One of the problems with dating sites is that it makes cheating easier. I would say that you can never tell someone’s relationship status by the fact that they are on a dating site.
Just for the record, what area would that be?
No, but you can tell if they’re willing to go out on dates with people.
No, that’s the post I’ve been referring to from the very beginning. You seem very angry that it’s easier, at least in your mind, for women.
It often turns into a SEB (sex-eyeball.)
Most of the criticisms posted so far are valid. For some, the positives outweigh the negatives. I got divorced seven years ago. I have had one 3.5 year live-in gf that I met on-line. I have had a few relationships that lasted a few months from on-line. I have also made a few real friends.
Yeah, you have to sort through some bullshit. Even men get a few of those “Hey, if you want to chat, hit me up” type messages. I just ignore them. I managed to pick up a stalker and have met some incredibly troubled people too, not to mention countless coffee dates with no spark. Still, the good outweighs the bad for me.
On-line is no more a cesspool than any other large group of people. It ends up that it’s more convenient for me to use. It’s a matter of preference and the acrimony about it is baffling.
Met my wife of five years on Match.com. Overall a good experience, dated several nice women before meeting her.
I think the search process significantly increases the chances of meeting someone who is both compatible and special - as long as one is honest in identifying the traits in others they are truly seeking.
you seem to infer way too much.
it’s just the design of the system: they want more girls than guys, so they make it more appealing. (again, just like free drinks on lady’s night or women get into clubs free/etc). profiles for women are typically free and/or more promoted.
that is a FACT. me pointing out that *fact *doesn’t read “OOOG hulk angry!” …at least not in real life…on in your head. i was simply pointing out that fact.
…which it is.
…a fact.
all the emotion?
that’s all in your make-believe mind.
read the op. this was a thread asking what people’s experience on dating sites have been.
all i am saying is it’s built by design to be different for men than it is for women. you can leave your inflections off next time, please…because you’ve not just been wrong about everything you’ve said but you’ve kind of been a jerk insulting all the women who are on such sites.
again: REALLY IRONIC you are explicitly being insulting but made up in your head how I feel from literally stating the facts.
this.
i never have understood the aversion to “meeting people online.” it’s a goddamn place, just like the mall or the bar or church or the supermarket. it’s yet another place people hang out.
that said, i have had some really meaningful relationships with people i met initially online–but not from dating sites.
i think meeting online (over facebook, for example) is a great way to say “hey, we have a lot of similar interests…” and it opens the door to conversation.
it also gives you a nonintrusive way to chat (going back and forth over email for a few days before meeting up is HUGE leg up over real life).
in all, the 'net makes meeting people INFINITELY easier. not dating sites per se, but the net as a whole.
now—
i’m going to make a judgement, so everyone call me a bastard or whatever. but this is what i’m getting from this thread–
modernmaster, who didn’t have a good time meeting people online, has here demonstrated a fairly myopic online prowess. that is to say she started a thread about funny/creepy PMs, then someone sends her one (and says they did it as a joke IN THE THREAD), and she goes and starts a pit thread all concerned about OMG what does that mean?!
that right there says, to me, online relationships are going to be sabotaged by misinferring things. in one thread she demonstrates finding humor in something that, when someone does it, she doesn’t find humorous AT ALL. that is just a quirk of the online language, tho. some people get it, some struggle.
the aptly name MeanOldLady–who for all i know is a warm, loving person in real life–kind of has a curt–even *impatient *seeming online persona. she replies to things with sentences like “Dumb.”
well, it comes off as insulting…so you’re not going to do well meeting via textual means, i wouldn’t think (and it didn’t go well, she said).
coupling into that Fuzzy, who reads things in his head and goes “I READ THAT ANGRY IN MY HEAD AND NOW I THINK YOU ARE ANGRY AND I HAVE DECIDED YOUR ATTITUDE.”
all of these people haven’t had a very good online dating experience, and what i’m doing here is pointing out there’s attributes that lead some people to just be bad at it.
sarcasm is hard to get across. there’s no inflection. everything is tinctured by however you think it “sounds” in your head (and you attribute emotions that were never there).
so it’s certainly not for everyone–and you can be a totally loving, kind, warm human being in real life but come off like a complete asshole in text–or read everything in your head so you think everyone ELSE is a complete asshole when they aren’t.
if that’s the case, with online dating–you’re going to have a bad time.
^you can be extremely loveable in person but unsuccessful at online dating just due to the mechanics of the textual aspect. things get lost in translation or misinterpreted.
i know a girl who is very sweet and kind and we get along well in person, but the rest of time, like in text messages, she is a conversational killer. she has the virtual personality of a dead goldfish. she’s great in person–but i kind of need to get along with her even when we’re not around each other.
i met another girl who took every joke i ever made as serious. it lead to TONS of complicated explanations…a total drag. yet another person i couldn’t manage. and she’s great in person, too…it’s just the mechanics of text/email/online. some people are really weird at it. it just doesn’t go well.
doesn’t mean anything about them as a person in real life…just means online is not their realm.
^exactly what i was referring to earlier. zero to adversarial in .06 seconds.
…don’t…don’t date online. online is not your best color…
Women get free profiles? Really? To be fair, I’ve only ever tried okcupid, and although I’m female I’m not straight, but is it actually true that women get free profiles?
What on earth is a sex-eyeball?
No. None of the major pay sites offer free membership for women. I’m sure there are some niche sites where that’s true but it’s basically completely false. Between the major free sites like Plenty of Fish and OkCupid, and the major pay sites like Match and eHarmony and Zoosk, etc., the overwhelming majority of women doing online dating are on equal footing as men, at least financially.
I went on three internet dates. One with attraction, one intellectually okay but no chemistry and one kind of awkward. No absolute disasters.
Funny thing, the sample size is small so I might have just gotten lucky, but I correctly predicted attraction to the one and lack thereof to the other - and not just on pictures, but on what they wrote and in what way. With the third one I did get my hopes up too much - but I think if I had been totally honest with myself I could have known that too. I was way to needy at that point in my life - a big handicap in any kind of dating!
I have since stopped internet dating except for on and off contact with someone who seems great but lives so far away I never quite manage to meet him.
I stopped mainly because I’ve realised I’m quite happy single, so I’m willing to sit back and (not) let it happen rather than go fishing.
how on earth can something be *true *but basically completely false?
what kind of sentence even is that…?
hereis a list of sites by various metrics you can input. there are more sites free to women than there are sites free to men. this does not include paysites with price breaks for women, paysites who offer more promotion/premium features for women at discount (or free features to women) and various other metrics. some sites allow women to reply/message for free while men must pay. (note: the difference is greater than 4 as results unfiltered for gay/straight. meaning there is an overlap in some sites as well as overlap due to sexual orientation sites).
here’s a write up on the gender bias in dating with stats. note: there’s on average more single men than women in general, yet a major bias favoring women on sites.
note: on findthebest, you can filter by all results, and notice that more women are on in general on each site than men. weird, huh?
finally, here’s a study showing how many more messages women get than men.
in short, odds stack generally in women’s favor. just the way it is…
You said women’s profiles are typically free, which is completely false. There are few sites that let women create free profiles but charge men. Great and very popular sites like Girlsdateforfree.com and BrideofUkraine.com. Brideofukraine.com has 6100 visits per month according to your site.
On the other hand, Match.com (93 million visits per month), Zoosk (63 million visits per month), and eHarmony (18 million visits per month) all charge men and women equally.
So I guess what I’m saying is, you were wrong, and it was kind of a stupid point to begin with.
i find it astonishing a person like you couldn’t mop up with online dating.
are you always a contrarian without provocation? are you always insulting to large subsets of women?
…is it your hobby to misread bullshit on the internet then start a ruckus over it?
is what i said. note the “and/or?” note the massive benefits i pointed out, with numbers? note the statistical anomaly of more single men existing yet more sites–your favorites included–appeal to women by ratio?
there you go, and/or promote. with stats. i also just asked a friend who is on several major sites, she said various premium aspects are often discounted “promotionally” for her.
why, it’s nearly like what i said might be true.
listen, guy–i don’t know who you are or what your problem is, but all this started because MOL, who is kind condescending when she disagrees with someone even tho her attitude is utterly not required, replied to a totally benign post where i pointed out the fuckin FACTUAL (and at this point proven) reality that women have a massive upper hand on dating sites. by design, the system favors them. by the mechanics of dating, by the set up of sites, by the gender roles people assume–it just favors women. all i did was point that out. i didn’t comment on it, nor did i provide editorial or opinion. i just pointed it out.
she calls it “dumb” and acted condescending that someone could *even conceive *having a list of options as “a good thing.”
i wasn’t out of line pointing out the fact women have more options, and if you want to maintain that post was “angry,” by God point out the hostile things i said in my first post. things didn’t get hostile until you started telling me how i felt (after you insult all the women directly in no uncertain terms. really feel the need to point i YOU can say DIRECTLY all the women on those sites are inferior to you, yet my “opinion” of them, which you gleaned because i simply pointed out a statistical FACT, is more negative than yours. i assure you, i would never generalize women the way you have, because i’m not disrespectful or crude like that).
show me the hostile part of that post, otherwise, take your opinion and swallow it, because you were wrong. show me the part of my first post that displays a more negative opinion than what you DIRECTLY said.
do that. now. or shut up.
you misjudged the sentiment and now seem hellbent on just bickering over whatever you can grasp at.
you also fail to parse *everything *i’m saying, and you seem to be doing it on purpose for the sake of being contrary. i have no idea why you just up and decided to be adversarial to me pointing out women have been dealt a better hand when it comes to online dating.
…but they have, and that’s the fact, and i don’t have any opinion of it other than the experience varies GREATLY by gender. THE END.
Which not surprisingly mirrors real life.
My understanding is that, in heterosexual dating at least, most dates involve one male and one female. So pretty much every date arranged online benefits men and women fairly equally.