Rejected by Tickle

Today I was rejected. I was sitting in my office reading e-mail and watching the golden cat who controls the turf where we have built our house. This cat has driven our cat away to who knows where. So with pleasure I observed this alpha cat continually miss the birds it tried to catch in the grasslands outside my window.

I glanced at my laptop and noticed an e-mail from Jose, a Mexican friend who lives in Cancun. When I looked closer, I realized the e-mail was actually from Tickle.com, informing me I had been invited to join my friend’s internet social network.

This was great news, because I hadn’t seen this friend in a couple of years, and perhaps he had uploaded recent pictures of his family on his Tickle page. I clicked on the link and was directed to Tickle’s site where they asked me to answer a few questions so they could tailor Tickle to my needs. I like customization so I eagerly answered the questions. They were simple. My last name, gender, birth date and my interests.

I sent my responses, and that’s when Tickle told me I couldn’t join. I didn’t qualify.

I was crushed. What could this mean? Am I not cool enough? They didn’t even say being denied was a possibility. If I had known I was being judged, I would have tried harder. Been more specific. Put on my marketing hat.

I pondered my responses to their questions, trying to discern what disqualified me.

My gender? They only offered two choices. I chose male. Because I am. This response couldn’t have knocked me out of the running. Jose is male, and he’s a Tickle member.

My age? This clearly worked against me. All the cool people pictured on the Tickle home page are much younger than me. But I’m not a stodgy baby boomer. I’m Generation X (albeit in the first wave). Besides, I have a very young maximum heart rate. According to the basic formula for MHR (i.e., 220 minus your age), my heart beats like a twenty-four year old. That should count for something.

My interests? This is where I think I stumbled. It was trick question. They listed out examples, such as bike riding, Harry Potter, and music videos. These were to throw people off. They must have really wanted cutting edge interests like alligator wrestling, parasailing, or American Idol aficionados. I fell for it and listed out humdrum hobbies like bike riding and reading. I should have been more specific. Instead of bike riding, I should have said competitive downhill mountain biking (I have mountain biked downhill and then off the hill entirely before crashing into the creek bed). Instead of skiing, I should have said helio-skiing in Kamchatka, Russia. Instead of reading, I should have said…. well I guess I should have left reading out entirely.

What I don’t understand is how Jose got in? I met him years ago in the Yucatan. He lived near me in a small Mayan village in a cinderblock house with a tarpaper roof. He moved to Cancun with his family as a teenager, and now is married with children, working as an accountant. He’s a cool guy, but he’s an accountant for heaven’s sake.

Anyway, not one to be kept out when I don’t want to be, I resubmitted my questionnaire to Tickle this evening, and included this recent photo of the golden cat that kicked our kitty out of the neighborhood.
Golden Cat That’s our new porch the cat is relaxing on. He must have had a tiring day of chasing birds.

Tickle let me in. But now I have zero friends in my internet social network. I can’t even find my friend, Jose. There are seven pages of Mexican Jose’s on Tickle, most without pictures.