LinkedIn Dating Tips

Most people seeking love on LinkedIn have their favorite tips and tricks that help them land that "perfect someone" -- whether they're re-entering the dating pool after months (or years) of wallowing, making a sexuality 180 heading into the new year or even if someone has just been "laid off", so to speak, and is looking for a new position (pun always intended). Here's a comprehensive list of 10 steps one should take on LinkedIn, and elsewhere, while trolling for booty:


1. Begin your hunt early.

Give yourself at least six months before your desired start date for your new relationship. Let's face it, you're probably no prize or you wouldn't be trawling the depths of social networking for hook-ups. Take time to review your goals and to examine whether or not they are realistic. If you're just looking for some strange ass, then you might not need much in the way of "revamping" -- there are lots of lonely suckers out there. However, if your new relationship requires additional education -- say, tantra lessons or yoga classes -- you may have to begin even earlier.

2. Revamp your toolbox...yes, we said "toolbox".

Take a look at the types of people you're interested in and make a checklist of the ways in which you'll probably disappoint them. If you have too many weak spots, consider taking classes at a community college...there are usually lots of lonely, desperate people there. If you don't have time to attend classes (or if pride is an issue) another option is to browse and/or send messages anonymously on OkCupid! (don't tell them we sent you) so you can completely enumerate your deficiencies for later elimination. Remember, it's more important to be the person that they want to sleep with than to be the person you want.

3. Be a news hound.

This is where all your years of Facebook stalking can finally pay off. Remember that cute guy/girl you sat across the room from in that class you barely attended? Now remember the way you found what dorm she was living in or who his roommate was or who she slept with on prom night just by looking at his/her pictures and reading the comments? Good. Do that, except with a special emphasis on people who recently went through a nasty breakup, or even the loss of a close relative. Nothing says "I've always loved you." like "We haven't ever met in person, but I'm sorry for your loss and am free to console you over drinks this Friday."

4. Give your LinkedIn profile a face lift.

Now it's time to work some magic. There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube on how to do subtle Photoshop work on some of less attractive self portraits (which are all of them). In fact, have you considered getting an actual face lift? That might help, too.

5. Update your Status.

If you recently got dumped, make sure to change your status to reflect this. Being creative is a great way to get attention when you desperately desire it. Some past winners include "Good Friend with Benefits", "Open to Horizontal Advancement", and "Cunning Linguist".

6. Do your homework.

Sign on to LinkedIn or Facebook and look at people who are already in relationships. Take special note of the ways in which they are better than you. While browsing their pictures you may notice that some guys appear smugly disinterested while their girlfriends have their tongues sticking out while seemingly about to kiss them. If you're a guy, try sedatives to achieve the same effect. If you're a girl try drinking more. If that hasn't worked, consider a lobotomy. TIP: Something that doesn't always show up in these pictures is the other 95% of their night. That time was spent texting. If you don't have friends just send text messages to yourself, making sure to disguise your own number with a different name.

7. Rekindle relationships/build your network before you need it.

If you're recently single, consider contacting old flames, but use caution: If you dumped them, consider it charity and maybe they'll consider sleeping with you based on hollow statements about how you've "really grown up". If they dumped you (much more likely), consider writing them a rambling e-mail that subtly hints at how you've "really grown up" before asking if they'd like to platonically get some coffee sometime (platonically). TIP: Consider watching I Am Sam just before heading to the coffee shop to ensure that you're body can't produce any more tears.

8. Confidence counts.

...and if you're drinking it counts double! Let's imagine you're a friend's party:

If you're a guy you probably want to try the old "One in a Million" tactic. This is the strategy in which you give out one compliment to a girl you'd like to sleep with for every million insults (give or take). Try some harsh shit-talking while playing her and her friend at beer pong, or blatantly hitting on her beer pong partner! Just make sure the compliment comes when her friend is in the bathroom and can't help her with the necessary judgment call.

 If you're a lady, consider dressing too formally for the party and showing up late and already drunk as if you just came from a much cooler party. Make you're selection quick (you're perception can't be trusted much longer anyway) and hang on his every lame joke no matter what. Don't be bothered if he seems disinterested or has a girlfriend already -- he's just playing the game. When his girlfriend confronts you, remember that guys like feeling like Caesar in ancient Rome: He'll happily watch a gladiatorial fight to the death and sleep with the last woman standing.

9. Check your surroundings for other resources.

A number of communities offer resources for people returning to the dating pool. These are called "bars", but if you're hard up for cash try just walking around the local bar scene and looking for drunk guys or gals who seem to have "lost" their friends. Remember to wear earplugs; these people tend to be very, very loud.

10. Pay it forward -- help a brother (sister) out.

Once you've found someone with personal and physical deficiencies you can overlook, go out with your friends (or hers -- whichever group is cooler) to a bar to give your single and, thus, inferior friends a chance to score. Guys, ready your smug, disinterested expressions. Girls, remember: if you see a camera stick your tongue out until it gets put away or its batteries die.

One final note on dating: It's easy to get bogged down in the present with things like "happiness" or "potential for marriage". When in doubt, just remember that relationships are just like jobs: there's always a better one out there and you might just be one Happy Hour away from your next big career move!


Used without permission from LinkedIn: This here.

Just a Phase

Okay, it's been over seven months since my last post and, at the risk of becoming an XKCD stereotype, I thought I'd start trying to make myself put more things in here since I'm newly unemployed. In fact, it may not be surprising that my period of inactivity coincided almost completely with my period of receiving steady paychecks. Maybe it is true that sitting in a that sitting in a windowless office for eight hours every day saps your will to create.

It's not really true, though. I did do some writing, albeit in more archaic forms (e.g. paper and pen) and a lot of it was pretty unbearable to read. If the same mood strikes, I'll try to type some of it up and post it, if only for posterity. In five years I'll look at it the way I look at my LiveJournal now. (NOTE: DO NOT investigate old LiveJournals...especially mine) For now I'm just going to find contentment where I always have: in having my focus work at a frantic pace while I try to keep up and re-reading sentences like these a week later only to rue how angst-y I was "back then". This is just a phase right?

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