Dopp Juice Archive

As promised, I hit the Engage.com-sponsored Love 2.0 party last night and asserted my peaceful protests about their website’s rigid category structure. I met the CEO, the Project Manager, the Front End Developer, and the Art Director. They were all very friendly and tolerant toward the tall queer trouble-maker in the black wig, and I was impressed with how amenable they were to my concerns about their dating service.

The question was: Why can’t I be bisexual on your website?

The answers were along these lines (with my reactions in italics)…

• That was a database decision. We made it possible for you to be straight or gay, but bisexuality requires searching the entire database, and that’s a big load on the servers.
  • Good news! Enterprise-level databases and servers are capable of handling full searches now! Really…
• You can! You’re free to switch back and forth! You can be one way one week and another the next!
  • That’s great that you allow people to be fluid about their identities (really, that’s important, and i’m glad you’re doing it). But I’m not excited about dividing my time into “straight weeks” and “gay weeks.” I want to represent myself on your site consistently and honestly, and not have to make a decision on which group of people is allowed to court me at a time.
• We thought about it, and we’d still like to do it, but it’s just going to require so much code to make it work. It’s very complicated.
  • I hear ya. It’s hard. That’s rough. I believe in you, though. You can do whatever you want to do. You have the tools.
• It’s a matter of release dates and product management. We’ve got so much going on, and we’re working on making the site better all the time. We just haven’t been able to get that piece in place.
  • I totally understand. I’m a project manager myself. I know this stuff gets messy. You can’t get it all done at once. So… are you working on it?
    
• I agree, it’s important, and we want to be the kind of site that welcomes everybody. We should have that done by the end of the year, and we hope you’ll come back when the site is more open.
  • Fantastic! Thanks! I’ll keep an eye out for the changes! It’s been great talking to you. I look forward to becoming your biggest fan.
    

Seriously, they’ve been really good about this. I’ve had several follow up email exchanges with the people I met at the party, scheming what an ideal site could function like, and discussing the pros and cons of organizational styles. Their VP also responded to my original email, stating she agrees with my point and that they would do their best to get it right.

I’m excited about Engage because they’re merging new ideas about connections with models people are already comfortable with. By the way they’ve responded to my noise, I can tell they sincerely care about making their community happy. They’ve just got some growing to do.

There’s a new dating site on the scene called Engage.com, and it’s bragging about its unique social aspects. In truth, it looks pretty awesome. They encourage friends to match each other up (in contrast to the “Web 1.0” model of seeking out strangers), and they seem to have the tools to make it work. They’re presenting themselves as hip and in touch with what people are really looking for. They’re also sponsoring a party tonight called Love 2.0, which I’m heading out to in about an hour.

They seem well intentioned, but they’ve missed the boat on the categories issue. Their site is so rigidly structured by gender and gender preference that I couldn’t even complete my profile without being forced to lie. It’s not the “okay, i’ll call myself this for now and then go do what I actually want to do” kind of lie. It’s the “wow, I really can’t do half the things I’d like to do here because you won’t let me be honest about who I am” kind of lie. I’m not impressed.

So last Friday, I wrote them a letter:

subj: I’d like you to acknowledge bisexuality.

Hi Team Engage,

A friend just invited me to the Love 2.0 event this Monday that you’re sponsoring, and was excited to tell me about your site. I tried to sign up, but was disappointed to find out that you don’t acknowledge bisexuality. I don’t have a gender preference in my dating, and it would be dishonest and limiting for me to express one.

I dug through your FAQ trying to find some acknowledgment of this situation, and only came up with this:

Does Engage support same-sex matches?
Of course! No one is left out on Engage. You can fix up same-sex couples as long as they’ve both indicated that that’s their preference when they registered for Engage.

It’s important for you to know that I’m feeling pretty left out right now, and many of my friends would, too.

I’m active in the social media tech industry and dating scene, and your site sounds awesome. But I can’t use it if this limitation is going to be such a major aspect of how the site is organized. It’s offensive to me.

Can you change this? Please?

Or at least tell me why it’s important for you to have the restriction?

I appreciate you taking the time to read and respond to this.

Many thanks,
Sarah

It’s been three days and I haven’t seen a response, despite the fact that their automated email promised they’d get right back to me.

So now I’m going to dress up in my finest cleavage-boosting men’s suit, head over to their party, and ask them about this myself. I’ll be joined by a friend who takes issue with the fact that they don’t acknowledge open relationships or the equivalent of Facebook’s “It’s Complicated.” (You can only be matched up if you designate yourself as single.) Weirdly enough, though, they do provide categories for Divorced, Separated, and Widowed… as though those should significantly impact how you should be labeled on the site.

Just warning you in advance.

Some people rely entirely on prayer. I find that prayer yields better results when I augment it with social media. Here was my recent cry to the Universe (made through a friends-only social networking website):

“I need to buy a car right now and I don’t know where to start. I haven’t owned a car in three years! I want something reliable that will run forever and gets good gas mileage. I don’t want to spend a lot and I’ve never bought a car without help before. Um… crap!”

The suggestions started rolling in. Honda Civic. Toyota Corolla. Vehix.com. Cars.com. Carfax.com. Kelly Blue Book. Names of trusted mechanics. Tips on finding the right insurance agency. Info about smog checks and DVM registrations. Reminders that rush hour traffic is sometimes slower than Caltrain. Reminders that I don’t have to do anything without help, ever, if I don’t want to.

This sent me in the right direction for research, and I quickly narrowed down my focus to exactly what I wanted: a 2000-2004 manual transmission 4-door Toyota Corolla with power locks/windows and in a dark color, somewhere local. Excellent. That was easy.

But then I scoured the listings and couldn’t find one. Well, that’s not true — I did find one, but it was at a really sketchy-looking small used car dealership with a disturbingly bad website. The car went crashing off my radar when I saw the dealer’s horrible “About Us” photo. Um, no.

[This photo is a direct lift from the website. I did not reduce its quality for dramatic effect.]

I went back to my social networks to tell them my tale of woe, and they agreed that the man behind the desk was not to be trusted. Peanut gallery quotes included: “where’s his computer? this is well into the 21st century; every work desk should have a computer at it,” and “The picture looks like he’s finalizing plans to take over the world… from his computer-less desk. Haha! ‘You’re right, Skeletor, it will be as easy as taking candy from a baby! Mu-hahahaaaa!’ ”

Meanwhile, I was decompressing on Twitter, feeling discouraged about the process and getting a lil’ bit silly in my musings. The twitterpaters cheered me up with hedonistic influence and emotional support. I remembered that I was shopping with an army behind me. They had my back.

And then, something magical happened. A friend who had been watching my prayers sent me a link to My Dream Car, being auctioned on eBay Motors from a dealership just south of San Jose. The “Buy Now” price was exactly my budget and exactly the value on Kelly Blue Book. I tried to brush it off as “too far away,” but then another friend offered to drive me there.

Frantically, I asked the Universe for tips on buying from dealers, and it filled my head with suggestions. Then I researched the vehicle history report on Carfax (completely clean) and looked up everything I could find out about the dealership. 400 people on eBay told me they were wonderful to do business with. That’s social media shopping for ya.

I showed up and walked straight to the car. The receptionist quickly tossed me the keys and let me take it for a test drive. It was just as delicious as I hoped it would be. The saleswoman showed up and asked how I was doing. I said, “I like this car. Can I buy it from you?”

She smiled and said, “Yes.”