Why waste your well-honed MMO skills on a time-waster like World of Warcraft when you can use them to get yourself a hot date?
You may think your addiction to questing or your compulsion to acquire complete sets of armor could be a detriment to your datability, but they’re actually a plus on dating site OKCupid. As Robert Yang explains in Issue 215 of The Escapist, OKCupid adopts many of the same techniques found in MMOs to not only to make using the site fun, but to keep you coming back for more:
Meanwhile, OkCupid uses its own versions of quests and experience meters to systematically erode your sense of propriety and social norms; the initial resistance to putting so much personal information online, the fear of meeting online strangers in real-life, the creeping anxiety that your date will grin and ask if you want to see their knife collection. In short, OkCupid slips you a digital roofie by exploiting your completionist streak, your desire to see that “experience meter” at the top of the page all filled up.
If you’ve ever tried your luck at online dating — no, scratch that, if you’ve ever been on a date, period — you’re sure to feel at least a small part of Yang’s pain. Read the rest of Grinding the Dating Scene, then share your own tales of woe. Did I ever tell you about the guy who tried to take me on a picnic in the middle of the night? Ah, he was a winner.
