When judging the performance goes wrong

Badger had several excellent posts last week about a woman named Alyssa Bereznak who very publicly shredded her OKCupid date (Jon Finkel) on the blog Gizmodo. Check out Badger’s posts here and here for the full story, but my sense in reading about the situation was that Bereznak was offended that someone like Finkel considered himself in her league.  The Australian edition of her blog post closes with:

…all you world famous nerds out there: Don’t go after two Gawker Media employees and not expect to have a post written about you. We live for this kind of stuff.

As Dave Chappelle would say, she keeps it real!

But as Dave points out, sometimes keeping it real goes wrong.

The internet has had a field day with Bereznak, including Gizmodo Australia and quickmeme.  The man she thought wasn’t in her league is a wealthy hedge fund manager.  His geeky hobby that so offended her was winning hundreds of thousands of dollars in a card game called magic.  Susan Walsh of Hooking Up Smart pointed out in the comments on Badger’s blog:

He is far more attractive than she is, IMO. Just saying.

Mr. Finkel for his part is playing it cool.  In an ask me anything thread on reddit, he wrote:

It’s nice to know the internet has my back, so in total it looks like it was a net positive, though I still feel oddly creeped out by it.

He has even graciously accepted a date request from Playboy model Sara Jean Underwood, but only on his terms:

I would definitely be down to go on a date with her, but not if it’s televised (sorry everyone). Just not my thing.

At the end of the day, Finkel has gone from attractive wealthy hedge fund manager and magic tournament winner, to famous and pre selected attractive wealthy hedge fund manager and magic tournament winner.  Meanwhile, Bereznak has gone from unknown intern at tech blog Gizmodo, to infamous bitch with a lazy eye who will potentially publicly shred any man dumb enough to go on a date with her.  All of this makes her own words prophetic:

So what did I learn? Google the shit out of your next online date. Like, hardcore.

See Also:  More judging the performance.