This section takes a look at a special case of evaluative stancetaking, in which the writers defend themselves against presumed negative stances towards online dating and online daters in general. The issue will be taken up again from the standpoint of the metadiscourse data in section 7.1.1 and summed up in the discussion in chapter 8. This section takes a look at the advertisement texts alone. In these cases, compared with the previous section, the negativity or potential stigma that the writers orient to derives not from their described characteristics but from the participation in the practice of online dating – which, of course, is one kind of sign of the self too.
Presuming that a negative image of personhood befalls anyone who merely takes up the genre implicitly also projects a similar stigmatizing image onto the respondents, who are in a similar or intimately related role. Such aspects, however, are never explicitly dealt with in the data. The examples in this section focus solely on the writer.
About 10–15 % of the texts, depending on the strictness of the criteria, include a pattern that explicitly explains or justifies the motives and reasons for engaging in the activity of online dating. Usually it is located towards the beginning of the text. In the first example (5.24a), for instance, the writer makes his point very explicit. According to him, all people encountered on
98 Another writer first describes his text as “not much of an advertisement” (Eipä tämäkään teksti toisaalta ole kummoinen ilmoitus, cf. example 5.13 in 5.2.2) and continues: “To make sure that no one contacts me, let me add that I have mental problems” (Jotta kukaan ei varmasti ottaisi yhteyttä niin kerrotaan vielä, että olen mielenterveysongelmainen). That is, he presumes that (a) in the context of online dating advertisements stereotypically non-positive information is automatically problematic and leads to negative responses from others, and (b) his self-presentation is so stigmatizing that it completely sieves off all respondents. Reveling in the futility of the effort can, of course, be interpreted as one more strategy that may appeal to a particular type of respondent. In fact, the ending of his text clearly betrays a personal tone of bleak humor: “I watch porn daily and I don’t like morning shows on the radio. Amen. Oh, and I’m an atheist too” (Katson pornoa päivittäin enkä pidä radion aamuohjelmista. Aamen. Niin ja ateistikin olen).
the Internet should be treated with initial caution (see also 7.1.1), which is why he takes the time to assure his readers that he is not a threat:
(5.24a) ¶Hei, Kiitos kun avasit tämän lukuisten ilmoitusten joukosta. Toivo[i]nkin, että runsaasta valikoimasta valitsisit juuri tämän. Ihan aluksi totean, että tämän ilmoituksen takana on ihan täyspäinen mies. Sanon näin, koska netissä varmasti liikkuu monenlaisia viheltäjiä.
(5.24a) ¶Hi, Thanks that you opened this [one] among the many ads. I [am/was] hoping that out of the wide selection you would choose this one. Let me start by saying that there is a completely sane man behind this ad. I’m saying this, because there are for sure many kinds of questionable persons [litt. whistlers] on the move on the Internet.
In the second example (5.24b), in contrast, the writer focuses on the consequences of online dating by expressing a lack of faith in “virtual worlds,” echoing similar negative stereotypes as were seen in the previous example. That is, she does not really believe that online dating would work.
Simultaneously, however, she leaves a door open for a change of attitude:
(5.24b) [Title] Vastauksia vienoon toiveeseen... ¶Pimeän Syksyn lähestyessä rohkenen kokeilla onneani täällä.. vaikken juuri tällaiseen virtuaalimaailmaan uskokaan.. kerta se tosin voi olla ensimmäinenkin kun mieli kääntyy:)
(5.24b) [Title] Replies to a modest wish… ¶As dark Fall approaches I venture to try my luck here.. although I don’t quite believe in a virtual world like this.. there’s a first time for everything though and I may change my mind:)
The title of the text (“Replies to a modest wish…”) metapragmatically typifies the advertisement as a “modest wish” and implicitly encourages respondents to produce desired responses (“replies”). That is, the writer’s wishes and her anticipation of actual consequences seem to contradict. Nevertheless, making that contradiction explicit seemingly reduces the writer’s stakes in the game and shows that she has a realistic awareness of the situation (i.e., she is prepared for the worst-case scenario too). Example (5.24b) also makes a dramatized reference to the approaching season (Pimeä Syksy, “dark Fall”).99 As was seen in section 4.4.3, online dating advertisements are sometimes contextualized in light of biographic or seasonal trajectories. That is, the interactional event is explicitly located as a point on a biographic time scale. When such contextualizations include explanations of why one is single and looking for a partner through online dating, they have the additional function of justifying why it is “normal” or appropriate to engage in online dating in the kind of biographic situation the writer is in (e.g., if other methods are not available or have not been successful; see example 4.28 in 4.4.3).
99 “Dramatized” because in Finnish the names of seasons (as well as days of the week, months) are not normally spelled with capital letters.
Negative general preconceptions can also be turned into the virtues of the particular writer. Like example (5.24b), the following two examples strongly imply that the consequences of online dating advertisements are rarely desirable and therefore engaging in the activity requires a suitable attitude.
In the following cases, the focus is on the formulation of that attitude in a positive light, for instance, as “optimism”:
(5.25a) ¶Kokeilenpas nyt sitten tätä nettihakuakin… – – [M]utta pystyn silti (joskus katteettomaankin) optimismiin tulevaisuuden suhteen — tässä minä nytkin olen kirjoittamassa treffi-ilmoitusta :)
(5.25a) ¶Well, I’ll give this net search a try too now. – – [B]ut I am still capable of (sometimes even unfounded) optimism concerning my future – see, here I am writing a dating ad just now :)
(5.25b) ¶Olen avoin, empaattinen, elämästä utelias, innostuva ja toivoton optimisti (siksi täälläkin).
(5.25b) ¶I’m open, empathic, curious about life, enthusiastic and a hopeless optimist (that’s why [I’m] here too). [--]
Let us now take a look at two more examples that discuss such negative stereotypes more specifically in the light of texts and interaction. The writer of (5.26), first of all, claims that he has read a number of women’s advertisements and, therefore, has an empirical grasp of what women are saying they are looking for. He can, therefore, plausibly typify himself as
“tolerable” or even “desirable” from the women readers’ perspective. The formulation of his next move, however, implies that such men should or would not normally be writing an online dating advertisement. The combination of a question word and an interrogative clitic implies that the utterance is a reformulation of someone else’s actual or potential question. It confirms one’s understanding of the other’s interrogative intentions. That is, the writer animates a question as if it was asked by the respondent (“Why am I writing here then, one might ask?” or “Why am I writing here then? Is that what you’re asking?”). In the writer’s underlying interpretation, then, the kinds of desirable men women are looking for on online dating forums are not usually found there – because they have “normal” options for courtship available – and women know and expect that – otherwise they would have no reason to ask why such a desirable man is writing there:
(5.26) ¶Sikäli kuin luin ilmoituksia ja yhtään maailmasta tai naisista ymmärrän, olen siis varsin siedettävä mies. Haluttava jopa.
Miksi=kö sitten tänne kirjoittelen?
[why=Q then here write:1sg.ind.pres]
Ainakin haluan päästä kertomaan, mitä haluan. – – Kyllästynyt odottelemaan, että satun tutustumaan oikeanlaiseen naiseen.
(5.26) As far as I read from these ads and understand anything about the world or women, I’m a fairly tolerable man. Desirable even.
Why am I writing here then, you/one might ask?
At least I want to get to tell what I want. – – Tired of waiting that I’ll just happen to meet the right kind of woman.
The writer’s view seems to implicitly resonate with and recycle common images of, for instance, the “desperation” of online daters (see also 7.1.1). The writer’s reply to the question is equally interesting. As in many of the biographic narratives examined earlier, the writer underlines that online dating is not his only option but merely an appropriate instrument with respect to his particular interests. According to him, the interactional structure of online dating enables particular kinds of discursive acts (“telling what one wants”) as well as fast access to particular kinds of selected respondents (“the right kind of woman”) (see also example 5.1 and section 7.1.1).
Finally, the last example locates the problem specifically in the semiotic behaviors of the writers of online dating advertisements (see also 7.2.2).
According to him, it is the strict demands and the high degree of selectivity, which seems to increase according to the type of social relation one is looking for, that give online daters a bad name:
(5.27) ¶Mikä ihme näissä deittipalveluissa oikein on... ¶Olen lueskellut ”ystävää etsitään” ja ”ei luokitusta” -ilmoituksia ja niistäkin tuntuu löytyvän vaan vaatimuksia toisen perään. – – Itse en vaan sellaista ymmärrä.
(5.27) ¶What is it with these dating services… ¶I have been reading “looking for a friend”
and “no classification” ads and they too seem to be filled with nothing but requirement after requirement. – – Personally I just cannot understand that.
Rather than attempting to refute some negative stereotype, the writer in fact ratifies and reinforces one, but attempts to dissociate himself as an individual from it. In that sense, this example is akin to earlier examples (5.13) and (5.22).
To sum up, we have seen that many writers presume and more or less explicitly orient in their writing to negative stereotypes of online dating and online daters (e.g., “online dating requires optimism because it’s a hopeless task,” “online dating is appropriate only after normal methods have been tried or are not a viable option,” “people reading and writing dating advertisements are often suspicious, have undesirable characteristics, and online dating is probably their last or only hope”). To refute negative interpretations of themselves, some writers take explicit counter-stances that rationalize and justify why others should not interpret them in the light of
negative stereotypes.100 That is, there are systematic relationships between stereotypes of personhood and stereotypes of discursive action that manifest themselves in actual discourse. The conclusion that we can draw is that for some interactants, there are stigmatized default personae attached to the genre itself. That is, in addition to dealing with one’s own values as an individual self, one has to deal with the value that threatens to fall upon one as an instance of a type of participant. Similarly important – and an additional challenge to self-presentation – is the fact that the stereotypes of personhood associated with a particular communicative practice may differ considerably between semiotic communities, as will be seen more clearly later in chapter 7.