The Impersonals

June 12, 2006 12:45 PM

The Impersonals – Our own the jam couldn't find a personals site that he wasn't embarrassed to join, so he made his own. No popularity contests, no horoscopes, no buddy lists. Just profiles made from wide-open text fields and anti-creepiness features baked in at every turn.
[Lifetime membership will be $5, but until it hits 10,000 profiles, it's free.] via mefi projects
posted by blasdelf (39 comments total)

On their front page when you're logged in:

Today is Invite-A-Girl-Day. On Thursday, we were on the front page of digg.com and got tons of new members. But apparently, 98% of Digg users are male.

We need to balance it out. So, for the good of the site, find a female friend and invite her to The Impersonals today.

Metafilter > digg
posted by blasdelf at 12:52 PM on June 12, 2006

The ladies and gents thing has to go.

Also, I'll admit, the best way to get me to sign up to anything is to say it will cost money later.
posted by smackfu at 12:54 PM on June 12, 2006

Agreed, smackfu.
posted by arcticwoman at 12:58 PM on June 12, 2006

an interesting site for the young hotbloods, but what this world or net needs is a similar site for older men and women to meet, chat, exchange notes etc...
posted by Postroad at 1:01 PM on June 12, 2006

No horoscopes or zodiac stuff. If you're really into astrology, I'll make an exception just this once and give you a horoscope for the week of Jun 12, 2006: you're an idiot.

If the service wasn't already free, this alone would be worth the price of admission.
posted by heavy water at 1:03 PM on June 12, 2006

As usual with stuff like this, there is not one member of the opposite sex signed up for it in my state.
posted by 517 at 1:11 PM on June 12, 2006

they've already cornered the market on "pseudointellectual chicks with glasses." or is that every dating site?
posted by Hat Maui at 1:14 PM on June 12, 2006

Hat Maui: If those were the only type of chicks that were available anywhere, I would shed no tears.
posted by bingo at 1:17 PM on June 12, 2006

But it's always the same pair of glasses.
posted by 517 at 1:24 PM on June 12, 2006

Neat. Now what? Do I just sit and wait for the babes to mail me?
posted by dobbs at 1:30 PM on June 12, 2006

I think you're supposed to wrestle the babes to the fucking ground, dobbs.
posted by kenko at 1:36 PM on June 12, 2006

Ten women from 22-32 within 90 miles of me. Sounds about right. Some of them don't list barista as their occupation, though, which is good.
posted by emelenjr at 1:37 PM on June 12, 2006

Good idea, kenko!
posted by dobbs at 1:40 PM on June 12, 2006

I've looked at a lot of personals sites in the past. This is the first time I've seen a profile where someone lists "eat jizz on toast" as something they want to do before they die.
posted by dobbs at 1:42 PM on June 12, 2006

Bookmark her! (then buy toast?)
posted by NationalKato at 1:47 PM on June 12, 2006

At least one of the women w/in 30 miles of me is from Metafilter.
posted by nathan_teske at 1:47 PM on June 12, 2006

What, only two genders?
posted by taursir at 2:07 PM on June 12, 2006

Hat maui made me laugh. Unless you are Lisa Loeb, put the IQ glasses away.
posted by vronsky at 2:14 PM on June 12, 2006

Uh, and if you just happen to actually wear glasses?
posted by bingo at 2:17 PM on June 12, 2006

i.e. I'm guessing that the percentage of girls who put on glasses that they don't need in their online dating photos just so they can appear smart is extremely low.
posted by bingo at 2:21 PM on June 12, 2006

Can you buy toast now? I've been buying bread and toasting it myself like some kind of barbarian!
posted by nicwolff at 2:37 PM on June 12, 2006 [3 favorites]

Is it old fashioned to desire ladies sans piercings in the facial region?
posted by shoepal at 2:41 PM on June 12, 2006

Also, I'll admit, the best way to get me to sign up to anything is to say it will cost money later.

There's also something about having an account before many many other people that's attractive.
posted by taursir at 2:59 PM on June 12, 2006

And, pray tell, why would someone NOT be embarassed to have their profile on this site?
posted by Surfurrus at 3:10 PM on June 12, 2006

As usual, no males around here. Sigh. Well, I signed up anyway; that will add another woman to the mix, even though I'm a geographically - and age too no doubt - challenged one.
posted by mygothlaundry at 3:32 PM on June 12, 2006

There's also something about having an account before many many other people that's attractive.

And something about having an account before many many other attractive people.
posted by smackfu at 3:39 PM on June 12, 2006

Meanwhile, Eliot Ness and his gang of Impersonals raid Al Capone’s dockside warehouse for young hotbloods, hipsters, and women sans IQ glasses.

“Rico, Youngblood - this will cost you later if you don’t sign up now...”
posted by Smedleyman at 3:39 PM on June 12, 2006

Is this to help AJAX coders find other AJAX coders?
posted by runkelfinker at 3:41 PM on June 12, 2006

If you're embarassed, that's ok. Some people just don't like the idea of personal ads. I think personal ads are a great idea in theory... it's the execution that always ruined it for me.

Thanks, everybody who's been checking it out... I can't believe Impersonals made it to the Mefi front page. (Thanks, blasdelf!)
posted by the jam at 3:41 PM on June 12, 2006

I joined and if Matt deletes this thread i will hold him responsible for my singleness.
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:18 PM on June 12, 2006

bloody hell , i uploaded my photo and the site crashed - give me back my self esteem you bastard !
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:53 PM on June 12, 2006

Have any of you folks checked out OkCupid? It's also free (forever, allegedly), also has a strong showing in the indie-girls-with-glasses crowd, and generally feels like this site probably will in a few years. I'm a fan.

I've also signed up here, though.

Re: bingo: True dat. *fist bump*
posted by ®@ at 6:22 PM on June 12, 2006

OkCupid has all of those goddamn quizzes about what pop culture you identify with that are supposed to somehow expose the core of your personality to it's matching algorithm.

Plus it's cluttered with crap features. I like the clean feel of the impersonals.

Also, from the google cache it looks like impersonals used to have FOAF-style networking, but now it doesn't. What happened to that? Is it coming back?
posted by blasdelf at 7:50 PM on June 12, 2006

These free dating sites popping up lately are no doubt at least partially inspired (or at least, some of them are partially inspired) by the claimes made by Markus of Plentyoffish.com, who says he gets $10k a day in Google AdSense revenues.
posted by cell divide at 8:01 PM on June 12, 2006

see also: Consumating (acquired by CNET)
posted by shoepal at 9:36 PM on June 12, 2006

I think Consumating is better than OkCupid in some ways, but it's group tagging system is insanely broken (people use them as retarded_long_coments_on_other_peoples_profiles), and the weekly questions are often terrible. I stopped bothering with it a few weeks after I signed up.
posted by blasdelf at 10:05 PM on June 12, 2006

My big complaint with OkCupid is that it tries to use huge lists of questions to match you up to someone else with similar answers. But the questions aren't diverse enough, so you end up matching half the people on there.
posted by smackfu at 10:20 PM on June 12, 2006

I like OK Cupid a lot. I've met real people I liked through that. Their matching system seems to work quite well -- at least, most people get very low scores. Here's my profile. Hint hint hint.

I find consumating annoying and superficial. People try to game the system -- lots of talk -- no connections. The questions are stupid.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:22 PM on June 12, 2006

I signed up for the impersonals yesterday. It crashed when I uploaded my picture but when I logged back in, my pic was there.
posted by SisterHavana at 10:00 AM on June 13, 2006