Damn. This is discouraging. I have just about given up on OKC. I almost never get responses, and when I do, I only occasionally get dates, and then, though they are not disastrous, they don’t really go anywhere. Women send messages to me even more rarely. It just doesn’t seem efficient. And lately, I’ve been having trouble finding anybody to contact.
How do people get so many responses, let alone dates?
I don’t know about two hundred messages a week, but I get a lot. I read them all, but I won’t reply if:
[ul]
[li]Your message is one or two words (“hey.” or “whats up?”)[/li][li]Your message has even a hint about fucking, your dick, or my tits [/li][li]Your profile is wrought with spelling or grammar errors (one or two is one thing— the whole thing verging on unreadable is not ok)[/li][li]You answer the “Is a no always a no?” question with anything other than “yes.”[/li][li]If you answer the “book burning vs flag burning” question that flag burning is worse.[/li][li]If you answer that you think creationism should be taught in school alongside evolution. [/li][li] You’re what I consider actively unattractive-- not just not my type, but an unworkable level of unattractive.[/li][/ul]
Maybe if I didn’t get so many messages, I wouldn’t have such a lengthy list of deal breakers, but those are all things that are issue enough to bug me. I could still get a few dates a month off of OKC (which is more than enough for me!) even with being so picky.
That said, while I would give a guy my number to text or call after 3 emails, I wouldn’t agree to meet up with him until a bit after that— I’ve got to try to weed out the crazies (and even with my best attempts, they still get through).
I have boobs.
No, but seriously: I think I have an informative, but not too wordy profile that gives an accurate representation of the better sides of my personality. I don’t mention a single negative thing on my profile (I notice a LOT of people do this). I’m moderately photogenic and take decent enough pictures. And I’m a 27 year old woman-- there’s a lot of dudes in my age range on OKC, then a lot of older guys want to date 27 year old women, too. I’m sure if I’m still single when I’m older, the number of messages will go down, but for now, I just happen to be within the wide net that most people put for age range.
For the ladies on OkCupid: How frequently do guys have a red “Responds very selectively” next to their profile?
He’s tired of using a sock, that’s why he’s meeting women!
Incredibly rarely, though I’ve noticed the incredibly attractive (think model level attractive) dudes will have that. It’s just the nature of the beast-- women get far more messages than men. Don’t get me wrong, I still message men. In fact, two of my last relationships from OKC were guys I messaged originally.
Interesting. I used to have a red dot and would get messages seemingly because of the dot. I recently cleaned out my inbox and now apparently I’m green.
:smack:
Hmm, apparently the dot system only looks at messages over the past week. In which case, my green dot makes sense.
Reading the OP- dude, five nibbles is what I’d expect from a weekend! Online dating works, but if you want it to be more than a lottery you have to use it for what it’s best as- a way to easily arrange lots of dates with a wide assortment of essentially random people. If you are treating it like a targeted tool to connect with a select group, it’s going to be frustrating.
Figure out what your conversion rates are. Lets say every 4 messages ends up with 1 response, and every four responses leads to one date, and every four dates leads to a second date. That means you are going to send about 16 short but personal responses (maybe an hour of invested time- you can do this twice a week or so) to lead to a date- so we are looking at two dates a week. Lets say each one of those takes an hour and costs $15.00 - quick coffee dates are appropriate at this point. Every two weeks or so, you can expect a second date to happen.
So to get to a second date, you are looking at about eight hours and $60.00 on average, with about 64 sent first messages, 16 follow ups and 4 dates.
From the second date, of course, you are on your own. Online dating is about introductions, and can’t help much beyond that.
Of course your conversion rate is going to vary and nothing you do guarantees any particular rate. But the point here is that it does take some investment- not a huge one, but you do have to be a little systematic about it
On the flip side, you only have to get it right once.
From the graaaaaaaaave ??? :eek:
Eh, I don’t know about others, but I don’t pay much attention to the dot thing. I’m well aware that men and women receive waaaaay different amounts of messages, so most guys usually do have a little green dot (since they received so few messages, comparatively).
The only time I factor in a dude’s dot color is if he’s super, mega, male model hot and has a red dot. Then I just assume he’s probably too good for me anyway and don’t waste my breath.
Well, I’m not a male model. Though, I must say I do look mighty fine with the computer generated, cartoon, pirate mustache I have in my last picture.
I’m not annoyed with my conversion rate of people responding to my messages. I didn’t make it clear enough in my OP but I haven’t been sending out messages because I’m seeing someone at the moment and I’m busy. I troll OKCupid when I have down time at work because I like people watching. So these women saw me visit, looked at my profile, and decided to message me. We message for a couple days, I ask them out, they say yes, I give them a couple days I’m free and then nada mas. It’s not that I’m broken up that I’m not going to meet these people. I just find the behavior utterly bizarre.
I can only speak for myself, of course, I totally do not message guys with cartoon mustaches or other crazy and wacky doodles on their pictures (if they message me I might write back if there are no deal breakers, of course, but I mean, I’m not going to reach out to them first). I’m sure it’s hilarious and everything, but I also just want to see your face. When browsing through the long list of dudes on OKC and I come across someone with something zany like that in their picture, I think, “What’s wrong with this dude’s face and why is he trying to cover it up?” Again, split second judgment, but there it is.
Again though, I’m a judgmental bitch, so take that for what you will. It’s the same reason I make sure my photo is a clear photo of my face with a bit of a smile-- friendly and welcoming, but also an accurate representation of my looks.
I realize you’re getting crazy frustrating answers here, but like I said before, I probably wouldn’t agree to go out on a date with someone after a few emails. Again, it’s just me trying to decrease my chances of getting skinned and turned into a lamp. It’s possible that the women are agreeing so as to be polite (you don’t want to be negative when first chatting with someone, after all), but then are simultaneously weirded out. I second what the other have said: get a number, call or text (depending on your age demographic, texting might be fine-- I prefer it at first, frankly), THEN ask for a date once you’ve shown you aren’t a serial murderer.
Sorry about that, I started drinking early that day.
I have 4 other photos that clearly show my face. My last one has the caption, “very real” underneath it. It would be hard for me to put in less effort or take OkCupid less seriously than I do, so I’m not too worried about it. 
As long as that’s not your main profile picture, I think you’re solid. You look handsome enough behind your giant fake mustache, so it’s just as well.
Do you have the OkCupid phone app? Under the “activity” section people can broadcast messages of what they’re doing right now/later in the day. Most of them are along the lines of, “Let’s grab a drink at The Bar or meet up in The Neighborhood!” If you’re willing and able to meet people on a whim that route can work out.
What I think happens based on my seeing friends/family go on these things is that women, in particular, get on and are overwhelmed with male attention. This attention is also from many guys that the woman is very attracted to and couldn’t hope to attract in real life.
What she does is revel in this attention and starts to reject/ignore/give minimal attention to guys that, if she met in real life, she would be interested in but are just not as attractive/intriguing as all these others.
The problem with this is that many guys spam every new woman entry without even looking at her. They do this because that is kind of a ‘male thing to do’ and many guys are driven to it from the low response rate that they receive so they start spamming to get something back. When they get something back they look at the woman in the response and go…eeehhhhh not really that attracted to her but I will talk. He then is luke warm to her and eventually stops responding or worse goes on a date that he doesn’t put much energy/excitement into.
From the woman’s point of view she gets much attention from attractive guys but it never really leads anywhere. Phone calls, first dates where he isn’t that engaged, jerk behavior etc. She then gets turned off of the whole thing and runs away from the site.
Admittedly my n-size is low - I’ve known only 4 women that tried it and shared with me their experience while doing it but all 4 roughly followed the outline above.
That’s interesting. I figured the defense against being skinned and eaten was to meet in a public place and not give out your contact info. I would think that texting someone for a while and then going silent would lead to more stalking than meeting once and then going silent. Especially if you are giving out a phone number.
But I’ll try this for the next one. Message back and forth for a couple weeks, get a number, and then ask them out.
I do but I can’t find a way to see who locally has a broadcast set.
