Sunday, May 30, 2004
A Reader Responds
M., a reader from California, shares the following found example of JDate's seemingly random censoring of certain clusters of letters...
--
Perfect First Date: "It would where we first get to know each other.
The venue is not that important. We would be relaxed and
enthusiastically talk about various su ects. A good place to meet
would be a cafe or restaurant."
--
"su ects." JDate censors "bj." I don't know if I should be amused
or appalled.
M., be appalled, and not just at the censoring of BJ (what if the person was talking about a synagogue on the Upper West Side?).
Be appalled because this person has constructed a well-oiled cliche to show his (boring) vision of a first date, be it perfect or not.
"where we first get to know each other"--this is any date.
"enthusiastically talk about various su ects"--even "adding a BJ" here isn't going to help.
"A good place to meet would be a cafe or restaurant"--props for spelling restaurant right, a word I still occasionally wrong with a misspelling.
But this reminds me of an improv "ask," where we ask the audience for a setting before constructing a scene within that context. You've seen it: "Can you give me a location, where two people might meet?" This is so general that it's really up to the creativity of the individual to tailor it interestingly. A cafe or restaurant? Almost never. More likely, the audience responds with a subway platform, a library, the corner market, a doctor's office...none of which I would select for a first date. But all of which would be more interesting than anything this guy would pick.
I'm harsh, I know. Call it high standards, or high-falutin', but I'm simply not willing to compromise on creativity.
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1 comment:
Yeah, at least ClicheBoy acknowledges what he's doing. And just for the record, has anyone actually gone on a first JDate that bore any relationship to the "Perfect First Date" either person described in his/her profile? I've yet to have one of those "long walks on the beach" dates, and I've been living in Southern California for nearly two years.
-M.
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