preraphaelitepunk.com

I’m plowing through the initial stages of another online dating/social site, and quite frankly I’m appalled. Typos! Grammatical mistakes! Inanity! Writing that I would’ve been ashamed of when I was six!

This is the worst I’ve yet seen, copied and pasted directly from the source:

“im 32 years old divorced to girls ages 11, 13 whom which live with there mother. im living by the beach in the south looking for a understanding,forgiving,loving,supporting women who love’s live and life after.”

I’d attribute the source, but even I’m not appalled enough to shame someone by username — even though I initially was under the impression that his ex-wives were significantly underage. Bless his little illiterate cotton socks. I mean, he even tried to be all correct by [mis]using “whom,” but completely cocked it up in so many ways and on so many levels. (Obviously, though I feel pain for him, I am emphatically not the “women” he seeks, because I also want to cause him a little of the pain he’s made me feel by writing in such a manner. I don’t understand his composition, I don’t forgive his horrible writing, I feel revulsion rather than love, and I would kick his misspelling backside to the curb before I would support him in any sense of the term. I know I should probably blame the U.S. public schools, not him, but why didn’t he at least have the sense to have someone else proofread before he posted that diarrhea of nonsense?)

Maybe I’m elitist, but I just could not possibly contemplate building a relationship with someone who grew up speaking English but who demonstrates such a poor grasp of the language. It’s not that I expect grammatical perfection from everyone — everyone makes the occasional mistake, self included, and if English isn’t your first language then I’m usually impressed at how many typos you didn’t make, particularly compared to how many I would’ve made trying to type in any language I semi-know. (For some non-native English speakers, I have even been known to find their their typos and grammatical idiosyncracies endearing, but that’s another story entirely, and we shall not go into that at this time.)

On a social site, though, you should at least make some vague effort to appear to have a basic grasp of the grammar, spelling, and freakin’ basic usage of your native language.

Call me an elitist bitch if you will. That’s okay. Out of the site’s initial five suggested matches for me, I rejected four of them out-of-hand for egregious typos (including one for typos and a fondness for hunting; I often forget that Southern men, particularly those outside the cities, sometimes engage in things that would make me be violently ill). If being an elitist snob about spelling means I’ll be alone with my dog for the rest of my life, then so be it. ‘Tis far, far better than the alternative: if I were with someone who cared so little for clarity of expression, then how could they possibly value the fact that I’ve chosen to devote my professional life to clarifying authors’ words to make sure that they convey technical information as clearly and succinctly as possible? That’s such a huge part of my identity, and if they don’t see that as important, at least on some level, how could they see me as a valuable person?

The only non-rejected guy among the five suggestions from this site made no typos and is interested in European travel, but lives in Kentucky, and I’d have to pay at least $25 a month for six months to be able to contact him directly.

Hmm. This may not be the site for me. What I really need is CuteEuropeanGuysSeekingfGrammarGeekGothsfromtheUS.com, but somehow I doubt that’s a valid URL.

Le sigh. Or das Seufzen. Or, in rather delightful Swedish, suck. (Seriously. Look it up here; I can’t link directly to the dictionary page, it seems.)