Let's Play Matchmaker

The biggest hurdle sites like match.com face is that people have an incentive to paint an overly favorable picture of themselves. You’ll get fewer responses if you mention you have a fear of commitment, but it’s harder to find other people who have trouble settling down when you can’t advertise that facet of your personality.

Because of this, we’d like to try a matchmaking experiment in the DC area. It works like this: you email in your responses to the ten questions below (to datethedistrict@gmail.com), and we’ll match you up with someone we think you’d like.

1.     Do you have any post-secondary degrees (i.e., anything higher than high school diploma)? If so, from where and in what subject(s)?

2.     Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

3.     If you didn’t have to work for a living, what would you spend your days doing?

4.     Describe your most recent relationship.

5.     What are you looking for in a partner?

6.     Why have your last three relationships failed?

7.     What are you most proud of?

8.     If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

9.     What could you spend all day talking about?

10. What could you spend all day listening to?

11. Anything else you want us to know?

Entries will remain strictly anonymous, but if you’re super paranoid you can send in the first round of responses from a fake email address. If we think you’d make a good match, we’ll ask you for a picture. Neither the picture nor your answers will be shared with the person we match you up with. We’ll e-troduce you (awww) and leave it up to you guys to schedule the first date. After the first date, we’ll ask you to send us a write-up of how the date went (what worked and what didn’t) and whether or not you’d see the person again (and why). No write-ups will be published, but we may use some of your insights in an upcoming post, but any identifying details will be disguised beyond recognition (if you want proof, ask our friends, whose love lives we’ve been writing about for more than a year now).

The more brutally honest you are, the easier it’ll be to match you up (and remember—no one else is going to see your responses).

For the time being, we’re going to limit entries to the DC area (sorry Bmore).

Happy hunting!

Missed Connection of the Day: Farragut West Stop---Blue & White Plaid Shirt Man

The picture makes this post.

Farragut West Stop---Blue & White Plaid Shirt Man - w4m - 18 (Farragut West Metro Stop)


I entered the same metro car as you at court house around 11:45am, headed to my internship at national geographic. you were already sitting, listening to music, but glanced up at me when i entered. i almost chose to sit next to you, but your bag was on the seat beside you...*sigh* you were handsome with wavy dark brown hair, brown eyes [i believe], and were wearing a blue and white plaid shirt. we both got off at the Farragut West stop...and both took the elevator to the 17th street exit. i smirked b/c you were walking behind me. we should've walked together! i'm attaching a photo of myself so maybe you can identify me...i'm assuming you work around the area that i do, so maybe we could grab some coffee sometime. dunno how old you are...i'm thinking early 20 to mid-ish 20s. if you see this, verify what color clothing i was wearing...i was only wearing one color...so hopefully you remember.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Women in their 20s often talk about dating as the process of “finding Mr. Right.”

Men fall victim to this delusion too: in fact, over the past few weeks, we’ve had countless conversations with our otherwise rational friends (of both genders) who are convinced that “love” is something more than compatibility, that it’s a feeling that can’t be described or controlled.

And that got us thinking: maybe Raymond Carver was on to something.

The single biggest flaw in most people’s approach to dating, may, in fact, be the language they use to describe it.

When we use the word “love,” are we talking about that heart-pounding, all-consuming sensation that we feel when our hot neighbor says, “What’s up?” Or are we talking about the way we feel about our friends and (sometimes) our families, a duller sense of gratitude towards and happiness about this person’s presence in our lives that accepts imperfections and grounds expectations in reality?

We use the same word to describe both (“I’m in love with the UPS guy” and “I love you, Mom”).

But they mean two very different things. And the problem is, we’ve been using the same word to describe two very different ideas for our entire (English-speaking) lives.

So when we say we’re looking for love, we chase the thrilling romantic sensations that tend to be more fleeting than the durable, platonic variety.

This, in and of itself, isn’t an issue (especially when we’re young), but if you look at successful long-term relationships, they don’t look anything like a typical second date for Katherine Hiegel.

It’s a scientific fact: those intense emotions and feelings fade after a few years, and once they’re gone, something else has to sustain the relationship. And because we’re using the same word to describe two things, and because we desperately want both of these things, we tend to assume that one leads to the other. Desire must breed companionship, because that’s the only thing that makes sense.

But no matter which meaning of the word “love” we’re after (romantic or platonic), we’re still talking about something we feel. Not something that someone does to us, but something that we, essentially, impose on ourselves.

A certain bone structure may have a tendency to make your stomach flutter, but when it comes down to it, your cute coworker isn’t the one firing neurons in your brain. You might not have any conscious control over that process either, but, in the end, your amorous feelings say a lot more about you than they do about the person on the receiving end.

You love that funny, blue-eyed banker because you (for lack of a better word) value blue eyes and a good sense of humor and a healthy bank account, not because the combination of these three characteristics casts an irresistible spell over all who encounter it. If men were able to cast spells, the concept of taste wouldn’t exist. You wouldn’t look at your best friend’s boyfriend and go, “What does she see in him?”, because if he’s casting a spell, you’re under it too.

If we look at “love” as something that’s about us, not them, it becomes clear that dating isn’t about finding the right person, it’s about figuring out what that person looks like. You’re not browsing OkCupid to find a person who inexplicably makes you feel a certain way; you’re doing some serious soul-searching to figure what qualities trigger those feelings.

Yes, our (otherwise) rational friends say, we get that infatuation isn’t love. You see a guy and your heart starts pounding but that feeling goes away as soon as he opens his mouth. But how do you explain the overweight drummer you fantasize about even though you know that you’re looking for a guy with a regular paycheck and a workout regiment?

Mostly with biology. We all watched that pheromones video in Bio 101, with the women smelling men’s t-shirts and being most attracted to the scents of men whose DNA was the most different from their own.

Because we can’t control fluttery-stomach feelings, they’re probably as hard-wired as our instincts to inhale and exhale. And it’s just like feeling like you’re going to explode when you hold your breath for too long. Your brain is making your body feel a certain way because it wants you to react—sexually.

When you fantasize about that drummer, you’re not picturing the white house with the picket fence and 2.8 offspring. You’re picturing him giving it to you hard and fast on the desk in your boss’ office. You’re using the word “love” when you really mean “sexual desire.”

And when that “spark” isn’t oozing sexuality, it’s probably worth listening to. Maybe the drummer really listens to you when you talk, and maybe that’s more important to you than you thought it was. Maybe you have a hard time admitting to yourself that, for you, a BMW isn’t worth to you as a well-written poem, even though all your friends tell you that it is.

But again, it’s about you. Not him.