I’m not getting any younger and I’m a highly motivated albeit somewhat picky Asian male in his late 30’s early 40’s. Which online dating/meeting site has been most beneficial for people in a similar situation as I? Any input would be appreciated?
To ask a more general question, what strategies have you used that were “high yield” so to say for you? I’ve actually just become highly motivated just a few days ago after realizing my present “relationship” was going down the drain, well gone now.
Seconded. It turned out my girlfriend lives mere blocks from my house, but if she hadn’t found my practically-forgotten OKCupid profile and decided to contact me in the first place, we might never have met. It’s totally free, unlike Match.com or the creepy eHarmony, and tends to draw a younger, hipper demographic.
The OP says he’s in his late 30’s/early 40’s. Younger, hipper may not be what he’s looking for.
Are some sites more suitable for the young and hip and others better for more ancient folk?
Based on my experiences, I think OKCupid.com is the best general site right now. It’s free, but yet it seems to attract a higher quality group of people than other free sites I’ve tried. The only downside is that it’s not as popular as some other sites, so you may not have as large a pool of potentials to pick from as you’d have on a better-known site like match.com
I’ve heard some good things about Craig’s list, but I think it varies from one city to the next.
For my own city, it seems like most of the personal ads are just too crazy or sleazy to lead to anything meaningful. Since OKCupid is a little harder to sign up for (they require you to answer some questions first and such), it seems to deter some of the most insane and idiotic people. Key word there: some.
Good luck.
This is a good point. All sites vary from one city to the next. Last time I checked, there is nearly no one in the OP’s and my age group on OKCupid in my city. It’s easy enough for the OP to do a search and check it out where he lives.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. I guess it all depends on what you are seeking.
Stealing shamelessly from Queen Tonya: I’m 35 and my boyfriend is 33, we’re completely unhip and we met on OKCupid, too.
As others have mentioned, OKCupid is kind of a weird beast: there are not many men (or women) over 30, so I would get the same 15-20 guys in my search results every freaking time, but the people who are there tend to be worthwhile. I met my last bf through that site, too, and before him I had a few nice dates with another guy from that site. During the year or so that I was active on OKCupid I had concurrent ads on Match.com and Yahoo Personals, but the best meetings always came from OKCupid. The dating pool for folks our age is definitely smaller than on other sites, but IME it’s of higher quality.
You’ll probably hear a LOT of kudos here for OkCupid and Plenty of Fish. My experience has been that the pickings on those sites become very slim when you’re looking for women seeking men who are older than 30, at least in my area. Yes, they’re out there, but most in my area are biker chicks, rednecks, mothers to three or more children, grandmothers in their 30s (!), and/or obese. I don’t know what the men are like, but I’d imagine the quality would be similar.
The quality seems much better on Match; there’s a much higher percentage of educated and, to my eyes, attractive women over 30. They seem more “normal” - I’ll encounter the occasional kountry kitschy “I love Jesus, country music, Harleys and Wal-Mart” profile, but for the most part female Match members in my area aren’t white trash. The profiles on Match seem much better written than those on the free services, although there’s still cliches aplenty; “I love life!”, “I love to laugh!”, “I’m equally comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt as I am in an evening gown”, and so on.
The problem with Match: response rates are low if you’re a man seeking a woman, but that’s also a problem on the free sites. The only way to battle the low response rate is volume, volume, volume; don’t use form letters, and focus your attention on women who are most likely to write back to you. I find the response rate is better from those who don’t have cliche-filled profiles; it’s easier to find a hook in their ad that you can use to justify writing to them, and they put more effort into writing the profile, and thus are more serious about meeting someone.
I have no idea. I just dropped in to say that the OP is the only time I have ever seen anyone refer to themself as an “Asian male in his late 30’s early 40’s”. Descriptions like that are usually reserved for statements by witnesses when they don’t actually know the person’s age.
I hope this isn’t too off-topic, feel free to ignore if it is, but I have a question for the people in the thread who have had good experiences with OK Cupid: what was the match percentage with the people you wound up with, or rather, did the match percentage feature actually help you when using the service?
FWIW I had great success in my 20’s with Yahoo! Personals. But it seems like in the last year or so the type of people who were on there changed…like, the “rest” of the Internet found it. I am not into those sort of guys
I guess it all depends on what you are seeking.