Efficiency defined

[dougo]

The other day I got mail from Match.com out of the blue for the first time in a long time. I've had an account there pretty much since it started, because back then they were giving out charter memberships for free (I'm nowhere near the point of wanting to pay money for a personals ad). I've never met anyone through it, but I've had a handful of email conversations with people who responded to my profile; nothing in the last three years or so, though, and I had all but forgotten about it until they sent me a new list of matches for no apparent reason. So I went to the site to do some idle browsing, and when I went to update my profile, I noticed that I had set the headline to:

Efficiency is intelligent laziness. --David Dunham

I have absolutely no memory of using this quote; I don't even know where I found it, though I'm guessing I stole it from someone's .sig file. It's a fine slogan, though, and resonates with me (being intelligent, lazy, and somewhat overly obsessed with efficiency on several different levels) so I guess I should give kudos to the me of the past. (I'm not so sure it's the best line for picking up chicks, but probably the idea was that I'd like the kind of chicks it would pick up.) Anyway, I'm glad I recovered this aphorism from the pile of forgotten trivia, and I'm recording it here for a somewhat more public posterity.

Comments

Chic magnet

[mshonle.livejournal.com]

I dunno (I'm assuming here the headline is a key feature of your ad) do you really think a quote you forgot even existed defines you well?

Reading the quote I immediately thought of Larry Wall and his bit about lazy programmers. Reading your blog I had already put myself in the right context, because I know you as a computer scientist. However, how is the random match.com reader going to be in that context? You don't want to exclude the pool of people you'd be very happy with just because they aren't quick to think of all that your headline might mean. I mean, rather than having a litmus test it should be more of an interactive process.

But maybe I'm just over-reacting here.

But I do enjoy the idea of giving kudos to the past you. I have done the same a couple of times.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I think the fact that I can forget a favorite quote defines me well.

I suppose if I were more serious about Match.com I'd come up with a less oblique headline, but I don't really care. If someone feels curious enough to ask about it, that's cool, but otherwise, enh.