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Theresa Poulos
Contributing Writer

Valentine's Day in San Francisco is here, and OKCupid is abuzz. If you're unfamiliar with it, OKCupid is a free online dating website, quite popular amongst UCSF singles.

I didn't know much about it until a few months into medical school here, when I learned that many of the single second year medical students were on OKCupid. If all those attractive, smart, sweet guys were looking for love on this website, I thought that perhaps I should set up a profile of my own. I had been growing disenchanted with the City's singles bar scene, to the point where I was almost resigned to four years of medical school celibacy. But, I thought, maybe the man of my dreams wasn't at a bar on a Friday night because he was on call saving lives, or in a lab trying to cure cancer.

The idea of online dating was percolating in my mind while I was home for the holidays, when my mom reminded me that at 27, my eggs aren't getting any younger. (Thanks, mom.) As a result, I made a New Year's resolution to go on at least a date a month, and ventured forth to explore the world of online dating.

As part of completing my OKCupid profile, I was prompted to answer a bevy of questions in order to increase my "matchability" with potential beaus. While I found the questions interminable, I did appreciate reading the OKTrends blog, where all of this data is compiled to make some fascinating observations. For example, they found that women who do not exercise report twice the orgasm problems of women who do; that vegetarians are more likely to report that they enjoy giving oral sex than meat eaters; and that people who use Twitter every day have shorter relationships than those who don't. Taking a more global look at their data, they found that as per capita GDP of a country increases, so does the proportion of users looking for casual sex. Most of these data correlations didn't mean much to me as I was creating my own profile (other than trying to specify my match preferences to vegetarians). However, I did find it interesting that messages beginning with, "How's it going?" have a significantly greater response rate than those that begin with, "Hi!"

Setting up my profile was a breeze with the website's user-friendly interface, but setting my search parameters forced more self-reflection than I had anticipated. All of a sudden I was given the option to choose the height, race, religion, education level, and distance of potential partners. How many incredible guys would I be excluding if I set my search preferences to 6'0" and up? Was I being lazy if I refused to try dating a guy who lives out in Palo Alto? Was I being elitist in wanting to date a college graduate? When you meet someone organically, you aren't allowed these types of filters, but OKCupid offered me the opportunity to pre-select my perfect man, and so I indulged. But with my search parameters set to 6'0" and up, I was quickly disabused of the notion that I'd find my tall, dark, and handsome prince: I stumbled upon the profile of a classmate who clearly lied about his height by at least 3 inches. (C'mon guys! She'll find out you're a liar the second you meet – talk about a bad first impression.)

Undaunted, I took advantage of the fact that January was our pulmonary block (notoriously light compared to others) and lined up some dates. For the first, I met with a guy named Bennett to watch a Niners playoff game. I felt so comfortable laughing, talking, and watching football with him – and the lady sitting next to us at the bar was a great icebreaker, since we both couldn't help but laugh at her "unnhh unnhh unnhh" reaction every time the Niners made a sweet play. Unfortunately I didn't feel any "sparks," which left me in an unanticipated predicament: this was OKCupid, not OKFriend, and I barely have time to keep up with all the incredible friends and people in my life as it is. I haven't hung out with Bennett since, but ladies, if you want his info, he's a great guy.

My next date was dinner at a Burmese place called Mandalay in the Inner Richmond. The food was great – I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for a yummy alternative to Burma Superstar. Unfortunately my date wasn't nearly as memorable – he had zero conversation skills, was so boring that I can't even remember his name, and I deleted him from my phone as soon as we parted ways. I should have known, given that I was more drawn to the profile picture of him in his swim trunks than to anything else on his page. Lesson learned.

Date #3 was with a lovely British boy named David. When I had first browsed his profile, I decided not to message him, since I figured every girl in the city would want a date with a boy with an accent. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw a note from him in my inbox, and quickly set up a date to get drinks at Amsterdam Café, a great bar with one of SF's best beer selections (near Geary and Polk). Three hours felt like one, but in trying to set up a second date, it's become evident that one of the reasons we're both single is that we're just too darn busy for a relationship.

Which brings me to my latest date, dessert with Alex at Mission Pie. (Wouldn't it be ten times more fantastic if it were named Mission: Pie? One colon can make a world of difference.) I was really excited about this date because he had told me that he designs catheter-based mitral valve replacement "clips," and I love geeking out about PCI stuff. Unfortunately, we both realized that things just weren't clicking, so after some nice conversation and delicious pie, we cordially parted ways.

All in all, OKCupid has been a great way to explore new places in the City and get out of the UCSF bubble. I've also gotten some great book recommendations off of users' profiles, feedback about different running shoes, and recommendations for off-the-beaten-path places to visit if I should ever take a cross-country road trip. So if you find yourself lonely on Valentine's Day, give OKCupid a try – there's nothing to lose, and potentially much to gain. Just don't lie about your height.

Theresa Poulos is a first-year medical student.

This article appeared in the February 9, 2012 issue of Synapse.