful, and suave enough to let you know in her article that she’s single and looking without making a big deal of it. Their value proposition as romantic partners is demonstrated by everything else they are and do, not by a random document or article.

But if your own value proposition isn’t quite up to that standard, I would suggest focusing on improving that and not on your date-me doc.