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I've got to observe out loud... Yes, its a bit of a hijack. Sorry for that. But... if OLD is such a bad thing... why use it? If I found some site or service online wasn't meeting my needs I simply would not waste my time... or money. So... what is the reason that OLD continues to attract such unhappy men? I mean... yes there are women that are unhappy with the men they meet on OLD but men appear to be unhappy with both the women online and OLD itself. The very idea of OLD seems to be something that needs to be ridiculed, denigrated and potential users need to be warned away from. Why?
"Specific questions for woman
1. On average, how many messages do you get a day?
2. How many of these messages are simple and no effort messages (ex. "hi how r u?")
3. How many messages are repeats of guys who have contacted you before?
4. How often do you get jerks or creeps?
5. Do guys seriously send you d*** pics? If so, does it usually just happen at random? Do these guys have a normal conversation and then bam they send you a pic without warning?"
I joined Cupid 10 days ago. I have received 500 likes and 91 1st messages, and several more repeats that won't go away. The majority were "hi", "how r u?" or "ur hott". I didn't answer those. I only got 2 asking for sex. I didn't answer those. No dk pics yet, but I've only given my phone number to 3 people, all of whom came across as maybe a little nerdy and didn't strike me as the dk pic type. I sent a polite rejection to a few with very nice, well-thought out messages... One cited "Christ" as one of the things he can't live without. I'm not religious so I knew that'd be a problem.
I only pointed out the o.p.'s obvious bias even though they (he?) claimed not to have one. I never said I didn't have any. I'm a guy. I KNOW men and women have different experiences online... but they also do in real life. There is NO difference between life online and life offline because the common denominator in both is life itself. How many different ways does this need to be said. There is nothing stopping you from pretending to be a woman on a dating site and see whether the things you've heard about how they experience OLD are true or not. As to bots. I know you think you can spot them, but I'm wondering how you would even know? And no, the bots on Craigslist don't count. The bots that run on upmarket sites like EHarmony and Ashley Madison are crafted by master programmers and approach AI in their sophistication and realism. Even the people that are paid to spot those can't spot them? If you are that good you should hire on at Ashley Madison. They would pay six figures for a guy with your talents.
Like I said, I couldn't really see a bias. Maybe I need to reread the first post. There's no difference in how people act online vs. real life? Do you really think that?
Yes, I could pretend to be a woman to see how their experience is (and believe me, I've considered it), but it seems unethical, and I could never bring myself to do it.
I can spot bots because I'm not completely clueless socially? It's not really that hard for me. AI isn't at that point yet.
I've got to observe out loud... Yes, its a bit of a hijack. Sorry for that. But... if OLD is such a bad thing... why use it? If I found some site or service online wasn't meeting my needs I simply would not waste my time... or money. So... what is the reason that OLD continues to attract such unhappy men? I mean... yes there are women that are unhappy with the men they meet on OLD but men appear to be unhappy with both the women online and OLD itself. The very idea of OLD seems to be something that needs to be ridiculed, denigrated and potential users need to be warned away from. Why?
I don't know. Some of the men I met and dated had decent or good experiences. Some even great experiences. Sure, their experience as men is different than the experiences of women, but some had decent success with select dating sites. For my type, they seemed to do best on OKC, due to the efficient and effective way to search for the best matches.
There are a multitude of factors and variables that influence one's experience. For instance, my husband had a crappy experience, with virtually no matches, when he moved to a very conservative town. As an atheist who preferred to meet and date fellow nontheists, his dating pool was limited by living in a conservative town. He had more matches when he moved back to a major city. He had a clear type in mind, and searched based on this criteria, and OKC yielded the best results for compatible matches. This goes for in-person as well. He preferred OKC to in-person, hands down.
Like I said, I couldn't really see a bias. Maybe I need to reread the first post. There's no difference in how people act online vs. real life? Do you really think that?
Yes I do. The women I've met online were exactly the same in real life as they were online. The only difference is I wouldn't have met them in real life because they lived in other parts of town, other cities... other countries! I'm not a big fan of LDR but if a person doesn't really like where they live, why not consider looking to see what's happening womanwise (or manwise) in a part of the country (or world) that you've always had a hankerin' to see?
topic has been done to death, but I'll play along. I posted a long reply on the topic 1-2 years ago, with a fair amount of data, if that's your thing.
1. How many messages do you send daily and get no response?
when motivated, I'll send about 10-15 a month on average. My actual rate of reply, from girls I would date, is about 12.5%. I am not interesting in sending more messages, or getting more messages. I merely want more "validity" of the experience, where I get an actual follow-thru-date out of the deal.
Since I posted my long reply 1-2 years ago, I did have one successful OKCupid date - but I didn't get a second date - we parted amicably - I liked her... we are both still on the website, 1 year later. Since I liked/favorited her, the website sends me notifications when we login at the same time.
2. Do you usually send short messages?
never. I'm a wordy nerdy guy, I want to prove that I'm clever, literate, educated. I've read the website blog advice on "how long is too long", and I take heed.
3. Do you copy/paste and send to as many as possible to see if any respond?
never. Although we all might start from a vague template, each message is composed the same way one might approach writing a cover letter for a job application ~ tailored for the audience.
4. Do you read the profiles and try to include something you read about them in your message?
always. I greatly prefer the OKCupid format over the alternatives like Tinder or eHarmony, but the website has never worked as designed/advertised for me. (oops now I have 1 exception)
4. Do you get bad pics? If so, are they at random?
we can pretend the question applies to males searching for females, but it doesn't. The best analog would be "how many times as a male do I receive a lewd, unwanted message from a hooker, or someone trying to recruit / clickaway to porn site / offshore site / rival website" - I would say that's happened a dozen times in the last calendar year or two.
5. Do you send bad pics? If so, why? (I don't expect anyone to honestly answer this one)
of course not. There's one guy on another website I frequent, a prolific poster who brags about his practice and effort, photography and lighting tips, but he's a deviant who would will hump in animal in heat.
6. Do you feel the amount of messages you get daily makes it more overwhelming and frustrating?
we can pretend the question applies to males searching for females, but it doesn't. The best analog would be "Do you feel the amount of messages you send out that garner no response makes the website frustrating, and overwhelmingly useless?" Yes. For the amount of effort you put into O.L.D., it is more time-efficient to go out in real life, and meet people, 'even just friends' with the zen-like "I'm increasing my social pool of contacts, and I might meet someone that way."
The single largest problem I see with online dating sites like OKCupid, is the sheer amount of dead, inactive, or ghost profiles that are presented to you, as if the user just logged on last week. I think that accts where the user has not logged into the website in the last six months, should be deleted from the website, otherwise its actively perpetrating Fraud. If you read the TOS on OKCupid, they state that they "use software test profiles, to verify the website is operational".
The next large problem, with (unbalanced/heavy) male traffic and (reluctant/overwhelmed) female traffic is attempted to be addressed by websites (I THINK its Bumble but I could be wrong) is - where the conversation/messaging cannot HAPPEN unless the female approves/matches "the like". And then a temporary chat room/channel is created for ONLY THREE DAYS between those two users.
In closing, my opinion is: ITS ALL ABOUT THE PICS. The content you write in the essay, or questions, does not really matter. Or, so much disconfirming information is disclosed all-at-once, that it ruins your chances for a date, with someone who merely needs something as simple as "I liked your curly hair", or "you have nice arms /you're at right age/race/you dont smoke", that would have otherwise given you their phone number in exchange for a simple $5 well drink, or a "Hi! Where can I find some great Thai food around here?!?"
"Specific questions for woman
1. On average, how many messages do you get a day?
2. How many of these messages are simple and no effort messages (ex. "hi how r u?")
3. How many messages are repeats of guys who have contacted you before?
4. How often do you get jerks or creeps?
5. Do guys seriously send you d*** pics? If so, does it usually just happen at random? Do these guys have a normal conversation and then bam they send you a pic without warning?"
I joined Cupid 10 days ago. I have received 500 likes and 91 1st messages, and several more repeats that won't go away. The majority were "hi", "how r u?" or "ur hott". I didn't answer those. I only got 2 asking for sex. I didn't answer those. No dk pics yet, but I've only given my phone number to 3 people, all of whom came across as maybe a little nerdy and didn't strike me as the dk pic type. I sent a polite rejection to a few with very nice, well-thought out messages... One cited "Christ" as one of the things he can't live without. I'm not religious so I knew that'd be a problem.
topic has been done to death, but I'll play along. I posted a long reply on the topic 1-2 years ago, with a fair amount of data, if that's your thing.
1. How many messages do you send daily and get no response?
when motivated, I'll send about 10-15 a month on average. My actual rate of reply, from girls I would date, is about 12.5%. I am not interesting in sending more messages, or getting more messages. I merely want more "validity" of the experience, where I get an actual follow-thru-date out of the deal.
Since I posted my long reply 1-2 years ago, I did have one successful OKCupid date - but I didn't get a second date - we parted amicably - I liked her... we are both still on the website, 1 year later. Since I liked/favorited her, the website sends me notifications when we login at the same time.
2. Do you usually send short messages?
never. I'm a wordy nerdy guy, I want to prove that I'm clever, literate, educated. I've read the website blog advice on "how long is too long", and I take heed.
3. Do you copy/paste and send to as many as possible to see if any respond?
never. Although we all might start from a vague template, each message is composed the same way one might approach writing a cover letter for a job application ~ tailored for the audience.
4. Do you read the profiles and try to include something you read about them in your message?
always. I greatly prefer the OKCupid format over the alternatives like Tinder or eHarmony, but the website has never worked as designed/advertised for me. (oops now I have 1 exception)
4. Do you get bad pics? If so, are they at random?
we can pretend the question applies to males searching for females, but it doesn't. The best analog would be "how many times as a male do I receive a lewd, unwanted message from a hooker, or someone trying to recruit / clickaway to porn site / offshore site / rival website" - I would say that's happened a dozen times in the last calendar year or two.
5. Do you send bad pics? If so, why? (I don't expect anyone to honestly answer this one)
of course not. There's one guy on another website I frequent, a prolific poster who brags about his practice and effort, photography and lighting tips, but he's a deviant who would will hump in animal in heat.
6. Do you feel the amount of messages you get daily makes it more overwhelming and frustrating?
we can pretend the question applies to males searching for females, but it doesn't. The best analog would be "Do you feel the amount of messages you send out that garner no response makes the website frustrating, and overwhelmingly useless?" Yes. For the amount of effort you put into O.L.D., it is more time-efficient to go out in real life, and meet people, 'even just friends' with the zen-like "I'm increasing my social pool of contacts, and I might meet someone that way."
The single largest problem I see with online dating sites like OKCupid, is the sheer amount of dead, inactive, or ghost profiles that are presented to you, as if the user just logged on last week. I think that accts where the user has not logged into the website in the last six months, should be deleted from the website, otherwise its actively perpetrating Fraud. If you read the TOS on OKCupid, they state that they "use software test profiles, to verify the website is operational".
The next large problem, with (unbalanced/heavy) male traffic and (reluctant/overwhelmed) female traffic is attempted to be addressed by websites (I THINK its Bumble but I could be wrong) is - where the conversation/messaging cannot HAPPEN unless the female approves/matches "the like". And then a temporary chat room/channel is created for ONLY THREE DAYS between those two users.
In closing, my opinion is: ITS ALL ABOUT THE PICS. The content you write in the essay, or questions, does not really matter. Or, so much disconfirming information is disclosed all-at-once, that it ruins your chances for a date, with someone who merely needs something as simple as "I liked your curly hair", or "you have nice arms /you're at right age/race/you dont smoke", that would have otherwise given you their phone number in exchange for a simple $5 well drink, or a "Hi! Where can I find some great Thai food around here?!?"
Attraction matters, and the written content matters a whole lot, more so than pleasing aesthetics alone. My being "very selective" was about way more than looks/pics. There were plenty of average guys that I reached out to, responded to and went out with. Some I even dated.
Attraction matters, and the written content matters a whole lot, more so than pleasing aesthetics alone. My being "very selective" was about way more than looks/pics. There were plenty of average guys that I reached out to, responded to and went out with. Some I even dated.
This is a good point. I like to ask the woman on this forum, how often did you initiate contact with another user on a dating site? Was it never, rarely, often?
Yes, I had heard that too. So did this happen often? Someone would message you and message again because you had not replied?
Thanks!
I am really not the one to ask this to. Like I said, a few months into online dating, I stopped reading all incoming messages that weren't from men I contacted first. So they could have been yelling at me and being all kinds of shades of nasty and I wouldn't know because I never opened the messages. So I really have no idea how often it happened. I just know it happened a bit in the beginning when I was actually looking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mnnc
This is a good point. I like to ask the woman on this forum, how often did you initiate contact with another user on a dating site? Was it never, rarely, often?
Thanks!
Always. At least a few months into doing OLD. At first I contacted men and let men contact me, but I figured out that the quality of who I was eventually dating went up when I was the one choosing someone (instead of letting all kinds of men, most of whom I wasn't interested in, come to me).
So I literally stopped reading any incoming message from a man I didn't message first because I found the messages to be a waste of my time (and the man's time). Most of the men who contacted me first weren't matches and a few of them had real mental issues. I would give them a chance to "be nice and give them a chance," but that was a bad strategy for me and resulted in a lot of getting dolled up for dates that went nowhere. And then having to deal with the stress of later telling the guy I wasn't interested and hoping he wasn't some kind of temperamental lunatic full of drama. I would rather sit at home alone with my dog until I am 109 than go though that. Of course, that changed when I became the one contacting first.
What I found interesting is that so many of the more geeky guys (that I liked) assumed I just wouldn't be interested in them for some reason and that's why they weren't contacting me. That includes my boyfriend now who, at first, didn't think I was "for real" and he almost didn't reply to me because of that. We still talk about that sometimes and he brings up that he couldn't believe I wanted to date him. I think he says that mostly to flatter me (and it works, lol) but I also think that deep down he didn't think he would be my type.
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