I've been reading a lot of these posts and have frankly been kind of shocked at the level of cynicism, narcissism and outright callousness that exists in this whole online dating scene.

It's worth noting that these characteristics exist everywhere else. What makes them more noticeable is that unlike everywhere else, here on /r/OkCupid they're a bit concentrated. It's not that any of us think being cynical, narcissistic, and calloused is okay but damn do we understand how people get there. So we let them be, and celebrate the expression of those characteristics as a form of catharsis. Try it!

Have we somehow forgotten that we are all just people?

Yeah? Online dating doesn't make you a person; it makes you a digital representation of nothing we've been told to expect from partner.

Why are we treating this like it's a interview for a job we don't want, or trying to find loopholes on our tax returns?

Because some of us are actually looking for those things. Okay maybe not exactly those things but the point is that we're looking for something different from what you are, or certainly different from the next guy, and we all have ways of sussing it out.

One of the best pieces of advice that almost never gets followed, even when it's acknowledged is "Just Be Yourself."

Because that advice is useless. "Being yourself" isn't perceived as working. You've been yourself your whole life, you have no idea where to even start being someone else, all you've ever been is you and you is single and lonely and cynical and the last thing you want is someone telling you to just keep bashing your head against the bricks.

There's no point in faking it.

Yes there is. Plenty of people get plenty of places by faking it. And eventually if you fake it well enough for long enough, the lies become the truths. The trick to faking it is making sure nobody knows you're faking it, and to them that's just as good as being it.