Online Dating...aka life of a single guy

Count me in that bunch. Not the part about online dating, the other part- after 12 years of having sex only in the dark, I'm convinced I've never actually seen a vagina in real life.

(waits for inevitable TFP reaction)

 

you should go to the huge dating sites like eharmony and match. It is worth paying for it to me. The free ones are just filled with fake and dead profiles.

 

I've only ever tried POF so my advice is limited to what would be relevant on that site, but I find that there are a lot of people who are simply looking to date or make friendships that don't post a photo of themselves. Not that looks are the only thing i'm concerned about, but a no-photo profile just seems sketchy to me (depending of course on what they're looking for). On the other hand, if I see a profile with 10 selfies, I tend to assume that person is boring and vain. It's all about balance. Both the quality and the quantity of your photos are an important aspect of your profile, they can portray your character and personality just as much as a well thought out "about me" section (which is obviously also important). My advice would be to post 1)a favourite/genuine pic of yourself, 2)a silly pic of yourself, and 3)a pic in which you're doing something that you enjoy. I wouldn't post pics with other people in them (just my opinion), and definitely none with small children.

When I was using POF and I found someone I wanted to message, I read her profile and focused on one interesting piece of information. The message I wrote was usually just a few lines long, with the standard introduction, and then a comment/question on that interesting piece of information (either something like "You mentioned you were a member of (name of organisation/charity), what made you want to get involved?" or "I see you're into painting, what would you say is your primary inspiration?"). No single-sentence messages, but nothing longer than 5 sentences... that was my plan.

I actually found POF to be a great place to meet people. I met my current gf (of almost 3 years) there. It was actually kinda funny, I lived in Newfoundland at the time but was planning on moving to Quebec, I was only searching for friends in the Quebec City area but Montreal profiles kept popping up, I looked at her profile but since she was in Montreal (3 hours from away where I was planning on moving) I didn't message her, but then she messaged me back saying something like "Why's a girl from Newfoundland looking at my profile? " and we got to chatting and the rest was history. I've also met a few people on POF who are now some of my closest friends, and I've had plenty of other interesting conversations that started off with that <5 sentence message (unless they messaged me first).

The most important thing, imo, about online dating - be as up front about what you want as you can be. If you're the kind of person who just wants an online connection (just someone to message, maybe video chat) then say that. If you're online to actually meet people face to face and you have no intention of messaging back and forth forever before meeting in person, say that too. I was undecided as to ultimately what kind of relationship I wanted to get out of online dating (I was open to almost anything including casual or friendships) but I was sure that I only wanted to meet people who were serious about actually getting together face-to-face and seeing where it went, whether it be friendship or something more, and I made that clear, so that's the kind of people who responded to my profile and/or messages.

(Today is a home-from-work-sick day for me and i've got extra time so forgive me if I've rambled)

 

eharmony wouldn't accept my profile. They told me that in all the world there were no matches for me and to fuck on off out of here, please.
Match.com meh. Seems to be really earnest dating types. Professional daters. Hard sellers. People looking for the love of their life, damnit.

I prefer OKCupid simply because there are more people there who run at my speed. I get responses from men I can actually see myself sharing an evening with. There is a fair amount of bullshit to wade through, but no more than any other dating site I've been on.

 

Checking the profiles of the last 4 women I met from OKC, one had a master's degree, one had a law degree, one was an MBA student, and one was a med student. All 4 also messaged me first, so clearly I'm just more awesome than you. To be fair,I'm not sure how old you are, but I'm 29 and my "looking for" range is 22-39, which shows me a completely different demographic than back when I was looking for 18-25 - quickmatch and match search were a veritable sea of baristas and aspiring hairdressers (seriously, a few years ago every other woman with a profile was in school for cosmetology.)

POF is the epitome of "the odds are good but the goods are odd." I signed up years ago, searched a few times, and felt no compulsion to stick around. OKC was smaller in those days, but seemed like the best bet.

I have to ask. Which sounds more dirty to you, someone whose "looking for" is "causal sex" or one who has "short-term dating, activity partners" listed? I've always felt that "looking for activity partners" on a dating site sounds absolutely filthy, but it could just be me.

 

I never really thought about it, but you're right. I don't think most people there are looking for knitting partners.

The #1 compliment I get on that site is a variation of 'Thanks for writing an honest profile and just saying flat out what you want. I don't see a lot of that here.' I swear, I get that email from everywhere, even people who live overseas write to tell me how much they like my profile.
So, ladies, state upfront what you're looking for and don't apologize for it. The guys seem to like that.

 

I hear almost those exact same sentiments a lot.

 

I dunno. I can't help but find anyone on this site coming down as 'against online dating' (not saying you are, baraka, because you haven't) as a little hypocritical. Most of the regulars here devote quite a bit of time to this site which is, get this, ONLINE. What's more, a whole gaggle of you are about fly into another country to meet people you've never met face to face before. I understand (believe me) the attitudes implied in that article and I share some of them, but not all of us gather up into groups of friends and hit the clubs every weekend where we can meet these fabulous people who happen to live here and who happen to be inside the same building at the same time as us. It's real romantic, I know. But, frankly, when I go out, I go out to dance and have a non-'hey, how you doin'?' time. Besides, in my experience, the likelihood that I'm going to run into some douchebag who wants to follow me around and harass me all night is far greater than the chance that I'll meet someone I can tell is right just by looking at him and sharing a few shouted words with him over the booming music.

I know snobbery when I see it. After all, I'm one of best and most ardent supporters of snobbery in our day and time. But, really.

 

That's the nicest way of calling a dude a bitch I've ever heard.

 

"Chienne," "salope," "garce," "chipie" and "rosse" are also French.

...

Indeed. Amazon.com revolutionized the way that people shop much in the same way the online dating has made it easy to examine products, comparison shop and avoid wasting time in meatspace.

 

If I lived in Florida, I'd join your sewing circle

This, but without the cynicism.

 

Pfft, I'm too stupid to be cynical. And I've had incredibly positive experiences with online dating. I've been with my current girlfriend for half a decade, FFS.

There is no reason to downplay the strong points of online dating, just as there is no reason to pretend that it isn't shopping for a person at your own pace.

OkCupid is a little lacking in the return policy department, however.​