I dunno. Is your profile good? Sometimes girls just don't write back. On PoF (which I've pretty much given up on) I messaged 30 girls and had one response. Went on zero dates. On OKC I've messaged 76 girls and had 15 responses. I've gone on one date and have two more lined up. Maybe try a different site. I think location is a factor as well, living in the suburbs and not the big city is probably not helping me.
Welp, after 10 messages and 7 first dates (no seconds), I'm out of the game. This is just... dull. I don't like them or they don't like me, or both, there's just no... kick. I dunno. Maybe I'm just not a very likable person, in person.
Regardless, I'm socially exhausted for the forseeable future.
So I have suspended my OKC profile because one of the dates has turned into a relationship. We totally are fond of each other and it is going very well. It's very doable. Just keep at it!
hmm my zoo date was canceled for rain. She didn't really want to do any backup plans. Though still wants to do zoo later.
maybe a bad sign.
AW YEAH I CAN SEE THE FUTURE!
That's worth no second date, right? Why is it always the ones I really like who only give me one date?
Aioua on
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
nah I've seen from the online message that she's been online a few times at the same time as me so your probably right, just move on
I gotta say, I do this all the time. I realize it makes me a bad person. It doesn't even mean I'm not interested. I likely just don't know how to proceed. Half the time I log on, read messages, am not sure how to reply, get distracted. Sometimes I then forget I even got a message, especially when I did the reading at 4 a.m. on my phone or something. Then eventually I remember and feel guilty about it or like I have to think up a good excuse which makes me take even longer... you see where this is going.
You might want to bring up the date thing sooner next time. Some people don't know how to deal with messaging someone who seems maybe interested but doesn't know how to proceed themselves, so they just panic and stop replying, like me! Or you could even drop another quick note, like don't even mention that she hasn't replied, but just act like you're assuming she just hasn't gotten a chance to reply yet and say something like "Oh just wanted to drop you a line because [some random event that your profile indicated you might enjoy] is going down this weekend and I thought you might want to come with me"...
Yeah, this. I feel like I've wasted a lot of time by not thinking this way earlier. I keep on having things stall after a couple of messages and never actually meeting anyone. I don't find it easy at all to get to know someone through text alone so really I need to be meeting in person sooner rather than later.
Anyway, I had a wink or whatever from a girl a few weeks back. It took me a week to get around to writing to her, then we had a couple of days of emails back and forth, then no response from her from another week. So this time I just manned up and asked her out, and we're going to a comedy show this weekend
I don't even get that far ... If I send a message that does get a reply (which is seldom enough), usuall I don't get a second reply - and I have no idea what goes wrong.
A few days ago I came across a profile of a girl that listed "wes anderson" under movies, so I send her a message "So what is your favorite Wes Anderson movie" - her reply "Well ... all of them of course".
And I have no idea what I should reply ... Also, I am pretty sure, no matter what I reply - I won't get another answer. And this happens all the damn time. Once I asked a girl out in the second message - no reply. Ok, so maybe that was a bit fast - next time I didn't ask the (different) girl out in the second message - still no reply.
I have tried "Hey, so I am <insert name here>, I am <age> and blah blah blah" ... I've tried to be funny, I've tried the "So you are into X, thats nice, tell me more", I've tried similar stuff to the "So what is your favorite Wes Anderson movie" line. One time (not in band camp) a girl had a photo of her holding an alligator (somewhere in the swamps around New Orleans) with some weird looking dudes in the background. I asked her "so, from which 70s porn movie are these guys?" - got a laugh and a response. Followup mail - nada.
Either I am constantly trying the wrong approach, even if I switch things up or ... I don't know. Maybe I am missing something. So it is always kinda baffling to me how easily people on here seem to a) hold conversations and b) actually go to dates.
I think the answer is mostly that women don't need to be the ones driving the conversation, so they don't. They get an insane amount of messages per day, without having to do much legwork. As such, they can sit back and be passive.
If you want to pursue them, you need to be proactive and you need to stand out. Appeal to them in a way that causes them to pay less attention to all the other dudes sending them messages and to focus in on you.
I don't even get that far ... If I send a message that does get a reply (which is seldom enough), usuall I don't get a second reply - and I have no idea what goes wrong.
A few days ago I came across a profile of a girl that listed "wes anderson" under movies, so I send her a message "So what is your favorite Wes Anderson movie" - her reply "Well ... all of them of course".
And I have no idea what I should reply ... Also, I am pretty sure, no matter what I reply - I won't get another answer. And this happens all the damn time. Once I asked a girl out in the second message - no reply. Ok, so maybe that was a bit fast - next time I didn't ask the (different) girl out in the second message - still no reply.
I have tried "Hey, so I am <insert name here>, I am <age> and blah blah blah" ... I've tried to be funny, I've tried the "So you are into X, thats nice, tell me more", I've tried similar stuff to the "So what is your favorite Wes Anderson movie" line. One time (not in band camp) a girl had a photo of her holding an alligator (somewhere in the swamps around New Orleans) with some weird looking dudes in the background. I asked her "so, from which 70s porn movie are these guys?" - got a laugh and a response. Followup mail - nada.
Either I am constantly trying the wrong approach, even if I switch things up or ... I don't know. Maybe I am missing something. So it is always kinda baffling to me how easily people on here seem to a) hold conversations and b) actually go to dates.
It sounds harsh, but have you considered that it might be your grammar? Assuming your messages are written in the same way you write here, I'd probably ignore one from you. It comes across as uneducated or like you're not trying. You don't sound like you'd be interesting to talk to.
The OKCupid Trends blog covered this topic back in 2009 if you want some graphs and other first message advice:
It sounds harsh, but have you considered that it might be your grammar? Assuming your messages are written in the same way you write here, I'd probably ignore one from you. It comes across as uneducated or like you're not trying. You don't sound like you'd be interesting to talk to.
The OKCupid Trends blog covered this topic back in 2009 if you want some graphs and other first message advice:
@TheBigEasy - Keep it simple. Spam every girl you're interested in with a single line stolen from that magic the gathering champion.
"You should go out to dinner with me."
I've had more success with that single line than anything else and unfortunately I've been at this online dating for awhile now. Great at getting that first date... just not all that great at following through. I think I'm just being too picky most of the time.
The RPG Bestiary - Dangerous foes and legendary monsters for D&D 4th Edition
@TheBigEasy - Keep it simple. Spam every girl you're interested in with a single line stolen from that magic the gathering champion.
"You should go out to dinner with me."
I've had more success with that single line than anything else and unfortunately I've been at this online dating for awhile now. Great at getting that first date... just not all that great at following through. I think I'm just being too picky most of the time.
That's a good way if you're confident in your profile and don't want to deal with people who are just on there for attention.
hmm my zoo date was canceled for rain. She didn't really want to do any backup plans. Though still wants to do zoo later.
maybe a bad sign.
AW YEAH I CAN SEE THE FUTURE!
That's worth no second date, right? Why is it always the ones I really like who only give me one date?
:-( I had a similar issue until I made myself a rule that I'm not allowed to care all that much till the third date. It's hard to follow at first, but it got easier for me as I realized I wasn't going to exhaust the internet of women for first dates any time soon.
hmm my zoo date was canceled for rain. She didn't really want to do any backup plans. Though still wants to do zoo later.
maybe a bad sign.
AW YEAH I CAN SEE THE FUTURE!
That's worth no second date, right? Why is it always the ones I really like who only give me one date?
:-( I had a similar issue until I made myself a rule that I'm not allowed to care all that much till the third date. It's hard to follow at first, but it got easier for me as I realized I wasn't going to exhaust the internet of women for first dates any time soon.
Some will, some won't, who cares, next.
Yeah. It's not really that I'm broken up over it. Just more... it's always the promising ones. Le sigh.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I don't even get that far ... If I send a message that does get a reply (which is seldom enough), usuall I don't get a second reply - and I have no idea what goes wrong.
A few days ago I came across a profile of a girl that listed "wes anderson" under movies, so I send her a message "So what is your favorite Wes Anderson movie" - her reply "Well ... all of them of course".
And I have no idea what I should reply ... Also, I am pretty sure, no matter what I reply - I won't get another answer. And this happens all the damn time. Once I asked a girl out in the second message - no reply. Ok, so maybe that was a bit fast - next time I didn't ask the (different) girl out in the second message - still no reply.
I have tried "Hey, so I am <insert name here>, I am <age> and blah blah blah" ... I've tried to be funny, I've tried the "So you are into X, thats nice, tell me more", I've tried similar stuff to the "So what is your favorite Wes Anderson movie" line. One time (not in band camp) a girl had a photo of her holding an alligator (somewhere in the swamps around New Orleans) with some weird looking dudes in the background. I asked her "so, from which 70s porn movie are these guys?" - got a laugh and a response. Followup mail - nada.
Either I am constantly trying the wrong approach, even if I switch things up or ... I don't know. Maybe I am missing something. So it is always kinda baffling to me how easily people on here seem to a) hold conversations and b) actually go to dates.
It sounds harsh, but have you considered that it might be your grammar? Assuming your messages are written in the same way you write here, I'd probably ignore one from you. It comes across as uneducated or like you're not trying. You don't sound like you'd be interesting to talk to.
The OKCupid Trends blog covered this topic back in 2009 if you want some graphs and other first message advice:
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Pretty sure he didn't realize that English wasn't your first language. Your English grammar definitely isn't bad, but you have some odd habits that I could see putting people off in short-form messages. If you're only sending messages in German this whole discussion is, of course, irrelevant.
TheBigEasy's English is easily better than a majority of women's profiles that I see on OKC. And these are all U.S. women with English as their first launguage. Obviously it was good enough to fool us into thinking he's a native speaker.
Edit: And since he's hitting up German women, it doesn't matter too much anyway!
TheBigEasy's English is easily better than a majority of women's profiles that I see on OKC. And these are all U.S. women with English as their first launguage. Obviously it was good enough to fool us into thinking he's a native speaker.
Edit: And since he's hitting up German women, it doesn't matter too much anyway!
While devastatingly true, women play by a different ruleset when it comes to online dating.
So guys, how long is too long to wait before throwing in the towel, by which I mean youve already got the phone number and are simply waiting before you meet up?
Maybe I've just hit a bad streak, but lately I've been getting a lot of numbers, a lot of texting, but no real follow-through. Something keeps getting in the way and the more it gets delayed the less likely a first date happens
Reading this again ... Uneducated? Are you fucking kidding me?
Sorry, I'm an editor so a lack of capitalization, commas, and other punctuation is really noticeable to me, and when I see it my first thought is that someone is either lazy or couldn't stick out their English classes. No idea it was your second language since, as mentioned, it's pretty similar to what a lot of people online use (unfortunately, in my opinion), and us Americans are rightly notorious for forgetting about the rest of the world. I'll try and work on that second part.
TheBigEasy's English is easily better than a majority of women's profiles that I see on OKC. And these are all U.S. women with English as their first launguage.
So guys, how long is too long to wait before throwing in the towel, by which I mean youve already got the phone number and are simply waiting before you meet up?
Maybe I've just hit a bad streak, but lately I've been getting a lot of numbers, a lot of texting, but no real follow-through. Something keeps getting in the way and the more it gets delayed the less likely a first date happens
It's pretty annoying, not gonna lie.
I kind of ran into the same problem early on. And then I just went stupid and started talking to as many people as possible and setting up a bunch of things with the understanding that 75% would fall through. Of course, then it ends up being EVERYTHING works out and you find yourself going on 12 first dates in two weeks. It's a different problem to have I guess?
I think it's important for people who prefer online dating to realize that not everyone who is on OKCupid, or other sites, actually enjoys talking via typing. Even among the people in this thread who prefer to take time before meeting someone, there's a sense of "oh, this is going to take some time, I'll do it a little later" and then you forget. It's not out of rudeness or because they don't like you, but because they don't prioritize "random internet message" very highly.
Getting out in front of someone and saying essentially that you like them and want to meet up gives them a chance to just reply with a quick "sure!" I noticed quite often that I'd write a long email and end with "This is getting pretty long; maybe we should meet up for coffee or drinks later this week" and the response was basically ignoring the message and confirming the date (or ignoring me all together). Then, when we met up, we'd usually revisit some of the topics we'd talked about but left hanging.
Ok so how Nerdy is too nerdy for a profile, I think I might have went overboard with it, since my username is NerdyNordy and all...... >_>
What's the right way to go about it because personally I want to be straight up and let a girl know that I'm a huge nerd before we meet up in case it turns out to be a deal breaker for her which would end up wasting both our time, on the other hand some of the things I mention may be the kind of thing that you need to filter feed into a relationship.
Easier to just post this rather than go into specifics here, also I hate my profile pictures but I avoid cameras like the plague so these are the only two I had that didn't show me as a dot in the distance.
That's not a very nerdy profile. Drop the emoticons in the profile proper -- they don't really fit, and are better in a message. If you have to use an emoticon to convey a feeling/emotion in a sentence, change the sentence so you no longer need the emoticon.
Otherwise, you're mostly just a little vague. You're using very abstract ways to describe yourself ("cynical," "see the funny side of things," "honest"), which are fine but somewhat expected. For example, think of your profile as the first thing you're saying to someone at a party. The girl is cute, and you're trying to talk with her. She's interested in you, but you don't have much to say. Do you say "Hey! How's it going? Did you know I'm cynical, but I also see the funny side of things?" Or do you make an actual cynical comment and then make a joke about it?
But when I go up to a girl at a party I don't really give a self summary, I mean with the rest of the stuff like films and books I get what your saying but the self summary part is describing how you see yourself.
What I was going for is basically trying to say I am a miserable bastard and I'm never serious, I literally can't have an adult conversation without constantly making stupid jokes. But what came out was my internal thesaurus failing with "cynical" and "seeing the funny side of things", "seeing the funny side" was also my nice way of saying I'm a terrible person and will literally make fun of anything.
I'll try a complete re-write of that part though and try and be less vague.
I noticed quite often that I'd write a long email and end with "This is getting pretty long; maybe we should meet up for coffee or drinks later this week" and the response was basically ignoring the message and confirming the date (or ignoring me all together). Then, when we met up, we'd usually revisit some of the topics we'd talked about but left hanging.
I was thinking about this very thing re: some messages lately. While I'd like to know the person could communicate in writing too, since I've been known to write some epic-length emails, that's not really an indication of if we'd be worth each other's time in reality. And I find myself not wanting to "waste" any good conversation topics/random anecdotes on messages when it'd be better to actually have that stuff to talk about in person...
atat23: You sort of answered your own issue -- when you go up to a girl at a party, you don't give a self summary. I don't think most people do -- it's kind of weird to summarize more than the very basic stuff, like where you were born or what your job is. The rest is current and topical. There's no reason your online first impression should be significantly different than your in-person one.
Most people will not believe you if you just tell them how you are. It's like having a friend who says "I'm funny!" but is actually not funny. The person who actually has a sense of humor and is very funny never claims to be; she lets her wit and jokes speak for themselves.
Also, in regards to being too nerdy: there's mentioning a few of your hobbies, and then there's coming off like "the only thing that brings me joy is anime about high school girls."
Not that there's anything wrong with that. If what you do is a big part of who you are, then by all means make that clear: usually discussing the cultures you most identify with and feel comfortable around is better than a laundry-list of the activities you do. The profile isn't the place to go into detail anyhow: you know which of your interests have stronger negative stigma attached (ie, video games are a lot more acceptable/common than D&D or anime).
After going over yours, you seem to repeat that you're a nerd without giving any examples as to why. I think it's enough that it's in your name if you don't have any nerdy past-times you feel comfortable mentioning. Overall, it reads a little flat/bland. I don't get much of a sense of who you are.
This is a personal peeve of mine, but the subject of nearly every statement in your profile is "I." Even getting away from "I like" "I enjoy" "I *insert verb here*" and moving towards "My interests include", "My favorite Xs are" will break that up a little. Also, find at least one picture of you out enjoying yourself (or in enjoying yourself) with other people. Your main profile picture makes you look older than you are (in a bad way) and annoyed.
@eggy: right I'll have to recheck the OP to come up with something else to put in the self summary section.
@Dan: yeah the whole thing needs tweaking, as I was writing it I didn't know what to put so it ended up just being a bit "meh". As I mentioned though I do hate those pics, me and my mates aren't the kind of people who bring cameras anywhere, literally the only person who ever catches me on camera is my sister because she always has one but all the pictures she takes of me are me flipping her off , I'll have to dig harder and find a decent pic.
I've been thinking about throwing my hat into the online dating ring recently but a few issues are holding me back that I'm unable to overcome. Firstly I've never actually been on a "date", my previous relationships were with girls I already knew and we just sort of fell into relationships without too many questions being asked. I've never done the whole thing of meeting up with a chick I don't know to go out and do something and I hear so many bad things about it I'm pretty sour on the whole idea.
Secondly I'm 24 and still living at home. Rent and housing is so expensive where I live I had to choose between having a car and a life at home or a shitty flat in a bad area of town. I chose the former and but for this one aspect of my life I'm pretty happy with that choice. I just don't see anyway to explain it in a dating situation if "going back to my place" comes up that won't leave me sounding like a neck-bearded manchild with a closet full of anime porn.
I've had some changes in my life lately and my confidence has grown to the point I would quite like to get a girlfriend again but I feel like I'm falling at the first hurdle here. Any general advice guys?
@Casual: Not sure if the financial situation is the same everywhere, but where I am it is pretty terrible. I came back from earning a Masters degree to live at home for over two years. End of this summer I'm moving out to attend Law School. My girlfriend is in a similar situation: came back from Peace Corps, couldn't find a job, started getting her Masters in Biology, still lives at home. I think the numbers are 4/5 college graduates in the US will move back home at some point. So finding someone empathetic to your situation won't be as hard as you think it will, especially if you date in the 21-25 range (don't date younger than 21 once you're over 23, it is not worth it).
Alternatively, finding someone with their own place (may have to look slightly older) who also has the capacity for empathy regarding your living arrangements isn't out of the question. Your situation is closer to the norm than you'd think, and anyone who thinks every person who lives at home in their 20s is Comic Book Guy from Simpsons can get bent.
Well I meet someone on OKC and after 4 dates I think we are on the same playing field. What makes it awesome we both work in the same industry (advertising) and have same level of education. Finally the internets did something good for me other than porn.
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!
@Casual Most of my previous relationships began similar to yours. Dating like any skill does take some practice and time to get used to but in the end learning to date wasn't as horrible of an experience as I though it would be. Ask questions, seem interested in what they have to say, don't go in with crazy expectations and you should do all right. Just look at any date that doesn't work out as practice for a future one that will.
At your age living at home shouldn't really be an issue, plenty of people are still living at home as was I and while it certainly made booty calls harder at that time it didn't cause me any difficulty in finding relationships.
I have a friend that's in his early to mid 30's that lives at home due to only being able to find part time work in his field and he's never had a problem finding women. I'm not saying that he hasn't had some women refuse to date him due to his living situation but if he can pull it off while being a decade older you should be good.
Posts
Regardless, I'm socially exhausted for the forseeable future.
It's as close as I'm going to get, so I'll take it.
Heh. My last relationship was like that. It's dumb. It doesn't make it hurt any less really. Mostly just avoids the awkward Facebook status changes.
lol!!
AW YEAH I CAN SEE THE FUTURE!
That's worth no second date, right? Why is it always the ones I really like who only give me one date?
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I think the answer is mostly that women don't need to be the ones driving the conversation, so they don't. They get an insane amount of messages per day, without having to do much legwork. As such, they can sit back and be passive.
If you want to pursue them, you need to be proactive and you need to stand out. Appeal to them in a way that causes them to pay less attention to all the other dudes sending them messages and to focus in on you.
It sounds harsh, but have you considered that it might be your grammar? Assuming your messages are written in the same way you write here, I'd probably ignore one from you. It comes across as uneducated or like you're not trying. You don't sound like you'd be interesting to talk to.
The OKCupid Trends blog covered this topic back in 2009 if you want some graphs and other first message advice:
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/online-dating-advice-exactly-what-to-say-in-a-first-message/
My scenario as well.
But maybe its a good thing? Endless dating period? Endless fun
Well that is a first ...
But my grammar in English can't be the problem. I am German - and use German sites. Naturally, my German tends to be better than my English.
"You should go out to dinner with me."
I've had more success with that single line than anything else and unfortunately I've been at this online dating for awhile now. Great at getting that first date... just not all that great at following through. I think I'm just being too picky most of the time.
That's a good way if you're confident in your profile and don't want to deal with people who are just on there for attention.
:-( I had a similar issue until I made myself a rule that I'm not allowed to care all that much till the third date. It's hard to follow at first, but it got easier for me as I realized I wasn't going to exhaust the internet of women for first dates any time soon.
Some will, some won't, who cares, next.
Yeah. It's not really that I'm broken up over it. Just more... it's always the promising ones. Le sigh.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Reading this again ... Uneducated? Are you fucking kidding me?
Edit: And since he's hitting up German women, it doesn't matter too much anyway!
While devastatingly true, women play by a different ruleset when it comes to online dating.
Maybe I've just hit a bad streak, but lately I've been getting a lot of numbers, a lot of texting, but no real follow-through. Something keeps getting in the way and the more it gets delayed the less likely a first date happens
It's pretty annoying, not gonna lie.
Sorry, I'm an editor so a lack of capitalization, commas, and other punctuation is really noticeable to me, and when I see it my first thought is that someone is either lazy or couldn't stick out their English classes. No idea it was your second language since, as mentioned, it's pretty similar to what a lot of people online use (unfortunately, in my opinion), and us Americans are rightly notorious for forgetting about the rest of the world. I'll try and work on that second part.
But how often do you message those women?
I kind of ran into the same problem early on. And then I just went stupid and started talking to as many people as possible and setting up a bunch of things with the understanding that 75% would fall through. Of course, then it ends up being EVERYTHING works out and you find yourself going on 12 first dates in two weeks. It's a different problem to have I guess?
Getting out in front of someone and saying essentially that you like them and want to meet up gives them a chance to just reply with a quick "sure!" I noticed quite often that I'd write a long email and end with "This is getting pretty long; maybe we should meet up for coffee or drinks later this week" and the response was basically ignoring the message and confirming the date (or ignoring me all together). Then, when we met up, we'd usually revisit some of the topics we'd talked about but left hanging.
What's the right way to go about it because personally I want to be straight up and let a girl know that I'm a huge nerd before we meet up in case it turns out to be a deal breaker for her which would end up wasting both our time, on the other hand some of the things I mention may be the kind of thing that you need to filter feed into a relationship.
Easier to just post this rather than go into specifics here, also I hate my profile pictures but I avoid cameras like the plague so these are the only two I had that didn't show me as a dot in the distance.
http://www.okcupid.com/profile/nerdynordy
Otherwise, you're mostly just a little vague. You're using very abstract ways to describe yourself ("cynical," "see the funny side of things," "honest"), which are fine but somewhat expected. For example, think of your profile as the first thing you're saying to someone at a party. The girl is cute, and you're trying to talk with her. She's interested in you, but you don't have much to say. Do you say "Hey! How's it going? Did you know I'm cynical, but I also see the funny side of things?" Or do you make an actual cynical comment and then make a joke about it?
But when I go up to a girl at a party I don't really give a self summary, I mean with the rest of the stuff like films and books I get what your saying but the self summary part is describing how you see yourself.
What I was going for is basically trying to say I am a miserable bastard and I'm never serious, I literally can't have an adult conversation without constantly making stupid jokes. But what came out was my internal thesaurus failing with "cynical" and "seeing the funny side of things", "seeing the funny side" was also my nice way of saying I'm a terrible person and will literally make fun of anything.
I'll try a complete re-write of that part though and try and be less vague.
I was thinking about this very thing re: some messages lately. While I'd like to know the person could communicate in writing too, since I've been known to write some epic-length emails, that's not really an indication of if we'd be worth each other's time in reality. And I find myself not wanting to "waste" any good conversation topics/random anecdotes on messages when it'd be better to actually have that stuff to talk about in person...
Most people will not believe you if you just tell them how you are. It's like having a friend who says "I'm funny!" but is actually not funny. The person who actually has a sense of humor and is very funny never claims to be; she lets her wit and jokes speak for themselves.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. If what you do is a big part of who you are, then by all means make that clear: usually discussing the cultures you most identify with and feel comfortable around is better than a laundry-list of the activities you do. The profile isn't the place to go into detail anyhow: you know which of your interests have stronger negative stigma attached (ie, video games are a lot more acceptable/common than D&D or anime).
After going over yours, you seem to repeat that you're a nerd without giving any examples as to why. I think it's enough that it's in your name if you don't have any nerdy past-times you feel comfortable mentioning. Overall, it reads a little flat/bland. I don't get much of a sense of who you are.
This is a personal peeve of mine, but the subject of nearly every statement in your profile is "I." Even getting away from "I like" "I enjoy" "I *insert verb here*" and moving towards "My interests include", "My favorite Xs are" will break that up a little. Also, find at least one picture of you out enjoying yourself (or in enjoying yourself) with other people. Your main profile picture makes you look older than you are (in a bad way) and annoyed.
@Dan: yeah the whole thing needs tweaking, as I was writing it I didn't know what to put so it ended up just being a bit "meh". As I mentioned though I do hate those pics, me and my mates aren't the kind of people who bring cameras anywhere, literally the only person who ever catches me on camera is my sister because she always has one but all the pictures she takes of me are me flipping her off
Secondly I'm 24 and still living at home. Rent and housing is so expensive where I live I had to choose between having a car and a life at home or a shitty flat in a bad area of town. I chose the former and but for this one aspect of my life I'm pretty happy with that choice. I just don't see anyway to explain it in a dating situation if "going back to my place" comes up that won't leave me sounding like a neck-bearded manchild with a closet full of anime porn.
I've had some changes in my life lately and my confidence has grown to the point I would quite like to get a girlfriend again but I feel like I'm falling at the first hurdle here. Any general advice guys?
Alternatively, finding someone with their own place (may have to look slightly older) who also has the capacity for empathy regarding your living arrangements isn't out of the question. Your situation is closer to the norm than you'd think, and anyone who thinks every person who lives at home in their 20s is Comic Book Guy from Simpsons can get bent.
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!
At your age living at home shouldn't really be an issue, plenty of people are still living at home as was I and while it certainly made booty calls harder at that time it didn't cause me any difficulty in finding relationships.
I have a friend that's in his early to mid 30's that lives at home due to only being able to find part time work in his field and he's never had a problem finding women. I'm not saying that he hasn't had some women refuse to date him due to his living situation but if he can pull it off while being a decade older you should be good.