Acting on some advice, I put up a post on the MsW section of Craiglist, with the logic that all the women’s posts are going to be scammers/bots/so bombarded with penis pix weirdos send them its unlikely they will get a reply, but if I have one myself a few women might see it and respond.
I’ve been rather disappointed to discover that there are bots that are able to respond to an ad you’ve posted yourself and play off like they’d like to exchange info/meet only to insist you use some sketchy website that wants your credit card info to confirm your identiy uh huh, no :smack:
Yeah, there are some real people. I’ve talked to a few but never romantically. Just basically a “hey, you’re in my area and you’re into something I have coming up on the calendar!” I have yet to meet anyone in person though, and I don’t really want to.
I posted an ad on Craigslist almost 2 years ago and got a lot of dates with real men out of it. The last guy I dated from Craigslist proposed in November and we are getting married next year. There are real people, I promise, but if you are a guy you need to go to the w4m section and respond to ads that don’t look like bots. I put up an ad there and never once looked at the m4w section because I didn’t have to, quite frankly. Every ad I put up got somewhere between 25-50 responses and I narrowed those down to 5 or 6 men worth going to dinner with once or twice. Women have the upper hand in online dating when it comes to responses, but I promise if you don’t send her a picture of your penis and you have proper grammar you should be fine.
If you’re a woman, and willing to wade through a lot of “hey baby let’s fuck” emails, then yeah, the W4M section might be good, but if you’re a guy looking for a woman, don’t post an ad, just reply to a woman’s ad and be as chill and un-sleazy as possible.
I’ve never had any luck posting in m4w (I once even received a response that appeared to be a bot making fun of my post). I did once meet a nice girl by responding to a w4m ad, but we didn’t date, just went to on a couple of un-dates. I lost heart at the Craigslist game after women stopped talking to me when I sent my picture (I’m not particularly ugly, but I am non-photogenic).
Forgive the partial off-topic, but:
One service I really like is CrazyBlindDate, which is an offshoot of OK Cupid. You enter parameters and it sets you up on a blind date with someone who fits said parameters. I’ve been on nine dates so far, not counting the three that stood me up. All nine have been fun, and the most recent date may have relationship potential. I like how it throws you out into the fray without allowing pre-date contact. My experiences with other dating sites mostly resulted in back-and-forth messaging with women before I suggested gasp meeting in person, and they clammed up.
This exactly. I’m a woman and posted my own ad. Go and search for her, don’t waste your time writing your own because you will get 95% bot response. I had more success with Craigslist than Cupid or Plenty of Fish, which are also free, and tons more success than with Match or Eharmony, which are not. I met my sweetie through and ad I posted almost 3 years ago. We moved in together at the end of August.
My advice (and take it for what it’s worth) is to go on dates even if you don’t think they are an ideal match through your email responses or picture exchange. Actually meet some people. If it doesn’t work out, you have only lost a couple of hours and maybe the cost of dinner.
When you respond to an ad, use proper grammar, punctuation and capitalization (as I’m sure you will). Also, be a little bit more verbose than “Hey, I like your ad. Hit me up.” Let her know what it was about her post that interested you and give her a reason to respond to you. She’s gonna get a bunch of emails, and won’t respond to most of them. (The “she” here being any and all women you respond to.)
I’m happily married and not trolling craigslist for sex, or even for friends. What I AM looking for on Craigslist is acting gigs, and I’m running into much the same problem. I actually have found a few legit postings for extra work and student films, and even got a paid TV commercial out of it, but it seems like the depressingly vast majority turn out to be scams once I give them even a cursory glance. I need to find a better way to look for acting work.
My little sister finally ended a seven-year, dead-end, obviously doomed relationship last winter. Then this fall she shows up with this new guy and they’re too cute for words together. He just proposed.
When I asked her where they met, she whispered “his craigslist ad, but I told Dad we met at the bar, so don’t tattle.”
I’ve read a lot of dudes’ ads on craigslist (only about 1 in 100 are worth reading, in my area at least. You can tell by the title) and they all complain about bots.
I’ve posted twice in the WsM section and have gotten just one date out of it, but lots of emails and none of them were spam.
I guess it’s just FemBots trying to get dudes to check out their porn sites. They don’t bother trying to trick the chicks!
It seems to me that the signal:noise ratio on craigslist has gone way, way down. I recently ended an almost-two-year relationship that started on craigslist - at the time, I was trying out OKCupid and craigslist, and I think I got more dates off craigslist. I’ve started browsing again, and it feels like there’s a lot more spam to wade through to find real people. Some of that may just be selective memory, but I do remember being able to post an ad and get at least a few responses - now, I’m lucky to get one real response.
The other big issue for me is that it seems like the spammers have gotten much better at natural language, to the point where I’m much less certain about which W4M adds are real. There’ve been a couple I responded to that had enough local details I’d have thought they were real, and only got a very standard spam-email back. Makes it much more daunting to go through and email people.
I guess I’ll try to be laid back about it, tell myself I’ll respond to, say 5 ads every day. The ad I posted still has bots trickling in.
I figure at this rate, the scammers and botters will get so sophisticated in 2020 you’ll go on a date through Craigslist, everything seems normal, and then when you meet the woman she is very obviously an android who walks up to you and says,
I need your clothes, your bike, and your credit card number
Guy I work with met his fiance on CL. He’s a pretty normal looking dude. Into sports, has a good job, owns his own home… She’s a nice looking blonde teacher. I would have sworn they’d met at a bar out drinking one night, but found out they met after he posted an ad on CL.
uh huh, no :smack:
I need your clothes, your bike, and your credit card number 
