Think about it this way… if a girl wanted to get a guy’s attention, she wouldn’t talk about her cats, her job, her church and the books she reads. Instead, she’d talk about things like going to South Padre, nights out on the town, cooking good food, etc… and it wouldn’t hurt to throw in something slightly suggestive also.
You have to do something similar- figure out what it is that the girls you’re going for like to do- if you want a party girl, talk about that kind of thing. If you want an outdoorsy girl, talk about roller blading, camping, surfing and stuff like that and how you enjoy doing it.
Mine was a pretty idiotic profile- it said something like “I want to go out and have fun.” Nothing about relationships, nothing about what I don’t like. Just an open invitation to find out what I was talking about.
Another thing to keep in mind is that most women aren’t looking at online dating as THE way to find a mate. All the ones I’ve dated or who I’ve talked to are basically using it as an adjunct method to meeting people- they don’t concentrate on it to the exclusion of meeting people in more conventional ways. As a result, they are just looking for something light and fun at first- some flirty emails, then maybe a few phone calls, then some drinks, and if all that works out, then it might turn into something more than just an easy fun date.
That’s what you’re shooting for, to get your foot in the door for the phone calls and then the light drinks date, not to snare yourself a soulmate.
No, no, no! That’s my favorite picture. It’s kind of playfully demure and nice highlights on the bright red hair that don’t show up in the outdoor pics. It might be a bit suspicious if that were the only image, as if she were hiding some kind of horrible disfiguration, but the other pictures dispell that notion.
I’m a little scared of the “pose” picture, though: not because of Volkswagons parking on your arm or your intimidatingly slender figure, but Wicked-Witch-Of-The-East ruby slippers. Man, those things are pointy.
Since it’s not a flirt thread (and I suck at that anyway) I won’t flirt, but it’s just too bad I’m approximately 1376.74 miles away from your town, 'cause…well, let’s just say, ;).
Ah well, my barely comprehensible Japanese is in a sadly lapsed state, anyway.
The nice thing about an email is the person has time to formulate a response. IMs are harder to reply to (hard to research the person).
On the other hand, a chat room or something of that nature (don’t know if any of the dating sites have such a beast), could be a very nice place indeed. Real-time interaction but with the possibility of lurking/assessing before entering a conversation.
I dunno if this is something specific to my area, but Craigslist has been pretty good to me so far. However, I don’t post M4W ads(which are numerous and lame), I reply to the W4M ads. My reply ratio is somewhere between 5:1 and 10:1(sent:answered). 4 actual first dates in 3 months(which is 3 more than I’d had in the previous year), but the first one resulted in a brief relationship so there were several weeks that I wasn’t trying.
They have sites for most major cities. Seems to be more popular with the 20 and 30somethings, but that’s probably reflective of the internet in general.
I think there’s something about the pay-for sites that changes the whole dynamic(for the worse). Also, I prefer free-form messages to the “fill in the blanks” profiles.
Dang, foiled by geography. And 75% of my shoes are pointy and ridiculously impractical so we must not be soul mates. (I’m not making the horribly obvious pun) (OK, I’m stopping with the flirting (which isn’t my usual MO either) before I really annoy Elmwood for hijacking his thread and get pitted. But thanks for the props, right back at ya.)
I don’t like IM before email. It feels like someone just calling you up without being properly introduced. But I’ve never really gotten into the whole IM thing anyway, maybe the women who are more used to it wouldn’t mind.
In my post I already stated that I am not “shooting for the moon.” I am being overly realistic and not being picky whatsoever. And lets just say that in the 6-7 years I have been doing the online matchmaking service thing I have refined my approach in many ways. I have experimented with the wording of profiles, written creative emails that I could sell as some sort of clever poetry, sold myself as humble, portrayed myself as confident, used different photos, and my personality has even changed and grown from my very first profile.
My “approach” doesn’t need refinement. Online dating is a crock. Either that or for some odd reason all the women are intimidated by me, think I am a player, or no matter how clever I make myself to be, they feel I am an idiot.
Here is my old match.com personal. Not my most clever by any means, but when I wrote it, my clever and witty personal wasn’t working either.
And 75% of my shoes are pointy and ridiculously impractical so we must not be soul mates. (I’m not making the horribly obvious pun) (OK, I’m stopping with the flirting (which isn’t my usual MO either) before I really annoy Elmwood for hijacking his thread and get pitted. But thanks for the props, right back at ya.)