I imagined this with you wearing gauzy fairy wings and waving a magic wand.
My general rule-of-thumb WRT messaging: if they’re not interested enough to make an effort, then neither am I. I’ve been in one-sided relationships before, have no desire to repeat it again, and certainly won’t invite it into my life if it’s already happening before we’ve even met.
Besides which, if people really want something, they make the time, no matter how busy they are.
Ditto – it’s definitely not a date before I’ve even determined for sure whether I like the person – although I always leave myself both the option to leave quickly should it end up being that painful, and the option of letting it expand to longer if I’m really enjoying the conversation. I’m not opposed to spending a few hours with someone who turns out to be “friend material,” either – I’ve had a couple turn out that way and we ended up talking for several hours. We both had fun. It was pretty awesome.
It doesn’t have to be. One of my recent meetups consisted of lunch and then we sat in the shade at a nearby dog park and talked. We both like dogs, but neither of us has one. But we could watch the dogs play, and we could talk, and we ended up spending something like 4 hours there.
I did this once. Place smelled heavily of dog poo and when we sat on a bench to talk, a horny male dog decided to try his luck with what I assume was a female doggie. We’re sitting there trying to chat and five feet away those two were going at it (well, he was going at it, she was looking nonplussed). Funny but not my best first date.
Perfect timing!
There is a woman on a dating site who is recently divorced (3 months). This is her 3rd divorce. Yikes, I know. She has shown quite a lot of interest in me since I made the initial contact/flirting a couple weeks ago and we are at the stage were I asked her out for sometime next weekend and she said yes.
The thing about it is that she is out of my league looks wise. I have plenty to offer in a relationship but good looks ain’t one of them.
She seems intelligent and interesting enough over the phone and we have plenty to talk about but something just doesn’t feel right.
I mean I could except just being a rebound guy and that normally would be fine but honestly she could do better if all she wants is a booty call.
I’m just a little confused and curious about this is all.
I have every intention of going of course since I can’t afford to pass up chances to score with the ladies. Maybe I resemble an ex and she plans to do a Lorena on me. :eek:
Also please note that unless she’s a robot, 3 months ain’t anywhere near enough to get over a divorce. (From personal experience, one year and two years wasn’t enough for them, either – although they’d deny it to the end if you asked whether there was any remaining drama there. They were FINE. Aside from being terrified of relationships. But they were FINE! :D) If anything happens, you are definitely the rebound guy. It’s up to you whether you’re okay with that. But I wouldn’t set my expectations any higher.
Just sharing a worthless experience I had with Eharmony. Every girl that was interested in me and progressed past emails used the “best” but NOT (sometimes even remotely) recent photo of themselves. I would always ask for a facebook link which regrettably had the newer pictures. Needless to say none of them were cute in the present state and I immediately felt a strong sense of dishonesty and just never met them.
Eharmony has a ton of single mom’s as well and with out “wanting” children checked for matches your pool of available women will be noticeably decreased. Wanting apparently also includes kids that have already happened
Needless to say my sign up fee would of been better spent just bar hopping.
Or maybe you’re getting a “Danger, Will Robinson” vibe from her for other reasons, but since you haven’t put your finger on what it is yet, you’re focusing on the looks thing. Either way, be sure to tread very carefully. If you feel that something’s not right, it’s probably not.
When I was doing the online dating thing, I had much better luck with real dinner dates than at a coffee shop. I preferred quieter, more interesting independent restaurants, in a pedestrian-oriented neighborhood or lifestyle center where we could window shop or find a place for coffee or a nightcap if things went well.
I absolutely hate the way match is set up. IMHO, OKCupid is easier to navigate and I like the match algorithm. Is EHarmony like match? If so, I am skipping it.
EHarmony is unique in that you typically only get a “match” one time - unlike Match.com or OKC or others - where the same guys will show up over and over with some occasional new blood.
As for “getting stale” - it never hurts to update your dating profiles. When I was actively dating, I made it a habit to update my picture every month. This is really easy to do if you have a webcam - because you can view what you look like and keep clicking until you get one that you like. You can get a nice webcam for about $20 at Walmart (I prefer Logitechs, but that’s just me). I always make sure to put in the caption the month and year the picture was taken - that helps people like ajb867 from being disappointed.
Here’s my number one profile pic hint: SMILE! Zomg, if I see one more webcam profile pic where the person is not looking in to the camera - bangs head on desk
I know people often post pics where they are supposedly seductively pouty, or looking coy or serious or artsy-fartsy. And those are cool. But your best picture response will be one where you are smiling or genuinely laughing or just look happy and fun to be around. Trust me on this!!
Also, do go through and change your opening paragraph from time to time, and update your movies and likes/dislikes. Always stay honest, but try to add new items or change items so that it reflects where you are in life at that moment. Excited about an upcoming movie? put that in. Just finished reading a great book? Put that in. Have a funny quote? Add it!
People want to know they are going to enjoy being around you - make sure that comes across crystal clear.
To add to this. This works much better on OKC then on Match. On Match the only thing you see on the search pages is the profile picture, or the first paragraph if you have it set that way. However, on OKC, any time you change pretty much anything about your profile, it’ll show up on other random people’s home pages. I’ve found that adding a picture or answering some of the quiz questions will generate some traffic, but fixing a spelling mistake can too.
My general rule of thumb is that someone needs to have been separated or divorced and living on their own for at least a year before they are really ready for a serious relationship. (I’ve met one too many people who were separated but still living with their spouses and trying to date. bwah? no thanks!)
I admit, I wasn’t ready to date as soon as I did - which is why I went a little crazy there for a while - to the point where I sometimes couldn’t remember the guy’s name I was out with. I did that for a few months before I settled down and was really looking for a relationship.
So consider this date to be a nice diversion, but not necessarily relationship material. At 3 divorces, I would definitely want to hear brief back stories on why they didn’t work out and what she was looking for in a relationship. It sounds to me like she’s either unsure herself, or she just doesn’t like to be alone.
Finally, stop beating yourself up. If you go in to this date thinking she’s out of your league, you’ll put up with crap you shouldn’t because you think you’re getting the better end of the deal. She’s lucky that you didn’t hear “3 divorces” and go screaming in to the night. And you are on the SDMB, so you obviously are the hawt.
Yup, you’re right. However - when you change your pic - people may not realize they’ve already looked at your profile before, and then click through. And if you change the opening paragraph - they’ll not immediately dismiss your profile with “oh wait, I’ve read this before” - they’ll read through and give your profile a second glance.
Sometimes daters, especially new daters, will eliminate a lot of profiles the first time through because they have a particular scenario worked out in their heads of what’s “ideal” - then when they realize this is online dating, not Weird Science, and that we are all normal humans, they look with a more educated eye. But they still might not go back and review past profiles without a little creative initiative.
eHarmony has made some changes since I was on it - so people - please correct me if I’m wrong.
When I was on EH, you had to fill out this very, very long profile of all your likes and dislikes. Then they would tell you who you matched with - they wouldn’t let you search for matches. You review each one and determine if you are interested in going further with the match or if you wanted to decline right there. If you decline, you have the opportunity to select from a set of reasons why this match doesn’t work for you. Things like: age difference is too great, I don’t feel a connection, our views and beliefs are different, i’m seeing someone, etc.
If you move forward, you will pick a few choice questions from a pre-made list and send it to the person. They then decide whether they would choose to answer it or not. The questions might be something like: On any given weekend, you will probably find me: A) out in the park B) reading a good book C) working in my yard D) spending a lazy day in bed. When they answer, they then have a chance to send you a list of questions as well - which you answer.
Stage 3 is essay questions - where you either pick from a list of pre-made topics, or write some of your own. If you both like the answers well enough to go forward, then Stage 4 is onsite emails. Then they have a system where you can call each other without giving out your actual phone numbers. And then, once you feel like you want to meet - you go forward with that.
All along the way, you have the opportunity to just close the match and choose a reason why. I believe the person has one opportunity to respond back with a pre-written response like “I wish you’d reconsider” or something. It’s all very calculated - it’s like teaching someone how to line dance, because they feel more comfortable being told what steps to do rather then trying to just get out on the floor and get jiggy with it.
They will send you new matches as they come in the system. Usually they will only send you so many matches at one time until you work through all the possibilities. There’s also a way to fast-track the process if you want - I’ve only done that once and found the person to be more in to booty calls than relationships. We never met.
eHarmony didn’t work for me - I found it too frustrating to go through all that work and then have something go nowhere. But YMMV, of course.
My ex and I weren’t married, but he was back on OKCupid while I was still living in his house (after the breakup it took a couple of weeks for me to find a new place and move). I would have felt so sorry for any woman who agreed to meet him then!
After I told my ex that I was divorcing him - I moved in to the spare bedroom and gave him some time to figure out what he was going to do (his family lived in another state, and he was unemployed.)
Even though I was mentally ready to party, I didn’t even consider it until I was out on my own and 1,600 miles separated the 2 of us.
Unfortunately not true. I recently turned my matches and resubscribed to EHarmony. It didn’t take two days before I got matched up with my ex-boyfriend (who I met through EH the first time around). I knew he was back on since October, but hadn’t told him (yet) that I was “getting back out there”. Thanks EHarmony!
I immediately closed the match, but he sent me a humorous email bemoaning the fact that I dismissed him so quickly and didn’t even give him a chance. (We are still very good friends)
They must only hold the database for so long, and even though you use the same account, they “clear” out previous matches. It happened to him and his ex prior to me also, so this is an ongoing “issue.”
It seems that EH sends you a bunch of new matches right before your membership is set to expire, and immediately after.
BTW, today I got an email from OKC saying that I was in the top half of their most attractive people (I guess I’m at 51% or something). I will also be matched with more attractive people, which means they have been sending me all ugly ones up to this point, I guess.
But I keep getting IMs and messages from men in their late-twenties to early-thirties (I am in my forties) who keep telling me they like older women! Seems like they only want to hook up with a “cougar”, not have a relationship, because none of them can tell me why we are compatible (except that they thought I looked “sexy”). I actually find this insulting.
Everything else in your post is correct, but they’ve changed the above. That used to be the way to dismiss a match (they call it “closing”). Now you first have to “archive” a match, which removes it from your new match page, then once it’s moved to archived, you can go in a close it. However, there is no longer an option to give a reason, it’s just close and move on.
My tip for everyone out there (but for now my main experience is EH): fill out the entire profile. Seriously, I will dismiss anyone (I don’t care how cute I find their initial picture) that can’t even be arsed to complete his profile. It’s not that hard, nor that long, and if you don’t do it - then I’m going to think you’ll put as much effort into a relationship as you did towards looking for one: none.
Do not under any circumstances mention sex/passion/or any code word that means sex in your profile. Not in any way, shape, or form. Do not say it’s one of things you can’t live without. Do not say it’s one of things that’s most important to you in a relationship. It’s (generally speaking) important to Everyone. If you make a point of mentioning it before we’ve even spoken, I’m going to dismiss you (rightly so or not) as someone who is interested in nothing but sex. Take that shit to Craig’s List.
Another thing (and probably ironic as I’m sure this post is riddled with examples): Shallow or not, I will dismiss you if you can’t spell. I know not everyone is perfect with vocabulary and grammar, but make an effort. At the very list run all things through a spell check before posting them. If you’re not sure of how to spell a word and mangled it so badly spell check is useless: use a different word you can spell. Would you go out on a first date in smelly, ripped clothing? Hopefully not, but to me, misspellings and really bad grammar in your profile is the equivalent.
Lastly - post a picture. Several if you want. But don’t post one where the person can’t see you at all (size/blurry/standing behind someone/whatever). You can include that picture if you’re say, white water rafting and want to show how much fun it was and that it’s an interest of yours. But not as the only picture. Women and men are both visual creatures - and call me out on this if you want, looks do matter. I’m not saying a man has to be an Adonis before I’ll consider him, but I am saying that I have to find him attractive.
Heh - I’m really not as horrid as I sound in this post
Ahh - having never subscribed to eHarmony more than once - I didn’t realize that when you repeat you will get your matches again - but that makes sense.
Mauvaise - did you play your ex the Pina Colada song? Lol.
**Divine Comedienne **- you are not the first one to mention that letter. I find the whole thing rathr redunkulous. . . . I mean, who determines this? Craziness.
