Replying to myself to say I’m meeting the above guy (let’s call him Gerrald) for a date, probably next week. He swiftly found out about my stalker-tendencies when one of the mutual friends phoned him up and said “I hear you’re talking to a girl on a dating site, she’s lovely, you should go for it”. So much for my attempt to subtly check him out
I do worry that I’m rushing things a bit, as I’m still a bit hung-up on Mr My-Ex-Is-Back. He’s been very quiet since our last date two weeks ago though, so I’m trying to accept that he’s just not that into me.
Maybe she’s a banned user, and the site has a policy on socks?
Re Profile Pictures again:
I usually get two/three views a day. I uploaded a new profile picture yesterday (same outfit as my previous one, just a blurry but more natural shot, that’s less posed) and got 28 views*.
I’d like to assume it’s the new picture making me look more approachable, but in reality, I’m guessing when you upload a photo or change your profile, it puts you on the front page for a while and attracts more attention?
On OkC, I like to look for matches anywhere and look at my 99% matches. I’m not a masochist, but I enjoy torturing myself this way, looking at all these amazing single ladies I will never actually date. Back in December, I looked at a teacher who lived on the East Coast who listed “Portland, Oregon” as one of her Six Things. I had to ask her about it. She got back to me about a month and a half later. Turns out she went to college here, still had lots of friends here, etc. We exchanged a few more messages before she stopped responding. A little bit after that, she disabled her account. A week or two ago, she reappeared in my local matches. She is here for the summer decided if she wants to move here permanently. I won’t message her again, even though I’m tempted, because she doesn’t seem interested in me, inexplicably. Besides, I’m dating another girl from OkC that is showing potential(97/68/6%.)
Usually I make a point of reading an entire thread before adding to it to be sure my question or point hasn’t been covered. I’m sure you can see why I relaxed that policy for this thread.
Unnecessary info about my dating status: I’m separated not divorced. It’s my second marriage that’s finished. I do not want to get married again. Don’t want to be in a serious relationship. I do want to meet local people to go out and have some fun and yes, maybe sleep with if I can manage to conquer my self-esteem issues.
So this weekend I signed up at OkCupid. Had fun filling out a bunch of questions. Looking at matches I’ve seen gentlemen who seem really great and compatible. As I read through their whole profiles it always seems that they have specified an age range into which I don’t fall. Curse you OkCupid! Why oh why would they show people as matches who wouldn’t consider dating me?
I think the “match”, “friend”, and “enemy” rankings are based on the questions only, and it only shows matches that meet your age range and sexual preference. Beyond that, you have to filter other things on your own.
In other news, I contacted two women; didn’t get a reply, and neither even looked at my profile. Got a message from a third, I replied, haven’t heard back, yet.
As Inigo said in The Princess Bride, “I’m starting to lose confidence.”
Message them anyway. Men receive a lot fewer messages than women. Most men would be thrilled to hear from you. I have my age preferences, but I’m willing to date outside it if the woman is outstanding.
Yeah, I’d second that gwendee. You never know, they might consider a younger woman
My news - I went out on the first date with “Gerrald” last night. Went well, had a nice kiss at the end, and I’m seeing him again! We got on so well, I could definitely see us in a relationship
Can someone tell me why so many women put pictures of vacation scenery in their profile? No people at all, just exotic locales. Do they think this is attractive to men?
Most of the time, I wouldn’t message an otherwise good match who posted pictures of exotic locations. Especially if she mentioned that one of her favorite things is travel.
I know that right now I cannot afford to travel extensively. By posting those pitures they may be alerting their audience to the fact that it’s expected that a potential mate have the means to travel regularly as well.
Is there any downside to turning a guy down/explaining your disinterest versus simply not answering the message?
I ask because I get quite a few “ur cute :)” or “Hey, I’m -----, how you doin?” Either something about the message itself or something on their profile (I do look at it) will turn me off. This will lead to one of two things:
I’ll reply to the message, explaining why I’m not interested. (i.e. Profile not filled out, awful capitalization/grammar, he’s a proud homophobe, etc.)
I’ll quietly ignore the message.
The reasoning behind #1 is the hope that some percentage of these guys don’t realise how inept they come across as, and while they’ve already blown any shot with me, maybe they have the potential to make some other woman very happy, if only they dropped whatever odious trait I pointed out.
Besides being a waste of time 99% of the time, is there any downside to doing this?
Quite often you’ll get an angry message back. Or they’ll plead their case. If you can handle that, go ahead. If a girl’s not interested, I’d rather be ignored. I understand what that means.
There are two reasons not to tell guys why you are turning them down.
Their profiles should be a reflection of who they are. Odious traits in the profile ought to be an indication of odious traits in the person. Telling them how to hide it isn’t the same as making it go away, and whatever women he contacts after you deserve the chance to see the same warning signs you did. For that matter, what you find odious, others might find endearing.[sup]*[/sup]
I don’t need anybody helping the competition.
I realize we do exactly the opposite on occasion in this thread; critiquing and offering advice on profiles. But only for people who ask. That seems significant to me.
Huh, really? I haven’t looked at many ladies’ profiles so haven’t seen much of this but my first guess was that they don’t like photos of themselves and want to seem worldly. I’m beginning to think I’m not cut out for this.
I may be an outlier on this, but pictures are only useful to me if you are in them. Pictures of your cat, your garden, or your trip to Disney World do not interest me.
I kinda like the travel pictures. I like to travel, and where someone chooses to go does tell me a little something about them. And it gives an opportunity to start a conversation “is that the Winter Palace of the Habsburgs behind you? When were you there?”
The two picture types I can’t figure out are:
Skydiving. You’re adventurous, I get that. Cool. With the goggles, helmet, and wind whipping around at 100 miles an hour, it makes it difficult to tell what you look like. Unless we arrange to meet while freefalling, it’s not going to be terribly helpful. It also seems to me that you must have to make arrangements to have someone there to take the picture of you skydiving. If I were to ever jump out of a plane (with an instructor, I’m sure), I don’t think I’d need to have a photographer jump out, too. I would be doing it to have the experience. The point of a picture would be to remind myself that I’d done it, or to prove it to other people, neither of which seems like it should be necessary.
Driving a car (or at least sitting in the driver’s seat). I drive a car lots of times. Never even occurred to me to take a picture of it.
Second this!! Yay, you have a car! Yeah, it’s even a really cute car! But I have seen a ton of driver’s seat pictures.
I think someone opined upthread that it’s because the lady is dressed/made up and going out, so she is in good shape for a picture. I guess it makes sense..she gets in the car, throws on the sunglasses and looks in the mirror to make sure everything is in order. Thinks ‘Goddamn I look good! I should take a picture for OKC!’ I can see that happening.
Just occurred to me that I had some great pictures taken at the beach last week. I’m not currently on the market (and don’t expect to be), but I know the whole ‘never post a shirtless pic’ admonishment. What about a legit beach pic? Or what if it’s not full torso, just like half torso?
After being on OkCupid for about a year, sending exactly one first message, and going on 0 dates, I’ve decided to try something else. I just can’t seem to get into starting conversations online. It just feels… unnatural. I have a much easier time talking to people in person.
I’ve decided to try eHarmony - for a couple different reasons. The fact that it requires a pay subscription will hopefully make me actually use it since I won’t want to feel like I’m throwing money away. Also, the whole “match” process on eHarmony seems much more structured.
First impressions: Way too many emails! I’ve been a member for 3 days and have 76 emails from eHarmony. Limiting it to only send emails when people actually contact you would be nice.
Besides, I’m dating another girl from OkC that is showing potential(97/68/6%.)