For those of you who aren’t heavy video gamers, we’re talking about a genre of video games called ‘RPG’s. RPGs, or Role-Playing Games, are where you take a character picked from a set of classes and races and build them through adventure and treasure-hording until you develop the character into an almost godly figure. ‘Winning’ isn’t so much a matter of finishing the goals of the game, as it is in building the strongest character, with bonus satisfaction coming from using your own unique approach.
Famous examples: Blizzard’s ‘World of Warcraft’ and ‘Diablo’ series, Everquest, Earthbound, and Angband and Nethack for a couple of very old games that started out as text. Further, we have ‘Dungeons and Dragons’, in all of it’s many computer-based and table-top based incarnations.
So, let’s get to the point: What does this teach us about online dating? Well, in a role-playing game there’s usually some form of a character sheet, which lists the stats of the character with numbered values. And in online dating, you have a profile that lists your basic stats along with a description. Hey, they’re related!
It can help in planning out your online dating strategy if you think of the character sheet model of online role-playing. In role-playing games, a hefty sword can boost your damage and attack rating, heavy armor can boost your defense. If you come from a race know for its beauty, you have a high charisma score, while an ogre would have high scores for strength and constitution, but not much for charisma. Classes can affect ratings, too, with high dexterity for thieves, high intelligence for wizards, and so on.
Now let’s look at online dating stats. Not to be taken literally, but just to show how this model cuts through to the lucid facts of how people view you.
College diploma: +10 to intelligence, plus additional +5 per degree rank.
Smoker: -2 charisma.
Divorced/widowed: +10 to wisdom, 100 points experience for every year married.
Open to any relationship: +5 dexterity.
Willing to relocate: +10 dexterity.
Funny screen name: +1 wisdom
Spelling/grammar mistakes in profile: -20 intelligence, -5 charisma.
Chat-room only: -5 wisdom.
Owns a cat or dog: +3 charisma, but -1 dexterity if potential partner is allergic.
Has kids: +5 wisdom, +5 intelligence, but -10 dexterity because your lifestyle is less flexible.
We could go on, but you see where this comes in as a handy way to condense a profile down to its basic elements. Try to think of this model, both in composing your profile and deciding what to say, or in browsing other profiles and deciding how to respond. As an online dater, how can you raise your stats? How can you make your dating profile read like a good character sheet, where all the elements come together to draw the interest of readers? Are there areas in your life which conflict, so that one attribute is canceling out another stat?
For that matter, what methods of self-improvement can you use to better your standing in life? One of the reasons that RPGs are so popular is because the players learn something about personal development. At the same time, it teaches you to seek balance. In both life and a role-playing game, you can’t have it all at once. You have to focus on minimizing your weak points while enhancing your strong points.