The Strangest OkCupid Messages I Got In 2 Months

I've had a profile on OKCupid as a queer woman in a non-monogamous relationship for close to two years now. It's gone through several phases — before I was out at work, my profile didn't show my face. Shortly before I came out as non-monogamous on Bustle, however, I decided to test the waters by coming out on my OKCupid profile, pictures of my face and all.

I felt incredibly liberated — and lucky — when nothing horrific happened after I came out. Nobody started pointing and laughing at me, no relatives called saying they'd stumbled across my profile — nada. While I've since grown comfortable with being open about my open(ish) relationship, over the past few months, I've mostly been taking a break from going out on dates with other people (my partner and I just moved, so things have been hectic enough). My OKCupid profile, however, is still active, and sometimes I remember to check it. Perhaps it's because I'm taking a bit of a pause that I've allowed myself to fully take in just how bizarre many of the opening messages I receive on OKCupid are. I started saving some of the "best" ones over the past few months, just because the immersion journalist in me can't resist the anthropological data of it all.

I'm not posting them here to boast about my desirability or make fun of the senders (although, some of them are really funny), but rather to expose some of the ways queer, non-monogamous women are approached on dating sites. It's certainly been my observation that since I stopped presenting online as monogamous in the past few years, people (mostly, it seems, cis men) feel more emboldened than ever to say the very first thing that pops into their mind. Here are just 33 recent examples of that over the last two months.

The Ones That Are Confused By Non-Monogamy

Mostly, the bulk of the messages about non-monogamy I get are really curious and mostly innocent. People want to know how our relationship works, what being in a non-monogamous relationship is like, and how we manage jealousy, etc. I've also of course gotten some comiserating messages from women also in open relationships, asking how I'm dealing with the barage of often-insulting messages.

These stood out for simply being judgemental for no apparent reason. Remember, I'm not taking anything out of context here — all messages shown are the opening messages in full. What motivates people to reach out just to say this — and only this — I'm not sure.

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Super helpful.

The Ones That Assume I'm DTF Because I'm In An Open Relationship

Because obviously, being nonmonogamous means I'm a "nympho slut," right? Or at least "easy?" Like most women, I always got some of these messages, but the crude openers really started rolling in once my profiile switched over to non-monogamous (I almost always had that I was bisexual or queer on my profile back when I was monogamous, so I can't really compare on that front, though I'm sure it doesn't help).

Remember, these are their opening messages in full.

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Ya, I can tell he's really sorry.

The Ones That Want Me To Be A "Bad Girl"

A variation of the DTF messages, these in particular annoy me for their slut-shaming-as-compliment flavor.

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What happened to classic cheesy pickup lines? Oh, wait...

The Most Unfortunate Pickup Lines

I do have to give some of these credit for their creativity.

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OK, how could he tell though?

The Very, Very Random

Like most women on OKCupid, many of the messages I recieve are just very, very random. But they really have started to get weirder since I started my profile as someone in a non-monogamous relationship. Maybe people think I'm already kind of strange, so they just go for it?

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Who the hell is Shannon?

The Ones That Don't Get That "Queer" Can Mean You Like All Genders

I've dated both men and women, but I don't use the label bisexual because I'm also open to dating gender-nonconforming folk. There appear to be a lot of cis men who think queer = lesbian.

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The Ones That Are Creepy AF/Can't Take A Hint

Because nothing turns a woman on like being stalked. I'm just gonna leave these right here for the police records.

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Jesus.

Overall, it seems the main assumption here is that since I like more than one gender, and sometimes more than one person, I must be easy to impress. If anything, it's the reverse — I have more people to choose from, and less incentive to make myself go out with someone who looks anything but steller. So for those of you out there messaging women in non-monogamous relationships: please, don't take our lifestyle as an invitation to speak to us as if we're somehow your excuse to finally have a threesome.

Images: Rachel Krantz/OKCupid