Being Audrey Cooper: How I Made Boys Cry On OKCupid

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You may have already heard about this from my Twitter feed, but earlier this month, I registered for an OKCupid account. I did this with the intent of publishing the more absurd messages I received as an homage to online works such as Twitter accounts and Tumblr blogs created solely for that reason. I created the account under the moniker of “Audrey Cooper” and uploaded a dated selfie for my profile photo. The profile was completely filled out in a matter of minutes, all of the information fictional and utterly ridiculous. I had no intent on taking the website seriously from the moment I signed up for OKCupid, and I was certain that I had made that obvious through Audrey’s profile. Audrey Cooper was a NASA Explorer School dropout who began working towards an accounting degree at Columbia Community College. Her profile stated, “My name is Audrey and I am looking for Mister Right. Having fun is the most important thing to me.” She was very good at “beekeeping and books”, and the first things people usually noticed about her is that she was “very good at minecraft!!!!!!”. I attempted to make Audrey’s profile as nonsensical and childish as possible, her details preaching that she was an atheist and “very serious about it” and that men should message her if they wanted to be “the cool dad to my soccer mom”The entirety of Audrey’s profile can be viewed here.

I think that the most interesting thing about this venture into the lonelier parts of the web is that I created Audrey’s profile at 2AM on a Wednesday night and received multiple messages within an hour of making the account. The first message that I received read, “You see a cat hiding in your room…What would you do?” I responded with some sort of common flirty emoticon prefacing my answer (“I am the cat,” Audrey replied) and waited for a reply, which never came.

When my quirky reply failed to be reciprocated, I began to think that this entire thing was most likely a terrible idea and that I should spare myself the cringing by deleting my account. Before I actually deleted Audrey’s page, however, the site notified me of another message, This one was much more interesting, asking, “Have you ever been flown to dinner over the city lights? :)”After viewing the profile of “IFlyAirplanesYo” and reading that he believed“habitual texting on dates is rude. Every time you needlessly text on a date an angel gets stabbed in the dick. lol”, I didn’t experience any remorse upon ignoring him. I am extremely grateful that OKCupid hadn’t implemented a read receipt function in their messaging system, because in all honesty, who hasn’t felt spited by a read receipt without a response? I’m certain that even the virtuous IFlyAirplanesYo has felt the virtual cold shoulder.

Before the messages grew creepier, other notable propositions Audrey had received included smoking marijuana as a first date and immediately demanding that she becomes the user’s girlfriend (shout-out to OKCupid user afckas, being disgustingly straightforward is definitely attractive). The subsequent messages following this one were relatively mild. It took quite a while for another user to question Audrey’s profile content, telling me that“half of this stuff is fictitious” because she spoke out against evolution while being a very serious atheist. The fact that you can list yourself as “a very serious atheist” on this website is my favorite thing in the world.

Audrey’s profile content was written off as scatter-brained and quirky by the majority of the OKCupid community. American Psycho and The Great Gatsbyreferences were ignored, however Welcome to Night Vale transcripts pasted into Audrey’s about section were recognized within a few minutes of IM-ing another user. User xXBlackAceXx (“I lost my virginity on accident,” read his self summary) queried Audrey on her profile’s content, “Is that a book or are you already deciding to put me in the friend zone?”, which I feel is leagues more than what needs to be said about the rest of their conversation.

My aforementioned favorite feature of the site (the choice of listing myself as“a very serious atheist”) was a close tier with the usernames of the men that trawled my profile. Users drinkorbegone, mrniceguy94, BigDadStankDick, and NiceGuyNiceSex are some of the more notable aliases that viewed my profile. I could not imagine what kind of person would attempt to woo a potential partner with that kind of username, nor did I view their profiles or interact with them. I think that I made the right choice by deciding to leave mrniceguy94 and his poorly-named friends alone.

The beauty of a fictitious character such as Audrey is that her story cannot only be read, but experienced firsthand by logging into the account that inspired this post. The messages that Audrey received were absurd enough for me to feel comfortable allowing anyone to view them. The fact people that put themselves out there on this website viewed Audrey Cooper as a potential partner, despite her dislike of both cats and dogs and her academic failures at “space camp”, is so hilarious and depressing that it deserves to be experienced firsthand. Audrey’s email is “fuckthis@yopmail.com”, and the password to her account is “idontevencare”. I think you’ll enjoy the ridiculous things that actual people were foolish enough to send her, so I’ll leave the rest of Audrey’s story to you.

image – OKCupid