over the past couple of days, i've been poking around craigslist, since it seems like a reasonable way to meet people. in particular, i've been surfing through the personals -- not with the intent of responding to them, but with the intent of figuring out what sort of people hang around here. you can tell a lot about someone from what they write about themselves, i think.
it occurred to me that, for a very large percentage -- at least 90 -- of the personal ads i'm reading, i immediately rule out the person as someone who could be perfect for me. in and of itself, this isn't surprising, but this percentage is much higher than my percentage for people who i meet in person, which is something like 50.
this, to me, is pretty strange. the estimates above are conservative; i have found maybe one or two ads out of 200 who might be people i could be great friends with, and at least half i can rule out just by looking at the title. i guess it might be because the community isn't right for me, and that in real life the people i come into contact with are already pruned by the method i meet them (for instance, friends of friends, or work-related.)
but i wonder if i'm becoming better at judging people based on their writing than based on direct interaction. i would venture that i read more words written on-line per day than i hear words in person; i'd bet it's not even close, even if you restrict to reading words written by people i know personally (as opposed to things like the onion.) this is in large part due to the nose, my current community.
the thing is, for most of these people i see or have seen them in person enough to know what the words translate into. so, entirely accidentally, i have gained a lot of experience at figuring out what someone is like based on their on-line presence.
it's not failsafe, though. for some people it fails miserably; what they write just doesn't represent them at all. first of all, you have one more level of self-censorship (in your fingers) when you write. second of all, you get to decide how much of yourself to put up there, whereas in person you're vulnerable to the everlasting gaze. it's impossible to tell if someone who isn't verbose on-line has better things to do or is a wallflower; it's the same problem you have with quiet people in the game of mafia.
did this post sound like kelli? compare.
in any case, i guess i'll try to meet people using this device when i get back to san francisco. if you want to stage a pre-emptive strike, let me know.