Rated Wrong's Guide to Online Dating - Part 2 - Your Dating Options

So, now that you know how to look respectable online we've come to the second quesiton of online dating:  Where to put your respectable profile.

There are a lot of choices.  All are good.  All are bad.  All are different.

Here is a breakdown of the many different ways you can go.

OKCupid (Online Dating for Poor People)

Type: Free Site (with pay benefits)

MY EXPERIENCE:

Membership Length: Several Years

Number of Dates: 15+

The most established of your free options, and the best.

Highly customizable and a fantastic layout make the site easy to navigate and optimal for getting to know your potential dates.

The greatest flaw of OKCupid comes with one of its biggest selling points:  it's free.  Free dating sites tend to attract more lurkers and creeps.  The free aspect also means you get a lot of people not really interested in meeting so you can waste a lot of time reading about and talking to people that won't ever go out with you.

Match.com (Online dating for old people)

Type: Pay Site

MY EXPERIENCE:

Membership Length: seven months

Number of Dates: 3

The OG dating site.  It was what people used for online dating before it was cool.  For the more serious and sophisticated individual.  Which is all true, but it doesn't translate into more dates.

While, OKCupid's best feature is its personalization, Match goes the route of connections.  Every facet of Match is designed around putting people profiles in front of you, encouraging you to meet somebody.  While this helps you see as many potential dates as possible, it doesn't do much for getting to know them.  "You both like books!" is a great example of a completely sincere attempt by Match's dating gods to get you to talk to someone.  Even for those who believe the only way to really get to know someone is to meet them, it's a bit sparse.

Tinder (Hot or Not dating app)

Type: Free App

Membership Length: 5 Months

MY EXPERIENCE:

Number of Dates: 3

The no frills dating site.  it says "Hey we know you only care about the pictures anyway."  It's no frills dating site.  Do you like this face?  Want to kiss it?  Then swipe right.

Features an incredibly high percentage of ridiculously good looking people on it compared to other sites and apps.  Of course, none of them will ever go out with you, but its nice to see them.  

Biggest problem: Girls are notoriously picky on tinder and guys are the opposite.

Happn (Not as Good Tinder...It might be French)

Type: Free App (With Pay Benefits)

MY EXPERIENCE:

Length of Use: 4 Months

Number of Dates: 0

A lot like Tinder but with a worse interface.  Only shown people that were in the same place as you recently.

Bristlr (Tinder but only with beards)

Type: Free App (with pay benefits)

MY EXPERIENCE:

Length of Use: 3 weeks

Number of Dates: 1

Like Tinder but for guys with beards.  More fun than Happn but the interface is atrocious.

How to Survive New Years in New York City

New Years is right around the corner.

Ugh.

New year, same old cluster fuck.

No matter how well you plan, it always turns into a disaster culminating in a walk home where you're asking yourself, "why?"

Show up someplace with your friends at 11pm, it's kind of lame but you don't really have time to get anywhere else before midnight so you decide to stick it out.  You scan the room looking for a hot single somebody that you might be able to hook up with but the only person in the very crowded bar or party that doesn't have a date other than you is that very same person who want stop jabbering in your ear.  You manage to get separated from your friends and spend the first 7 of the 10 second countdown looking for them before you tell yourself fuck it and give a half hearted "happy new year" to some random couple making out next to you.  Then, when you do find your friends at least one of them has managed somehow to get completely shit faced so when you attempt to find somewhere else to go you go between trying to keep them from belligerently shouting at everyone they walk by and waiting for them to piss in some alley.

Well, I'm not promising that this year will be any different for you but if you follow my guidlines you can at least minimize the damage.

Don't Do It

Just don't.  Any of it.  It's not worth it.  You're not going to get laid.  You're not even going to get a proper anonymous make out sesh.  All you'll get is a hangover the next day and healthy dose of regret.  Still set on venturing out into the night?  Okay then...

Stay Away From Times Square and Other Tourist Hell Holes

For God's sake.

Don't Swing For the Fences

You try to go big on New Year's in NYC you will go home a failure.  Aim small. Go to a party where there will be less than 50 people, and you know at least half of them.  No party invites?  Go to a bar within walking distance of where you live, or at least no further than five subway stops and go with just one or two friends, big groups equals a big headache.

Don't Bar Hop Before Midnight

You're at a party at 11pm but its kind of lame, you're at some bar but its too damn crowded.  Stick it out.  After the 10:30 threshold, by the time you are able to round up everyone in your crew and find another place you'll be knocking on midnight and stone sober.

Pace Yourself With the Booze... Or Not

The worst thing for New Year's midnight rolling in and you find yourself already too drunk to walk straight.  Not only does it make your life difficult but you don't want to force your friends to babysit you the rest of the night.  But on second thought, if you don't do it, one of your friends will.

Wait Til After Midnight to Bail on Your Friends

If you do find yourself with a big group on New Year's it can become a hassle keeping everybody happy. Don't bail on them early, but after midnight it might be a good idea to go your own, break off with a smaller group of friends, or head out with some new friends you might have made.  Loyalty is important, but life is to short to be miserable, even with friends.

Look like this the next day? You should be so lucky.

Don't Try to Hook Up With Anybody

Just a good general rule to follow whenever you go out. Let love (and by "love" I mean probably a one night stand that will result in no further communication between parties besides a few friendly texts the next day) find you. A lot of people are desperate on New Year's, that means that you don't have to be.  If you go out trying to have a good time, you just might.  If you go out trying to get laid, you're probably going home disappointed.

So that's it.  That's what I got.  If you must go out on New Year's Eve, be safe and follow these guidlines.  You might just wake up the next morning not regretting the way you ended the last year.

Jurassic World, Star Wars, Terminator, Teaser Trailers for Teaser Trailers and 2015: The Year of the Franchise

Unless you hate the internet or are Robin Williams' chracter from Jumanji you've seen both the new teaser trailers for Jurassic World and Star Wars: Episode VII.  Well today, we've got another one.  Not a teaser trailer, but a teaser trailer for the teaser trailer.  This time for the upcoming 5th installment to the wayward Terminator franchise: Terminator: Genisys (actually its a reboot, but whatevs).

Yeah, that's right, there isn't very much to see.  For a franchise that has been unable to find its mojo ever since 1991, fans seem pretty wary.  Regardless of the film's quality, this pre-teaser marks a trend for big tent pole films that is dangerously close to becoming a staple of big budget films.  With Jurassic Park and Star Wars setting the precedent it would appear that movie studios are very close to finding yet another way to cash in.

For years now, the quality of trailers have gotten higher and higher.  It is the norm for trailers to feature exclusive music score and dialogue.  Completely mediocre movies have had heartstopping traielrs (Man of Steel).  It would be no stretch at all to see websites start paying big bucks for exclusive rights to certain trailers (at least, for the first few weeks of their release).

Hollywood has approached a time in their history when making a good trailer can actually be just as lucrative as making a good movie (Man of Steel grossed over 668 million dollars).

Hunger Games 4, the search for even more money.

2015 is likely to be a big year for the box office.  Between the aforementioned films, the final Hunger Games, Avengers 2, and yet another James Bond movie it is likely to be one crowded summer action plate.   So brace yourself for total saturation of the trailer for the trailer of the trailer.  I can deal with all of these unorginal, over long, nice looking but mostly hollow action adventrues, but I just ask that I am spared the absurd hype machine surrounding them.  I could call them Overrated but that won't save me from them.  Next summer is going to be very noisy and I'm probably not going to spend much time at the movie theater... except for Star Wars, I'm so excited to be disappointed by that shit.