So I'm getting into online dating

I joined plentyoffish.com last night, because I don’t have the money or desire to pay for a dating service. Browsed some profiles, sent a couple of messages, got a response already.

So what advice or tips do you have for me? I feel a little silly doing the online dating thing, but I want to meet new people and it seems easy enough. I know all the basics like don’t give out personal info, meet in a public place, yadda yadda.

Anyone want to share their experiences?

Don’t feel silly! Many people are so consumed by the day-to-day that it’s hard to get out there and meet folks if your job involves sitting in a cubicle for 8 hours.

I met my now-husband online, and I don’t think we would have met otherwise, which is a shame because we are very well-matched. We spoke very easily and at length and the comfort level was there immediately.

My advice would be to set up some parameters as far as what you’re looking for (or trying to avoid, ex:sex), and put them out there early. It’s great to be swept away, but if you’re definitely looking for someone say of a certain religion, best to get that out there while there’s no real attachment, thank the person for their time but say this is really important to you, etc. and you’re going to move on.

Above all, treat it like the fun it’s supposed to be, and good luck!

The other main free site – and the one I prefer – is OKCupid. Their matching algorithms seem more rigorous.

Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll give OKCupid a try too.

I did it for a while and I found it fun and rewarding, but also a lot of work.

The main thing I learned was the massive diversity of different ways you can be incompatible with someone, even someone who seems perfectly compatible on paper. I went out with a number of people I met online who were awesome, and who I liked a lot and had a good time with, but I was totally incompatible with them. It sucks breaking up with someone you like but aren’t compatible with (even if you just met them). It’s never easy to hear “you’re perfectly delightful and all, but I don’t want to go out with you” - even if it from someone you haven’t even met yet. I found that (saying it, hearing it, figuring out how to say it, wondering if he was figuring out how to say it, avoiding saying it, having to explain what the problem was, etc) to be emotionally exhausting. That’s probably just me, tho, I’ve never heard anyone else complain of it. I still feel every breakup I’ve ever experienced, no matter how minor or pleasant.

It can work (and has worked for a number of my friends) if you are willing to put a lot of work into it. (I wasn’t.) You need to be really selective, which can be hard when you’re faced with so many attractive and interesting profiles. Be forthright at the earliest opportunity: there’s no point in continuing if you are hiding something that might be a deal-breaker. I think one of my errors was not being up front about my driving interest in politics, because it’s important to me to be with someone who at least respects that, even if they don’t share it. And the best relationship I found online was with someone who shared it.

You should also think of questions to ask straight off, beyond just the obvious profile-type ones. Questions that get at what you really want to know. Awkward silences are even more awkward when online dating, I think. It’s good to have something up your sleeve to talk about.

Remember: you can be as selective as you like, and you should be. Don’t settle.

Oh god, yes. The Number One piece of advice for someone embarking on an online dating adventure:

Don’t take anything that happens personally.

People will flake and disappear without warning – people have bizarre expectations – people act like idiots – 99 times out of 100, it’s not about you or your worth as a human being. Behave courteously yourself (“do unto others” should apply just as much online as it does IRL, IMHO), but don’t get too wound up when others fail to.

Besides what’s been covered so far, I’ll mention the one piece of advice I always give when it comes to dating sites.

You get what you pay for.

To put it simply, if you’ve signed up for a free site, be prepared to find a lot of window shoppers, cheaters and outright nut-jobs. This doesn’t mean that everyone who is on a free site is necessarily bad (two of my best relationships can be attributed to Friendster), just that you should take the time to exchange some messages before you meet face-to-face to weed out these undesirables. Plentyoffish and CampusKiss (aka CasualKiss) tend to have the lowest signal-to-noise ratio of all the dating sites on the internet.

The benefit of pay dating sites is that their very nature tends to do a bit of this filtering for you. Most window shoppers don’t want to pay to browse, most cheaters don’t want suspicious charges showing up on their credit card bills, and most nut-jobs… well… actually, they’re probably still going to be there.

Wow, my experience is the exact opposite of what Mahna Manha has experienced, apparently. I signed up for pay sites and got responses from people who never read my ad or paid attention to anything I was looking for, they just thought I was hot. I’d go out on dates (not often because it took a while to filter through and find a guy I wanted to go out with on the sites) and never hear from them again.

Then I went to Craigslist. I think it is possibly the best dating site on the net! I put up an ad that went into a lot of detail about me and what I was looking for in a potential date. Since most ads on craigslist are people who can’t spell or are looking to charge for their services or whatever my ad stuck out like a Picasso painting at a yard sale. I got 40 or 50 responses, narrowed it down to 5 or 6 potential dates and then exchanged pictures with those men. I really felt a lot better about the fact that the men who responded to my ad were interested in my personality before they saw what I looked like. Then I’d go out with them to see if we clicked. I think I placed an ad 3 times (the ads only stay up for 7 days at a time) before I met my boyfriend. We have been together for a couple of months now and he is really wonderful. I used the pay sites on and off for about 3 years before I got fed up with it and went to Craigslist where I found my man in about 3 weeks. YMMV, of course, but I recommend it to anyone who is looking for someone special.

pbbth, in my experience, the guys who don’t read profiles and who send the same generic cut-and-paste greeting to anyone who even looks remotely attractive are pretty much ubiquitous, regardless of the type of site.

They’re the online equivalent to the guy at the club who tries to hump every female within groping range, in the hopes that one of them will eventually be drunk and/or desperate enough to respond in kind. Those guys seem to always be hanging about, regardless of whether or not the club charges cover. :slight_smile:

Yeah, I agree. OKCupid keeps sending me e-mails where it matches me with chain smokers, women with four small children, and women who caption their pictures “Party! WOOOOO!” which is exactly what I’m looking for, only not. Perhaps it is basing its decisions on what my evil twin from the mirror universe is looking for.

Stranger

I met my boyfriend on Plenty of Fish! We’ve been dating 14 months and are discussing moving in/marriage. So, it can work despite the fact that it’s free.

Craigslist is the only one I used and I thought it was great too. I liked that I could browse the ads and respond without putting anything up myself, I liked the total flexibility in terms of content (i.e. people can put up whatever they want, I think that produces a much more interesting and personal profile than ticking boxes and answering contrived questions), and I liked that it was so casual (i.e. people might put up an ad on a whim, or just dipping a toe in - I am a bit intimidated by intentional “dating” activities like paying money to get matched by an algorithm).

I think I could even have hooked up with the guy I bought a bike from off Craigslist last week. C-listers are good peeps. But I hear it varies by city.

I met my wife about 5 years ago on match (of course, fortunately, she wasn’t my wife at the time). Back then, match was pretty good for a pay site. From what I hear, it’s gone downhill.

I’ll echo what others have said about not taking things personally. I assume you’re a female, so you shouldn’t have much problem getting responses. The vast majority will probably be a combination of idiots, perverts, locos, and guys looking for nothing beyond a physical relationship. If you’re into any of that, you’ll have an easy and busy time. If you’re looking for the minority, you’re going to have a lot of first and only dates, but you’ll probably find a decent guy in a few weeks or months, if you live in a decent-sized town. Go somewhere public for those first dates.

Also, honesty will pay off more often than not. Good luck!

I agree with all the above. Be patient and cast a wide net.
In my experience, the people on PlentyofFish tend to be far crazier and stupider than the people on OKCupid, so I also second the idea of giving OKCupid a whirl.
If you keep getting matched up with people who seem ill-suited to you, it’s probably because you haven’t answered ENOUGH of the matching questions.
You can’t treat it like any other dating site where the profile is the key - the matching questions really matter a lot more.

I was on LavaLife for quite a while, up to about a year ago, and one thing I recommend is: if you connect with someone, meet them in a neutral place as soon as possible. I had a total of twelve dates over possibly three years, and in every case there was no ‘click’, even in cases where we initially hit it off online. You need to get face time together as soon as possible to resolve whether you’re going to stand each other. Doing this soon lets both parties move on quickly if the connection is not to be.

I totally forgot that one, and it’s so important. Do NOT fall into the trap of spending weeks emailing/calling/IM’ing and letting the attraction grow before getting together.

Interesting. So I gotta go on these dates now? Shoot, I hope these guys don’t mind I work the weekends, It’s either gonna be lunch dates on Saturday, late night on Friday, or some random weeknight.

I hadn’t really thought any of this out. That is why I come here.

I met my boyfriend of 2 years on match, we’re living together trying to sell my house and buy one together.

The only things I have to offer is be honest and be yourself.

Good Luck!

PERFECT. A lot of people prefer the first meeting is an afternoon lunch date, because it’s not as much pressure as a Real Date (ie, friday or saturday night). You dont want lots of pressure before you’ve even met.

I’m gonna second or third the “Meet as soon as possible” mantra. It doesn’t have to be a date. It can be a meeting for coffee just to see if the two of you want to continue. Emailing back and forth for weeks or months is ridiculous. If the guy doesn’t want to meet for whatever reason he gives you, it’s a Big Fat Red Flag. I met my current boyfriend on Craigslist the first time, then eHarmony got us back together. Long story, already told elsewhere.

Be prepared to reject and be rejected, and don’t take it personally. Online dating opens up the whole world to you, and allows you to meet people you never would have met otherwise. There is no stigma to meeting someone online anymore, just be sure to get the relationship off the internet as soon as possible. No sense wasting time!

Oh, and happy hunting! Have fun!