After seeing this thread I signed up for Plenty of Fish out of curiosity. I have to say there are slim pickins. I haven’t seen one woman I’m interested in. Match seemed to have a lot more quality in my age range. I don’t know if that would help the OP at all. If I was trying through PoF I would be discouraged too.
Keep in mind you are not supposed to take any free dating site seriously
Man. I even had a nibble from a nice woman. We exchanged text messages and then she was gone… Good riddance.
ETA: I messaged her last; I’m not coming begging.
because her box probably was flooded with other messages from the other men on the site
That happens frequently even when they initiate the first e-mail. I have a simple formula that seems to work at least for my purposes. I let them contact me first, pick the ones I want and respond to those few. The limit is four e-mail messages max within a few days then a phone call is required. If that goes reasonably well (and it always has), I ask them out at the end of the phone call to do something that I wanted to do anyway. It is never a coffee meetup or some bullshit like that. They are either all in or they aren’t and I don’t do interview dates. We are doing something fun so, even it it crashes romantically, at least we both had a good time. I have taken different women to museums, Segway tours, bars, unusual restaurants, hiking and lots more depending on their preferences. It is kind of expensive to do it that way but I am not looking for a long-term girlfriend let alone a wife. Having fun on the date itself is the point and I have actually liked all of them.
You can use a version of that strategy to differentiate yourself even if you do want a long-term girlfriend or a wife because it is a different and much less stressful style than most people use.
Seriously though, get off POF and get Match.com, EHarmony or anything else. I just logged into my old POF account out of curiosity and I had plenty of women interested but I would be better off looking for a date at the local pound than there. I cannot even imagine have some of them got access to an internet connection.
That’s the plan. If I ever get the compunction to try this demoralizing activity again.
It doesn’t have to be demoralizing if you learn to play the game well…and it is a game. You are selling a product in a crowded market but so are they.
I can give men one concrete piece of advise. I spent a lot of time and effort writing my profile and then paid for Match.com’s service to have a professional rewrite it for maximum appeal. You just get the edited text back and use it anywhere you want (some women really do read profiles closely) plus recommendations on your photos and basic profile.
Believe it or not, that worked extremely well. I went from little interest to more than I could handle overnight. It wasn’t just Match.com either. The same thing works on any site I copied the same basic profile to. Most men don’t know how to write attracting dating profiles well at all even if they are good writers otherwise.
Match.com has a bunch of female dating experts that know exactly how to make your profile stand out and appeal to other women. That service costs less than $70 the last time I checked but you can keep the results forever and use them any way you see fit.
But I thought people look at photos first and then the profile?
I am not interested in women that want bodybuilders or models only. I am reasonably attractive too and even moreso online when I let another woman pick the best photos. I can promise you that a whole lot of them do read the profile quite closely because they reference things buried deep within mine when they write to me. Those are the ones that I am most interested in.
I screen for appearance and look closely at the profile as well. I practically have theirs memorized by the first time we talk on the phone and that helps a great deal with the conversational aspect. Every one of them that I have been out with has been fairly to very attractive. The only time I felt like I got deceived a little was from a woman that kept begging me to go out with her on OkCupid. She was a little heavier than her profile showed but she was very smart and an Ivy League graduate with a very interesting international PR career. We didn’t click romantically and it is a shame we met on a dating site because we had a great time and got along well. She would be someone I would want to be true friends with but I haven’t found a way to make that type of transition eloquently.
That is really good advice. Apparently my profile works really well for a small portion of the population. Not nearly as well as I would like and I’ve never really been happy about it. I seem to be very popular with nurses.
I’ve been working it seriously for about a month and I saw one woman for a few dates who seemed great but got way too serious after just 3 meetings. Then accused me of only wanting her for sex despite the fact I had her take the lead there. I’m not a kid. If you’re not someone who is willing to just go with the flow and see where it naturally leads you are not from me. I have a date with someone else on friday. She seems extremely nice so we’ll see where it leads. If it doesn’t go anywhere I’m going to take up your advice and get my profile worked on.
I just looked at PoF again. It’s pretty horrible. I didn’t pay to upgrade so I don’t know who keeps clicking that they want to meet me. I’m assuming if you want to meet me right away before any communication then its a scam.
Hiking? “Lets meet up for the first time somewhere that no one can hear your screams.” From talking to friends and others I know that meeting a creep is a real concern so I want to make it a place where they feel comfortable and safe.
I had the same reaction to that line. I would be fine meeting a stranger to see a museum, go on a Segway tour with a guide, or try out an interesting restaurant. But I don’t think I would agree to go hiking with a guy from a dating site.
I have no first hand experience, but I have a lot of friends who’ve used dating sites recently, and they all read the profiles. Yeah, I’m sure they looked at photos first, but they aren’t going to actually reply to a guy without checking out his profile, first.
One of my first dates a lady suggested we meet for breakfast then go for a hike. A friend told me that women will sometimes test a mans endurance by suggesting a hike. This was Match.com.
Sometimes women (and men!) stop messaging just because they don’t find you interesting or compatible. Just like with emails or website messaging, it’s tiresome to give the “thanks but no thanks” speech over and over to people you haven’t invested in (and who should not have invested in you, yet).
It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, or them, it just is. “Write it off and move on” is the only way to survive online dating.
Every now and then I’ll send a polite request for a reason in case I said something unintentional. I don’t expect a reply but sometimes I get it. Sometimes they are talking to several people at the same time and one of the connections heats up. I’ve done it. It’s happened to me. It’s no big deal.
I did get one very polite blow off. I saw the profile of just about the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen on Match in my age range. She was relatively local and her profile matched up pretty well. Other than the fact that she was way out of my league in the looks department we looked pretty compatible. She sent back a quick “Sorry you have the same name as my ex-husband.” My real first name is part of my screen name. I knew it was bullshit but a got a chuckle out of it. I’m sure she was flooded with messages but I wrote a nice email and she felt the need to give me a little explanation.
One type of endurance does not necessarily translate to another. Just saying.
Bike ride. That’s what she wanted. A bike ride.
Of course. What did you think I meant?
