I use a carpet-bombing system in “real life.” I honestly think eveyr man should try it. Basically any woman you find moderately attractive or better you ask out (obviously I’m talking about situations where you are out somewhere specifically looking for a woman) maybe I’m bad at it but if you’re like me your success rate will be low. But during my hornier times I could guarantee you I’d have sex with a different woman every week.
Of course this a somewhat different time and place, my carpet bombing tactics in “contemporary America” don’t bring such results (nor am I searing for them at my age.)
There’s a tonic available widely that helps you have the courage to be rejected repeatedly in the carpet bombing scheme, namely beer.
Phouka, don’t give up hope. I met my girlfriend through okcupid.com, and her photos made her look like she had an average build. When I met her in person, she was heavier than I imagined based on the photos. While I guess this would give some men pause, I didn’t hesitate for a second. The look on her face, the obvious excitement of meeting me made me smile a mile wide and never during that evening nor during the times we made love a few weeks later did it cross in my mind that her weight/body type was unappealing.
This may be more obvious than I think, or it may not, but I can’t help but think a lot of guys are just giving in to peer pressure in terms of what they are interested in, i.e. they might not be THAT bothered with something like weight per se, but would be afraid of what other people thought.
Not to mention the fact that a lot of men have no clue what weight translates into what size. Or the fact that differing fitness levels mean different sizes.
Every 5’6" woman who weighs 145 pounds isn’t going to fit into the same size jeans. One who is very fit and whose lean body mass is at 129 pounds, is going to wear about a size 6 (a size smaller than Cindy Crawford) at that weight. (well at least that’s my experience based on my LBM and size at that weight. I’m small boned. Maybe someone with a larger frame than mine might be slightly larger, but if fit, will still wear smaler jeans than the woman with a very light LBm.
Whereas someone who has very little muscle tone and doesn’t work out, and has a lot of fat weight rather than muscle weight is going to be a lot BIGGER, even while the same SCALE weight as the girl who works out.
I have listened to men out in public discussing women, and also shows like Tom Leykis and heard them say things (about women they’d never laid eyes on) like “oooh 5 foot 6 inches and 135 pounds? That’s WAY too heavy for me”.
I don’t blame women for not posting the numbers. I only post my jeans size and refuse to post my scale weight. What difference does the scale make when my butt is STILL fitting into a size 10 jeans?? (yeah, my butt is way too big right now also).
You post your weight, or check the “a few pounds overweight” box and most men on the other side INSTANTLY inflate " a few extra pounds" into “Grossly and morbidly obese” in their own minds.
So it’s NOT just that the women are trying to trick them by thinking that size 16 is average.
Well, you’re better off than me. I’ve taken eharmony’s test twice, three months apart so I wouldn’t remember the questions from the first time, and both times I got the same result: something akin to “You are part of the 5% of the population that our system cannot categorize. As such, eharmony’s services would be unable to assist you.”
You know it’s bad when an online dating service says “Using our scientifically-designed personality test that took you thirty minutes to get through, we have determined that you are so royally fucked that we just wouldn’t feel right about taking your money to try and hook you up.” I mean, damn. Give a guy a break.
I got that message at least twice before I finally found a winning combination.
phouka, be comforted in the fact that men have just as much trouble with clueless eharmony women. I was with eharmony and hardly got responses, until I adopted the “carpet bombing” strategy and initiated contact with everyone who took the time to post a picture (regardless of what they looked like). I used the service for a year, and it got me one date with a woman who was a complete fool. Get out while you can, phouka. Eharmony is a scam. You’re much better off using match.com, even though they’re not as “scientific.” At least you don’t have to deal with the must-have and can’t-stand BS.
Oh, and did you know eharmony used to descriminate based on height? They WOULD NOT, under any circumstance, match a man who was taller than the woman. It wasn’t even an OPTION. And you think girls have it hard with that garbage service? Their reasoning was “studies show that when the man is shorter, it doesn’t work out.” Scientific indeed. My buddy is only 5’3, and his options were to either:
a) Be honest about his height and have only 10% of the available matches to work with, or
b) Lie to get a bigger selection and hope that the woman is forgiving when he has to come clean.
Recently they changed that rule due to complaints, but it still pisses me off.
I hear ya. But in that case, don’t give them any inkling whatsoever of your physical self. It shouldn’t matter. If you don’t tell them anything, there’s no room for misinterpretation.
It doesn’t? Day-um, and here I’ve been doing it wrong for over fifteen years. DogDad’ll be interested to know that. He’s 5’2" - his dad asked him once why he didn’t try dating girls shorter than him. His response was that he wasn’t attracted to eight-year-olds.
I’m five inches taller than he, so it’s not like it’s one of those, “Well, yes, she’s taller, but it’s not real obvious.” Oh, it’s certainly VERY obvious. We’ve been together since 1989, and we’ve been married since 1992.
Take that, eharmony.
Why shouldn’t I give some inkling of my physical self? I have gorgeous blue/green/grey eyes, a great smile, pretty feet, graceful hands, soft, thick hair, big happy breasts and on and on. Why is it that in the dating world, physical appearance always equals weight (or in guys’ case, height)? I’m not even that damn fat, but from the responses I get, you’d think I’d been sitting on the sofa stuffing my face so long that my skin had grafted onto the cushions. Grrrrrr.
And yeah, I answered the guy’s open-ended questions and sent him my own, including “in your “Can’t Stands” you mention that you can’t stand someone who is overweight. In my profile, I mention that I’m overweight. Please clarify your feelings on that.” When I checked this morning, he’d closed out the relationship with a “there’s too much going on in my life right now.” He didn’t even have the balls to say “oops, my mistake”. Fine. Asshole. Bastard. Dickless moron.
To hell with him. To hell with eharmony. To hell with all men who think their personal taste gives them the right to be rude and condescending. Hell, lump the women who think that in there as well. I’m going to go eat pancakes for breakfast.
I’m 5’6, which isn’t nearly as short, but is definitely short enough that people make fun of me. In addition to what you’re saying, that there just aren’t that many women under 5’2", there’s another thing I’ve noticed too. There are adult women around who are that short, but A LOT of them refuse to date guys who aren’t much, much taller than they are. Browse the women on any dating site sometime - if you find one who is around 5’0" or less, their preference for a man will most often be something ridiculous like 5’10", literally towering over them. It’s a strange phenomenon; I don’t know if they’re trying to compensate for their own diminutive stature or what. But anyway, another good answer to the question, “Why don’t you date girls shorter than you?” is simply that they aren’t any more likely to be attracted to a short man than a tall woman is.
phouka, don’t give up hope. When I was phone dating, then later online dating, I could have written your previous rant almost word for word; my experiences were a lot like yours, complete with meeting an asshole and having him change his profile to “No fat chicks” the next day. Then I met my husband, who truly doesn’t care about my 40 extra pounds. He liked me from the day he met me, and made all the other guys look like the shallow chumps they are. If these guys want to limit their dating options to model-perfect women only, good for them. I wish them lots of luck, and hope they enjoy being Masters of their Domain.
Like others have said, maybe it’s time to try a different approach, where you can read profiles and have others read yours. It worked for me, and it’s working for Incubus and many, many more people. Be patient, and keep the faith. In a world of 3 billion men, there’s a whole lot of 'em out there that are compatible with you.
Nicely said phouka!!! You should put that in your profile. Hell I would want to meet the woman who wrote something like that, no matter what she looked like. Ya gotta love a woman who knows what she is, and what she is not. I say fuck that idiot, not literally mind you…
I think they’re trying to compensate for their own diminutive genetics, actually. They figure if they date a short man, they’re guaranteed short children, but if they find themselves a big tall guy, they might have average height kids.
Oddly, that seems to have changed, and suddenly. I’ve been a member of eharmony for several months. Up until about two weeks ago I was never matched with women taller than me. Now I’m matched with women of all heights.