Hah.
My dibs = post #27.
Your dibs = post #32.
I win. 
If he promises not to blow me off after I make him sick.
I’m going to go somewhat against the grain of suggestions made so far about the benefits of a “coach.”
Based on your posts, I don’t think you need a coach. What you really need is a matchmaker which is a different animal. Your personality is probably fine and doesn’t need to be tweaked or changed – but it requires meeting women who mesh well with it. If there are matchmakers (or dating websites) that specialize in bringing together intellectual folks that don’t want to blabber about Paris Hilton, they would probably help you more than any coach could.
Robert DeNiro doesn’t need an acting “coach” – he just needs an agent (a matchmaker) to help him find movie parts and directors that fit with his particular talents.
Only when trying to be funny and interested doesn’t work. Sometimes being insulting is the only way to get a response. Not generally a positive response, mind you, but at least I can affirm my existence.
Primarily online, and no, I don’t make an extensive effort to “build rapport” via e-mail and phone conversation, as I find that this doesn’t really work and is often a massive waste of time; I’ve had a number of “online dialogues” with women who clearly never intended to meet up. My general rule now is that we meet within three exchanges (and possibly a single phone call to coordinate) or it just isn’t going to happen, with exceptions for logistical issues or intrusive work schedules.
Stranger
Dating is all a waste of time, really, except when you learn things about yourself and what you want from a partner or when you find someone you want to spend more time with.
I met my husband online, and I met the guy I’m currently dating seriously online. We didn’t meet right away in either case, which meant that we had the time to figure out if it was worth meeting. I think internet dating works best for people who have a very solid idea about what they want and need in a partner and who are comfortable with text or phone conversations being revealing. For people for whom text feels disguising or ambiguous and phone feels distant, internet dating should probably be abandoned for some other method.
I wonder if your prospective dates are feeling rushed and/or pushed and that’s why you are getting no-shows? I know that if I were using internet dating and didn’t even get the opportunity to have a conversation before meeting, I’d feel pressured. But everyone is different and I am not qualified to speak for all women!
FWIW suggesting that all women are attracted by shiny things probably isn’t going to win you any dating awards.
Just sayin’…
My opinion is that online dating can create a false sense of intimacy. You might think you can get information/get to know someone via phone, email, chats, IM, texting, etc., but I beg to differ. You don’t get to make eye contact, you can’t read body language. You don’t see the person often enough to discover positive or negative behavior patterns, or inconsistencies in their narrative. It’s a very flat view of a person, IMO.
My last relationship was a long distance one. We dated for about six months and then he moved to my city to be near me. And then I actually got to know him because I saw him much more frequently, most days. I only thought I knew him when it was mostly phone and email. In person… he was a very, very, very different person.
That said, I know there are thousands of success stories out there. See Jsgoddess above. I know of another Doper who married someone he met on Match.com. It happens. But I don’t think I can do it again, not after that last guy. :: shudder ::
It sounds like a good case “Late Bloomeritis” to me. My brother was like this. A couple of bad experiences with girls in his teens, and it was like he just quit trying. Fifteen years later, he probably hadn’t been on five dates. (And if he had, it was a given that it was with 5 different girls!) He moved away, got involved with work and camaraderie with other “confirmed bachelor” types, and pretty much despaired of ever meeting anyone. Played a lot of RPGs.
Then, one day he went to a Renaissance fair, saw the girl of his dreams across the way, hurried over to introduce himself, and the rest was history. Dating, living together, engaged, married, bam bam bam.
Sure shocked the hell out of everyone who’d known him the last 20 years. Just a late bloomer, apparently.
I’m just the opposite of jsgoddess - when I was online dating, I wanted to meet fairly quickly. A couple of emails, a phone call or two, then do a meet-and-greet at a local café. The way I figured it was, if there isn’t any chemistry in person, better to find out sooner rather than later (and I do believe that you have to meet face-to-face to know if there is real chemistry, regardless of how compatible you seem in emails).
I know what you mean about feeling invisible, Stranger. I found a guy who actually sees me, and I value that incredibly highly (and he feels the same way, I believe).
I think that’s your problem right there. You’re severely limiting yourself by placing these arbitrary rules on what you perceive as acceptable.
Three exchanges seems awfully quick for a meet, even speaking as a guy. The women you’re communicating with probably feel pressured.
Just let the chips fall where they may. If you can get them out in only three exchanges, awesome. But if it takes 10 exchanges, then hey, so be it.
Wouldn’t you rather have it take 10 exchanges to get it right, as opposed to only three, and then be stood up?
Also, I think you should always talk on the phone first before the meet up. It’s just another avenue to get comfortable with one another and helps solidify actually meeting.
Ha ha ha.
Honestly, I think maybe you should try to “build rapport” with someone. If you find out you already have things in common and generally get along, then meeting in person is a much less nerve wracking experience, at least from a female (or maybe just my) perspective. It also gives you things to talk about when you do meet, and it could give you ideas for a more fun and less cliche date. Dinner and/or movie is fine, but maybe you find out you both like rock climbing, or walking in the park, or people watching at the mall. Then not only do you have something to talk about while on the date, but you have something to distract you during those typical lulls in conversation.
From what I can gather, it seems like you are intelligent and fairly well put together, but you also seem a bit angst ridden and bitter about the whole dating experience. Can’t say I blame on you on the bitterness part, if someone stood me up or I was ignored/passed over for a second date more than a few times, I would be bitter, too. But maybe the issue is your approach, not you.
Just a thought. As a few others have said, you seem datable, at least someone I could see having an interesting conversation with over dinner. So, find a girl with some common interests, who is intelligent and witty and can handle making and keeping a date.
I want to have real conversations first, to feel like there’s a reason for meeting that goes beyond living close by. Of course, I live in the middle of BFE, so meetings usually aren’t some casual thing–they need to be planned to the gills.
The important thing is that people need to do the things that make them feel as good as possible about the process.
Is anyone else laughing because I’ve already been blown off in this thread by a guy who is complaining about being ignored by women?
Well, aren’t you guys, like, super far apart?
If you ever make it back to SLC for a visit, get in touch and I would be happy to take you out for a drink…
(the last date I had was several months back, I could use the practice) 
Dogzilla, maybe your user name is selling you short 
Stranger, unless you have some truly antisocial habits, maybe it’s better to be yourself. I’d be a little creeped out by a guy who appeared “coached”, too much like this kind of thing.
(Disclaimer: I Am Not American, and therefore find the whole dating concept odd. In these parts, you know you’re in a relationship when you realise that you’re copping off with the same person every time you’re drunk.)
About the ‘rapport prior to meeting’ thing, and really the whole online dating thing in general, I don’t think there’s a single right answer.
It took me more than a year of internet dating to kick off a relationship with someone. I met maybe half a dozen women in person before ‘the one’ (who ultimately wasn’t ‘the one’, but I thought she might be for a while). Everyone showed up. I went out with two of them multiple times, but we didn’t click. They were all very nice.
I worked painfully slowly at the online part. I’d only contact one person at a time, and corresponded extensively, first via the dating site, then via normal e-mail, then on the phone. I was pretty good at all of that, but wasn’t so hot on an actual date, it seems.
When I eventually met ‘the one’, she gave me the “thanks, but no thanks” after about an hour. We kept e-mailing though, because she said she really liked my missives. We started hanging out as friends, and it took another three months or so before she decided she’d been a bit hasty in dismissing me romantically. I was always interested in her, but I liked her as a friend too. So I came back from the “friend zone”, and it was very, very good. We split after about a year of knowing each other, unfortunately.
Anyway, ‘the one’ said later, when we were an item, that I was painfully slow in prompting for an actual date. Now that I’m back on the market, I’m trying to move things along a bit faster. I’m better in writing than live, is probably the case. Limited success (which is to say almost unlimited failure) so far.
But yeah, I acknowledge that the bulk of my problems with dating are at the face to face stage, where as the OP has trouble getting them to show.
Don’t you live in Florida?
This has to be the most common piece of well-intentioned but utterly useless advice. If “it’s better to be yourself” worked, I wouldn’t be eight years on without getting past a second date. Doing more of what I’m already doing is pretty much guaranteed to get me more of what I already have.
Stranger
Stranger, where do you live?