Alyssa Bereznak Just Reminded Us That Women Can Be Predators Online Too

Alyssa Bereznak is making us females look bad. I’m ashamed on behalf of our sex that she said those bitchy things. In her article, she accuses a world champion of Magic: The Gathering of being a liar and a creep. In reality, her predatory and trollish behaviour makes her the creepy one.

First of all, let me say up front that I totally buy the stigma associated with online dating. I know online dating sites like RSVP have been around for yonks now, but I can’t help but think that it’s for desperados — a last resort. Alyssa’s piece about her OKCupid experience serves as a reminder that there’s a good chance you’ll end up wasting your time on someone like her, whose elitist attitude you would have not been interested in from the get-go had you met her in a real-life situation.

Earlier this month, I came home drunk and made an OKCupid profile. What the hell, I thought. I’m busy, I’m single, and everybody’s doing it. Sure, I’d heard horror stories, but what was the worst that could happen?

The fact that you don’t know when you’ve had too much alcohol already says a lot about you. Any guy will tell you that there’s nothing more unattractive than a drunk girl falling all over the place and having no idea how stupid she looks. The fact that you don’t know your limits when it comes to alcohol — and that you’re using being drunk to justify your actions — doesn’t make you look very credible.

There’s no point wondering what terrible things could have happened. The worst that did happen in this situation was that you joined OKCupid and f**ked with some poor guy’s head and then publicly humiliated him. You talk about OKCupid being like “the online equivalent to hanging out alone in a dark, date-rapey bar”, but you just made yourself out to be the predator. You were obviously desperate enough to continue trolling OKCupid well after you sobered up and realised and you had no legitimate reason for being on there. It’s no wonder men always complain about women playing mind games. You managed to reinforce a stereotype that some of us have worked so hard to disassociate ourselves with.

I’ll readily admit that if he’s anything remotely like how Alyssa described him (which I doubt), I probably wouldn’t be interested in him romantically myself. That doesn’t mean I don’t think he’d be a cool friend to have — the people I hang out with the most are nerds of some kind, but I’m only really sexually attracted to blokey blokes. You know, the manly types that look good without trying too hard and aren’t fussed about having a bit of a belly. In any case, everyone has an ego, and crushing someone’s modest expectations of themselves is unnecessary let alone damaging to the self-esteem.

That’s why I find it so appalling that you laughed when he said he was the world champion of Magic: The Gathering. Why would you do that? Any other person would have been genuinely curious, and I would have been nothing less than excited to learn more about a game I’ve heard so much about, yet know so little of. It’s not easy to be good at something, let alone be the world champion at it.

It really is a shame you forgot to Google him before you had dinner with him. Perhaps then you might have given him the respect that he deserves. I agree that disclosing your marital status and any kids in an online dating profile is mandatory, but calling him a liar for not putting down the fact that he’s a world champion at something is unfair. I call that being modest — a highly desirable attribute, and one that you seem to lack.

As you suggested, being so shallow that you couldn’t see past his world title led you to make the truth look like fiction. If you walked away from the second date thinking that he was nothing more than “a champion dweeb in hedge funder’s clothing”, then that’s your fault. Did you ever stop to think that maybe he was in hedge funder’s clothing because he actually, you know, works for a hedge fund company. I doubt that a guy who’s intelligent enough to be in a job like that is so socially retarded that he’s unable to make conversation about anything other than Magic: The Gathering. And if he was, I’m sure you wouldn’t have hesitated to make a point of it in your slanderous article. Sometimes, guys need to be prodded into speaking about themselves. From what you’ve written, it’s clear that you failed completely at making proper conversation with him.

You not only accuse him of lying in his profile, you also accuse him of “infiltrat[ing]his way into OKCupid dates” with two people you know. Yes, it is strange, which is why I would have gone out of my way to ask him about it rather than make nasty assumptions about him online. You judged him so harshly and publicly without giving concrete reasons as to why we should believe you.

So what can we all learn from Alyssa’s rant? She’s a narcissist who you would probably not want to date, women can be predators online too, and be assured that her experience is the exception rather than the rule.

To the Magic champ: I’d love to hear your side of the story. Dinner?