Yes, it’s another complaint about my online personal ad. So far it seems to attract three basic kind of guys:
computer programmers named Dave (I kid you not; the first time I posted it, I must have had five computer programmers named Dave respond. Not that I have anything against either computer programmers or guys named Dave per se but it was more than a little weird). Actually, a disproportionate number of folks in the IT field in general.
I can understand that the online personals audience is somewhat self-selecting, but my other female friends who have gone this route have reported a lot more variety in their responses. And given that I mention nothing about computers or even anything technical whatsoever in my ad, it seems awfully random. Even my guy friends who are computer programmers have offered no logical explanation. (disclosure: jeevmon insists there’s some correlation with his interpretation of the ad, which is basically “Hi! I’m eccentric, and I like eccentric people!” But that’s a discussion for another day.)
Guys who are ten years older than my stated age range (I’m 35, and gave a range of 30-40). A year or two outside the range? I might consider you. Ten? I don’t want to date a guy if I feel like he’s my dad. I have nothing against older guys as a concept, but 15 years is usually stretching it. I know it works for some people (my dad being a prime example; my stepmom is 14 years younger than him), but hey, so I have preferences. Please respect them, or at least acknowledge them.
Guys who live in another time zone and state in their profiles that they don’t want to relocate. Given that I’ve stated I don’t want to relocate, and that I want a long-term relationship, etc. rather than a one-night stand (which seems much easier to accomplish locally in any case), what the heck are they thinking? Or haven’t they figured out how to read the location field?
I cannot for the life of me figure out why people pay money to join dating sites, and then waste other people’s time by trying to start something that the intended victim has clearly stated she doesn’t want. If you’re going to contact me, at least read the frigging profile! Pay attention, people!
The last guy e-mailed me yesterday; he is 49, didn’t say a word about what in my profile inspired him to contact me other than that I’m female, and a brief survey of his profile revealed nothing that I might have in common with him other than a love of good coffee. (Now I like good coffee just as much as the next girl, but I still don’t think it’s enough of a common interest on which to base a happy relationship.) His text profile says he has “salt-and-pepper” hair, but his photo reveals that he is BALD
Now how, short of bluntly stating that I don’t want to date my father, can I make guys get a clue? Or is it completely hopeless? There seems to be a basic lack of reading comprehension going on here. Or is it just the volume approach, i.e. hope springs eternal, so let’s contact everyone we don’t find blatantly repulsive? (One ex of mine said he had a friend who would basically go to a bar and ask every non-repulsive girl to go home with him. 99 out of 100 would throw a drink in his face, but then there was always the 100th.)
You know, I was just going to ask how the latest crop of suitors was; guess I will infer from your post that the answer is ‘same old; same old.’ I don’t know why they waste your time, either. Maybe they think the age thing can be overcome–and certainly you are open to the possibility for the absolute right person, I’m sure. But they should at least say, “I know I am a bit past your age range, but we have A, B and C in common so I thought I’d give it a try.”
Maybe in your ad you can put “Not interested in relocating or a long-distance relationship. REALLY. Don’t think that I will fall so madly in love with you that I will give up my entire Chicago life and pack up to move in with you. I won’t. NOT EVER.” Not subtle but it seems like subtly ain’t working so much.
Your intelligence comes through in your writing like the pattern on a flow blue plate. Men (at least many) find that attractive. See, it’s your own darn fault.
But anyway, I was doing some research on personal ads and the inherent differences that exist between men’s ads and women’s. One source I read (sorry, I can’t remember where) said that when men make a list of what they’re looking for, most men look at that as a range and if you don’t quite fit, that’s fine, too. But women who have a list are very particular about it–if they say no one over 40, they pretty much mean it. I tend to agree with this because it held pretty true when I was doing the online dating thing.
Since this is a rant, I really should add that I hate it when strange guys IM me for sex. It says pretty clearly on my profile that I’m in a long term realtionship. Why do they assume that if I’m online, that fact alone must mean I’m looking to cyber?!
If it makes you feel any better, I tried on-line personals awhile back, and the pool of women isn’t exactly stellar either. At least the men tell you they’re older than you. Women seem to just stop counting at 30. Some of the pictures I got made me say to myself: “If you’re 30 then I’m Brad Pitt”. And you have to automatically add 20 pounds to whatever description they give. “Just a little overweight” means morbidly obese. Then there was the woman who lived with her parents, had no job, and complained that I wasn’t “financially independent” enough for her, or some other euphemism that meant just making a good living wasn’t sufficient. Geez, just say you’re looking for a sugar daddy up front, and don’t waste people’s time. Or the one who showed up for a date dressed in sweats. Or the one who came 45 minutes late (I figured I had been stood up and had just gotten up to leave), and said “Sorry I’m late, I was talking to my friend.” Or the one who, on our first date, said “Oh, by the way, I have 3 kids and I live in a trailer.” That’s cool if you have kids, but don’t LIE about it for Pete’s sake.
I blame Hollywood. It’s all these romantic movies where the girl hates the guy at first, but then finally falls for him due only to his sheer persistence. We create this expectation that the guy is supposed to keep trying and trying, and the girl is supposed to be reticent at first. Ugh! It’s so damned silly. I run into this a lot myself. A friend might say, “Why don’t you ask so-and-so out?”, and I’ll say “I did ask her out; she said she’s not interested.” Then my friend will say, “Well, ask her again.” Huh? She’s an adult, and I figure if she wanted to go out with me, she would have said “yes”. Case closed.
As for the guys answering who don’t fit your profile, it might be that they don’t fit anybody’s profile, so they just figure their only hope is that someone might lower their standards. I know back when I was looking at personal ads, 90% or so of the women said the guy had to be over 6’ tall and make over $100,000 a year. Kinda ruled me out.
Actually, there is one guy who seems promising; we’ve been swapping e-mails all week. You and jeevmon will be glad to hear that he’s a nice Jewish boy originally from Ohio, just moved here from NY for a new job, a year younger than me, who loves to travel and does NOT work in IT. Bonus: he actually read the damn profile, has a sense of humor, and can write complete and grammatical sentences. (I’m told I should wait 2-3 dates before I ask when his last long-term relationship ended.)
Oh, and at risk of turning this into a rant on dating in general, then there’s category #4: guys who seem to see an invisible psychic tattoo on my forehead that apparently reads, “Please date this woman while you are still too much on the rebound to function like a normal human being.” In addition to a couple of threads from a year or so ago which I’m too lazy to link to right now, I recently set the world’s record for being dumped.
One date. Yes, one date. Date went reasonably well; he liked me, anyway. Asked if I wanted to go to a movie the following weekend at the end of Date #1; I agreed (it’s not like my social calendar is that full), and we decided to touch base on the specifics later that week. I got a call on Wed. on my cell phone while I was outside in 20-degree weather; asked if I could call back from home where it was warm, and he agreed. Called from home an hour or so later; no answer. The next morning I got an e-mail from him which basically said, “Nice having lunch with you, you’re a nice person, I’m not over my ex, not ready to date anyone. Have a nice life.”
I must have been really mean in a past life, or at least really flaky.
I blame the impersonal replies on, well, let me tell you my experience. As I mentioned in the match.com thread elmwood started, when I was on that site I sent out 20 replies to women’s profiles. I carefully read each ad, then wrote an e-mail to each woman which I hope reflected my consideration. In return, I received bupkus–no replies, no “winks,” nada.
I suppose it took me about 20-25 minutes to read the profile, think about what I was going to write, then type out an e-mail. So that was about six hours of work. Now, with those six hours, I could have carpet-bombed about 500 profiles with the equivalent of a form letter. I couldn’t possibly have gotten fewer replies than I actually did.
I think the biggest problem I have with those sites is, as Eva and blowero suggest, there’s no mileage in being honest. I suppose I could also have claimed I was making $200K, looked like a movie star (I could have cut-and-pasted something from IMDB) and had a high-powered job in the Big City. No one would have been any wiser 'till I rolled up in my Honda Civic. But at least I would have actually gotten a date, as opposed to where I got with honesty.
So, I guess the story is, people will lie, cheat, and act like jerks to get a date. Film at 11.
I haven’t done actual put-your-ad-online date-mining yet, but I have dated guys off of chat and IM acquaintance. Or at least tried. Ninety-nine times out of 100, I’d get a week’s worth of good conversations online, then they just…poof. Disappear. I won’t hear from them for a week or more then they’re suddenly there again like they never left.
Then there was the guy who was supposed to be the third in a triad with me and supervenusfreak. He lived in south Jersey and would visit on weekends. Unfortunately, he came with baggage: basically, two exes who were a good 30 years older than him and still very much running his life. Things were fine as long as he was only expected to spend a few hours a week with us and the exes didn’t know about the relationship. Once they found out, he was suddenly constantly “unable to get away”. We even drove out there once when he couldn’t come here, and we spent six hours getting about 1/4 of his attention while he ran all over Camden running errands for his exes. The relationship ended soon after that. I just refused to consider someone who was so lightly connected to our situation as an actual lover or partner. He was a nice guy, but he was so flaky that his priorities were way out in left field.
Hah…for most of us single guys, that’s average. It’s happened to me often enough that I call them “one-and-dones.”
I’ve been dumped before the first date. Back in LA I’d agreed to go out with a lady who I had an occasional acquaintance with, but she called the day before to cancel. Then, for reasons only Og knows, she started giving me the “we can be friends” speech…
I can actually say that I dumped a guy before we even left for the date. I went to pick him up at his house (being the modern, freespirited woman of the '00s that I am) and he answered the door wearing nothing but a towel. Yeah, nice move, Rico Suave, buh bye. :rolleyes:
Women who claim to be 32 or 33 , but the photo shows someone who looks to be 45. Even if their face is young, old lady hairdos, like having short but poofy hair, make me suspicious.
I’m 38 now. I have no problems dating a woman in their early 40s. Just be honest about it. To be superficial, though … no old lady hairdos, okay?
I’ll admit it’s difficult to determine the age of women with profile pictures that look Appalachian, as if they were ridden hard and put away wet.
5) Women who are 5’ 6" and weigh 200 pounds do not have “average” builds. Maybe in Samoa, perhaps, but not in the rest of the country. Don’t give me the usual “the average woman in the US weighs 240 pounds” or “Marilyn Monroe was a size 28” BS, either. Average means “weight proportionate to height,” which admittedly may be hard to define, but we know it when we see it, and 200 pounds ain’t it.
We men know that in online personal ad land, “slim” means average; “average” means average to 10 or 20 extra pounds, “a few extra pounds” means large, and “large” means huge. Don’t make things more confusing by classifying your body type as “average” if you’re really large.
Hollywood movies don’t just encourage persistence. They also encourage 55 year-old men in the belief that women twenty or even thirty years younger will inevitably find them attractive.
Hollywood routinely has a 50+ male character in a romantic relationship with a twenty-something, beautiful woman; the reverse is almost unheard of. Also, when an older woman and a younger man date in the movies, their age difference becomes a big plot issue (e.g. Susan Sarandon/James Spader in “White Palace”). Same in real life (e.g., Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher).
Eva Luna, i think you have to get brutal with these guys. Tell them that, after reading their profile, you have decided to put them in contact with your aunt, who is also looking for a partner.
Note: I have no problem with large age differences in dating, as long as both parties are happy with the situation. I just don’t like the double-standard whereby old man/young woman is fine, but not vice versa.
Eva, my only advice is not to change your profile in response to the nimrods you describe in your OP. These nimrods aren’t reading your profile. At most they’re looking at your picture. No matter how clearly you spell out what you’re looking for, there will always be people using the shotgun approach, and a profile filled with complaints about previous respondants may put off normal people.
Instead, maybe bury inside your profile a magic word or phrase that will guarantee applicants a reply of some sort, even if it’s just a “not interested, thanks”. This will give you a simple way to at least see who read the darn thing.
While I am not a member of Match.com (though I do have a profile)
, I do frequent hotornot. I really think the goal is to get as many matches as possible on that board. I write often, and tailor my initial emails to fit their keywords or introduction to insert humor or creativity, to stand out mostly. I hardly ever get a response, if I do it is somebody in Isreal or some 16 or 17 year old girl somewhere else in the country looking for a penpal (email pal?).
I never write women that say they are not interested in (insert peeve, or requirement). I have had a person stop writing because of the color of my car:
Her: I am into numerology and astrology and have a system of judging a persons personality based on the color of their car: I hope you don’t drive a red one. HAHAHA
Me: …
Her: Why didn’t you respond?
Me: I drive a red car… (and the fact that I think your a loon, but I didn’t type that)
Her: No reply.
Oh well, even if I got a date I don’t think I would know how to act. I have not had a date since…
I don’t know, 1996? Early 1997? When a woman gives me a compliment I blush profusely and clam up. When they hit on me, I don’t know what to do. Even so, I suppose if I did well on the first date, and the second- I figure it wouldn’t work. I have nothing to offer a woman, I haven’t had sex in over 9 years (this october will be a full decade) so I certainly will not be skilled, something I think is expected out of a 26 year old. I have no money, as a poor college student with a roommate in a small cramped apartment I barely pay my bills, let alone be able to buy jewelry. Once I graduate from college and start making the “somewhat” big bucks (pharmacist), I might be able to offer that- but only for the gold diggers.
I think it will be the mail-order bride route or celibacy for life.
But I digress…
More on topic…5 years back, 10 years foward is my general rule of thumb when thinking about dating women-cant imagine dating somebody under 21, and cant’ imagine dating anybody over 36.
Nah, she’s gotta like you to even let you get to the point where your sexual prowess would even come into question; at that point, she’s not gonna dump you just because you don’t have the Kama Sutra memorized. As long as you know how to listen, anyway. Back me up on this, ladies…
Blowero, consider yourself backed up. I move at a glacial pace when it comes to dating and, up until recently, my dating record’s been as abysmal as anyone else’s here, but, trust me, gentlemen. If I come to the point where I am willing to have sex with you, I’m not worried about how long it’s been (or how long it is, for that matter!). If we’re at that point, I figure we can work something out or at least have a lot of fun trying!
Then again, I’m pretty well over on the wierd side myself!
