Speaking of pics, I just got a response from someone who has 8 pictures on his profile, and they’re all taken at different times w/ the exact same expression …very odd. And the expression itself is just a blank face. Am I s’posed to just imagine a smile?
BTW, I have a pic w/ a child on my profile, but it was the best one I could find of myself that was in the correct format. Cropping the child would have resulted in a very strange looking photo.
Here’s one for you:
http://www.match.com/profile/showprofile.aspx?sid=8A2DD2A5-3A36-49DB-9344-E1B4690D4529&trackingid=0&theme=213&lid=226&TP=U&UID=3zOvrZbRE7QD4NP%2FyqA0NQ%3D%3D&Handle=tristrampdx
aka “TristramPDX” aka me.
OK, now I’ve got to locate all the 20-30somethings who have indicated on this post how icky we middle aged dudes are and send them a wink…
OK, it has nothing to do (for me) w/ any kind of ‘ick factor’; it has to do w/ being at the same ‘place’ in your lives. I would imagine that someone in their forties or fifties is not as likely to want to start a first family as someone in their 20 - 30’s. And I’d apply that to women of that age as well as dudes. The few times I’ve dated someone siginificantly older or younger than me have only led to painful heartbreak, mine at that. My concern earlier w/ guys in their 30 - 40’s expecting to land an 18 year old girl was along those lines. Reltionships thrive on having important things in common like priorities, lifestyle, goal timetables, etc.
And schplebordnik, to respond to a question in your profile, it’s not a dollar to email someone, it’s more like 24.95 a month, 3 months for 44.85, or 6 months for 65.70. Winks are free and hopefully the ‘winkee’ is in a position to email the ‘winker’ and include a regular email address. There’s no in between. Not that I’m advocating a circumvention of Match’s pocketbook now, I know they’re hurting for cash. (That’s some of that sarcasm a lot of men are evidently ‘turned off’ by. ;))
Perhaps, but a wink imparts absolutely zero information about the winker and why the winker is winking at you. It is really no different than the cut ‘n’ paste “I like you’re (sic) profile and think we could have alot (sic) in common. Read my profile and respond if you agree” email that everyone is complaining about. No?
It’s true that you’ll have to click on a link and look at someone’s profile, but aren’t you doing that anyway in the searches? The implied information to impart is, “Something about you strikes me as interesting/attractive, check me out.” I think it also probably says, “I’m not a paying Match member, please keep that in mind when sending me an an email if you want a response back.”
I don’t think many people stay in it for free for long anyway; either they get no responses and drop off, or they get enough responses that it’s worth their money to join, and they do so.
I forgot to say, and that was egregious, that I enjoyed your profile and you remind of ‘Face’ from ‘A-Team’, who I thought was dreamy when I was in 7th grade.
Yeah, well I pity the fool who sends me a wink, cuz my attitude is more like a different A-Team member.
Or perhaps you’re telling me that I should be searching the pre-high school profiles…?
I just logged into match for the first time in a couple of days, and there have been well over a hundred views since I posted the link here. Must be an awful lot of lurkers in this thread! 
I’d honestly never thought of the second reason. I never wink, and rarely pay much attention to the ones I get. I guess I’ve assumed it’s the moral equivalent of the cut-and-paste shotgun approach. I should rethink that, eh?
Why would you want to date an idiot? Never mind a ‘certified’ idiot?
Never fails to get on my nerves, people who describe themselves as ‘certified nutter’, ‘totally mad’, ‘crazy’, etc, etc. What they mean is they like to think themselves as unpredicatable, spontaneous and interesting. Not that they are suffering from a mental illness.
Of course, what they like to think of themselves and what they are are usually quite different things in these cases. Anyone describing themselves as ‘mad’ is usually code for “fool following script of what they think what makes a person interesting” and “has an act that becomes tedious very quickly”.
Those truly unusual, spontaneous and interesting are usually the ones who think themselves quite normal.
I’m always up for some constructive criticism re my match.com profile… and if any female dopers in the 25-33ish age range and the Northern California-ish location happen to find it appealing, all the better.
Well done, Max, if I lived near there, you’d get a wink!
Let me tell all you paying folk out there on Match that more often than not, when you email someone via their Match profile, Match may strip your regular email address if you include it in the body of your response. I appreciate that they’re a business, but just so you know - if you’ve winked at someone and they’ve winked back, but you don’t hear from them after you email them…that could be why. I think they scan for the words, "Here’s my real email address’; it’s always been followed by the Match one. Try including it in a sneakier way, like ‘nameX at ay oh el dot com’, etc.
I truly thank the OP for starting this fun rant, it’s made me post my profile on Match again and lifted my post-holiday, start-of-school-term-stress blues!
You’re getting winks? Not over here, unfortunately. Maybe it’s my thirtysomething age group; there’s probably far more men who are more athletic, taller, and/or wealthier to choose from than me.
Also, the income thing. So many women set a minimum income of $50,000 for thier matches, and it’s absolute. I’m reluctant to reveal my income here, except to say that … well, it comes close, but no cigar. Is the 50K thing an absolute, or just something nice to have?
Well, personally I don’t really care what the level of income is. I prefer guys who have a job because that at least demonstrates that they can support themselves and will not leech off of me.
But the last guy I dated worked in a typewriter store and made around half of what I do, and I didn’t care about that.
I realize there will likely be people who can justify that kind of thinking, but the idea of setting a minimum income for dating eligibility is one step from prostitution in my mind. It’s repulsive. Don’t they realize that if you judge by income you open yourself up to the same judgement? I’ve had a couple female friends who were of the mindset that men should be walking wallets, and frankly that’s one of the reasons I don’t have many female friends. I know they get it from societal influences and examples in most visual media, but that’s no excuse for using it as a benchmark.
You know, I could pit on that alone…hmmm.
SchlestramPDXnik - I got your wink, you stinker! 
I can’t email you back though, you’ve cloaked yourself far too well. It’s hardly fair.
:smack:
OK, you’ll get another wink with email details, so you can reciprocate AND screw match out of that $29.95…
De nada. I occasionally feel the need to vent about the online dating scene, and I was banned from a bulletin board that’s just about online dating a couple of years ago. “The swarm,” you know. I vented about that in an older thread, though.
I don’t see myself as the “got banned from a forum” type, but still …
BTW, is “sense of humor: Dry / Sarcastic: I’m not bitter because I’m single. Quite the opposite” supposed to mean what it sounds like it does?
And all the dopers under 30 snigger.
Little bastards.
Is it just me, or does anyone else decide that if a person considers “Sarcasm” a “turn-off,” then perhaps this is a person you don’t really want to know?
Maybe I’m just taking it wrong, but I consider sarcasm to be the cornerstone of my personality, and I get the impression that many others here are the same way. 
No, it’s not just you. What also gets me are the ones that “brainiac” is a turn on, and “sarcasm” is a turn off. In my experience, the two things tend to run together.
Oh, and dropzone, I think that’s just what it’s supposed to mean. But since my humor is dry/sarcastic, I select it anyway, regardless of what some Polyanna chose to put on it as a description.
This really has been an interesting thread. I’ve learned some stuff from it.