What is up with people thinking any social network is good for picking up women?

I consider myself pretty in the know about these things. I dig that the generation of digital natives have their own ideas about how to connect online.  I dig that the culture is changing. Hell, I put my entire life on the internet  (CQFD “my entire life” is bitching about people in public transportation, proclaiming my love for lip balm and obsessing over pablito).

But call me old school for thinking that you should actually know how to use the social network before you go picking up women on it.  Case in point: the dude who adds me on foursquare and despite being in another country,  checks in wherever I am checked in and leaves cryptic comments like quotes and song lyrics as tips at the venues. That’s not going to help you get laid, son. Geography is your friend.

This is not to say Foursquare is an altogether inappropriate venue for picking up people. But that is another story for another post, children.

Let’s get back to the part about how my entire life is on the internet.  I think even the most cursory glance at any of my social network accounts will let you know rather quickly that:

– I’m old

– I’m fat

– I hate most people

– I have an extremely complicated love life situation (one part crazy cat lady, one part “technically still married” and one part “yeah don’t even go there in public” and one part “really hates people”). I find it extremely hard to believe that anyone connected to me on any social network would think I am looking. At all. I thought the “I’m not looking and I am taken in so many ways” was obvious as hell. Maybe I am wrong. Anyway, there you are. And even if people thought I was looking, am I mistaken in that I come off as a bitter, overweight, high-maintenance bitch? So I’m not even a suitable candidate.

As an aside, I was never someone who hooked up.  Growing up in the south in the 90s you were either smart enough to keep that shizz on the DL or you believed the crap they told you at church and you were a good girl.  So the whole arsenal of language and signs people use for casual sex, like when you meet in clubs or whatever, was and is completely lost on me.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t have “boyfriends,” but I don’t know how to form casual romantic attachments, which is why I am a serial monogamist, which could be bad but is another story for another post. I don’t even flirt, or if I do, I don’t know when I am flirting. Usually my autistic ass just tells a dude I like him when I like him.  If I haven’t told you straight up that I want your body, I’m not interested in you. Truth.

So in my “let’s all just be friends because I don’t want any other biznass online” way, call me old school, but before I start interacting with people on social networks I do my homework, so maybe my expectations are too high when people start interacting with me. Tonight I did something I do about once a year: I blocked someone.  Despite being your garden variety misanthrope, I don’t usually block or even unfollow. Dude started telling me I would look good with long nails. Who the hell says that? What does that even mean? Yes, I’m reading too much into it, certainly, just a troll firing blanks to see where he can get a bite, but please. Really?

Neither of these people (nail fetish dude and foursquare freak) were ever under consideration (cf. supra., “my love life”) but it got me thinking about how people flirt in the digital era.  I’m already a bad flirt IRL, and I have no idea what would work if you wanted to go the online route. As is usually the case for me, I have a good gut feeling for what works and what doesn’t, but I usually can’t verbalize it.  What makes for winning, and what makes you the dude writing song lyrics on foursquare venues? The game has changed, but how?