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The Guiding Principles and New Rules
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Online Dating: The only real incentive is Efficiency
Posts
.. "search"?
Who cares about it working? She would have rocked your world! You have no idea.
Anyway, I've been on a series of sites since 1999, starting with J-Date, then others like Yahoo! Personals, Match.com, OKC, PoF, etc. eHarmony actually rejected me. After submitting the questionnaire, it took a while to respond, then came back and said that it couldn't match me with anyone. Great!
I've come to the conclusion that online dating, especially the pay sites, are nothing but scams. In the old days, you needed to subscribe to send messages. Then sites like J-Date changed to where you needed to subscribe to reply. Match.com is now on a system where you have to subscribe just to get into your inbox. You get an email that says you've received a message, but you can't even see the message or who sent it without paying. Bullshit, I say!
And I've not had much luck with the free sites, either. No genuine connections. I've talked to more girls than I have on any pay sites, but thing ultimately just don't click. I don't think it's me, but I can genuinely say that I represent myself accurately. I have non-doctored photos up and portray my personality well. I don't bring up my foibles, but I don't lie either. Maybe to a fault, but it's easier to be honest and I'd rather they know who I am and accept or reject based on that and then if they don't like it, then we haven't wasted our time. I don't really have much money and since I'm a writer I basically never will, so I'm probably just going to stop, since most of the girls I seem to meet are gold-diggers.
I did have one bizarre date with a girl I met on Yahoo!
So, she's also very indecisive. I'm throwing out some possibilities of where to eat, and she won't help make a decision. I want to be our date, not just me making all the decisions. I ultimately choose the restaurant, so we sit down, order and start talking. And this girl is the ultimate downer. She immediately starts talking about her family problems, job problems, etc. I can be pretty pessimistic person at times, but this was getting too much for me. Sorry, but this is not how one puts their best foot forward. So after dinner, I make up an excuse to end the date. I was at least polite and walked her back to her car, but that was it, I didn't bother contacting her again after that.
It went from rp, to chatting, to online friends, and then to an online "relationship". It's in quotes, because looking back, it really wasn't. But to my nerdy, overweight self, it was the best thing ever! It didn't help that this chick was a stripper, hardcore into anime and games (Probably a bit too much) and seemed to like me.
She lived in LA and me in Texas, so we only saw each other twice. Both times when I went down with friends for E3. First time I actually visited her in her strip club. That was as akward as one can imagine. The second time I stayed at her place for a week and I though everything was going fine, we even had sex a couple of times. I return home, and I can tell something is off in our relationship, though she swears everything is fine. Weeks pass, and I see her posting pics of her with some guy, who she swears is just a friend, until finally she tells me she doesn't "love" me anymore one day. I was crushed.
But really, it was for the best. This chick was one of those sterotype attention whores, who was all about the net and cosplay, and family drama and really was just using me and the attention and compliments I gave her to make her feel better. It's cruel and mean to say, but I couldn't see myself with her now, she just didn't have any other ambitions other than being the best sailormoon cosplayer. Last time I talked to her bout a year ago she wanted to return to stripping while her body still looked good.
It did give me a hell of a story though.
One thing I thought was interesting is, by the time you've chatted/emailed with someone enough to be comfortable enough to meet in person, you know a little bit about each other. When you actually meet though, the first-meeting tension is still there, and you've probably blown through all the completely safe icebreakers. This kinda threw me for the first few minutes, although I got over it.
Is this a common thing with people, or do most online daters just get over it? I am kinda thinking about going back to OKC, since I have less time than I once did to chase ladies.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Then there's the fact the questions correlate to personality scores and personality badges, so you have an idea of what the person is like before meeting them. Granted, a lot of sites have that, but in OKCupid it actually works to some extent.
Finally, it's free.
I found okcupid a lot more useful, mostly because free = no pressure. I think my profile sucks? Who cares, didn't pay anything. Girls not responding to my messages? Whatever. I want to go on vacation for a week? No biggie. It allows me to go at my own pace, be relaxed, and not feel desperate to find someone within an arbitrary timeline, (because we all know how attractive desperation is) . And if someone likes my profile they can send me a message, and I don't have to buy another overpriced or extended subsciption just to see if the girl is worthwhile.
Whoo, sounds like baggage to most people, right? Should I not actively advertise this on dating sites?
Well you don't want to hide it or lie.
Some forms have a "I have children" dealie that you can click.
I would definitely make sure people knew before meeting them face to face.
If someone is going to consider your kid baggage, is that really the kind of person you want to date in the first place?
I did some time on PoF and, despite having what I thought were good pictures and a fun profile, I got a response rate to my messages at about 2%, tops.
But yea, time to keep clicking that box.
It isn't the end of the world not to tell someone before the first date I guess, but given that you're both explicitly there to pursue a romantic relationship it would seem rather important.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
It's an easy way to meet people, and the site has a lot of options for matchmaking and making first introductions easier. It's also far, far better than Plenty of Fish, which doesn't do anything to match you with like-minded people.
Since OKCupid is free, it also has a lot more users than most of the pay-sites. This means the chances of getting good matches is considerably higher as well. The biggest problem tends to be the ratio of male communication to female communication, where men tend to be a lot more forward when making contact.
I met up with four women on the site, dated two of them for a few months, had a bad date with a third, and the fourth one is now my girlfriend of ten months.
Depends entirely on the site. On the local one I use, I don't think I've yet sent out an email that hasn't been responded to. There may have been one or two, I can't quite remember. I'm pretty average looking, I think. I guess maybe I'm good at writing that 1 in 20 email?
A HANDY, MILDLY CHAUVINISTIC GUIDE TO THE WORLD OF ONLINE DATING (FOR BOYS)
If you weren't around, about six months ago a bunch of people on SE++ joined Okcupid. You can use other sites but OKcupid is good because it's free (unlike Lavalife or match.com and a bunch of other sites), and it has a lot of users/activites.
Signing up is easy!
Really having a funny name isn't so bad.
Okcupid will send you a fair amount of mail by default, so you might want to avoid using your work email.
Once you sign up with your account you have to fill out a bunch of forms and personal information. A general tip - turn off "Casual encounters" (even if you only want casual sex), and if you smoke weed (but don't do other drugs), simply leave drugs as N/A instead of 'does drugs sometimes'.
Pictures are pretty important! You want people to think that you are a cool-looking guy, no matter how sad and crushed you are on the inside. To avoid looking like a creepy uggo-face, here are a few easy pointers.
Smile in your pictures! Rap faces are mad fierce, but girls usually respond better to 'friendly and approachable'.
Use pictures of you taken by someone else. Don't take self-portraits of you, alone, in an empty room. Show the world that you have friend(s), and include shots of you being outdoors, with people, doing something social and fun.
Turn your head a little. Don't go for the full-on mug shot. It makes it really easy to spot the asymmetrical aspects of your face, as well as making you look like you want to rape the viewer.
Warm colours can really help you. This is another good reason not to take pictures with a webcam, since they tend to give very cold, grainy pictures.
Once you sign up and answer a few dozen questions you can try finding matches near you. These matches will inevitably end up being hipster girls. This is okay! Many hipster girls are only hipster girls on the internet, where it is much less effort.
You may want to limit your searches based on 'last logged in' and 'joined within' date ranges. People who have been on OKcupid for a really long time tend to check and respond to their mail less frequently, and reject people more quickly. This is doubly true for women, who get viewed and messaged several times more often than men do.
While we try not to judge entirely based on appearances, it is true that some people do not like fatties. To spot a fatty, look out for trademark 'myspace angles' (no body shots, only headshots taken from a camera 45 degrees above the subject), and jowls. Jowls never lie.
While trying to look for girls who list "polyamory" or "casual sex" as their interests might seem like an easy way to get sexual attention if you're especially desperate, realize that there are many, many men out there that are more desperate and more pathetic than you on the internet, and any girl with that in her profile is probably lambasted several times an hour with smarmy come-ons. Most likely both of you can do better.
Don't send Woo!s. They're lazy and largely ignored. A real message is much more effective. OKcupid instant messenger doesn't seem to work particularly well, so after a few mails back and forth you might want to exchange AIM/MSN information, and pursue things from there. If everything is going well over instant messenger, why not ask her out to dinner? Don't be too afraid - she's on here in order to meet people. Show her you're better than those miserable faggots in H/A.
I probably sent out 6 first-contact messages to women with horses asking about what type of horse they have, their riding style, and I give a bit of my background. All of them are "read not responded to" status.
Seriously? I'm asking about your horse, not your tits.
she thought he was talking about his heroin addiction.
Some great guys/girls love kids.
edit: I habitually assume single parents are women. Stupid stereotypical thing.
Maybe that's because it makes them think you're a zoophile that's more interested in their horse than them? And "how do you ride?" is basically a quintuple entendre. >.>
Also, always, always, fucking always tell people you have a kid unless you're looking exclusively for casual sex.
You don't want to meet a person, get along great, and then have them vanish when they find out, after 3 months, that you fucking have a kid.
I know it seems like a rejection, but these sites are designed to make the 'no pressure' rejection really easy. Most of the women I've talked to that have been on OKcupid and similar sites are bombarded with a few dozen emails a day, most of which are from men who are looking for casual sex. Things get jaded pretty quickly, and people who get messaged at that rate tend to ignore more messages, even if they're about perfectly innocent subjects.
It's just so fascinating.
One female has messaged me first. She didn't put much in the message and the profile was really fucking boring. So I asked something along the lines of "Your profile doesn't have a lot of detail in it, what do you do when you've got free time?"
Her response was, more or less "I help my mom out, go to work, or sit on th couch lol"
Given her pictures and this boring ass response, I wasn't interested. However, I was pretty jaded from having a number of "read no response" to the messages I sent out. So I thinks to myself, whatever, I'll find a gentleish way to say I'm not interested." This is what I came up with.
"I usually connect better with an active type A personality. Good luck though.'
Her response?
"fine, forget you too"
The most awesome part is that there is no way of turning these weekly plaintext password emails off.
The number one rule is : Don't Get Bitter. Bitter people who take to passive-agressive remarks in their first messages or profiles are pretty much destined to fail at online dating. Nothing turns people off faster.
So my story begins a couple years ago. I wanted to get back into dating, after a long lay off period, but lo and behold, I don't know anyone locally. So I turn to the internet!
First, I started with CraigsList. Throw many e-mails out, couple AIM conversations, and only one date. The date was....well see, she didn't have any pictures to share with me. While she was a nice girl, I wasn't into her. She wasn't even your typical fat girl hiding from social stigmas, she just wasn't my type. I took her to dinner, we saw a Harry Potter movie (ugh!) then I hugged her and left. I didn't speak to her again, but she kept trying to talk to me until finally I just blocked her on AIM. It was a dick thing and I apologized a little while later.
Then I moved onto to Match.com, still throwing out e-mails on CL. Now, let me tell you I spent 60 bucks for 6 months. And spent that money three times. So in a year and a half, I went on a grand total of three dates. The girls were nice enough, but they all used the myspace voodoo to lie about their physical selfs. They were nice enough girls, but I really don't like liars. One only went out on date with me, another went on two dates then decided she wanted back with her ex-boyfriend and the third one was...Well she went out on a date with me, enjoyed it, then in a follow up convo mentioned her ex was bothering her. I asked her if he was gonna be a problem for "us" and she wigged out I was clingy and a weirdo and never talked to me again. All because I was concerned about an axe wielding ex-boyfriend. Now, at one point during my time on Match, a girl contacted me, but I decided her pictures made her look like a boy and that's not my type.
So I moved on from Match to EHarmony. I spent 260 dollars for a year's subscription. That subscription, is still going by the way. It's up in October. 0 dates in the 4 months I was active on it. Talked to a couple girls, but never any dates. It was a huge waste of money.
At the same time, I was using CL and had just started up Plenty of Fish. The first girl I contacted is now my girlfriend. I spent all that money on paid sites, only to find a girl on a free site. It was stupid as hell. And I brought up the guy-looking-girl from Match because a few weeks after me and the current GF were dating, she was showing me pictures on her laptop and those girl's pictures were on there. I brought up that I recognized the pictures from match, but didn't tell her what I thought about them.
I didn't know there's was a way to tell if people read your messages or not though. Where's that option?
I've found that it's a good middle-ground to keep up the pool of profiles, but also keep out the nutters. Aside from that, I think it probably cuts down the spamming "ur hott" type messages, though my ex says they are still pretty common.
Probably that you have a boring profile.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=4612999&postcount=771
I used to be damaged goods to eHarmony. I'd take their little test thing and get rejected as "non-matchable". I don't know if they changed their test or anything, but around January I took it again and they actually accepted me. I paid the inordinate sum of money they asked for, and proceeded to try to work things out with some matches.
No one ever contacted me back. Not one. Out of 100+ contacts over 3 months, no one bothered to message me back, and no one messaged me. It was completely ridiculous and depressing since this was pretty much the only method I had to meet women at this point. My workplace is a sausagefest and allt he women I know are married and have dumped their single friends.
recently I've started a relationship with a friend of a friend, and its going well. But man, internet dating is just a bucket full of suck.
And, if you've got children you should probably mention that. The woman I'm dating right now has one, but its not a big deal. It takes some adjusting but you can make it work if you want.
It's not set up completely around dating/hooking up. It's set up more like a quiz show/social networking site, so it doesn't have the same air of desperation and sleaze as some sites. People don't come in totally wanting to get their game on as if it were match.com or (shiver) adultfriendfinder. The people who are there are usually there casually, they're not plunking down cash and expecting a ROI out of it.
That and the guys don't randomly send pictures of their dicks to the women.
Ruh-oh. Musta answered the Jesus questions wrong.
Man, I consider myself a gentleman on dates, but that situation would have killed me. I probably would have just left for fear of starting to openly make fun of her.
Sounds to me like you wrote a message that was interesting enough to get a girl to look at your profile (win) and then she decided you weren't what she was looking for (time saved!)
I mean yeah you could take it as a blow to your ego, but she wasn't going to be into you so what did you lose exactly? It's all about the right attitude.
I think the option to tell if a message is read depends on the site you are using.
I, and a lot of other people, disagree. eHarmony is a bucketfull of suck.