A woman’s in-box has several dozen e-mails, mostly heartfelt missives along the lines of “Hi I eat pussy,” or second email cris de cour: “stuck up bitch why you don’t write back?”
A man’s in-box is of course empty, and his sent box has several dozen e-mails with no prospect of being answered.
So yes, I’d call that equality of a sort.
the sexual/gender stereotyping and misogyny in this thread is kind of making my stomach hurt.
all women on dating sites are socially inept morons, one says.
all men are sending filthy emails, the other says.
no wonder so many of these “dopers” are in this section of the forum and not over in the high minded conversations.
yeesh, you all.
stop being so sexist.
You know, this reminds me, and maybe this isn’t so, but I’d imagine if you’re a guy who’s cute and sane, you’d be cleaning up online (at least in terms of finding dates) considering what you’re up against. Cleaning up, I say! I know when I was on OK Cupid, if I got a decent message (which was rare), I’d check his profile, see if it was written with some semblance of humor and intelligence, check to see if he’s cute, and if so, I’d write back. I wrote back everyone who met these very meager criteria (of which there were sadly few). Then a few e-mail swaps, never spending more than a few days sending messages, and if those go reasonably well, we’d meet. I have gone on a date with every single man who passed the very simple three step process of 1) Sending a non-stupid e-mail, 2) Having a decent profile and photos, 3) Having the ability to make with decent e-mail conversation for three days.
Unfortunately, even though these guys were technically a match for me (smart, nice, cute), there just wasn’t any chemistry in person. Hell, I remember the exact day I quit OKC. One guy seemed so great online, that every time I logged in, I was happy to click on the pink envelope on the top, and went straight to his e-mails first. He had such a great sense of humor, he didn’t even need to be cute, then we meet in person, and crickets. All the chemistry we had online evaporated when we met. My cute and outragingly funny guy turned out to be completely freaking boring in real life! Why, dating Jesus, why? I dunno if he was nervous or shy or what, but I turned down round two with him, got home and declared, “Fuck this,” and unplugged from the online dating scene. And no I didn’t quit because of that one date solely. I was on the verge of quitting anyway due to other failed experiences, and that one sealed it.
Ha! Well sometimes one word responses are entirely accurate. I should have just left it at that and said nothing else. Speaking of usernames, I find yours amusing as well considering you need to take a very large dosage of chill tablets. I don’t know where you are, but it’s noon here. Have a drink.
there’s a book that explains what happened. it’s called He’s Just Not That Into You.
He asked me on a second date because he wasn’t into me? Interesting theory.
I wonder if that actually helps explain why some people have such a positive experience with it? To me, communicating online is almost exactly like communicating offline. I adapt a little bit because my sense of humor is a little subtle without the benefit of intonation and facial expressions, but it’s basically the same.
I might feel much differently about the whole thing if being online was my one chance to show my charming self without the crushing social anxiety of being with a pretty woman getting in the way.
Of course my experience with online women was exactly the opposite. Trying to communicate with them was really similar to trying to talk to an adult retarded person. They’d technically respond but never really engage at all. I remember thinking there was no way they were nearly as bad in person, but since it was my only impression of them I’d just stop responding because there was no way I’d take the chance.
You do clean up. Back in my match.com days (10 years ago) I was in pretty good shape, and I’m a pretty decent looking guy (been told I’m between 7 and 9 by several women). My profile was low-pressure about wanting to go out, have fun and hang out. I didn’t burden it with a bunch of garbage about what I didn’t like in women, or with a bunch of garbage about what I do like.
I never really bothered to blind email / wink at any women, because I probably got a email/wink or two per day unsolicited from all sorts of women.
There are just a lot of people around these days who are more comfortable online than face to face. Personally, I can talk up a storm online, but put me in a room with the same people and I’ll fade into the background.
Granted, on a date I try to push that aside because it’s just dumb to clam up in that situation. But it’s not too surprising to me.
Yeah, I figured this might be it. I wanted to like him because he apparently can be hilarious, but I just wasn’t feeling the magic, and the magic is important. He may have possibly opened up more on the second date, but I didn’t want to bother, plus I don’t really get along with timid people anyway, so I just said no. Oh well.
My experience is that it’s been boring, frankly. These dating sites have so many men that it is on the harder side to find a friend/soulmate unless you are working in a field that makes quite the salary (Then, it will take a lot less time).
Clearly you need both chemistry and stuff in common. In meatspace versus on-line, you find out about one before the other. Fix-ups/blind dates, on the other hand, you often don’t know either before the date. Those can really be painful.
MOL, considering that 17% of recent marriages started through online dating sites, surely you recognize that your experiences are far from universal?
Perhaps these are sparkless marriages between hideous, dull people. But I doubt it. Online dating is working for a lot of people.
I’m a wedding photographer, and, while I don’t keep exact statistics, in my experience, it is about 1 in 5 of the couples I photograph meet on a dating site, so that 17% number does sound right.
I’m sorry things are so sad for you right now. It’ll get better!
Out of curiosity, how many dates did you go on?
I went on three dates from OKC (all guys that I was impressed with online), and here’s what it looked like:
yawn
had fun on our first date, but guy later turned out to be a bit creepy
clicked pretty well on our first date (my reaction to him was "What are YOU doing on an online dating site?) and stayed in touch for a while after, but for complicated reasons fizzled out (complicated reasons on my side, had nothing to do with him)
My more experienced (in online dating) friends say that you’re lucky if you hit it off with one out of ten.
Perhaps, but there are so many people who use the internet as an avenue for anonymous abuse. Insults on dating sites, drive-by snark on message boards, etc.
Huh. I’ve never been on a setup, but I like the idea a lot more than internet dating. Your friends seem like a better judge of chemistry than the computer, considering they’ve actually hung out with the two parties they’re setting up. Sure, online you can look at things like match percentage, interests, tone of e-mails and profile, but I think we all agree the only way to know if there’s a real connection is to meet. I’d think friend set ups would have the clear advantage then.
I’m pretty sure I speak for everyone. And 17%? Not impressed by that number.
They might feel a spark with each other, but the rest wouldn’t surprise me.
Six I think. One looked so unlike his picture that I didn’t recognize him; all but one were attractive and pleasant, but with no chemistry, yet clueless enough to ask me out again as if they hadn’t noticed the date didn’t go well (one I actually agreed to go out with again even though I felt meh about him just because I was bored, and of course it didn’t go anywhere); and just for bonus material, more than not fudged their height, by far the smallest deal of the OKC offenses, but still annoying.
You may say six isn’t enough, but I say it’s too many. The number of e-mails received and sent needed to pluck out these crummy dates is just too much for me.
I met my wife through a kind of a setup. I was chatting was a lady at a social gathering whom I know only slightly, and she said she wanted to introduce me to a friend who was also attending. Sixteen months later I married that friend.
I’ve always wondered about this - how could you tell? Was it like, six inches or something egregious like that? It probably behooves men to fudge a little if everyone does it; I’ve heard women just categorically lop two inches off all the claimed heights. But with that said, if you fudge by an inch or so I can’t imagine anyone would even be able to tell.
That depends on whose doing the setting up. My good friend’s girlfriend, bless her heart, likes to try to set me up. It’s never right other than they are single and about the right age. This Saturday they are having a little gathering and I get to meet Valerie or Veronica or something. It’s not that big of a deal, my friend is an amazing cook and there are always fun people at his parties so I don’t care all that much if I hit it off with her or not.