If I Were a Boy

The other night I was out at a bar listening to a band, and, after a few drinks, I was relaying some of my dating debacles to one of my guy friends. We hadn't hung out in a bit so he needed to be caught up on quite a few of my latest dates. When I was done with my tales he looked at me and said, simply, "Wow." Then he made me a sincere and interesting offer - he said that he would look over potential dates to translate their profiles from guy-speak to Julie-speak.

Interesting.

It made me think... are some of my dates not working out simply because I'm unable to read boy code? Can he offer me the online dating equivalent to the secret decoder ring in the box of Cheerios? Are men and women really so different that even a general dating profile needs to be translated for the opposite sex?

One general difference I've noticed between the ex's is that, what would take me and a number of girlfriends 20 words to say, would take my male friends about 5 words. Neither is better per se, but when you're trying to decipher a dude's profile - where only words and maybe some pics are available to you - I figured it'd be helpful to get a guy's interpretation on a dude's potential for me.

I took my friend up on his offer and showed him three profiles of potential matches. In less than 24 hours, I got the following interpretation from him:


Guy 1:
He looks like Larry David. He’s the guy you meet in a bar who looks like Larry David. Never mention Larry David when you’re trying to meet a lady. Larry David.

Guy 2:
He wants to date Jennifer Garner. He thinks he’s Ben Affleck.

Guy 3:
He’s at the store every Weds when the new comic books come out. Really (I mean REALLY) out of shape and if you’re lucky, has good hygiene.


In guy-speak terms, I went from considering a funny guy, a nice guy and a slightly dorky guy to a Larry David look-a-like, a guy I'm sorely mismatched with since I look nothing like Jennifer Garner and an out-of-shape, stinky comic book addict.

Now I'm wondering - has adding the guy-speak translation helped or hurt my cause?

What do you think? Do I need a man to meet a man?