Damn Maestro, very slick! Despite your success, sounds like you kept your spending low - even for the finest Danish in the city.  

You must have dated a lot of hipsters...ZING!

Also, what's with that photo? It has to be over-doctored.  There is something very unnatural-looking about that ass.

It makes me extremely uncomfortable that this, apparently, "works":

“…we could drink our beverage from porcelain cups and discuss all matters of the human condition. I ensure a good time will be had by all. If I disappoint, I will reimburse you the cost of one bonus Danish, which you can eat at your leisure at some point later down the road.”

Pastries -- the perfect lure when you're fishing for fat chicks.

Damn... with the "You're Adorable" part being neither here nor there, I was thinking these might be the kind of messages I would actually respond to.  What a way to throw even more insecurity into my dating game.  I knew I'd been picking 'em wrong somehow...

That is one of the most unnatural photoshop jobs I've ever seen!  Not that Amber isn't an attractive woman, but she looks like an anime figure there.  Horrible!  

The humor thing eludes me.  The most common requirements I see on female profiles are

must have sense of humor

if you can make me laugh you're already there

And the like...  Sense of humor is really subjective.  For example, I don't recall ever laughing at Seinfeld, but lots of people I know can repeat taglines from that show and double over laughing.  Why don't people ever volunteer info on what they find funny?  Like...

head injuries

old ladies falling on ice

a really bad hairpiece

etc.

ANYTHING... How is anybody expected to know what will make a stranger laugh?  If I scald my genitals with scorching hot coffee, will she find it funny?  If the couple next to us gets into a hairy argument, will she laugh?  I know I will!  

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall in an open manhole and die.

recycled--Glad you agree about the photo. Her ass looks both large and voluptuous and rock hard.  That is an surely an unnatural combination.  If an ass is rock hard, its' a smaller ass, while large and voluptuous asses are softer.  Her ass looks like it would pop if I stuck it with a pin. Or like it's made of some kind of shiny plastic. Or both. Really, they've gone so overboard with the highlights and shadow to add "defintion" that her whole body looks like a painting by a bad figure-drawing student. The space and light sources etc. dont' even make any sense. Please people, just let a beautiful woman's body be what it is!

Toluca--can't say I agree about responding. If a guy messaged me about sipping "piping hot" beverages from "porcelain cups" and discussing "all matters of the human condition" I'd be like "okay, he's trying waaaaay to hard."  Especially if he then tried to claim to be an English major who didn't know what a conjunction was for just so he could reference a schoolhouse rock song. But whatever works for you, Zeit.

Zeit--come on, dude, have a little sense of humor about yourself.  I haven't internet dated in a few years (I've been at capacity for a little while) and I never met anyone I was involved with through internet dating (a few friends though) so maybe I'm not the person to ask, but there's definitely something in between a monosyllabic grunt and some contrived-sounding pop culture references and college student-y self-conscious wit. But hey, if it got you some nice ladies, why should you care what I think? More power to you.

Also, that ass is not "firm" it looks ROCK HARD and like I could see my reflection in it. I tell you, that is not natural! My only point was, why couldn't they have just left her ass alone, even with a dimple or two.

yup. i can corroborate. i was the recipient of the school house rock email and i did - in fact - respond. that was the entire message, by the way, it didn't start with the spring is sprung routine or the piping hot / porcelain cup routine, which also might have struck me as a bit much. but the "you're adorable" charmed me and the next message included an offer of coffee and a danish.

it never happened. i went out of town and when i came back z's profile was no longer active. c'est la vie.

oh yeah, that was me. there were a few more exchanges about nostalgic childhood memories, halloween costumes, math, christmas tree and pumpkin farms. you claimed to have gone dressed as a "greaser" every year, and gotten beat up by the tough kids who collected treats in pillow cases, when all you had was a plastic pumpkin and candy cigarettes rolled into your sleeve.

clearly i am impressed by manly men.

and you didn't not follow up. we had plans. i had a mid week trip but we were set for saturday. got back in town, went to email you about the time and your profile was nowhere to be found. i can only assume upon closer examination i was found lacking in the sweater treasure department.

oh, and i'm with LS. i'm quite sure that ass is glorious in it's natural state but this pic is all kinds of ridiculous.

Yes, exactly, since I've been college age much more recently than you (btw, how do you know my age, I don't recall mentioning it) I KNOW college student-y when I see it! And if a guy asked me to discuss "all matters of the human condition" over coffee, I'd pretty much assume that he'd then want to deconstruct the heteronormative hegemony of polyphony or whatever. And talk about the banal values of the bourgeoisie and how Noam Chomsky is GOD! GOD I TELL YOU!!!

And there's no way that ass would swing. If it were touched it would probably give nary a ripple.  Well, her real ass probably would.  The ass in that photo doesn't actually exist, it's a Frankenstein of photo-touching. I stand by my position.

Yarr!  The deeper the gills, the bigger the thrills!

Huh? I'm 23, not 20.  I don't know what you're looking at because I never set up a profile. Maybe information from when I first signed up 3 years ago. There's no photo because I don't use Hooksexup, only read it.

I'm all for discussing the human condition but you can't start that conversation by saying "Let's discuss the human condition!" LAME!!!! But seriously, take a joke.

And I'm only continuing to discuss the ass because people keep on engaging the conversation. Don't blame this one on me, mister.  And this isn't a knock of big bottoms by the way, in case that's what it sounds like. I'm just advocating that big bottoms be allowed to fly free in all their bumcakey, mud flappy glory--no touching up!

You're right - it is the "you're adorable" that would cinch it. Complimentary, evocative but not gushing. Damnit.

I notice how you didn't address adrift's last post... 'tis a pity.

LS: if you go back in the archives, you will learn that zeit developed his erotic psyche primarily through porn.  Realism is not strongly emphasized.

Huh, so that type of message works?  Who knew?  To me it seems both like the writer is trying too hard and that it's boilerplate.  I'd wonder how many other people got essentially the same message.

My first messages usually went something like, "I enjoyed your profile and the lovely smile in your photos.  [Insert reference to something specific in the profile, usually having to do with travel or books, or a career as a writer, lawyer or academic, or some other common interest or experience.]  I think we have common interests and values, and would enjoy talking, which is always a good place to start.  Best regards, Robert."  My intent was to show that I was actually interested in what the woman wrote in her profile and was not taking a shotgun approach by hitting on every single woman between the ages on 30 and 50.  My positive response rate with that type of message was about 10-20%.  Maybe I simply needed to be better-looking!

zeit:

You need to work ont he cleverness of your insults.  As a writer, I would expect more from you, yet I am repeatedly disappointed.

profrobert:

"I enjoyed your profile and the lovely smile in your photos."

Umm... no offense, profrobert, but yours to me is a lot like what you're accusing zeitgeisty of.  That sentence, for instance, is about as generic as generic gets.  But yeah, pry if you were Johnny Depp things would turn out differently. ;)

Toluca, yes, the first sentence was standard, but the bulk of the message was tied to the woman's profile.  I didn't always lead off with that; sometimes I'd launch right into what on the profile grabbed me (e.g., "Dear Username, I also spend a year traveling around the world and fell in love with the natural beauty of Vietnam . . ." etc.

You know, I really don't understand what women see in Johnny Depp.  He's a good actor, sure, but he has a really ghoulish aspect to my mind.  George Clooney I get.  Brad Pitt I get.  Johnny Depp -- I just don't see it.

Z, I'd point out two things in response: 1) My first name is part of my username, so my air of mystery is alreay dissipated, and 2) Whatever I was doing, it seems to have worked for my wife, whom I met on this site.  Maybe the real lesson is quality over quantity.

Zeit--no, there is no rule book. It's all a free-for-all. So that means you can start conversations in whichever way you want, and I can laugh at you as much as I want. Perfect!

I do agree with you about a couple things, in particular the careers conversation. BORING, I HATE that conversation. Especially since I play music in the evenings so that inevitably leads to the "Oh, what genre?" question, which seems logical but which is, as you probably know, the worst question ever. (Take note, people dating musicians!)

As for Johnny Depp, the ghoulishness is part of the sexiness.  Brad is boring. Johnny's got a little freak in him. rawr. (Although his prime was definitely the 90's).

I'm definitely not the target recipient of an email like that but there's nothing wrong with it as I'm sure it works swimmingly.  My style just isn't that sugar-coated-David-Sedaris cute.  I wanna go out with the guy laughing at head injuries.  We're all different.

Cancer, rape, and brain injury are all part of the human condition.  It helps to laugh.

Deep...

...

 ...

... as a puddle of urine.

I can only speak for the ones with brain injuries with whom I converse often and trust me...they find humor in EVERYTHING