I seem to have struck out. After 2+ hours, my quest to find a last-minute Valentine using social media has come up dry. There’s reason for you to be hopeful on your own search, though.
https://gizmodo.com/the-best-place-to-get-a-last-minute-internet-valentines-5884771
For one, it’s not exactly romantic to include terms and conditions of your proposition. And for another, I probably could have executed this a little better. Here’s how things went down:
The Best: Facebook
One of the more serious offers I got came from a friend’s older brother offering up his fiancé’s sister. Which was kind of confusing, but he seemed pretty excited about it. I got a few similar offered hookups on Facebook, and honestly, that sort of makes sense. At least for me, Facebook has the most people that I actually know, and might offer to set me up with someone.
The Most Horrifying: Craigslist
Again, obvious. Makes sense. But good god, I can’t believe for a second that a person can find anything but casual (and equally horrifying) sex on craigslist. At least as a guy making a post. I received a few replies from reply-bots advertising escort services, and one very graphic proposition, with embedded pictures.
hopin to hav some fun. rly like your pix. do u no red hoko?! wanna accom* at my house
Our research shows that “accom” basically means “have sex at my house,” which we didn’t know.
The Worst: Twitter
Don’t look for dates on Twitter, unless you’re a professional athlete. It’s terrible! I got a bunch of replies and retweets, but no one actually taking the exercise seriously. OK, it probably didn’t help that my account is infested with horrible trolls posting not-super-helpful things, but still. The very format makes actually interacting on a serious level impossible. What’s tremendous for digesting a headline or breaking bits of news is not so great for asking someone to engage with you on a human level.
Radio Silence: Google+, OkCupid
Well this was my first public post on Google+, and I’ve only posted one or two things to it since I got into the beta, so it turning up dry isn’t much of a surprise. In OkCupid’s case, this wasn’t incredibly fair. I set up a totally new profile, and only answered a few dozen questions and filled in the essays. The service just isn’t set up to attract people on a specific day, and immediately. I probably (maybe?) would have had better luck if I’d reached out and messaged people.
Lessons Learned
Don’t wait until Valentine’s Day afternoon to try to get a date. But if you have to, and you work up the guts to ask people who you (sort of) know for help, just be sincere. Finding a date online is a lot like finding one in real life: You stand a much better chance of finding one if you don’t just sit on your ass and wait for someone to approach you. Send someone a message on OkCupid. Or reply to a craigslist ad that doesn’t appear to be a prostitute (even though it’s probably a prostitute). Always include a picture. Basically, don’t half-ass it.
