The Marketeer

I feel like in a sense, we are all marketeers. We market ourselves so often, if not everyday at least once a week. Whether it be at work, at school, in an interview etc. we market ourselves constantly. Is it because we are surrounded by commercials and ads? Was it like this 50 yrs ago.... I think so, maybe not as intense. Anyways, what about the dating world? Self-Marketing is freaking HIGH in the dating world. Look at all the dating websites, we are sitting there fucking marketing ourselves. We create a profile and try to think of great things to say about ourselves, to sell ourselves to complete strangers (how crazy is that?!)!

I'm sure  a lot of us try to remain as true to who we are as possible, but the marketing just seeps through words, in between words, in sentences the beginning, the end, every punctuation. Anyways, so, we create these ads on these sites, we look through them and see which ones we like, ignore the ones we don't and if we're lucky enough we find a match. Once we find a match, we chat it up, and go on a date...then another date, and another, and possibly another (or maybe it stopped after the first one). 

When does marketing stop? When can I or you feel confident and comfortable enough to be real?  I don't know if I'm making my point, or any point for that matter. I feel like this is a pretty important thing to think about though. Today's society is full of knowledge, quick meaningless knowledge of who's doing what, where they're located, how they feel... words become lost and weightless. So, when you begin a relationship with someone, are they filling you in on who they are in 140 characters or less, are they just updating their status with you?

I'm not saying all dating encounters are meaningless and that everyone markets themselves, I'm sure there are real people/interactions/feelings involved. No one is perfect though. I try to be as real as possible but I honestly catch myself reading my ad and wishing it didn't sound so lame, so fake. I don't know, this whole thing confuses me, I never know which way to approach it.  Aside from the online ad, I definitely do stay true to who I am and what my feelings are when I'm seeing someone and dating them.  I like to think that the other person is too.

When I look back to dates and past boys I've been with, aside from my very first serious relationship, I feel like most of them were all marketing themselves. Maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic, I'm sure they can say some negative shit about me too. Maybe it's because I'm so deep in this hunt this search for the perfect dude that I feel everyone but him won't be completely genuine. I must say though, times have definitely changed, when I started dating the first serious relationship dude, it was way back in 2002... Facebook didn't even exist then, so the marketing mentality,way of life, wasn't as prevalent as it is now. 

So, tell me, how can we start to stray away from this?

<3