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OK Cupid experiment: Full disclosure

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Jono
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07 Jan 2011, 12:28 pm

Grisha wrote:
UPDATE

I had my "Aspie" profile up for about an hour and got bit as soon as my bait hit the water. I exchanged about 5 emails with a cute local NT girl in the space of about an hour and it looks like it will probably end up being a date. So much for my hypothesis... :roll:

Anyway, could just be an outlier, I'll wait and see how things trend in the longer term...


Just my opinion here but I think a first meeting might be more successful than the ones you had previously. From what I remember, I think the pre-dates you had before weren't successful because at that stage the women had made incorrect assumptions about you based on what your profile implied. I think any meeting you have now will be more successful because of the improvements you made to your profile. However, I don't think mentioning that you have Asperger Syndrome will have any effect either way with the first meeting of this particular girl. I think it will be successful because of the other improvements you've made to your profile. It's possible that she wasn't turned off because she knows about AS and is more open-minded than some other people.

When she messaged you, did she say anything about your AS at all?



Grisha
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07 Jan 2011, 12:35 pm

Quote:
When she messaged you, did she say anything about your AS at all?


Not explicitly, she just said "honesty is the best policy"

I didn't really belabor the point, we were too busy chatting about other things. She seems a little "quirky" herself, which of course I find infinitely attractive, one of the reasons I messaged her in the first place...



Jono
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07 Jan 2011, 12:39 pm

starygrrl wrote:
I don't think being an aspie hurts you. In fact you being honest about who you are helps more than anything. It just changes what doors open rather than closes doors. Knowing more than the basic stuff early on does help.


There are both pros and cons. There are definitely some people who, I wouldn't say are prejudiced but you could say are ignorant. For example, when I first asked for advice on WP about my profile, one member who mentioned AS in his profile said that a girl he chatted to dismissed him because of it and said that she "wanted someone with more empathy". That's despite the fact that people with AS don't necessarily lack empathy in that sense of the word.

Anyway, revealing AS early doesn't necessarily mean mentioning it in your profile. I was always planning to reveal it on my first or second date.



Moog
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07 Jan 2011, 1:56 pm

starygrrl wrote:
I don't think being an aspie hurts you. In fact you being honest about who you are helps more than anything. It just changes what doors open rather than closes doors. Knowing more than the basic stuff early on does help.


Being an aspie doesn't hurt us, no. We are (for the most part) great people with a lot to offer in a relationship. What can potentially hurt us is distorted perceptions of what AS actually is.

Of course there are a great number of people we just won't be compatible with, but I would work with the assumption that some people we might be compatible with could see AS on a profile and decide to give us a miss, and that would be a shame. Judging by the ignorant ideas among the people I speak to about AS, and even things perpetuated by aspies themselves on these boards, I feel you have to assume a high level of ignorance in your readership. Then there's always that standard human fear of the unknown.

You can always disclose to select individuals if you feel someone would be receptive to knowing, whether that is near the beginning, or a little bit further on.

Anyway, I'm proselytizing again, and it's probably not warranted here. :roll: Sorry.

Good luck Grisha. I think there must be a word for when you do the opposite of what you think would work and it works. And if there isn't then there should be.


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Laz
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07 Jan 2011, 8:36 pm

Well. I thought I should mention that tonight I was contacted by someone on okcupid with quite positive remarks, part of the reason they contacted me was because of me disclosing that I have AS on my profile. So read into that what you will.

No idea what will come of that



Grisha
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07 Jan 2011, 9:13 pm

For the people who have been around here for a while, guess who was "hitting" on me on OKC?

The Face of Boo!

He asked me to send his regards to the forum, it's a real shame he got banned...



Esther
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07 Jan 2011, 10:13 pm

I like it, Grisha. I agree that it was a good idea to delete your Mensa IQ. I would be more nervous about that than your AS actually if I was looking to message you. Good luck with your date.



Jono
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08 Jan 2011, 9:24 am

Laz wrote:
Well. I thought I should mention that tonight I was contacted by someone on okcupid with quite positive remarks, part of the reason they contacted me was because of me disclosing that I have AS on my profile. So read into that what you will.

No idea what will come of that


Good luck. And good luck to Grisha as well. I've been thinking of disclosing my AS to the girl I'm chatting with as well, but I'll wait and see if I decide to do so.



Quartz11
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08 Jan 2011, 9:38 am

I put the asperger's reveal under the "most private thing I'm willing to admit" section



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08 Jan 2011, 10:08 am

Chronos wrote:
And how many people think they are not intelligent? Very few!

-Raises hand- :(



Laz
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08 Jan 2011, 12:09 pm

Quartz11 wrote:
I put the asperger's reveal under the "most private thing I'm willing to admit" section


Same here. It was either that or that I own an album by Erasure



ApsieGuy
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08 Jan 2011, 5:51 pm

Grisha wrote:
starygrrl wrote:
I don't think being an aspie hurts you. In fact you being honest about who you are helps more than anything. It just changes what doors open.

I would drop the mensa bit and just say you are intelligent. Mensa doesn't mean much honestly.

I would be careful about how you list the income, I would put it in the side part where it gives you the option to list demographic information, supposably guys with 100K+ jobs have really high response rates, so it is still good to list it. I would mention you have a stable job and profession, and even mentioning your career a bit can help.


I already dropped the Mensa thing, I adopted Chronos' text verbatim.

My income is in my demographic information, but like I mentioned before I don't think women care as much as is commonly believed.

I transitioned to being self-employed/entrepeneur in 2010, before that I was a sell-side analyst on Wall Street. I was a finalist for the Wall Street Journal's "Best on the Street" in 2009 in my sector (pharmaceuticals), but it seems too arrogant to mention it. My policy is to only disclose the details if asked...




I didn't know women didn't care as much as commonly believed. I don't know where we get this warped perception that all women care about is money. I don't know if it's an aspergers perspective...



Grisha
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08 Jan 2011, 6:05 pm

Laz wrote:
Quartz11 wrote:
I put the asperger's reveal under the "most private thing I'm willing to admit" section


Same here. It was either that or that I own an album by Erasure


Erasure?! Dude, seriously... :wink:



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08 Jan 2011, 6:05 pm

I saw your profile and it sounds pretty good. Id say change your profile pic cause you look really unhappy. Its good for you to explain about this further in your profile. A lot of women when scanning thru profiles, might screen you out just cause of your picture before taking a look at the profile. While it is shallow, were not gonna read every single profile on that site, u probably dont read every single profile you come across. And about the aspergers thing, it sounds fine but when you say "autistic" thats what might turn people off. Autism is still seen as a very negative thing. A lot of people arent gonna be aware of Aspergers/Autism or that your high functioning on the spectrum, the word autism could easily scare a person off. Even tho you seem to present things fairly well, a lotta people might just scan thru your profile and not read it carefully.

Personally I have an okcupid as well, and often times I just scan thru the profiles aiming at some key words, if I find them or if the profile doesnt scare me off, I will read it more carefully then. I dont disclose aspergers on mine, while my aspieness is important, I can pull of normalcy until u actually get to know me. Then i'll disclose. I havent ever found my disclosing to be a problem, but then when they've already gotten a better sense of me, its different. But if your disclosing on your profile(the 1st impression) people can be more judgmental. I guess it depends how severe u are on the spectrum, if aspergers affects u that much in your life, u might feel its necessary.



Quartz11
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08 Jan 2011, 6:08 pm

This is what I put, in previously mentioned section...

Quote:
So I have a mild case of Asperger's. It's not very noticeable unless you've known me for a while. In summary: above average intelligence, but not the most socialable person in the world. I'm still friendly, but it's just a little more interesting to completely understand me.


By this point, you've already had to have been reading quite a bit anyway. So how turned off could one really be, even with the way I've stated it.



Grisha
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08 Jan 2011, 6:17 pm

Ai_Ling wrote:
I saw your profile and it sounds pretty good. Id say change your profile pic cause you look really unhappy. Its good for you to explain about this further in your profile. A lot of women when scanning thru profiles, might screen you out just cause of your picture before taking a look at the profile. While it is shallow, were not gonna read every single profile on that site, u probably dont read every single profile you come across. And about the aspergers thing, it sounds fine but when you say "autistic" thats what might turn people off. Autism is still seen as a very negative thing. A lot of people arent gonna be aware of Aspergers/Autism or that your high functioning on the spectrum, the word autism could easily scare a person off. Even tho you seem to present things fairly well, a lotta people might just scan thru your profile and not read it carefully.

Personally I have an okcupid as well, and often times I just scan thru the profiles aiming at some key words, if I find them or if the profile doesnt scare me off, I will read it more carefully then. I dont disclose aspergers on mine, while my aspieness is important, I can pull of normalcy until u actually get to know me. Then i'll disclose. I havent ever found my disclosing to be a problem, but then when they've already gotten a better sense of me, its different. But if your disclosing on your profile(the 1st impression) people can be more judgmental. I guess it depends how severe u are on the spectrum, if aspergers affects u that much in your life, u might feel its necessary.


Thanks so much for taking the time to help.

I think you're probably right about the photo, on OKC you can see visitors (unless they've hidden themselves and I'm not sure how common that is). When I message someone, I would expect them to at least view the profile even if they don't ultimately respond to the message.

I would say at least half of the people I message don't even view the profile (AFAIK), this means the only thing (besides my message) they know about me is my crappy photo - they never even got to the point of reading about my AS or anything else.

Believe it or not, that photo tested the best when I used the OKC "rate my photo" utility and I also made the "top 50%" cut (which permits you to view the most attractive OKC profiles). Maybe I should use my avatar photo? At least I have it handy...