Dating sites are not like shopping online. You can't just find exactly what you want and add it to you life.

I used okcupid to find someone who doesn't make my problems into bigger problems. He doesn't give me problems for having problems.

Don't hide your flaws on a dating site.

Lunch dates are the best. Movie dates are pointless wastes of time.

When meeting a stranger, it's helpful to have a place you need to be after the meeting. Keep your identity private, your home, your work, etc.

I know my city well. Drop me anyplace and I can get to any other place, no problems. Sure I got into a few stranger's cars. Young men with new cars, saddled with student debt and car payments tend to not want to crash them. I was always prepared to grab the steering wheel and swerve the car if the driver turned out to be an unreasonable maniac but luckily I never encountered a really bad person.

I don't drink alcohol. The only reason why is that I plain just don't like it. If someone was pressuring me to drink, I knew immediately I didn't want that person in my life. I'm a medical marijuana patient, if someone has a problem with that then they're also out of my life.

If someone tries to get you to do something you don't want to do, then cut your losses and get that person out of your life.

Waiting in line at the DMV is probably the most helpful date anyone can go on. If you can have fun with someone in that hell, then you know you've found a winner. Good people make everything slightly better, bad situations are more tolerable and neutral situations like traffic can be a blast.

If someone seems to be pulling out all the stops to impress you, they're probably lying to you about something. Besides dating is about seeing what life would be like with someone, and if they present a false image of that life, then it's a lie and not helpful to either party if the end goal is happiness.

There's no such thing as universal appeal. Everyone has a little list of deal breakers. Example list: I'm allergic to cats. Can't tolerate the smell of cooking eggs (major trigger for me). Can't tolerate people who yell at other cars while driving. I'm racist against Apple products.

Somewhere there's someone who loves his Mac and iPhone, starts every day waking up from under a pile of cats, eats eggs for breakfast, then yells at everyone on his way to work. All the gifts and kindness in the world won't make life with that guy a happy life for me.

Some differences matter less but you'll have to work out which ones. I can get over my dislike of iPhones but I can't just decide to not be allergic to cats. My boyfriend is a white collar sort of guy who mangles his toothpaste and ditches the toothpaste cap as if it's radioactive. I'm a disorderly adhd artsy fart and I roll my toothpaste from the bottom and always put the cap back. The other will never change. We just each have our own toothpastes because fighting over this would be lame and stupid.

The first message I got from the guy I've been with for the past few years was something like:
"So I see you just lost your job too, sad high five."

He spent the summer keeping me company while I was recovering from hoarding. I had yard sales every day and he spent time with me. It wasn't the funnest time to be had but he wanted to be with me and I was glad he saw past the disorder of my life. He didn't give me problems for having problems. I know he's got my back and is on my side.

When using okcupid, I answered none of the sex questions and about 500 other questions. If someone sent me a message with the okcupid app, I'd block their profile and delete their message but I also wrote that I would do that at the top and bottom of my profile. This is uniquely related to my distaste for both iPhones and illiterate okcupid users who don't own computers. Craft your own literacy tests to help sort out who isn't worth your time right away. Men, please read the profiles of the women you message. If a chick mentions on her page that she races model airplanes, "Hey you like model airplanes, that's awesome" works way better then "You're beautiful".