Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Who Is Your Ideal?
I blame this one on the PIT. The internet seems to serve only a couple of core functions: cat pictures, getting into grudge matches with total strangers, and taking ill-designed quizzes like “Who you’d be in King Arthur’s Court,” “Your Medieval Job,” “Who you would be in the Fellowship of the Ring,” or “How quickly would you be killed in a horror film.” Chief among these miscreant quizzes are the Romantic quizzes. “Who is your ideal man (or woman)?” “Who would be your soul mate?” Etc. These quizzes invariably pair you with wifty personality descriptions that have all the specificity of a daily horoscope, and are topped with celebrity glam shots. So yes, your soul mate really is Keira Knightley, or Idris Elba, or some supermodel or another. I call bollocks.
You see, a well-designed quiz should always have the possibility of at least mediocrity, or at worst some sort of bad fear. An honest quiz should realistically pair some people up with a genuine schlub, or a harridan, or a looney. One such quiz was posted in the PIT (Your ideal man), and for kicks, I took it and answered (insofar as the questions allowed) as if it were asking about my ideal woman. This is the response I got, edited of course to correct for sex (with some editorial remarks added too):
Your ideal [woman] has [long] dark-brown hair, blue eyes that can see into your soul (into the yawning black abyss), mildly tanned skin tone, [narrow] shoulders, thin figure and a hint of scruffy beard (sure, I’ll leave that one in). Your [woman] is in [her] late 30’s, he has a nice writing career (and very big dreams for the future that no one’s sure [she’ll] ever accomplish [because she’s a slacker who writes weird fan fiction, duh!]), [her] own apartment in the city (totally not what I’d be looking for – I’d prefer out of the city), and a very easy going attitude. This [gal] is a great listener, and always willing to give you advice (especially when not requested or wanted). [She] has a witty sense of humor (and always has to show off about it), she is passionate about cooking and loves a good* scoop of ice-cream at the end of the day.
*as opposed to an evil scoop of ice cream
The celebrity picture? Jake Gyllenhaal? OK, nearest female match would be his sister, Maggie. Now I’ll grant that Maggie is cute and all, but she’s a looney, so this quiz is clearly of a poor design. I shudder to think of all the poor women of this world who have chosen their mates using this quiz.
A well-designed quiz would at least have the possibility of drawing some losers from the deck (and would naturally also offer some encouragement to those poor benighted souls), and some wild cards too. If these quizzes were honest we’d at least see something like this:
Your ideal man has thinning hair and a bad comb-over, bloodshot hazel eyes that can distinguish most colors if the bars haven’t opened yet, pockmarked skin with rosacea, sloped shoulders, portly figure and a perpetual 5-o’clock shadow. Your man is in his late 50’s, he has a failed food service career (and always talks about the time he almost landed a part as a corpse on Law and Order), his own apartment in his mother’s basement, and a very controlling attitude. This guy is a great talker, and always willing to give you advice and lucky lottery numbers. He has no sense of humor, is easily offended in his confusion, is passionate about UFOs, and loves a good Colt 45 when the bars throw him out.
Or this:
Your ideal woman has butt-length dreadlocks, a lazy eye, a spray-on tan that makes Trump’s orange seem pale by comparison, slumped shoulders, and a perpetual scowl. Your woman is somewhere between 35 and 55, but dresses like she’s still 22, has a career as a perpetual protester, has authored numerous pamphlets on the evils of the cosmetics industry, shares a converted loft with 3 nearly identical roommates (that she hates, but the place is rent-controlled so she’s not moving), and adopts stray dogs. This gal is a perpetual gossip, always willing to tell you how you’re living your life all wrong, and offering to correct your chakras. Her sense of humor is best described as either non-existent, or on a 5-minute tape delay. She is passionate about hemp, loves to cook (though precisely what she’s using for herbs and spices is best not discussed), and is the first person through the door when the coffee shop opens at 6 in the morning.
So I say that in this category, the internet still has some work to do. Just think of all the people steered horribly wrong, and making life-altering decisions based on nothing more than a poorly designed quiz.
Published in Humor
Here’s a fun one: Why are you still single?
This has to be the lamest question in there:
Grocery Store? That’s an option?
It’s a wedding. Always a wedding.
Could be worse. The reason why I’m still single isn’t actually anything I can fix. It’s that I’m too good and I just should wait for The One to come along.
Oh great.
I’ll be The Bride in the real-life version of The Haunted Mansion Ride.
I’m good with that, but I think it ought to be “late 60’s.”
In real life, my ideal is closer to James McAvoy, but taller and with less British teeth.
Who’re you kiddin’! Law & order was never gonna come knockin’!
Damn, the monastic life is looking pretty good right now. Monks can still drink beer right? Just double checking.
Slow start to the holiday, here at work on the Deathstar, so I’ll play!
Apparently, if you try your best to navigate the multiple choice “What’s Your Ideal” quiz honestly but are so completely stymied by the lame and limited pool of provided answers from which you have to choose that you just keep clicking on “Other” — you end up with this guy . . .
. . . . which, while there are a few qualities there I’d appreciate, does not look or sound like anyone I’ve ever been attracted to or dated before.
“Well hey, maybe that’s the real reason you’re still single,” I thought. “Because you’ve been ignoring all those silky-haired Nordic doctors who want to expose themselves to new cultures (phrasing!!), give you chocolate and make you feel safe!”
But then the clearly superior, 100% reliable, totally scientific and scarily accurate in every way “Why are You Still Single” quiz tells me no, that’s not the reason.
This is:
My ideal woman
Those bastards.
Less as in fewer or not as British as in straighter? Or should he have Spanish, Dutch or French teeth?
Heck, they make the stuff!
Can you have those? I mean, without being Spanish, Dutch, or French.
Check Amazon. If Amazon doesn’t have it, maybe you don’t need it.
redacted.
Aha! I see where I went wrong! My “ideal man” is in his “early 30s.” Gosh. This makes the age spread of Roy Moore and his alleged innamoratae, pale into insignificance. Apparently, my dreamboat wasn’t even born when I got married. Oh, well. Can’t lose what you never had.
Genius post, @skipsul. Your rendition of the missing “ideals” had tears rolling down my face. I’d also suggest some additional options on some of the questions, perhaps addressing the amount of beer gut and/or butt crack that’s acceptable in a man, and whether or not, on the first date, you’d rather your guy take you to a movie or help you shovel out the barn. The danger of questions like that is that, if I answered them honestly, I’d probably end up with someone like Amos Starkadder, but he at least he might be more useful than the pretty boys on offer right now. (I am totally with Miss Daisy in that “useful” and/or “handy” are extraordinarily valuable traits in a man, cover a multitude of sins, and outweigh a lot of other supposed virtues or requirements.)
As for another take on acceptable female candidates, you probably can’t do better than Sonnet 130.
Here’s to reality. And a happy ending for us all.
After participating in a whole bunch of those quizzes, I’ve begun to question whether they’re really scientific. Except the one that accurately asessed my genius IQ. Nonetheless, without further ado, my ideal woman:
This is the sort of list where you expect to see an eye-patch pop up, but it doesn’t. Maybe run the numbers on the gizmodo again. I’m pretty sure there’s supposed to be an eye patch…
Same here.
Yes, but he’d be constantly chiding you for using butter.
Yes, but why have Grocery Store as an option? They run out of ideas? A more accurate choice would ditch the grocery for “every morning at 3 AM”.
Well done, Skip, quick & to the point, like a hook to the solar plexus!
I corrected the vague Nordic doctor to read as follows:
The pull of Dunkin–who among us has not felt it…
Why would you intentionally look for weirdos?
We already knew that.
Such a great book. If Hell is where I end up, I’m going to miss it. I love butter. Think it’s my mother’s fault. She had a thing about spreading butter all the way to the edges of her toast. Almost an obsession. Given some of the other things she got worked up about, either concerning the presence or the absence thereof, I eventually came to the conclusion it was a result of the extreme privations she suffered during the war.
It’s not that there’ll be no butter in Hell, it’s that it will all be clarified.
My ideal woman would need an apartment somewhere. No way my wife’s going to let her move in with us.
My ideal woman is across the room from me. And she can have whatever characteristics she feels like at the time – it is much more interesting that way.
“Love many women, know none. Love one woman, know them all.”