I was not particularly physically attracted to my ex in the beginning (was with him 7 years), it grew over time and I ended up being very attracted to him on all levels. If you’re not repulsed, and he is an awesome person, give it time and try making out with him. Something could definitely grow. If you do continue seeing him romantically try making out n stuff, and it’s not working for you - you are still allowed to break up with him at that point. That’s how dating works.
On the other hand, my boyfriend now is more awesome and we also have that electric chemistry. It might be worth holding out for.
This is coming from a man who is definitely not into men but I have met a number of females that use sites like Match.com and they have shared their feedback on different people. He has a good profile but looks like a douche in the photos selected. His profile says he is 6’3" which is good but there are no full body shots with context. I assumed he was about 5’6" at a glance at that is not good generally speaking. He needs more photos in varied settings and tell him to cut out the smirking.
Also, tell him to change his religious preferences from Atheist to anything else. It doesn’t matter if it is true or not. You just won’t get many dates as an admitted atheist. ‘Spiritual but not religious’ is fine. He likes nature so it is true enough. The no kids thing is going to severely limit his dating potential as well. If he is 100% serious about that, then leave it. Otherwise, change it to something more moderate and up for later discussion.
He writes very well and seems to be attractive enough so toning down the obvious arrogance and overall ‘twee’ factor should land him some good dates pretty quickly.
This is all horrible advice. Don’t misrepresent yourself on dating sites. The object should be to find someone who is compatible with you, not simply get as many dates as possible by appealing to the lowest common denominator. FYI, here in urban Oregon, you’ll get more dates as an atheist than as anything religious.
It’s been several weeks since I asked for advice in this thread, and I’m back with an update. To everyone who offered an opinion on my situation, thank you! The general consensus among those here and offline was to give the guy a chance to grow on me. I’m happy to report that I did continue seeing him, and I’ve gradually become quite smitten with him. We’re having a lot of fun together and even have plans to go camping together next month. Thanks again, everyone, and good luck with your own online dating adventures!
I agree, the whole point of going to dating site is to reduce the bother of dating a lot of people you aren’t likely to click with anyway. I expect to get fewer, quality dates rather than large numbers of poor matches.
Sorry I can’t help, not a member of Match so can’t see it
Fabulous! I think society & culture set us up to expect “love at first sight” to happen like a lightning bolt, but it’s not always like that. I’m glad you gave it a chance to blossom
I’ve been wanting to try online dating for a while, since finding other gay males have proved very difficult. I wasn’t able to find a fully working dating site for free (not willing to pay, yet), so I went for the ad aproach. For weeks I’ve been getting terrible responses haha, mostly guys looking either for “express sex” or hooking, but a few days ago I got one email that called for my attention, we’ve been Instant messaging and texting a lot, and I’m pretty impressed with how much we have in common, plus he lives 20 minutes (walking!) from my house so that’s definately a plus. Soooo, we have a date on saturday, I’ll come back after that to share my experience.
Something occurred to me today: Given how selective woman can be, is it actually in your best interest to* not * post your most flattering pictures? You’re usually overwhelmed by responses anyway, so posting awesome pictures will only exacerbate that. What if you just posted, y’know, average pictures of yourself? Then you would be more assured that you are being messaged because the guy likes what you put in your profile.
Speaking of profiles, I just re-activated mine on OKC. Wow, some old stuff there! As I was going through it trying to update things, I glazed over once again because it was soooo familiar to me. I’m also not sure if it reads a bit dis-jointed because I’ve added/changed it so many times.
You might change “doggie play date” to “play date with the dogs” or something along those lines. Also, “Outside of my work, I’m loving the experience of being great partners with a 2 year old boy, whom I have with me 1/2 of the time” IMVHO could use a bit of rewording.
Just skimming over it (as most people do (I think) the first time over) both the sentences (to my ears) came across kind of odd until you get to the second half of them.
In my mind I kind of went “doggie what now?” and “partners with a 2 year old what does that even mean…ohhhh got it”
The last date I went on, I was all psyched about then, the night before my ex-wife told me she was getting remarried. I remember thinking ‘well fuck, that’s gonna come up for sure tomorrow night.’
The date went well, I thought. Yes, the ex thing did come up, but she seemed fine with it. The next day I emailed her, told her I had a good time. Never heard back. I kept wondering if it was because of the ex thing, was it because she was a beer snob and I ordered a gin (although I can be a beer snob as well, just didn’t want one) was it because of this or that…then about two weeks later she changed her location to about 90 miles away. Even if she hated me, at least I can tell myself it was because she moved.
Other then that, still having terrible luck. On the one hand, I know I’m overly picky. OTOH, I don’t get replies to the emails I send out and the emails I get tend to be, well, stupid.
“Let me know if you’re interested” Really? You can’t do better then 6 words?
“I love being barefoot, how are you”
Yes, it was in response to something or other in my profile, but c’mon, you can do better then that.
Honestly, the nicest email I got was a reply from someone that sent me an email and I turned her down saying that I couldn’t date someone that answered “yes” to is homosexuality a sin. Her first email and reply were really nice, but I couldn’t let that one go. If she had said ‘no’ or didn’t answer it (and was a few years older) it might have gone a different way. Oddly, she said she didn’t realize she had even answered that question, said something about having gay friends etc…then deleted her profile a few days. I’m guessing she probably set up a new one, but her age puts her out of my search range so I wouldn’t know.
Well, just got home from my date. I had fun, we laughed a lot, but it just seemed more like a hang out with friends than anything else (maybe my expectations were too high?), so we’ll see what happens over time, I just felt he was way more into me than I was into him, he did seem a little, what’s the word, needy? saying stuff like “I think we have a great thing going on here” half an hour into our date or “I’m really happy I met someone like you” and me thinking “just drink your beer”… anyway, worst case scenario, it was a fun night.
Um, when the topic of exes came up you didn’t actually start talking about her getting married, did you? I can’t tell because I don’t know how the rest of the date went, but her conclusion might have been that you were too stuck on the ex.
My 2 cents. Maybe he is a little lonely and a little needy. I wouldn’t judge him for it. Look beyond the dating game (who has the best pick up line, who is the most polished dater?) and judge him for who he is.
I think I might have just mentioned that she told me the previous night that she was getting remarried. I’m hardly hung up on her, but it was still on my mind since it was fresh news and took me by surprise. There was kind of an odd situation with my ex-wife that I always felt obligated to let a date know right off that bat. At the time, I was still working with her. So whenever I would go out on a first date, at some point during the night, I would make sure to work that into the conversation. We worked together for about 2 years after the divorce and I know it was a bit odd and I wouldn’t blame anyone for having an issue with it so I didn’t want anyone to think I was hiding it from them if they found out about it later since I really didn’t think anything of it (we are on good terms and if you didn’t know our history you wouldn’t think we were anything other then co-workers).
Anyways, beyond that, I wouldn’t bring anything up about my ex unless asked. The way I see it, if we hit if off and stay together, she’ll get to know all about my ex*, if not there’s no reason to spend any time talking about her since it really doesn’t matter.
*by that I mean because I have a kid (and two dogs) with her that all go back and forth. Since I’m still in contact with her on a regular basis (to talk about kid/dog stuff), if I was in a LTR with someone, they’re bound to hear things about my ex, just as I’m sure my ex’s boyfriend here’s plenty about me. Also, we were together for 11 years, that’s just over a 1/3 of my life and since we got together when we were young she was my only ‘real’ relationship. Not something I can just delete.
This situation is only peripherally related to online dating (it’s through Facebook) but I want to ask about it anyway:
There’s a woman who was BFFs with my ex-wife for a long time (maid of honor etc.). She was around a lot and we always got along great. A year or more before we divorced, my ex and ‘M’ had quite falling out and they haven’t spoken since.
‘M’ and I caught each other on FB a little over a year ago through a mutual friend; I can’t remember who found whom, but I think she initiated it. Anyway, we messaged and texted a bit, and tried a couple times to get our dogs and ourselves together. It never worked out because she lived an hour away, conversation tapered off, and apart from rare comments on photos etc. we haven’t communicated.
Well yesterday I got a message that more or less said: 1)I moved to the city! 2) Let’s get our fricking dogs together for a play date 3) You still haven’t made me sushi (I had just taken a class when we were talking last year) and 4) If you make sushi I’ll bring the booze. 5) Let me know if this sounds interesting.
Well yeah, it actually does sound interesting. Question is, what is the ratio of probability that her intentions are 1) friendly/platonic or 2) potentially romantic? I don’t want to go into it expecting anything, but I don’t want to be flat-footed either.
Female perspective? If you were to send a message like that, what would your underlying motive likely be?
So I’ve been on match for a little over 4 months now. I haven’t had one date yet.
I send roughly 20 messages and about 50 winks a month. In those 4 months, I’ve had 2 replies and 3 wink backs. Those messages and winks never went anywhere.
I’ve also never been messaged first and I’ve only been winked at first three times. I wasn’t physically attracted to them so I politely declined the winks.
The messages I send are not a generic “copy and paste” type of message either. They’re actually personalized and profile specific.
It seems at this rate, it’s almost a certainty that I’m going to take advantage of the “6 month guarantee” that match is offering.
You’re doing better than me. I’ve never got anyone on there to speak to me at all. To be fair, I haven’t really messaged that many people, maybe a dozen. To be honest, I forced myself to do that. I actually have never seen any profile on there that interested me. Probably because I live in the bible belt amongst a bunch of hicks.
Try OkCupid. I’ve noticed that it tends to attract a crowd that’s quite a bit less main-stream that Match. More atheists, more body art, more artists, etc.
