The Luv Doc: Specific Disease

Dear Luv Doc,

Hello! I know, my message may be too specific, but my sister found nice man here and they married, so how about me?! I am 23 years old, Karina, from Romania, I know English and German languages also and ... I have specific disease, named nymphomania. Who know what is this, can understand me (better to say it immediately). And ... I am bisexual. I am not jealous of another woman ... especially if we make love together. Ah yes, I cook very tasty! and I love not only cook. I'm real girl, not prostitute, and looking for serious and hot relationship.

– Too Specific

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Seasons greetings from Austin, Texas, Karina! We've been a little bogged down in holiday hobnobbing, otherwise I would have responded to your missive sooner! I ain't trying to brag or nothin', but candid photos from the Chronicle's holiday happy hour were splashed all over the illustrious web pages of the Austin American-Statesman last week, and now the entire staff has such a bad case of cabeza grande (who know what is this, can understand me) it's all we can do to open our email.

I am a little embarrassed to say I have never been to Romania, although I did have a Transylvanian fellow on my coed soccer team for a hot second. He was nice enough I guess, but he wasn't especially chatty and didn't appreciate my vampire jokes at all. That's on me probably. Telling a vampire joke in Transylvania is probably a lot like telling a Nazi joke in Berlin, but in the context of a Saturday morning coed soccer game in Austin, Texas, those jokes seemed really fresh, so I just assumed they weren't permeating the language barrier.

As evidenced by your email, your English is nearly intelligible, so well done! Once quick note, however: Usually in America, when someone is selling herself (and I mean that metaphorically, I am not insinuating that you are a prostitute), she will often lead with a positive attribute rather than a negative one. I am not saying it can't be effective, but it's a rare Tinder profile that leads with "I have a specific disease," mainly because like 90% of people are swiping left before they read past the comma. I know you're thinking that nymphomania thing was a stroke of genius, but you're grossly overestimating the average American's attention span. All they are going to remember is, "That Romanian lady has herpes." They are not even going to get to the bit about you being bisexual, which I think we can both agree is an important piece of information when seeking someone for a serious relationship.

Next time, definitely lead with, "I cook very tasty!" and maybe leave off the bit about not being a prostitute, which, by the way, in Austin we refer to as a sex worker. Leading with "I'm not a prostitute" in your opening paragraph is sort of like someone buying you a drink at a bar and then saying, "And I definitely didn't put any Rohypnol in it," when they hand it to you. This might seem like an insignificant linguistic nuance to a non-native English speaker, but Americans, and Austinites in particular, are an untrusting lot. Blame it on Elon.

That said, your honesty is frighteningly refreshing! My bet is that if you send enough emails to random Austin men, you will find one who can look past the fact that you're diseased. That truly would be a Christmas miracle, wouldn't it? Fingers crossed! Noroc!