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My late hubby tried quitting several times over the 8 years we were together. He always used to say one way or another, he'd quit smoking when he had his first heart attack. Not only did he quit smoking, he quit living. (Would've been 48 today, which I'm sure is part of the reason for my being in a bad mood).
I'm guessing mine is green or yellow. I've only been on the site for 1.5 months and responded to everything at first specifically to get the green bar. I find when I do look at profiles, those with the green bars seem more approachable and I wanted to be approachable.
Purely out of curiosity, if you change it to online past week, how much of a difference does that make? I wish there was a 2 week option. I figure anything beyond that, they likely aren't currently active because they either met someone or are taking a break.
that's a shame I mean yea I need to quit but I'm not even thinking about it, probably will when something unfortunate happens.
Ok, I did within 5 miles of my apartment, bachelors or above, +/- 5 years of age, non smoking, single, online past month and there were 356 matches.
Ages 35-45, within 50 mi of me, doesn't have/doesn't want kids, has/likes dogs, doesn't smoke, no drugs, doesn't drink/drinks rarely/drinks socially, online within the last month: 40.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Well, we covered that those "ideal" criteria are fairly restrictive. Lots of the guys that don't want kids are going to have that criteria checked, otherwise single moms will weed you out needlessly... and lots of women that probably don't want to have them or are too old to realistically have them will weed you out as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hivemind31
I'd say they're less "offensive", but no less idiotic in my experience. They just message less often, so it might feel that way.
What type of messages are you getting that are idiotic? Almost all mine open with something about travel, where I've been, or where I'm going to; or something about living in a geographical area we both lived in, or a band or something pretty basic.
Well, we covered that those "ideal" criteria are fairly restrictive.
Yes, they are. But I also have a pretty good idea of what I want/need at this stage of my life. I'm not complaining by the low numbers of matches, just stating the numbers as they apply to me. Given that I find reading through profiles tedious, truthfully, I'd rather have a smaller set to wade through.
Quote:
Originally Posted by timberline742
What type of messages are you getting that are idiotic? Almost all mine open with something about travel, where I've been, or where I'm going to; or something about living in a geographical area we both lived in, or a band or something pretty basic.
One of the things I'm looking for in a partner is a travel companion (heck, I'd be content with a travel companion that isn't a romantic partner), so if I initiate contact, I typically ask about travel.
I've only received a couple of messages I thought were idiotic in content but there have also been a couple that seemed a little out of left field like "Wanna fool around?" as the response to me agreeing to meet for a beverage. Of the 24 men I've received messages from, 6 of them have either deleted or had their profiles removed, though one of them did create a new profile and has deemed me "prejudice" for not wanting to date a 28-year-old who can't put together a proper sentence.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NWGirl74
One of the things I'm looking for in a partner is a travel companion (heck, I'd be content with a travel companion that isn't a romantic partner), so if I initiate contact, I typically ask about travel.
I've only received a couple of messages I thought were idiotic in content but there have also been a couple that seemed a little out of left field like "Wanna fool around?" as the response to me agreeing to meet for a beverage. Of the 24 men I've received messages from, 6 of them have either deleted or had their profiles removed, though one of them did create a new profile and has deemed me "prejudice" for not wanting to date a 28-year-old who can't put together a proper sentence.
Thanks, but I was asking Hivemind as he stated that women's messages to me were equally as idiotic as the ones women receive (paraphrase). I wanted to know what women send that are idiotic. I've not received them.
What type of messages are you getting that are idiotic? Almost all mine open with something about travel, where I've been, or where I'm going to; or something about living in a geographical area we both lived in, or a band or something pretty basic.
Generally the same as the ones women get, minus the sexually offensive stuff. A quick sample:
The generic
'hi'
'sup'
The brain dead
'hru'
'wat musick u lyke'
The golddigger
'do u really make XXX?' (per my profile)
'send me a pic of ur bizness card so i kno ur rly a ceo' (for reference, I'm a CIO)
I get genuinely nice ones as well, and I reply to all of the messages I get, but I just wanted to point out that "idiotic" is definitely a two-way street.
should you waste time crafting messages to each girl which chances are they won't even respond back
or
generic 1 second message to hundreds of girls which some of them will probably respond back
Online is a numbers game. If you don't respond, another woman who is desperate will. That's all. That is how the game is played. If you don't like the game, I would suggest going outside to find a mate...
Quote:
Originally Posted by timberline742
I'm am a guy and I get solid response rates (50% plus generally when I do OLD) by crafting decent messages. I don't view it as a numbers game and never have, since I don't want to meet anywhere near a majority of the people with profiles. There is no reason for me to write someone I know I don't want to meet. Making a good first impression is never a "waste" of time to me nor do I view dating as a "game". Treating people like people and not a number or a thing has served me well.
I dunno, there's shades of right to all that's being said. While I agree that "game" is a bad way to describe anything to do with seeking out a significant other, it's really hard to say that numbers aren't a big part of the equation. And that isn't exclusive to the spray-and-pray of generic messages methodology, either.
Timberline, I have no idea what you've got going on to get a 50% reply rate, but I assure you, it's not predominately how well crafted your messages are. I'm clearly educated, well written, and always keen on engaging women on the actual content in their respective profiles. I never resort to spamming a bevy of them with any sort of boilerplate message... well, because frankly, I don't have enough matches to bother with it in the first place.... but if you take the number of dates that I've gotten off online dating per year (which rounds up to a big, fat ol' 1), and look at the number of messages sent over the course of said year (if only a handful a week), that's still 1 out of ~260, minimum. That's still a numbers equation no matter how you look at it.
All of my male friends doing online dating report pretty much the same. Extremely low ROIs. None of them spam women's profiles with generic messages. None of them are uneducated, inarticulate, or use any other method than to read a woman's profile and engage her personally on something they might have in common, something they find interesting, etc.
I wouldn't recommend, or even try, a copy-paste carpet-bomb approach, but I will say that I've seen no reason to think there's much more than miniscule value added by crafting decent, personalized messages.
All of my male friends doing online dating report pretty much the same. Extremely low ROIs.
I've heard the same from my male friends.
OLD is a great way to test yourself when you are just getting back out there. You think you're ready, you put up a profile, you get a couple of messages and think "Yea! I can do this," and then when it's time to pull the trigger, you either go for it or realize maybe you aren't as ready as you think. At least, that has been the case for me.
This time I've gotten as far as talking on the phone with one guy and texting another. Usually, I've given up long before this point. But then I was starting to think "do I really want to do this?" when it came time to decide to meet someone (after exchanging two or three messages that were no more meaningful than "hi how are you") and not wanting to go through with it. But I've come to realize that it's not that I don't want to meet someone from the site, I want to meet someone who I've had somewhat of a real conversation with first. I'm shy by nature so I think I need something more than:
Him: "hi how are you"
Me: "Fine, thank you. How are you?"
Him: "good"
Him: "wanna meet?"
It seems that physical attraction and profile compatibility is a big part of whether a woman responds or not. Profile compatibility is much easier to judge and target but physical attraction is very subjective and it's virtually impossible to tell if a woman is going to find you attractive or not.
For this reason a system where the initial contact is just a "interested in messaging" or "not interested in messaging" would prevent both sexes from wasting each other's time.
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I'm not complaining by the low numbers of matches, just stating the numbers as they apply to me. Given that I find reading through profiles tedious, truthfully, I'd rather have a smaller set to wade through. 
