1. I subscribe to
Broken Toys, so I saw this, "
OMG OMG OMG OMG GIRLS YOU WONT BELIEVE THIS I ALMOST DATED A GAMER AND I *LIVED*," and naturally had to look.
2. I clicked a link that took me to an article called "
"My Brief OkCupid Affair With a World Champion Magic: The Gathering Player” UGH UGH UGH" on
NerdPuddle (great name) written by
Kiala who describes herself thusly* in her bio:
"Kiala are a perfessionel righter. You may have seen her words on Nerdist, io9, SFWeekly, the Portland Mercury, GeekWeek, and Heartless Doll. She hates being sober and would marry her cat if the goddamn GOP would let her. She loves you in your private parts."
She sounded cute and her pic was cute... maybe
Jon Finkel should hook up with her.
3. I clicked on the links that led to the original article on
Gizmodo, "
My Brief OkCupid Affair With a World Champion Magic: The Gathering Player," which appears to have been written by
Alyssa Bereznak (the editor of Gizmodo, can that be right?**), and
Finkel's Wikipedia page. (ETA:
Reported unedited version of the original article.)
4. I discovered
Finkel, a 33-year-old, award-winning, professional
Magic: The Gathering player.
I'll tell you what I learned about the guy, and it's not what the author of the
Gizmodo article learned, which she says was...
"Google the shit out of your next online date. Like, hardcore."
Fair enough.
This is what I learned:
1.
Jon Finkel is an alpha male.
2.
Jon Finkel is a closer. (
Jon Finkel to the author of the original article: "
You should go out with me. :)" Result? She went out with him.)
3.
Jon Finkel is probably a good conversationalist. ("
We started talking about normal stuff—family, work, college.")
4.
Jon Finkel is probably a good date. ("We met for a drink later that week." "Jon had bought us tickets for a one-man show based on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's life story." Okay, the choice of subject matter could definitely be up for debate...creepy, ironic, innocent, funny? Bet it made for great post-show conversation. Regardless, the man bought drinks and two tickets to a show, showed up, dressed appropriately, on time. He appears to have been both courteous and chatty. Sounds good to me.)
5.
Jon Finkel is a real man. (He has a beard and eats goat cheese.)
6.
Jon Finkel has friends and admirers.
7.
John Finkel, in the words of someone who does not even appreciate him, is "widely revered" within his professional circle. He's even been compared to
Chuck Norris. (See # 1.)
8.
Jon Finkel is kind of famous. (The man has his own Wikipedia page and people compare him to Chuck Norris.)
9.
Jon Finkel is a good sport with a sense of humor and perspective. (Finkel Tweets: "
Apparently I'm enough of a (grade d) celebrity that even my uneventful dates make the news." "
Id like to thank everyone for their messages, and Im sorry I cant reply to them all - especially all the date requests from cute nerdy girls" "
At that point I just thought she was a nice girl, which I still mostly think. God knows we've all made poor decisions in our lives.")
10.
Jon Finkel is an investor. (Which means he has money and he may even know how to use it.)
11.
Jon Finkel is a managing partner at the hedge fund Landscape Capital Management. ("
Jon was thin and tall, dressed in a hedge fund uniform with pale skin and pierced ears.")
12.
Jon Finkel is highly-motivated, passionate about something and successful. He also appears to be well-groomed, considerate, gentlemanly, generous and likable. Ya know, a good date, possibly even "a catch."
13.
Jon Finkel will probably get a lot of dates out of this unfortunate article. Good for him.
Seriously, I read an article in which a highly-motivated young man with passion and interests and gainful employment took a woman out on a date, bought her drinks, took her to a show and made nice conversation and...what was the problem again? From where I sit, which I admit is way over here, it doesn't look like the problem was his. I think he can count himself lucky she not only cut bait so quickly, but so widely advertised his availability.
(Btw, many of the comments I've seen about the article are in line with mine only much more succinct, i.e. "I don't get it.")
p.s.
Don't be mislead by the title. I'm ten years older than this guy and I live on the other side of the country. He's all yours, girls. (Besides, I'm rooting for
Kiala).
p.p.s.
Young women? There will likely come a time in your life when you appreciate the fact that your man has a hobby that keeps him busy. Consider men who play golf. Then consider women who hand their men their golf bags and push them out the door at least once a week. Think on that a while.
p.p.p.s.
Many, many people in the U.S. play games these days, even, I know this will surprise you, online games, card games and fantasy roleplay games. Not all of them have won over $300,000 playing games though. And not all of them are number one with the trophies to prove it.
p.p.p.p.s.
Going on dates with people you've met on OKCupid is not a hack or infiltration. It's, ya know, meeting people online and then going on dates with them. You might be surprised how many people do it.
p.p.p.p.p.s.
Is it a lie or sin of omission to not mention in your dating profile that you are the world champion of a game? No, don't be silly. It is, however, a great topic of conversation for a date.
*
I don't care what they say I'm using it anyway.
**
I ask because she writes for Gizmodo and dates via OKCupid...and she thinks Finkel's a geek and that he "inflitrated"...do I really need to explain this?
Links:
http://www.brokentoys.org/2011/08/29/omg-omg-omg-omg-girls-you-wont-believe-this-i-almost-dated-a-gamer-and-i-lived/
http://nerdpuddle.com/my-brief-okcupid-affair-with-a-world-champion-magic-the-gathering-player-ugh-ugh-ugh/
http://gizmodo.com/5833787/my-brief-okcupid-affair-with-a-world-champion-magic-the-gathering-player
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/08/my-okcupid-affair-with-a-world-champion-magic-the-gathering-player/
http://gizmodo.com/people/alyssaberez/
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/08/alyssa-bereznak-just-reminded-us-that-women-can-be-predators-online-too/
http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2011/08/29/full-disclosure-should-your-dating-profile-out-you-as-a-geek/
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20098934-501465.html
http://twitter.com/#%21/Veronica/status/108273465269813248
http://gizmodo.com/5818612/the-day-i-discovered-that-im-an-ok-cupid-asshole
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/jyiaw/awesome_parody_of_the_atrocious_alyssa_bereznak/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112671-An-Apology-to-Jon-Finkel
http://jezebel.com/5696882/horrible-online-dating-stories-to-keep-you-single
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DECaN66tm0k
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=104597
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a7/Shadowmage_infiltrator.jpg
http://twitter.com/#!/Jonnymagic00/status/108320602032570368
http://twitter.com/#!/Jonnymagic00
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/205984/20110830/alyssa-bereznak-gizmodo-magic-jon-finkel.htm
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2011/08/30/the-science-of-gawkers-nerd-baiting/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/08/30/online-dating-etiquette-101-dont-name-people-in-recounting-your-horror-stories/
http://www.blogworld.com/2011/08/30/revenge-of-the-nerds-why-baiting-your-readers-is-a-bad-idea/
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/08/magic_the_gathe.php
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/08/alyssa_bereznak_gizmodo_magic.php
http://canv.as/p/brhcd
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44341150
http://www.examiner.com/rpg-in-national/critical-fumble-the-real-motivation-behind-the-magic-dating-article-gone-awry
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/08/mamas-dont-let-your-babies-grow-up-to-date-alyssa-bereznak/
http://blog.newsok.com/nerdage/2011/08/30/jon-finkel-is-all-right/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/jon-finkel-magic-game-master-and-the-travails-of-dating-online/2011/08/30/gIQAHeIypJ_blog.html
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/08/alyssa_bereznak_gizmodo_magic.php?page=2
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/jz3u7/iama_jon_finkel_ask_me_anything/
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alyssa-bereznak/1a/590/423
http://www.salon.com/author/alyssa_bereznak/index.html
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/04/04/my_father_the_objectivist
ETA: Just like not all dogs are poodles, not all Objectivists are your father.
