Short answer: no, not really.

Long answer: Well, no, not really. I’ve gotten that question a lot since reaching child-siring age, and I’ve asked it of myself on an almost daily basis during that time. It’s a question that doesn’t really make sense to me. It’s like asking if you want to be president of a country. It’s all fine and good to answer in the abstract when there’s no possibility that it might become a reality. Like, you’re out to dinner with your friends and you say “if I was president, I’d raise the minimum wage.”

Well, okay, that’s noble and crowd-pleasing, but have you ever thought about the million other interconnected facets of the economy and social structure of our country and the world at large that will change as a result? Can you even think of a fraction of them if you tried?

Of course, the answer is “no.”

But you can get away with that kind of statement because you said it while eating at a Don Pablo’s, where there is a strong inverse correlation between your patronage of such a business and your potential to be president. When faced with the prospect of actually raising campaign funds and building a voter base, or actually staring at a plus sign on a urine-soaked plastic stick, your perspective is likely to shift from the abstract into reality pretty damn quick.

It would be foolish and arrogant of me to think that I’m “ready” to do anything that I’ve never done before. Especially something that is often described as the “most difficult job in the world.” Am I more qualified for the job title of “parent” than I was yesterday? Probably. I’ve got a good job, I’ve got a stable, healthy relationship with an amazing Significant Other, I’ve got rewarding, challenging hobbies, and I’ve spent the last couple of years improving my physical and mental health.

But, does that mean I’m ready? Absolutely not. Hell no. Not even close.

I hesitate to use the phrase “I’m ready” in any situation, no matter how minor or major. I believe this practice started in my pre-teen years, when I told my brother I was ready to catch a baseball. I was in the right stance, I had my glove up, I was watching for the ball. I was as ready as I could be. Yet, despite my readiness, the ball my brother threw went straight past my glove and into my two front teeth. As I stared down at the two bloody teeth in my hand, I wondered if maybe there are some things you’re never really ready for.

A few years later, I went through 4 years of college, training, and internships to get ready to be a social worker at a foster care agency. I was raised in a social work family. I grew up around foster kids. I was told over and over that I was uniquely qualified for the position based on my personality and skills. Despite all that, I crashed, burned, and quit the field within 2 years, and never looked back. I was prepared, I was trained, I was equipped, and I failed miserably. Does that mean I wasn’t ready?

I could spend every waking moment between now and my child’s birth preparing, reading, studying, etc., but I know I’ll never truly be ready because I’ve seen the hollowed out, scared, exhausted, drained, exasperated looks in the eyes of the parents who I work and live beside every day. You people are making this pretty scary, I’m not going to lie.

It’s strange, but I find some comfort by telling myself that if I spent the rest of my life preparing and practicing, I still wouldn’t be ready. I won’t be ready at my worst parenting moment, nor at my best. I won’t have a clue what’s going on the day my child comes into this world, and I won’t be ready when I take my last breath on this earth. The reality is, as of a month ago, I don’t have to worry about “if.” I can only do my best to get my readiest.

***This was written in August, 2015, very soon after I found out my girlfriend was pregnant. My son was born on March 28, 2016. As such, my next piece will be entitled “Holy hell, I was NOT ready to have kids.”

I’ve spent way too much time in hospitals over the last few years. I just checked out of one a few weeks ago after my son was born. In the years prior to that, I visited parents, grandparents, an accident-prone ex-wife, and her disease-and surgery-prone family. It was a different hospital in almost every case, but after each visit, I came away thinking “this is wrong. This is not how people should get better.”

When I’m in a hospital, I notice a list of issues for myself as a visitor, my loved ones as patients, and even the people who work there. I’ll keep the majority of that list to myself for the moment, because I think one major issue needs to be addressed immediately. That problem is: hospitals don’t let patients sleep. Let me rephrase that. The place where you take sick people to heal, rest, and recover doesn’t let patients (or the people who are there to support them) rest.

Does that make sense? What’s the first thing a mom or a doctor will tell you to do if you don’t feel well? “Get some rest.” Yet, if you go to a hospital, and lie in a hospital “bed,” you will be awoken constantly.

I’m not a reporter. I’m not a writer. I’m no one important. I’m just an average schmuck who has been stuck in hospitals too often, forced to watch loved ones fight for sleep when they should have been fighting illness. But I don’t want this to turn into an emotional appeal based on my anecdotal evidence. I’m trying to offer the perspective of someone who’s not a caregiver or a patient — just a guy who’s seen that this arrangement isn’t working.

Around this time last year, I lay awake in a hospital room on a vinyl chair that folded out into a “bed” next to my mom’s hospital bed. My siblings and I were taking turns keeping mom company after a major surgery. My mom was pretty stable at the time, so I assumed I would sleep for most of the night. I figured I’d have to get up once or twice to help her to the bathroom. Perhaps there would be one or two interruptions from nurses taking vitals and delivering meds.

I was very wrong. The interruptions to my mother’s sleep were constant. The beeping of the machines. The noise from her roommate’s TV. Nurses checking vitals for my mom and her roommate every hour. Housekeeping coming in to take out the trash. Nurses yelling in the hall. I barely got any sleep. My mom got even less. What we did manage to get was less like sleeping and more like napping.

Don’t patients need to sleep? It seems like every week I’m reading a new article or study about the importance of sleep. It allows your body to re-energize, to recover, to heal. “Losing sleep cuts hours off the end of your life” we’re told. That’s an abstract concept when you’re 20, 30, or 40. It’s a wholly different proposition when you’re 73 and lying on your deathbed.

I used to think that when patients looked drained and frail in a hospital, it was due to the trauma their body was enduring from the surgery, medication, and stress of the whole situation. The tubes being forced down their throat. The fluids and drugs being pumped into their blood. Now, I think that’s all compounded by the fact that this person is being kept awake for days at a time.

My own lack of sleep in the hospital is less of a problem compared to my mother’s, but it’s still an issue. The people who are there to support the patient need to be able to rest so they can function. They have jobs. They have kids to care for. They have to drive. If they’ve been kept awake all night, they can’t do any of those things. I went into work the morning after my stay at the hospital completely unrested, and fell asleep in a meeting, while seated directly across from my boss. Luckily, I didn’t get fired. And, even more luckily, I didn’t have to go back to the hospital the next night because I had siblings who were able to stay with my mom. If I was an only child, I would have had to take unpaid leave from my job, which is something I cannot afford to do.

Maybe this is different for other people, but when I lose a night of sleep, I can’t function properly for 4–5 days. I can’t think. I can’t speak without stuttering. I lose my temper over nothing. I drift off while driving or watching TV. That’s when I’m healthy. I can’t imagine how that loss of rest would affect me if I was trying to recover from a life-threatening disease or traumatic surgery.

On the few occasions when I have lost an entire night of sleep, all other priorities go out the window. I don’t care about food, sex, work, friends, or anything else aside from falling onto a flat surface and passing out for as long as possible. It’s all I can think about. One night of sleeplessness is my definition of hell. Yet, my loved ones and I all went through that experience while in the hospital, night after night.

I mentioned this problem to a couple of friends in the healthcare field. One is a doctor, the other is a healthcare tech. I wanted to get perspective from care providers. One of their opinions could be summarized as “if we didn’t check on your family member, and something happened to her, you’d sue us.” I get that. But there’s got to be a better way to keep an eye on patients than waking them up on an hourly basis. This is not working. People are putting the “internet of things” into our coffee makers and refrigerators. Can’t we use that kind of tech to improve patient monitoring?

The other friend told me “a hospital is no place to sleep. It’s not a hotel.” He said “it sucks, but there’s no way around it. There’s too much going on with the various departments and regulations. Patients need to be looked after constantly by many different providers.” Here again, I understand that response, but I don’t think it’s sufficient. There has to be a way to coordinate the various teams and personnel — to schedule sleep.

I thought that maybe this problem applied only to people who were gravely ill. However, when my girlfriend and I had our son two weeks ago, I was proven incorrect.

My baby mama’s water broke prematurely, which means she was technically “in labor” once that happened, but wasn’t really feeling the contractions. We had to go to the hospital when her water broke at 2am, but she wasn’t in significant labor pain until almost 4pm. We were trapped in the hospital with nothing to do for that entire period. So, we decided to try and rest before the big push. That was not to be.

Every hour, just like with my mom, the nurses would come in and check on us. When I say “checked on us,” I don’t mean they opened the door, saw that we were trying to sleep, and tiptoed around, quietly checking the computers. No, they flicked the lights on, intentionally woke us up, and talked to us about nothing as if we were totally coherent and not in any way sleep-deprived and anxious about the coming push. They didn’t have anything substantive to discuss. “How are you doing?” How the hell do you think we’re doing? She wants to get this baby out of her. She wants to sleep.

Four separate times, a technician came in to check on the warming tray for the baby. Housekeeping came in to remove the trash. Nurses yelled to each other in the halls. Yelling nurses were a problem that was consistent among all of the hospitals I’ve been in. Can staff members not walk ten feet to the next room and talk to their coworkers, instead of yelling down the hall and disturbing the patients who are trying to rest?

Another problem was that the baby’s heart monitor was so loud that it kept us both awake. My girlfriend asked the nurse to turn down the volume on the monitor. The nurse replied with a huge attitude “no one’s ever asked me to do THAT before.” That really got to both of us. I wanted to say, “so, not only are you forcing us to stay awake for no reason, now you’re going to guilt us because we’d prefer to sleep instead of listen to a machine monitor our son’s heartbeat for 12 hours straight?” Instead of saying that, I said nothing, because I wanted to get back to sleep.

The day after my son was born, a managing nurse came to our room to ask what our thoughts were about our stay, the hospital, and the care we were receiving. I mentioned (as politely as I could given that I had so little rest) that I thought it was odd we weren’t allowed to sleep before or after the delivery. I asked why. The nurse gave a roundabout answer that could be summarized as “we are required by the legal department to check on the patients every hour.” I said something like “okay, but what about the baby warmer? Why did it have to be checked four separate times?” She said that it had to be checked twice per shift, so two nurses checked when we first arrived, and two more when the shifts changed in the morning.

I wasn’t satisfied with her answers, but I thought for sure that the sleeplessness would end there. I had spoken up. I had advocated for our rights. The nursing staff would give us a wide berth from that point forward.

Again, I was wrong. We had to stay for another day to make sure that mom and baby were okay. We maybe got an hour or two to sleep here and there. The interruptions never stopped. Nurses, doctors, specialists, volunteers, lactation consultants, a photographer trying to sell us an overpriced photo package of our kid, some book salesman/early-reading enthusiast trying to convince us to read to our 1-day-old infant. At one point, I approached our assigned nurse and asked that they put a sign on the door to keep people from bothering us. That bought us maybe three hours from the majority of interruptions, but the nurses still kept coming in.

Is this the best we can do? In 2016, we can check our own heartrate with our watches, but we can’t have a medical professional monitor our heartrate and breathing without waking us from sleep when we’re preparing to face (or recovering from) a life-threatening event? We have to let our lawyers dictate our healthcare plans? We have to fight off infection and disease with the added challenge of doing it with no rest? I’m hearing healthcare professionals say that their hands are tied. How can we untie them? How would hospitals be different if we let patients get some rest?

Except, you really don’t, do you?

Medium populates your front page with articles every day. A lot of them are new to you, but if your experience is anything like mine, you see several articles that you’ve seen for many days now. Articles you don’t want to read. Articles you will never want to read.

There’s no “X” button to get rid of them. There’s no way to change what you see.

I’ve tried opening these unwanted articles in hopes that Medium will think I’ve read them and give me something else instead. Nope. The unwanted article is still there the next day.

Maybe just opening wasn’t enough. I tried scrolling to the bottom in case there’s some algorithm that detects whether I’ve reached the end. That didn’t work either.

I tried SLOWLY scrolling, in case the system is able to measure how long I’ve spent on the article and keeps it on my homepage until I reach a certain read time. I don’t know, I’m not a programmer. I’m taking shots in the dark here. No luck — the article is still waiting for me the next morning.

I tried opening the same article more than once. STILL there the next day. WTF.

There is definitely SOME algorithm at work here. I know this because I made the mistake of reading a couple articles on feminism. Now I see feminism articles on a regular basis. Don’t get me wrong, I support feminism. But I don’t want to read about it every day.

Can we fix this, please? Can I remove things I don’t want to read so that I can read more? Can I exclude categories I don’t care about, or have had enough of?

I love this site. I want to go on loving it. Help me love you, Medium.

Women Really Suck at the Online Dating Game

Online dating is a game. Sort of a high-stakes boardgame, like I don’t know… “deathmatch checkers,” but without the knife fights, and death and so forth. The winners of this game find a partner that they get to spend a portion of their life with, whether that portion is an hour, 5 months, or a lifetime. If you’ve never played it, I recommend it. It’s quite fun, and lots of cool people are playing all around the world. It’s so fun that I’ve recently decided to become an online-dating-game coach.

I’ve decided to focus most of my effort on coaching female players, like those creepy Russian guys who coach Olympic gymnastics, because with 1 or 2 exceptions, the female online-daters I have encountered are absofuckinglutely terrible at the game. I have no idea why this is. BUT, here are some thoughts from my side of things in the hope of improving your play as best I can. I’ve taken note of where you ladies seem to be going wrong, and I’ve come up with several takeaways that you can apply the next time you sign on.

RULES OF THE GAME

The only rule is that you get two strikes, and then you’re out, meaning the guy who was looking at your profile has moved on to the next profile without messaging you, or he’s received a message from you and has decided to ignore it.

A strike might be a few lazy misspellings on your profile… something that’s kind of lame, but forgivable. Another example might be that you list “The Bachelor” as your favorite show. Far from ideal, but we can work with it.

However, if in addition to liking an empty-headed reality show, you also have 16 pictures of you getting the inside of your mouth licked by the “love of your life” (otherwise known as a pitbull), or you’re wearing a fedora… well that’s strike two, and Mr. DreamyPants85 has moved on to someone else.

GAMEPLAY

There are 3 rounds in the online dating game: photos, bios, and messages. In order to get your bio read, you have to have great pictures. In order to get a quality message, or a quality response to a message you send, you have to hook someone in with an intriguing bio.

You win the game by successfully going on a date with a person you’re interested in, regardless of whether he invited you, or you invited him.

ROUND 1: YOUR PHOTOS

Your photo is your first and most critical move, like it or not. It should be a clear and honest representation of who you are. Sure, it can be artsy. Throw a vignette filter on it if you want. Your pic can be adventurous, sexy, or classy, or all three! That’s up to you. However, it should definitely not be a blurry picture of your left eyeball, or your nephew, or your dog. Guys don’t want to date your nephew or your dog. Guys want to date you.

I know some of that hiding or distracting-type behavior has to do with issues you may have about your appearance. (Trust me, guys have those issues too.) I can’t do much for you on the body issue front — that’s a problem for a different coach. But assuming you have made yourself as attractive as you can/want to be, be aware that there are some big fouls that many women make when it comes to their pictures:

You post pictures of yourself in large groups of women

This is a problem for 2 reasons:

1) If you don’t post any solo pics or provide detailed descriptions for each of your group pics, the guy may have no idea which person you actually are. It’s amazing how often this happens. Look, there are plenty of women on these sites who know how to take a proper picture of themselves, so a guy is likely to move on to them rather than sift through your crowded shots of sorority reunions, bridesmaid photos, and pics from a red-cup party where 3/4 of your beautiful face is hidden behind your bestie’s shoulder.

2) You don’t want to compete with your friends. This is about you. If you have a large group in your pic, don’t be surprised if a dude messages you to ask if your friend is available. In my experience, if a woman does not identify herself in a group photo, then she is most likely the least attractive woman in the photo. So far, that assumption has proven to be about 97.3% accurate.

You post a picture of you with your ex

You may have blurred his face, scribbled all over him, or put a “this could be you” sticker over his face, but the dude is still there. Everyone has a past, and that’s fine, but showing a pic of your beheaded ex is not a great way to start a new romance. It’d be like showing up to your first date with your ex in tow, and saying to your new date, “ignore this other guy, it’s just my ex… now let’s get to know each other!”

TAKEAWAY 1: Post at least one clear, full-body, close-up picture of you, by yourself, and at least one of your face — again — clear and close-up. It’s not egotistical. It’s who you are. It’s who guys will want to date. If you want to have a couple of images with your friends up there as well, fine, just make sure that it’s obvious which one is you. The best way to do this is to identify yourself in the photo description: “I’m on the left in the ‘ALF’ t-shirt.”

You’re in denial about your body

This problem has three primary manifestations:

1) You’re flat-out hiding your body with down-the-shirt “I’ll hypnotize you with boobs” pics. Don’t get me wrong, boobs are great and all, but this does not communicate “I’m a confident, liberated woman who is comfortable in her skin.” It says, “ignore everything else on my profile, because boobs.”

2) You’re hiding your body with headshot selfies. In fact, you’ve posted 13 of them, and they’re all the exact same shot of your face, just with slightly different backgrounds. Men as a gender have a form of ADHD, and constantly need new information. What are you giving us by repeating the same pic?

3) You post pictures from 8 years and 34 pounds ago. There is nothing worse than showing up to a date and discovering that the woman you’re meeting is not what she claimed to be. How would you like it if a guy says on his profile that he’s 6'2", but shows up to the date and is basically a leprechaun? I’m guessing you would not be thrilled.

TAKEAWAY 2: Keep your pictures current, and make sure they show all of you. Provide a diversity of backgrounds and poses if possible. (See TAKEAWAY 1.) Don’t hide. The fella is going to find out the truth eventually, so get it out in the open as soon as possible. Be confident in who you are, and if you’re struggling with that, fake it! You may find that you gradually get more comfortable with yourself as a result.

Fake tans and duckfaces

Like I said before, you get only 2 strikes in the online dating game. Duckface = 2 strikes. Fake tan = 2 strikes. I’ve got to be real with you: WE ALL KNOW that it’s a fake tan. It doesn’t look good, and it tells us that you either lack self-awareness, or are too dumb to realize that tanning causes cancer.

TAKEAWAY 3: Don’t post duckfaces. Stop going to tanning beds and using spray tans. It’s not working, and it’s unhealthy. Look, I’m your coach. I hate to be the one to burst your bubble on this, but it’s for your own good. I want you to win.

You already have a boyfriend

So many of you have multiple pictures of your pet, or rather, of you making out with your pet, sleeping with your pet, or having brunch with your pet, that I begin to wonder if pitbulls have become a new cultural present that you’re supposed to give your daughter when she turns 21.

Many guys like animals. However, most guys do not like kissing someone who shares drinks with animals. Nor do they like being talked at through a pet. “Mr. Wiggles thinks you’re very cute, doesn’t he?”

TAKEAWAY 4: Keep your pet pics PG-13 will ya? We get it, you want to tell people you’re an animal person. Cool. Just don’t take it too far… make sure to also be a people person.

ROUND 2: YOUR BIOS

Your photos are your opening move, but your bio is the most important part of your profile, and as such, should not be half-assed. That is, of course, unless you’re only on the dating site to hook up, in which case all you need is a shot of your chest, or ass, or both. If that’s what you’re out to do, fine, keep up the good work. BUT, if you’re looking to get involved with someone that you may actually want to talk to, we’ve got to address some things. Some are red flags (2 strikes) and some are yellow (1 strike).

RED FLAGS IN YOUR BIOS

1) If you say “you don’t want drama” in your life, frankly, my dear… you are the drama, and smart guys have already moved on to the next profile. That’s all there is to it. That phrase is a dead giveaway that you attract drama, you cause it, you make it worse. The first step to getting rid of drama is to stop mentioning drama everywhere you go, and to stop talking shit about other people behind their backs. You can do it. I believe in you. This is personal growth, so it’ll hurt, but it’s worth it, and the guys you attract will be as well.

2) You use some form of the phrase “if you want to know more, just ask.” Ask what? What your hobbies are? What you’re looking for in a date? What your background is? That’s what the profile is asking… Stop being lazy. Type your answers in the boxes, and let’s see if you’re someone we want to talk to! If you don’t answer these questions, you’re placing all the emphasis on your picture, and taking all of the focus off of you as a person. Is that what you want? Everyone should have some kind of personality — don’t hide yours behind these pointless statements.

3) You have more spelling errors than we can count. …And believe me, smart guys are counting. Proper use of language is a measure of intelligence, like it or not. If you sound like an uneducated putz, then you’re not likely to get messages from guys who are worth your time.

4) You spend your valuable profile real estate bitching about guys who post pics of their abs. Shouldn’t your profile be about you, and not about guys you don’t want messaging you? Delete messages from losers. Don’t talk at them through your profile.

5) You describe yourself as a princess. What is it about being a princess that you think is appealing? Think about what the word “princess” implies… Demanding, selfish, spoiled, obnoxious, snobbish, petty, greedy, childish… none of these words are particularly attractive. Imagine if a guy posted on his profile, “I’m a king and I want to be served, get over it ladies.” Would you want to message him?

6) You sound like a big ol’ whiner. “Are there any good guys left out there?” “No one reads these things anyway.” This is a good way to repel someone, not attract them. At best, it’ll attract a pessimistic, unmotivated loser who shares your belief that out of the 7 billion people in the world, none of them will ever connect with you, and together you can die miserable and alone. So, there’s that I guess.

TAKEAWAY 5: Avoid using phrases from your high school instant messaging profile. It may be uncomfortable to write about yourself, but at some point you’re going to have to let people know who you are if you want them to date you. Someone will find you interesting, because someone — in fact, lots of someones — has/have the same interests, preferences, and goals as you. They may not look like you imagined, or fit your ideal description, but that’s not his fault! It’s your fault for thinking up a fake guy, and asking someone else to wear that imagined guy’s clothes.

5A) The acronym I have seen a number of times and think is quite useful is “FORD,” which stands for Family, Occupation, Recreation, and Dreams. These are the things you want to cover, both in your profile and when you get into the messaging phase. You don’t have to tell us everything, just give us some conversation starters. If you don’t want people to send you a message that just says, “hey cutie” then you’re going to have to give us something to work with. “If you wanna know something, just ask” is code for “move along, nothing to see here.”

5B) If you aren’t a great writer, that’s FINE! There are lots of interesting women who aren’t great writers. Get someone to help you. If you’re embarrassed, go online and find a service to assist you. Say… an online dating coach, perhaps? There are some very reasonable options out there.

ROUND 3: MESSAGING

Getting a message from someone who intrigues you, or a response to a message you sent is like the dating game lightning round, or Final Jeopardy. You have to respond within a reasonable amount of time, but not come off too strong. You have to give enough information about yourself without sounding needy. It’s a very challenging part of the game. It’s not like your bio where you have tons of time to write, edit, and get feedback. You have to think on your feet. Here are some things to keep in mind:

Don’t send “hey” messages

I was surprised when I got my first “hey” message. I was far more surprised when I got one after another after another. For some reason, I never imagined women could be so inarticulate. What the hell am I supposed to do with “hey”? Look, we all know the first message is a throwaway. You just have to initiate contact. BUT, you should have more than 3 words in your opening move. “Hey, you look nice, and you sound nice” is still horrible, but miles ahead of “hey.”

TAKEAWAY 6: Say more than “hey.” Ask a question. Questions are the fuel which a guy can use to ignite the blazing hot fire of your romance-in-the-making. Here’s a great example that you could model your message after:

“Hi there, handsome. I must say, you look quite dashing with that beard! My name is ____. I really like your profile, and I think we have a lot in common. I saw you’re a musician. What do you play? If you’re interested in chatting, I’d love to hear from you, but if not, that’s cool too, and all the best with your search! Have a good day!”

The message is polite. The sender proved she had actually read the receiver’s profile. She asked a question which can easily start a conversation. She ended it on a high note, and showed she wouldn’t take rejection personally. Flawless execution!

Don’t be a penpal

Online dating websites, unless otherwise noted, are not online messaging websites. It seems reasonable to me that if you connect with someone after 3–4 messages, it’s time to grab coffee. (Do it in a public place, obviously, don’t be stupid.)

TAKEAWAY 7: No sensible adult wants their time wasted, or wants to waste someone else’s time. If you want to date, go date. If you don’t want to meet, you should be up front about it. Consider messaging guys from around the country or world so that everyone knows a meeting is unlikely.

BONUS ROUND: PERSONAL ISSUES YOU NEED TO GET OVER

You think that all the good men will flock to you with no effort on your part

It’s certainly POSSIBLE. Maybe you have a perfect blend of gorgeous photo and fascinating profile. Maybe OKCupid, Plenty of Fish, and Match have you ranked high in their algorithms, so you show up in the search pages for every attractive male in a 20-mile radius around your home. BUT, think how much more likely it is that you’ll find someone worth finding if you ALSO message guys you’re interested in, rather than sitting on your ass, waiting for the right guy to find you in a pile of thousands of other profiles. This is not Tudor-era England, and you are not waiting in the king’s court to be suited by Dukes and Lords. It’s the 21st century, and women need to work too.

TAKEAWAY 8: Go out there and look for your guy…unless you only want to date guys that send you “hey hot stuff let’s chat” messages. A lot of people think and behave like online dating is a waste of time. I’ll grant you, it’s expensive if you go out often. It can suck your time and energy. But, we’re talking about someone who you could end up spending a huge amount of time with — maybe even spend your life with — isn’t that worth some of your time, attention, and money?

You’re in denial about online dating

Some of you are saying “ew, online dating? That’s gross.” Some of you are even posting that as your headline on your ONLINE DATING PROFILE. Other variants include “I’m new to this online dating thing,” “I don’t know about this site…” and my personal favorite, “Tried this before and it didn’t work — here we go again!” You need to cut this shit out, because:

1) You have a very small window of male attention span with which to grab a male’s interest. What is it you’re hoping to accomplish by sharing this information? At best, it’s wasted real estate. It’s even more useless than typing “let me know if you have any questions” at the end of every work email. At worst, it’s a groan-inducing strike against you.

2) How the hell else are adults supposed to meet these days? Sure, you might bump into a cute guy at the grocery store, but what are the chances that he also shares your interests, and is also kind, and also single, and also happens to be a good communicator who knows how to treat women? The “meet cute” thing is an antiquated concept perpetuated by the ridiculous Nicholas Sparks girl-porn you read and watch, and by your grandmother’s outdated concepts of the way relationships “should be.” Trust me, if your gram-gram had some internet savvy, she would be out trolling for old-lady-lovin’ on oldpeoplegetlucky.com.

TAKEAWAY 9: Online dating is a hell of a lot simpler for us guys than getting treated like a creeper because we interrupted a woman while she’s zombie-walking through a Trader Joe’s with her face buried in a phone. Why?

9A) We all know why we’re there. You’re on the site to date. So are the guys! There are no surprises or awkwardnesses. You can just ignore a message if you’re not interested in someone. No hard feelings. If someone hassles or annoys you, block them! So simple! No one’s getting any drinks thrown in their faces, no one’s getting beaten up by jealous meat-head boyfriends who happened to be in the bathroom making it appear that you were alone at the bar, and no one’s avoiding their favorite hangout because they got shut down hard by someone who was out of their league.

9B) Dating is about sifting through the quantity to get to the quality. Statistically speaking, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll meet “the one” the first time you bump into someone at a movie theater, or accidentally get into the same cab and end up having coffee. It’s much more likely that you’ll meet a dream guy after going on a frustrating amount of dates with guys who don’t quite make the cut. This is how you learn what your deal-breakers and must-haves are. Use these experiences as opportunities to learn about yourself and others.

OWN THE GAME

To review:

-Take some flattering, clear, full-body, honest pics of yourself.

-Come to terms with the fact that online dating is an unavoidable part of the dating world that we live in.

-Make your profile a good (but concise) representation of who you are, what you like, and what you’re looking for.

-Don’t waste your time, and don’t waste our time.

-Work on you. No one wants to be with a princess. No one wants to be with a drama queen, someone who is creepily in love with their pet, or a Jersey girl (I’m from Jersey so I’m allowed to say that).

You’ve just been handed a ton of valuable inside info from the opposing team. You can’t lose. Go out there, and kick ass. If you need some one-on-one coaching time, I’m available for the low, low price of $350.00 an hour.

Illustrations by Adams

Dear Women, You Really Suck at the Online Dating Game was originally published in Observations on Love on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.