As Told Over Brunch

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When OkCupid Insulted Me

As is no secret by now, I use several dating apps for window shopping. (I've yet to purchase anything, and I'm prone to returns - though I don't know what that exactly means metaphorically, but it's true!) One of those happens to be OkCupid, which suggests matches based on questions it asks.

Those questions include things like, "Do you ever not feel like having sex because you feel too unattractive or too unappealing?" (don't proposition me after a buffet) to "STALE is to STEAL as 89475 is to..." (89547). Your answers contribute to your personality profile.

Personally, I love personality tests so I have answered 749 questions since I downloaded OkCupid. (You think that's a lot? I've tweeted over 27 thousand times.) My Myers-Briggs is ENTJ, my personality color is green, and according to OkCupid, I am an asshole.

Obviously, OkCupid didn't say that. But let's look at my results:

More ambitious, more logical, more cool, less conventionally moral, less friendly to strangers, less love-driven (I'll give them that), and less compassionate.

There were a few more, but this is what stood out to me. The "more" and "less" is in relation to an "average straight man my age."

Uh, what? Okay, I can see the ambitious part, and I'm complimented that they think I'm cool, but less friendly to strangers? They don't know me. And less compassionate?! I am not a psychopath.

I realized I must be answering these questions too truthfully. As an ENTJ, a trademark is not letting emotions get in our way. (That doesn't mean we don't have them! We're just very good at separating thoughts and feelings.) So I answered some more questions and then checked my personality profile . . . .

I'm still "more ambitious," but "less compassionate" moved away from the bottom of the list. What replaced it? "Less giving."

Sigh.

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