MatchFlick is a great place to meet movie lovers like yourself! |
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Social Networking is probably the fastest trend in web sites today. Wether it be to meet new friends, find people with common interests or even to find the love of your life, social networking offers unlimited possibilities to meet people without having to leave your home!
MatchFlick is considered by many to be a social networking site for movie lovers and guess what.....it is! The site is designed to be two different sites in one, a networking place for film lovers and also a database and review site. To make things simple I have come up with a good equation as to what we hope MatchFlick is in a few years.
IMDB + MySpace = MatchFlick
Although we are a long way from being as large and as talked about as the above mentioned sites, we do know that our goal is to connect movie lovers around the world so that they can share opinions, meet other movie lovers and express their love for film in many different ways. I have been active on the Internet since around the year of 1995, way before most people bought their first PC and starting surfing the web. The reason being is because the job I worked at had AOL on all the company computers and before long I realized how many endless adventures I could have meeting people online. I have sat and thought about all my experience with all aspects of social networking on the Internet and came up with some things that I had to learn the hard way.
Rule # 1 : Find the Right Genre
Finding the best site for your needs is crucial. For instance if you are reading this then obviously you like movies or you like me. I'm going to guess its movies, but find a site with a genre that you have a lot of interest in. This makes it a lot easier to find people with common interest and also will help keep motivation up for meeting people. Meeting people isn't always easy and can take months of filtering out the weirdos before you actually hit it off with someone. Also you need to find a place that you are willing to put some time into. Site hopping is the worst way to meet people because the majority of people find sites they like and stay with them. Sometimes is can take months of talking to the same person before they relationship or friendship takes a step past what I like to call " the small talk era," when its past the whole "hey what's up? what did you do today" point.
Rule # 2 : Profile is Life and Death
When your going out on a date or to meet someone for the first time you usually don't just throw on whatever clothes are the first to grab in the closet and let your hair naturally style itself. Think of your profile as the first time you are meeting someone. Statistically profiles with pictures are viewed 
You can get knocked off of it as fast as you got on it! |
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10 times more then profiles without. When I am looking through profiles I hardly ever stop on one that does not have an image. Also you can never have to much information and details about your hobbies, interest, career or anything else that you deem as an important characteristic of you! Take the time and fill out all the boxes and questions and try to be honest with the answers. When adding pictures remember that no one wants to think of you as your favorite movie star or your childhood icon so use a REAL picture of yourself. Also for men and woman, do not waste your time before you even start. Adding a picture that is years old when you "use to look good" is not a good idea. If you ever plan on meeting someone remember that your looks is probably what started the conversation in the first place, so lying and showing someone a picture before that pregnancy or before you started drinking a 6 pack a day is probably not a good idea. Starting any relationship out on a lie is just a recipe for disaster. The good rule of thumb is use an image that was taken in the past 6 months.
Rule # 3 : Don't get on your high horse!
How many times have you been in a chat room, message board or forum and an ass hole has to talk shit to everyone in the room. Wether he is making fun of your profile or just disagreeing with everything you say to be an ass he just makes it a point to be negative and to try and start a fight. Some people feel what I like to call "cyber security" which is the same thing as being invulnerable because they are talking on a computer. I mean face it how many times do you walk into a restaurant or club and a random stranger starts talking shit to you for no reason? It doesn't happen and that's because people know when you are face to face that they cant escape if the scrappin starts. People like this are pathetic and although it can be rather comical when they are doing it to someone else the best thing to do it avoid them and find another place to chat. I doubt anyone acting like that is meeting any friends or getting any dates. You can try reporting the user to the site but usually unless they make physical threats or use racial slurs they will just get a slap on the wrist. As far as BEING the ass hole, just remember that their are nerds 80,000 times smarter then you that can make your computer life a living hell with hacking and other methods. The last person you want to piss off on the Internet are the geek's that you are probably taking shots at.
Rule # 4 : Respectfully do not be afraid to ask ANYTHING
My first "meeting" with a girl from online was a girl I met in a local AOL chat room around 1998. I talked to her for a few weeks online and then 
Not quite the same story as mine, it is a great look at cyber relationships |
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out of the blue one night she asked me if I would call her. I was 18, didn't have a girlfriend and that sounded pretty freakin great so I picked up the phone and had a 30 minute conversation with her that went pretty well.
Lets backtrack a little bit. 1998 was a great year for a lot of things, computer dating wasn't one of them. This was before most of America had digital camera's and high speed Internet so either you didn't get a picture at all or it would take you an hour to download it IF your computer didn't crash halfway through it. I know some of you remember the whole "a/s/l ?" which you would type first to see what their age, sex and location was. Then you would say something to the effect of "describe yourself or what do you look like?" Well I said those exact words the first evening that I talked to her, and the reply was " 5' 6", long black hair, green eyes, tongue ring" .......hell that sounds good to me so I was happy with it and never went back to the subject. This was my FIRST MISTAKE
So after I had that phone conversation with her she told me that she wanted to hang out and asked if I would pick her up from work. I agreed and she gave me directions to one of the four Walmarts that we had at the time in Charlotte, NC...this one being in the worst area of town. HaHaHaHaHa...come on guys I was 18 and it was normal then for a kid that age to work at Walmart. So the night came and I was waiting in the parking lot very nervous. Even though I had talked to her several times it really started to settle in that I was about to go out with a complete stranger. So I am sitting in my car and looking for my 5'6" long haired beauty but I'm just not seeing her. Let me go ahead and state for the record that I see beauty in all races of women....white, black, Hispanic, Latino, Asian...it really doesn't matter to me. I see a young black girl looking at me like she is lost and then she approaches my vehicle. I immediately assumed that she was going to ask for directions, a ride or money being that Charlotte is notorious for having beggars on every corner. So I rolled my window down and I heard the words that shocked the living shit out of me. "Are you Tim?" I was thinking how does this girl know my name? Then it hit me......shit.....I never asked the Internet girl what race she was. Black girls are just as good as any but still a complete shocker when your expecting her to be white!
So she got in the car and off we went for a nice dinner and ice cream. Afterwards I dropped her off at her house and went home. Now lets diagnose the original description GUYS especially pay attention to this. 5'6" was about right, she had long black hair and green eyes, and yep I saw a 
You never know who your LaFawnduh is !! |
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tongue ring so she didn't lie to me......but she did withhold some much needed info to make an educated decision on wether this was a girl I wanted to take out. First off the most important thing was missing...her weight. Now call me what you will but I don't like big women so if your like me and you cant see a picture of the lady then I think its more then OK to ask. Just watch your wording and she shouldn't get too offended. That goes for females as well, if you don't like bald guys then ask the guy "hey do you still have all of your hair?" you might as well be a little blunt about it unless you want to risk a nightmarish meeting which could have easily been avoided.
Rule # : The Aftermath and Ending
So now you went out with someone and its time to make a choice. Usually its made up within the first few minutes of meeting someone, wether or not it was a good choice and will it happen again with this person? As for my meeting I made the choice to not go out again because I knew that she was not the type of girl I was looking for so I never returned her calls again. Yeah yeah I know.....awwwwwww poor girl. If you do like who you go out with remember that you still have an online relationship with them as well and you need to keep that going to further the offline one.
Some advice for setting up a first meeting:
1. Tell the other person that you only have a few minutes to meet them at a Starbucks or other public place. That way if you aren't feelin them you have an excuse to cut the meeting short.
2. Especially for woman but can work for men as well, take a friend. Taking a friend not only will make you feel better but can also help will initial conversation as more people will be there to contribute.
3. If you don't take a friend then let someone know where you are going and who you are meeting. This again apply's more to women. Meeting people on the Internet is still considered kind of tacky and desperate in a sense. People aren't comfortable discussing it sometimes so if your embarrassed about it then just tell a friend or relative that you are going out with a friend and the location. Its not a bad idea to have someone call you during the meeting as well just to touch base and let them know that everything is ok.
4. Try not to hurt people feelings. Sadly people don't always look like their pictures or turn out to be the person you thought they were. Each meeting is going to be a memorable experience that will come bad and good. Try to be nice, I went with my friend once to meet a girl and when he saw her we just kept driving. Never stopped but he told me to go. That was mean and I wouldn't want someone to do that to me.
Hope this helps some of you!
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| MatchFlick Mayhem |
Every other Thursday
This column explores every aspect of the film business from a true fanboy's perspective.
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| Tim Malcolm |
Tim Malcolm got his first job at a movie theater in 1996 working as a projectionist. He quickly learned that there was no better job then getting paid to watch movies. Since then he has been an advid film watcher, collector, critic and writer.
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If you have a comment, question, or suggestion, you can send a message to Tim Malcolm by clicking here.
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