I’m a big fan of conducting social experiments. Earlier in the summer I went to a local mall and walked into three “high end” stores wearing a pair of jeans, t-shirt, flip flops and carrying a knock off name brand bag. I was not offered any assistance despite picking up numerous items and being in each store for a full ten minutes each. A week later I went into the same stores again, this time wearing clothing with obvious designer labels showing. I was asked if I needed help within seconds of entering each store and was practically doted on the entire time. Interesting.
My next “experiment” was at a coffee shop near my school. The first time I walked in after a rough night with the girl, hair a mess, no makeup, rumpled clothes. I was treated rather rudely, no small talk, almost rushed out the door and my cappuccino was not terribly pretty. A week later I went in again this time with makeup on, hair done, wearing more business like attire. The same person helped me as before but this time I was chatted up and walked out with a cappuccino that was very pretty, complete with delicate leaves carved into the foam. Interesting.
Two weeks ago I decided to broaden my experiment and chose an online dating site to do so. The store clerks could have been having bad days and that would explain why I was treated badly but online there are more people viewing me and we all know people put on their best front when utilizing online dating sites. I took the pictures off the profile and made sure that my description, while honest, was very minimal. No responses for 14 days. Today I went back and put up an unflattering picture. In the five minutes since I have received four new messages and three chat requests. The content has not been changed. I have stated nothing about myself beyond basic physical characteristics and the main content is somewhat surly, bordering on rude with a bit of sarcasm. Interesting.
In a week I will put up more flattering photos. Anyone want to take a guess as to how many replies I get then? The next week I will take down all the photos and update the content to show who I really am and the week after that I will put the photos back on. I am very interested to see what kind of responses I get based on photos and content. I suspect that when the pictures are there I will get replies but without them I won’t. What this tells me is that my looks are more important to most people than what I have to say or who I really am. This makes me sad for humanity but I guess I already suspected that humanity was sad in general.
After I had my last baby, I was really overweight. Like almost 50 pounds. I would have to practically scream to get help in a hardware store. After I lost the weight, it’s a totally different story. Sad, but true.
Omg that is awful! Makes me think another profile is needed, this one with a picture of me but redone to make me look heavy. It revolts me how people treat one another based on looks alone.
 My baby daddy and several of the voices in my head have been telling me to get back into the swing of my blog.