Dating nightmares and online privacy
Don't be a jerk on purpose â but also, be realistic about screenshots
Iâll be honest, as a native of Ukraine, I am mostly focused on staying sane right now.
One of my favorite ways to stay sane? Reading the internetâs most enduring genre â Dating Nightmaresâ˘ď¸.
Whether itâs screenshots of conversations gone horribly wrong, or incredibly cringeworthy dating profiles, Dating Nightmaresâ˘ď¸ is the genre that always keeps on giving.
However, it also creates problems for online privacy which need to be discussed.
âBut Natalia, as long as youâre not a dick to anyone online, no oneâs going to take screenshots of your dating profiles/conversations and post them!â
WRONG. Get that idea out of your head. Anyone can take a screenshot of your dating profile or conversation, sometimes with a bunch of identifying information included, and post it anywhere, Reddit included. It may get removed, or it may not.
Let go of the notion that anything you say is private. Iâve had screenshots of my dating profiles gleefully passed around in the past, and I hadnât done anything besides existing and being marginally interesting to bored people in the DC metro area.
Letâs say youâre vegan and someone really doesnât like vegans. They can post about you. Yes, with your full picture. And then some OSINT nerd will come along and find your other profiles, and send you a DM telling you that youâre getting roasted on Reddit. It can absolutely suck! Itâs uncool and unethical behavior toward people who havenât harmed anyone, but it happens and you should do your best now to accept it as a potential side effect of online dating.
âSo the ethical thing would be to never post screenshots at all?â
No. I disagree.
When I posted about this guy, I took out all of the identifying information, but I was still glad to see the incident go viral:
He needed a reality check. Maybe, just maybe, he wonât do that to another woman in the future.
As a sidenote, please observe that after he assumed I hadnât swiped right on him, he tracked me down to my public Instagram (I have two Instagrams for privacy reasons, I recommend it), and that was where he had launched into his tirade after getting my attention with a funny DM request.
Iâm not a famous person, but this still happens to me. All he had to do was reverse-image search a few photos and/or Google my first name and some of the interests I had listed on my profile. I didnât ask him for his methodology, but I assume that itâs how this happened.
Do I mind it when people track me down like that? All depends on the person in question.
Either way, publicity is sometimes the only tool we have to discourage psychopathic online behavior.
âMan, screw online dating, this sounds like a nightmare.â
It can be! Itâs also one of the most efficient ways to meet new people today.
My suggestion comes down to this: Online dating doesnât work for everyone, the most photogenic of us will always come out on top. This means that we are missing out on people who are awesome, but canât take a good picture.
Even if you are very photogenic, being open to meeting people âin the wildâ is always a good bet. I once met a cool guy when I was crying outside a party shortly after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by deranged Russians. Sticking only to the apps can rob you of genuine and even important connections, and the same can be said for refusing to be on the apps entirely.
Do what youâre comfortable with. Know the risks. Be polite. Donât post pictures taken in front of your house. And donât say stuff simply to provoke people.
Data suggests that weâre getting lonelier and having less sex. There are many reasons for that, but speaking generally, I donât think thatâs a good thing. Life is short.
I want this newsletter to always be informative, but I also want it to be helpful. Which is why I want you guys to understand that Dating Nightmaresâ˘ď¸ is an enduring genre because itâs calibrated for outrage. We all want to hear the crazy story about the stalker in the DMs! As for the perfectly nice person you met and dated and had a great time with â thatâs usually not going to go viral.
Donât mistake whatâs favored by algorithms for day-to-day life. It will just make you unhappy and paranoid, and we donât want that.
I leave you today with this absolute winner, identifying information redacted:
Something tells me that heâs wondering why he doesnât attract nice people. And thatâs because the people who will be encouraged to swipe right on him will be insecure/have something to prove.
I hope he figures it out.
Thanks for reading. I wish you love â¤ď¸