At least 3 women I dated from online remarked that I looked exactly like my photos.
Kind of pissed me off how many tools were ruining for the rest of us.
I think it is mostly scammers that do this. They never intend to meet in person, so the photos are just bait.
I have met one woman who used photos 10 years and 40 lbs. or so out of date.
It is also pretty common for all women to show only neck-up photos. Some of the are very overweight, some are chesty, and don’t want the focus on that.
There is also an inflation competition that goes on. If the norm is for obese people to describe themselves as “a few extra pounds” then someone that really does only have a few extra pounds will sound obese if they accurately self described.
One issue I have had is that I really am 6’5". I think more than few women see that and assume it is an exaggeration. The ones that meet me usually remark with some variation of “You really ARE that tall.”
So we’re really going to do this now?
I see absolutely no evidence that only 10% of world’s males are lucky enough to have a SO. My eyes tell me quite the contrary. Do you think being a male entitles you to post whatever you want, without anyone calling BULLSHIT? Because you know good and well that’s not how this place works.
I’m not telling you that your feelings are wrong or pretending to speak as some kind of expert on male angst. But you didn’t express a feeling. You expressed an assertion–that only the top 10% of males can get away with being honest when wooing women. That’s crazy talk, my friend. I understand that you’re struggling with loneliness, but there’s no need to exaggerate how bad the situation really is.
How are you defining “elite”?
Beause I’m telling you, I’m surrounded by non-elite people who are all married or girlfriended. I’m the only one in my office who is not partnered up. What do you make of this observation, Weslely? Do you think I’m lying? Or do you think it’s possible the stakes aren’t against you as much as you’d like to believe?
Whatever, dude. You’ve got your mind up that you have to lie to get laid. Maybe for you that’s true. I don’t know (and don’t really care to know). But I’m finding it very hard to believe that 90% of guys are catfishing. If the situation was truly this dire, then there would be a whole lot more pissed off women out there, complaining about being duped by losers.
It is possible that an average guy has to work extra hard to convince an above average women that he’s got it going on. But that doesn’t mean an average guy can’t find himself an average women (or a below average woman) through honest means.
Responses to my online dating profile significantly increased when I commented I was crazy. And not hah hah crazy fun times crazy, actually borderline crazy crazy. I mean I actually said something along those lines in the profile.
Go figure.
I dont get that at all. MONSTRO is right. Just hang in there, be honest and listen and have a job and its really easy to date. And if it doesnt work out with her she mifht introduce her to her friends if ur cool.
This is getting off topic monstro, if you have an issue with my views you can start another thread. My point was that for men some will create fake profiles of very attractive, in demand men to run social tests. That is a reason for catfishing. I never said men are required to lie to get dates, but some men are curious about what Internet dating is like for the minority of high demand men. That is a motivator for catfishing. You are accusing me of saying things I never said and then insulting me based on your incorrect assumptions.
I tried online dating for a few months and didn’t really have a ton of success. I had a good handful of dates where all the women were “as advertised” so to speak. I did have one date though where the woman grossly misrepresented herself. And I don’t mean that this woman was just a few years older, or perhaps a few pounds heavier, than her provided pictures suggest. I mean she was clearly a different person with significantly different appearance than the photos she had sent me. I suspect, in hindsight, that the photo was of her daughter or some other younger family member. We had polite conversation over drinks and dinner and then I excused myself and went home.
To this day I still wonder why she misrepresented herself. What was her motivation for doing that? What did she think the outcome was going to be? I just don’t get it.
I am to be as honest as possible personally, but I can imagine some reasoning why guys may do this. First, and perhaps most innocently, the guy is just in denial. Maybe he doesn’t think he looks as different as he did 5 years ago. He doesn’t really realize that what he thinks only looks like 5-10 lbs is actually 30-40, or what he thought was a slightly receding hairline or hardly noticeable wrinkles are far more noticeable. I’ve also been on dates with women where they weren’t dishonest pictures, they just are REALLY photogenic, as they clearly were of her and were recent, but maybe it’s the lighting or makeup or whatever, she just looked way better in the photo. Similarly, I’ve been on dates where I thought she looked okay in the photo and whatever it was, whether just a bad photo or something gleaming about her personality, but she was way more attractive in person. Either way, I’d like to think that most people who don’t look like their photos just fall into somewhere between denial or general unawareness.
I think there’s also the group who hope to mislead. Yeah, it’s stupid, but maybe they hope that if their personality is awesome enough that it will overcome any physical shortcomings. Maybe they realize that they’ve put on weight, but hope the person they meet with will see it as more of that first category and just kind of accept it, especially if they’ve made a point of getting connected via email, text or chat a fair amount before meeting. If it’s not even a picture of them, maybe they hope they look similar enough that it will work? I had a date with a woman last year, we got along great and she even looked like her pictures, but she lied about her age, by a fair amount. She looked a lot younger than she was, and when I saw her I thought she looked a little aged, but didn’t think much of it, people age differently and I liked her. Hell, I might well have be okay with it, but that she lied about it and didn’t seem to think it was a big deal when I figured it out… yeah, huge turn off.
There’s a third group that may well never intend to actually take things to actually meeting. Maybe it’s a social experiment to see what a beautiful person can get away with. Maybe they’re just desperate for attention and want someone of the opposite sex to talk to them, even if it’s under false pretenses. Hell, I’ve seen some where they get into that and it seems that they assumed the other person was basically doing the same thing. Maybe they’ll even set up a date with the intention of cancelling last minute to make it seem legit. Or maybe they do it not intending to take it farther then just fall so hard they don’t really think it through all the way.
Then, of course, there’s the scammers. I imagine there’s a lot more men getting scammed than women, but I’ve little doubt out there that there are. Pretend to be hot and whatever characteristics they think the other person wants, then start finding ways to ask for money or gifts or whatever.
I married in the mid 1990s, well before the era of internet dating sites. I consider myself above average looking so it would have been interesting to see how well I would have done in the digital dating scene. 
I also believe **monstro **is correct. I see many more schlubby guys dating or married to slightly less schlubby women than I do really attractive guys dating or married to any type of woman. Of course this does not mean that average or below average-looking guys don’t have difficulty getting dates; I am sure they do. I am just not convinced it is as dire as some make out, and that there may be other factors limiting their success rates.
Did you pay for dinner? Maybe she just wanted a meal.
This doesn’t contradict what he said at all.
Let’s say an unattractive man, on a dating website, finds that only 1 woman expresses interest in him. She becomes his girlfriend.
Now let’s say a highly attractive man, on a dating website, finds that 100 women express interest in him. He has numerous dates, but eventually decides that one woman is ‘the one.’ She becomes his girlfriend.
In both cases, both men ended up with girlfriends. But one had far more options than the other.
It’s been noted before that online dating makes people much choosier; they can instantly skim through dozens of profiles and go for the best ones immediately. It’s like HR or college admissions.
That’s not what he said. Internet dating is different; it’s much more objectifying.
I once had a woman tell me over the internet that she had an “athletic build”. I had gymnast or swimmer in mind, turned out she meant something more like defensive lineman.
As someone who has done the net dating thing (generally successfully) a few times the difference is that for many men, women reviewing online profiles are very selective not only on looks, but also a host of other fairly particular items (height, financial status, education, hairline etc.) and you can, and will, be rejected out of hand if these are not just so. And this is done by both attractive and average looking women. If a man is good looking enough they will take shot with a non-optimal profile, but average looking guys have a tough go if they do not have compensating attributes. It’s not “fair” but it’s kind of the same way people are wired to choose mates in real life except men don’t get a chance to turn on the personal charm (if they have any play in this area) which is a serious handicap for a lot of average looking guys with attractive personalities.
With men it’s usually body>face>kids yes/no> estimated maintenance level based on profile> smoking yes/no. Beyond that most other stuff is negotiable.
If a man or a woman is very good looking a lot of the other stuff gets shelved.
Wesley Clark, you’re funny. How about you take a gander at some of the less-than-knockout women on dating sites? There is no possible way there women are all after the top 5 or 10% of men. Or are they not good enough for you?
As an aside it was always surprising to me how many women across the board said they just LOVED to ride on the backs of motorcycles. If I was looking for serious online dating play it seems would almost be worth it to buy one.
Also, while not overtly stated I think military, police, fire etc. uniforms of various types were big attractors as well. If you were a guy in military digital camo on the back of a Harley you’d have to give out “now serving” numbers like they do at the deli.
How do you explain the fact that I, a wheelchair user have success on dating sites? Surely I’m not in that coveted “10%”.
Women in wheelchairs have success too. Sometimes a physical limitation is very intriguing to people.
OK, but we were discussing mens online dating experiences.