I post this with a humorous tone, but I'm also somewhat serious. Throwaway for obvious reasons.

I recently created a profile at a certain free online dating website for shits and giggles. Part of it was curiosity, part boredom, part seeing what kind of women would go for a twenty-something guy who's transgender and majoring in the fine arts, but also staunchly politically moderate, fiscally conservative, and an owner of firearms. When it comes down to it, I think I'd be too creeped out to actually meet in person with someone I'd only ever talked to on the internet, plus I'm a firm believer that chemistry can only be accurately gauged in person.

Anyway, on to the field report. First we'll talk about the guys. I wanted to check out my competition, so I set the filter to show me men aged 20-29. Now, I wouldn't say that the men whom I saw were significantly below average in attractiveness, however, the guys on this particular site had no idea how to take flattering photos. Lots of head shots with untrimmed beards, weird/dim lighting, entire albums of creepy photos taken at computer desks or shirtless in front of the bathroom mirror. I could definitely see how, if polled, women would generally find 80% of these photos unattractive, and with good reason (hence that famous statistic from OKCupid that TRPers keep pulling out).

Now for the women. I should probably mention that, in my About Me section, I stressed how important things like having a college degree, being an avid reader, maintaining healthy eating habits, and partaking in regular physical/outdoor activities are to me in my personal life, therefore I'm looking to meet people with the same priorities. Apparently, nobody read that part. Most of the attention I got over the three days I had this profile came from women who hadn't gone to college, openly detested books, were more than slightly overweight, and whose profiles said things like, "I like to wake up late on weekends and watch Netflix. I want a guy I can be physically attracted to. Message me if you have a car and a good job. No black guys or asians."

My immediate thought was "God, how damn entitled. No wonder these people are perpetually single." Then it hit me: "Wait a minute…this must be where TRP gets all of their notions about dating and male/female interactions."

So there you have it, folks. Conclusions from this field report: TRPers never see sunlight. And I'm going back to dating in the real world, where normal people seem to exist in greater numbers. That is all.

***DISCLAIMER: I am by no means saying that everyone who uses online dating websites is weird or creepy or has hypocritical standards. Just that there are a lot of those people on there, as you will probably know from experience if you have ever dated online.