I have an online dating profile on Match.com, Plenty of Fish, and OKCupid. I haven’t even logged in to these accounts for several weeks. In the meantime, I’ve been seeing Surfer Woman about twice a week and had two dates with Nebraska Belly Dancing Nurse (a Plenty of Fish catch). Last night, via text, the nurse put me in the friend zone. I quickly texted back “Doh! I have plenty of friends already.” She took it well and wished me luck.
I had some hope for the dog-walking woman who lives across the street. I ran into her yesterday and she revealed some information about herself. She’s an emotional mess and takes the medication to prove it. PTSD, OCD, depression, recurring migraines is the short list of her issues. She’s now “involved” with a neighbor in her apartment building. However, according to her, he drinks too much. Given all her emotional issues, his drinking won’t stop.
So with only one woman to keep me entertained, I now have to start logging back into the online dating websites in order to fill the dating pipeline with new prospects. The dating websites rightfully put me at the end of a woman’s search because of the lack of activity in my various account. I’ll make some minor changes to the profiles in order to get on top of the search results.
As it’s been several weeks (months in the case of Match.com), I am hoping for a bunch of new possibilities. In the past, I’ve noticed a pattern where women become much more interested in dating as the major holidays approach. I guess the prospect of not being in some sort of relationship over Christmas and New Year’s isn’t so appealing for many women.
I will be sticking to my existing system as it has worked reasonably well in the past. I consider a positive response rate over 5% to be successful. Rarely do I receive messages from interested women so I must take the time – and it is indeed time-consuming – to write a large number of outgoing messages. It’s certainly understandable why many men are put off by online dating. Any immediate feedback is absent. The rejection is constant and unyielding. A man’s Charisma is very difficult to express in the written word and through static photos. Yet it’s the only place where large numbers of single women congregate, even if in the virtual world.
NMH
/ October 25, 2011I remember sending emails out on Match got me very, very little. I just remember being dissapointed and exhausted of spending all my time writing emails to women, with little response. I think you have to be extremely good looking to generate any interest from an email to a pretty woman. I remember I got most of my dates if I responded to someone who had looked at my profile first (Match indicates which women were looking at my profile).
My conclusion was to take a very passive approach to on-line dating. Show interest in the ones that take an interest in you first, its less exhausting.
And, if you have some money now, take some Ball Room dance lessons. If you turns out to be a good dancer, the women will come after you. If you can dance at the level of an instructor (very few of us can), you can have a hot woman by your side, no matter what you look like or how much money you make. Ive seen this myself in the club I attend.
Mark
/ October 25, 2011Have you found in your online dating messages that you get a better response from certain types of women? I’ve been trying to lower my search cost by figuring out who responds more often and emailing them. It seems less religious women, women who like classical music, women with college degrees and Asian women respond more to me. I don’t know why that is but if I see someone with those characteristics I shoot them an email. I’ve also noticed that I get a lower response rate from the tattooed, drug using, alternative rock chick type but when they do respond there’s a higher possibility of actually getting to sex with them so I email them too. I still send out some emails to other women, though, just in case I’m missing classes of women who would be interested. I haven’t tried emailing women who look at my profile like NMH but if it’s working for him maybe I should try that too.
DC Philo
/ January 10, 2012My experience with OKC last year was mixed. All of the women I dated (and slept with some of them) had at least a college degree, were professionals, and had varied interests that didn’t involve excess drinking, tattooing, or the like. At most, some of them were nominally religious, and all were liberal and hated Republicans or those that associated with them.
In the beginning, I used my name. Later on, I didn’t include it unless the woman gave her name first or asked me for mine. I had one 28 yr old ask for my name and number in the second message. She was the ONLY one who did this, which shocked me. She later turned out to be a hot mess because she could clearly hear her clock ticking and was in a rush to get married. No thanks . . . and she did me a favor by convincing herself that I wasn’t all that interested in seeing her. (Not on her terms, for sure.)
I’ve been a big fan of classical music for over 20 years. Unfortunately, this has been a disadvantage when it comes to dating for the following reasons: (1) it intimidates some women, especially younger ones who were raised on a steady diet of pop culture and who never had a firm grounding in playing an instrument or singing; (2) those that have a passing interest in it often gush about “songs” when they mean pieces, which means that it’s only background music to them and they can’t (or won’t) have a intelligent discusssion about it; and (3) those that are seriously into the subject, like regular concert-goers, are either too old (48+), married, or both.
AnonymousDog
/ October 25, 2011I’d like to know how meeting women online got such a reputation of being quick and easy. Sites like POF boom it as “easy and fun”, but I think that’s just advertizing hype.
I’ve seen posters commenting here and there that it was different back in the Good Old Days when they met women on this or that discussion board in the 90′s, or on Yahoo personals in the early days, but I wonder if that’s just rose-tinted nostalgia.
I have to admit I’ve met women online that I would never have run into in real life, but I have to agree with privateman: it takes constant effort to get enough responses to just meet, no more, one woman every 4 or 5 months. Doesn’t quite live up to the hype.
Shawn
/ November 2, 2011Just for fun I put up an ad as a woman (with no pic). Next day I had 20 emails. Then to further the experiment I put up a pic of an average looking woman. I received 100 new emails over the next 24 hours. Tons of horny guys.
As a man, I was lucky to get 1 email a month (unsolicited) and I am good-looking.My years in the online scene have lead me to believe that it is a waste of time, unless you want to have a quick bang with a fat or ugly woman (or socially messed up in some way). You have to go out and meet them in person. Go to a hotel bar that may have older patrons.
DC Philo
/ January 10, 2012Putting up a fake female profile confirmed what my single female friends were telling me all along: viz., that most guys don’t put in the effort to read a woman’s profile and send just one-word or one-sentence emails. Too many of these, and the woman starts treating them like spam — delete, delete, delete. Of course, this is assuming that the woman is sincere about finding someone and not completely attention-whoring, though I can surmise that nearly all women do this to some degree.
I’ve used online dating (OKC) for the past year and have done it because I still don’t have the time to go out to social events as much as I’d like to. I work 40 hrs per week, have a 30 minute commute to and from my office, try to work out at least three times a week, and am involved in other things. Living in DC is definitely a plus because I can get to cafes, bars, etc. relatively quickly to meet some of these women. There’s also the problem of too much to do in and around the city. Only so many hours in the day. Hence, online dating.
But, I do agree that it’s too time- and labor-intensive in most cases. Better to have a consistent system like PM has. For OKC, I know a dating coach in the area who routinely checks the answers to the questions that women write. He checks for higher interest in sex (sometimes kinky-ness) and messages those women. Pre-selection and targeting the market. He says this works better for him, since he’s out to get laid.