[QUOTE=DudleyGarrett]
It’s not weird here. You can tell by their prose that many posters here don’t really like themselves. There are a few people that you can almost always count on some venom, too – which leads to pile-on venom.
[/QUOTE]
Sad but true.
I let time felch lightly when I’m here with you,
I let time felch lightly when the day is through.
I keep a watch on time when I’ve have work to do,
I let time felch lightly with you.
[QUOTE=Cat Fight]
True, but I think it’s scary how women are just expected to hate some part of themselves. And this shit starts in grade school, when boys can be proud of their accomplishments and play the braggart but girls are encouraged to be hardworking but polite, or even to play dumb.
I was sitting with a group of friends – beautiful, smart, with great jobs – and one of them (the tallest, thinnest one) said she was having a ‘fat day, you know?’ Everyone nodded in a greement then looked at me. Me: ‘I don’t have fat days. I’m not fat. And neither are any of you. I just don’t have the time for that bullshit.’ Ohhh the venom. It’s like when supermodels reassure everyone that they hate the way they look sometimes, just so there can be some comraderis with the ‘normals.’ I just can’t bond over that crap. (the book Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters is all about this).
I am certainly no fan of people who are sure they’re the shit and are really jerks, and might think differently if Stoid were like this at all times IRL, but because low self-esteem has become the norm, I actually find (sometimes overly) high self-esteem refreshing in women.
Also, keep in mind Stoid is in L.A. Compared ot most residents, she’s being downright humble.
[/QUOTE]
Right on.
This shows up in language: girls/women are much more likely to frame all their opinions as questions, making sure whatever they are saying gets approved of by others.
Fuck that shit.
[QUOTE=Stoid]
If the email clears, then it’s the phone, which a lot of men resist. One guy was saying that you need to see each other in real life for the full picture, and I think that’s only partly true. I can’t know for sure that I WILL click with someone based on phone interaction, but I absolutely can tell if I won’t..
[/QUOTE]
We males tend to resist phone and repeated email exchanges as there are whaaaaay too many women out there who will not ever let any relationship get beyond either.
Now I do like a couple of phone calls first, sure. But not a couple dozen- without a “next”.
[QUOTE=you with the face]
Okay, I’m not going to disagree with you. But I don’t think you should go around calling yourself old and fat if you really believe those are liabilities, because it belies the confidence and self-assurance that you’re actually trying to project. You’re trying to attract people who appreciate mature BBW, right? You’re not trying to attract people who will like you in spite of your age and size. I think you might want to write your ad with the former in mind and less of the latter, but that’s just me.
Talk about yourself more positively and talk about others (i.e men) less negatively, and I think that will help your ad to radiate condescension-free confidence.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=SmartAleq]
See it’s funny–I see calling myself old and fat (which I do) to be a kind of reverse deprecation. I don’t think of myself that way (‘cuz in my head I’m this smokin’ hot babe and always will be no matter what lies the mirror tells!) but I say it with a big old grin because it disconcerts people. Self confidence allows for exaggerating the case, just as low self esteem allows for minimizing “bad points.” I also am right up front about telling people I can be an incredible bitch, that I’m completely intolerant of the stupid and that I don’t consider any topic to be too sacred to joke about. If they wish to think I’m engaging in hyperbole, more power to 'em. They can’t say I didn’t warn them! 
[/QUOTE]
What Smart Aleq said. X2. (no, really, it’s actually a little freaky…EXACTLY what smart aleq said!)
Andlet me add this: I actually do, or have always in the past, very much preferred to attract people who will like me in spite of my age and size (mostly size til recently, obviously). Yep, you heard it right. Several reasons:
Not interested in being anyone’s fetish.
Seeking out someone who desires me for my looks (in part) means I’m owning my looks as being who I am. This is something I have always struggled with. Don’t want to be in denial, but I don’t want to identify, either.
The chubby chasers I’ve met have always been a little weird.
God forbid a man should fall in love with me (in part) because he loves my body, and then I lose it and he gets unhappy! In the same vein, I do not want to be with anyone who is not completely supportive of my efforts to be healthy and fit, and someone who prefers a fat woman is likely to sabotage and undermine any efforts I make in that direction, men do it all the time. People do.
And finally, the biggest, most compelling and truest reason is really this more htan anything: it’s a fucking ego boost, because it says yeah, I’m just that compelling, that perfectly average, normal men who wouldn’t look at me twice find me so damn great in spite of my body that they want me.
The downside to this is obvious: I’m always a little uncomfortable about my appearance, cuz I know it’s being tolerated more than embraced.
The upside is worth it, though, and it includes my being way more secure than the most beautiful women I know, who are pretty amazingly beautiful. Here’s why: i know that my man is with me for ME, which means I don’t have to live in a constant state of peril around other women. My man does not place a premium on appearance; if he did, he woudn’t be my man. So you may be a hottie, but I know he’s not going to do anything but admire your hottiness, he’s not going to dump me over it.
Looka t Halle Berry: one of the most exquisitely beautiful women on earth, and relentlessly cheated on, by seemingly every man she ever cared about. I’m thinking it has a little to do with the fact that the men she was with place a high value on beauty, and there’s always someone more beautiful than you.
Two stories related to this:
One of my closest friends is an unusually beautiful woman, really stunning. Also kinda Amazonian, very tall, big boned. And her whole life long, nothing but assholes. Men were just endless dickheads with her, and she could not find a good relationship to save her life. Then she met a man over the phone, a Brit, in a work situaiton. (She was working for me at the time so I get all the credit for this) He was in NY. They talked on the phone and emailed for 6 months, and built this amazing friendship and actually kinda fell in love. They totally got each other, it was great. And in all that time, neither of them ever once even ASKED what the other looked like, they could have been two Quasimodos for all either of them knew. All they knew is that they had an amazing connection as people.
He had to go back to the UK and he said he wanted to come and visit before he left, he had to hang with her. Of course, both of them were crossing their fingers and hoping, and of course, he was floored when he saw her, and he was perfectly adorable and they were in bed within hours.
They are now married and very happy.
So it took a man not seeing her outer beauty at all for someone to see her inner beauty and fall in love with the real her and for her to finally get the love she richly deserved.
Second story:
I slept with one guy who LOVED my body, just gaga over it, couldn’t shut up about my delicious butt. This was an entirely novel experience for me, of course, and great. For… 20 minutes? Then, (and I swear to Og this is true) I found myself thinking: yeah, but what about ME, what about who I am in my head, what about me as a lover?? Is it jsut my shell you lust over? How incredibly empty!
And that was a wonderful lesson for me, and made me have HUGE sympathy for beautiful women. How much must it truly suck to have guys slobbering over you constantly, not only because that’s simply icky, but because it’s so empty, it has so little to do with them appreciating the parts that count: her heart, mind, soul, talent… the things she’s genuinely responsible for that reflect her, not just her good genes.
The second most beautiful woman I know (who is actually more beautiful than the first…) also worked for me briefly. She’s like…ohmygod. Perfection in every detail, from hair to toes, her skin is like butter, her fingers are gorgeous.
And she’s miserable most of the time, and insanely insecure. With good reason, her family and the world did her no favors by focusing on her appearance. She is truly a lovely, lovable person, but she has no real education and no real interests and feels very empty most of the time. She told me once that she would trade her looks for my brains in a heartbeat. And I believe her, because I would never make that trade.
And that’s the long answer to a question that was actually rhetorical!
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
We males tend to resist phone and repeated email exchanges as there are whaaaaay too many women out there who will not ever let any relationship get beyond either.
Now I do like a couple of phone calls first, sure. But not a couple dozen- without a “next”.
[/QUOTE]
Oh yeah, I’m with you there. One guy did that to me, I was so disappointed…he gave great phone, and would never get beyond that. I’m 2-3 calls max before somebody better put up or shut up.
[QUOTE=Stoid]
No, remember, that was last year’s ad, I put it in to show what ad was being answered when I was sharing the examples of answers I liked.
[/QUOTE]
I had missed that part.
No matter what your ad says, you’ll have a %age of trollers out there who will cast a line in every direction. It’s just sorting out the signal from the noise. It’s just a matter of being careful not to put off those guys who really do read critically and respond selectively. I trust that you say you’ve toned down the ad.
Another thing, and people may disagree with me here: I’ve never tried Craigslist, but my experience is that the pay sites have at least a slightly more serious or better pool than the free sites. I was on OKCupid for three months with nary a response. Same ad on Match garnered about six dates in two or three weeks, all of which went well, in my opinion. Girls were smart, articulate, employed, and generally successful. It may be different for women, but the act of just shelling out $30 a month or whatever it is these days cuts down on some of the problem.
That said, I know of people who met their matches on the free sites, so YMMV. It just seems to me there’s a lower %age of crap when you ask someone to pay for a service.
I know I am a Johnny come lately to this thread…
When I was divorced a few years ago, I tried Eharmony and Match.com out of curiousity. Two completely different experiences…
Match.com (and I assume the OP is similar to it) I had much the same experience as Stranger. I had well crafted, good, personal replies that had a very low hit rate…so I finally decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Basically, again like Stranger, a ‘form’ letter that I filled with some pieces of the ad I was responding to. It had about the same success. AFTER I had a response, I would spend time on the communication.
So, OP, I think you miss out on some good guys by expecting a long, well written reply on the initial contact. You should think of responding to the grammatically correct short replies and you may be surprised at the good responses you then get.
========
As a side note…being who I am (A researcher essentially) I could not resist playing with the online sites in order to gather information as to what variables predicted a woman to respond.
I had some spending money…so I set up (I think) 4 accounts on (I think) Match.com. I would then identify a target and send 4 responses from the 4 accounts over a few day period.
I don’t remember how they worked exactly, but I had my real one…one pretty close to mine but with a picture of (what I had been assured by women) a reasonably hot guy instead of my real picture…one with no picture but was a physician with a great sounding occupation name…and another with …ehhh can’t remember.
Basically I kept swapping out the 3 fake ones testing.
The take away?
The hot guy picture had a whopping 30-35% hit rate…even if the ad was not very well written and my communications were lazy. My real one…about 2%. The doctor one…only about 5% (I think)…can’t remember others.
The picture is what gets the responses.
[QUOTE=Stoid]
And that’s the long answer to a question that was actually rhetorical!
[/QUOTE]
Wow!
Well, I appreciate reading your perspective. We all have our reasons for doing the things we do, and yours is certainly valid. I agree that a lot can be said for knowing that you can attract dozens of men despite not being the hottest-looking person in the room.
[QUOTE=zelie zelerton]
And so long as I’m on the subject of dowries (and I know this is minor) please don’t ask me IF I work. Of course I work, I’m not landed gentry. Hell, even the landed gentry have to work these days. And it’s doubly insulting to state that not all women work. With one exception, every woman I have known works and she’s raising three kids.
[/QUOTE]
You’d be surprised. 
You’d be surprised.
Guys don’t ask these stupid question because the answer is always yes, you know. 
[QUOTE=Stoid]
And I agree wholeheartedly.
To my enormous relief, the whole world doesn’t hate me. Not even most of it. Not even the part that knows me. Not even most of the people who know me. Not even most of the people on the Dope!
But a larger number than the average person, yeah, I get that a lot. On the other hand, as with most things, I enjoy the kind of love and appreciation that many people with less hate in their life can only dream of. It’s the nature of having a very strong personality, i’m definitely a love me or hate me type and I made my peace with that a long time ago when I realized that I was getting the love, freindship, respect and approval from the people I wanted if from, overall.
Can’t please everyone, at least I can’t. At least, not if I want to be true to myself.
[/QUOTE]
I totally hate you (for the record)
[QUOTE=athelas]
I don’t see the dichotomy here. When I see, for example, an idiot pretending to be smart, I am hardly “threatened”, but I’m definitely angry and would welcome the chance to take him down a few pegs, if not the whole ladder. Calling people who don’t like you “defensive” is little better than the schoolyard witticism “I know you are, but what am I?”
[/QUOTE]
Yes. Or, as I once mentioned in a past discussion (and ordinarily I’d consider it poor form to quote oneself, but humility has been in short supply in this thread anyway):
[QUOTE=Vinyl Turnip]
Once I saw a 400-pound transvestite in a mesh bikini stomping to and fro across a TV stage in front of a howling audience. “Y’all just jealous!” he thundered.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, and nice work, Taber. Better than my planned contribution: a lyrical excerpt from “The Rectum of Edmund Felched Gerald,” by Gordon Lightfelch.
[QUOTE=lobstermobster]
I totally hate you (for the record)
[/QUOTE]
Awesome! That I can engender total anything, much less something as intense as hatred, in someone who has never met me makes me feel so special, so powerful! Neat!
Having to carry that around with you kinda sucks for you, of course. Reminds me of a favorite quote: Resentment (or hatred, for my money) is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die.
So good luck with that.
Oh yeah? Well, as a very wise man once said, “I am rubber and you are glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you, unless it’s really hot and the rubber itself melts, which would kind of suck.”
Good god, people, who has time for all this three profiles, fake pictures bullshit? Some people aren’t going to like you for whatever reason. Big fucking deal. Act as secure about it as you claim. I have one profile on one site. That’s all I want. People are going to hate me because of my size, my sexuality, my gender, my location, any number of things. I don’t care. If they can’t deal with what I look like, what I sound like, what I talk about, fuck them. Next!
[QUOTE=Stoid]
Awesome! That I can engender total anything, much less something as intense as hatred, in someone who has never met me makes me feel so special, so powerful! Neat!
[/QUOTE]
Not so fast: even small children have the power to engender rage in our friend lobstermobster. :mad: 
[QUOTE=athelas]
I don’t see the dichotomy here. When I see, for example, an idiot pretending to be smart, I am hardly “threatened”, but I’m definitely angry and would welcome the chance to take him down a few pegs, if not the whole ladder.
[/QUOTE]
Well, you wouldn’t see any dichotomy, of course (although I don’t agree that that is the right word anyway, but no matter) because you get angry at other people pretending to be smart. Why in the world would someone else’s need to assuage their insecurities and try to hide their weaknesses make you angry at all, much less angry enough for you to welcome the chance to expend your precious bodily fluids, so to speak? It’s not about you, it has absolutely nothing to do with you, but by becoming angry, you are making it about you, which means…it IS about you…but you are the only one who can understand how or why that came to be true.
Also known as having your buttons pressed.
It’s incredibly freeing to realize that almost nothing that other people do is about you, no matter what it looks like. Really. I am here to tell you, I have had some really brutal experiences in the last year or two that woulda, shoulda made me feel resentful, hurt, wounded, angry, and just generally extremely ill-treated. And they did, for a very, very brief moment. Then I remembered: it wasn’t about me at all. It was about them. I was just a player in their drama, just like they are players in mine. I owned what my participation was in what happened and I learned from it, forgave the people in question completely, and moved on with a ligher heart and wiser. And this was real stuff that really happened that really fucked with me. I cannot even imagine how much negative energy I’d be managing if I let myself get het up about things that don’t even APPEAR to be about me, damn.
The most amazing thing happened to me shortly after my ex moved out. It was a trial separation and three months into it he called me and told me he was done in a really cruel, horrible way that was completely unnecessary, over the top, and out of character for him and our relationship and our situaiton. Even his new girlfriend told him what an asshole he was. (and he ended up taking it back and apologizing, but that’s a different part of the story).
I was reeling, devastated, destroyed. FIve days later I was standing in the yard throwing the ball for my dogs, and I had this transcendent experience of love for him that washed over me, and I was filled with gratitude for what we had had together, I embraced his pain and fear and sorrow and understood it and forgave him for everything, absolutely everything, and blew my own mind at how much, how purely and completely I loved him, was capable of loving him. And it was completely unimportant whether he knew it, appreciated it, felt it or anything else. It was about me, not him. It was a great moment in my life, truly, cuz of course, I thought it was pretty bitchen that I could genuinely feel that way, as you might imagine.
I wish such a moment for everyone, it was the real-life experience of that truly nauseating song, “The Greatest Love of All” - it really is, I gotta tell ya.
You think you’re Oprah, don’t you?
[QUOTE=Dante]
You think you’re Oprah, don’t you?
[/QUOTE]
At the very least, she believes the children are our future.
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
At the very least, she believes the children are our future.
[/QUOTE]
In South America. Such as.