Feel Like A Silly Goose? You Shouldn't

and other phrases that must be banished from your dating profiles

Feb 15, 2025

Happy Valentine’s sweet sluts and simps! Here are some love related writings from the past few years. Also in this newsletter: a brief foray into “what if we blasted Elon Musk into orbit,” some cartoons, whale gobbling news, and punishable offenses on your dating profiles. xoxo

Is It Time To Banish Polyamory?

awards for good boys

January 25, 2024

People who choose polyamory do so for various, occasionally profound, reasons. Perhaps they find joy in the tricky parts, the scheduling and negotiating and navigating the choppy waters of juggling multiple partners (fucking nerds). Others seem to get off on the freedom to be attracted (and act on this) to others.

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Elon Interlude (sorry!)

There are so many concrete things to point to about how terrifying, despotic, and deeply evil this man is. But today I am looking at his X account and wondering if one could convince him that he, personally, must be in orbit at all times. For his health, for the well-being of the world. The Earth? There’s nothing here for the likes of the richest men in the world anyways. It’s too woke for him! Why should they remain in their bunkers carving away at the material well-being of everyone else when they can blast themselves into space right this second! Perhaps he could be the first human to try cryosleep, and he can wake up in 100 years merged with his on board GROK, an aimless cyborg who spins around the planet forever and ever doing trolley problems about the fate of a world that has since forgotten our former overlord Elon is still rotating around us. That would be the funniest thing he could do! The only funny thing!

Elon really cares about being funny. This is not a new observation (see this theory from ratlimit) but it bears repeating. On his X account, the website he owns, he mostly posts “yes” and “interesting” above quote tweets and harrowingly unfunny memes from verified X Users (paid) with names like “Insurrection Barbie” and “Wall Street Apes.” Elon is the wealthiest man who has ever been alive but he cannot buy himself a sense of humor. He can sidle his way into the laps and hallowed halls of the most powerful people on the planet but he will remain, always, achingly and pathetically uncool. Perhaps the only way he can remedy this (Elon, are you reading?) is by strapping himself into a rocket that he pretended to design and going into orbit.

(To be clear, this is a bit, the plan is already to abandon Earth and humanity and rebuild in their image, which is terrifying and doesn’t bode well for life on Earth or beyond it. But what if: what if he did it now, with an onboard AI (named Hal, maybe?) and journeyed to the stars. Try terraforming with your bare hands, Elon. If anyone can do it, it’s you! You can make the least woke world in the galaxy. It will be barren, asleep, drowsy. And the Earth—well, that can be ours. It’s a little cosmic joke, you wouldn’t get it anyways.)

Make your dating profiles better:

An urgent call to action. If you or someone you love has described themselves as a “silly goose” in a dating profile, you may be liable for legal compensation. From me, paying you to make it stop. You need to confess your sins at once and pray for salvation. It might be too late for you. I don’t know though. Go and delete that right now.

We have to ban Silly Goose. Silly Goose-ification must stop at once. What does it even mean? You are not silly, nor a goose. You are a MILLENNIAL. You sound like Elon trying to convince us you have a sense of humor. You are 35-years-old. Let me on the dental plan and delete the app. If you are truly a goofy human, let this shine through without having to use an oft-repeated and too-twee phrase that has careened around the Internet and landed splat in your lap.

In this vein is also “goofball.” Silly Goose is worse. But goofball is also bad. How about whimsical. (Side note, I once met these random guys at a party who were mid discussion about a fight one had gotten in with his girlfriend, who told him he wasn’t “capable of whimsy” and he was really hurt, so we discussed this for hours, what it meant to be capable of whimsy, if he had it, if this was a relationship ending accusation. I think about that a lot.)

Let’s acknowledge the obvious: dating apps are gamified, algorithmically driven, designed to make you feel like shit and spend more money in search of connection, and unfortunately still one of the best ways to connect with fellow singles or SOLO POLY PRACTITIONERS (AREN’T YOU JUST SINGLE) or whatever you are into.

I reiterate this only to underscore the myriad of ways in which the technology branded as a way to connect us (blah blah blah) has simply invented new and unique ways to stratify us. This feels even more onerous when in the search for romantic connection, when we are looking for comfort or for human touch and receive bot slop or can’t find a time to meet because life is happening or the abundance of textable options renders everyone an anonymous string of numbers, texting aimlessly with “Maybe: [NAME]” until one of you gives up and slithers back into the dating pool like a scorned prehistoric lizard.

So—remember this, if things feel grim out there, it is not because you are unlovable but because it is a lonely, isolated time to be alive where the structures that be work overtime (literally) to keep people from finding community and connection, platonic or romantic. You are worthy, beautiful, unique, lovable—and whatever sort of romance you want in your life, you deserve it and more. Okay!?

But let’s put a bandaid on that gaping wound, eh? I.E. let me help you avoid some common offenses on dating apps. A good general rule is to 1) look for people you’d want to be friends with regardless of what happens and 2) try a phone call or Face Time before meeting to spare everyone involved energy if the vibes don’t check out. That’s honest advice, okay! Below are my grievances, with help from friends and followers. Please revel in this knowledge and feel free to contribute your own, or make a brave stand in defense on behalf of these sins.

Listing your height and then being embarrassed about it — List it without comment or not at all. Don’t be self-effacing as the first impression. Let us like you! If someone cares about height in either direction, that is their issue, not yours!
"YAPPING” — you like to talk? No way. I like to talk. You want to find someone to yap with? Oh you’re a dog? A little bitch? I’m sorry. You have to stop this.
Mentioning Marvel movies — Skip it. You can confess this in person after someone has already accepted your proposal and signed the prenup.
Using filters for photos — we don’t know what you look like! This isn’t helpful! And it does you dirty later on.
“On feeld, especially if they have a long bio, I’m out” — agreed — a long bio? No one has time for that. Give us the absolute necessary information, and trust that you’ll be able to impart the other stuff when you delve into it. Even if your lil novel is beautiful and moving, remember a lot of us aren’t literate.
FLUENT IN SARCASM — This isn’t a language, nor a brag. Stop this.
The word “buddy” — okay Golden Retriever energy! C’mere boy!
“travel” “adventure” “fun” “experiences” — we get it you’re alive
Describing yourself as a sapiosexual — the novelty of wanting to know someone before fucking them does not need to be explained do not email me about this I won’t respond
The word play — You! Are! Not! Derrida!
“My therapist told me” — or related things that imply you have consulted with your therapist about the dating profile. Weird to me. Same with fake reviews.
Pictures of you as a baby — I do not care what you looked like as a baby. Why would I want to know what you looked like as a baby?
If you are going to list your username on r/massivecock, it better be a massive cock. Otherwise why are you doing this.
The word “witchy” — Galinda? Glinda?

I know, I know. You are thinking, wow, this hateful human, what am I supposed to have on my bio then, if all this is forbidden? I don’t know man. Less is more. I think the easier, simpler you keep the bio, the more you have to reveal in conversation with people. Course you need the bio to reel people in, a Gordian knot of sorts. But you also want to stand out, so assume that people you want to connect with will also like eating good food, being outside sometimes, watching good movies, etc. Let some things remain a mystery! A weird one line bio is more enticing (IMO) than three paragraphs about where you’ve travelled recently. The more you can avoid internet cliches, the faster you’ll be able to actually talk to people and see if you get along. Or something.

In “Gobbled Up By A Whale” news:

For previous installments:

A Please Clap / Vintage Award for Good Boys moment:

Andrew Cuomo walking down some steps and then receiving applause from a bunch of women post uh, everything that happened w/ him.

Another pressing question: DO THE WOMEN’S QUARTERS IN LOVE IS BLIND HAVE A POOL TABLE? ????? IT does not seem like it. I’m filing a complaint. Secondly, watching this show, it is apparent to me that I could easily do the “pods” set up, I’ve had lots of positive interactions with people that remained anonymous physically. The problem is that cringe permeates through the wall. If a guy I was swooning over told me his favorite movie was Inception…it’s Joever. Is this a me problem? Yeah. Anyways.