The Online Dating Thread 3..**READ 1ST POST Oct 2012**

riveratom

Most of the messages I get are just 'hi how are you'.

I think it's a bit of a red herring though. If you get a message like that from someone you like the look of, you'll still probably reply.

Max Power1

sharper wrote: »

Let's extend your analogy into the online dating world. Girl walks into a room and 10 guys simultaneously shout "Hi, how are you!?" at her (plus one weirdo with his pants down leering) and all are expecting a response.

".

Best. Analogy. Ever.

Seriously thanks dude(ette)
Im now surrounded by an office of people wondering "what is maxpower1 breaking his sh!t laughing at"

seachto7

riveratom wrote: »

Most of the messages I get are just 'hi how are you'.

I think it's a bit of a red herring though. If you get a message like that from someone you like the look of, you'll still probably reply.

true. :)

sffc

Dovies wrote: »

hollypink wrote: »

He also said if it didn't work out and I was still on the site, he'd be in touch.

Sorry to hear that Holly. If he does - tell him to feck off! :P

Again this goes back to "Irish people don't date - they shift " . The guy had the decency to be honest and didn't string Holly along. He " gets "dating and good luck to him. There's nothing wrong with going on a date with a few ppl and then going steady. If it doesn't work out it takes a certain amount of guts to reapproach someone. The cowardly thing is to date both simultaneously without the other knowing and then suddenly drop one with a lame excuse. This is happening to loads of you OD'ers on this thread - you just don't know.

hollypink

sffc wrote: »

Again this goes back to "Irish people don't date - they shift " . The guy had the decency to be honest and didn't string Holly along. He " gets "dating and good luck to him. There's nothing wrong with going on a date with a few ppl and then going steady. If it doesn't work out it takes a certain amount of guts to reapproach someone. The cowardly thing is to date both simultaneously without the other knowing and then suddenly drop one with a lame excuse. This is happening to loads of you OD'ers on this thread - you just don't know.

I have to be honest, I'd have preferred a lame excuse. Maybe that's because I don't "get" dating as you put it but there you go. He didn't particularly do anything wrong but it's not nice to hear that you would be the fallback if things didn't work out with the other girl.

sharper

hollypink wrote: »

I have to be honest, I'd have preferred a lame excuse.

Most people would have just gone completely silent leaving you wondering what you did "wrong". Once or twice is easy to dismiss but most people end having to deal with recurring patterns of sudden silence that eats into their confidence and esteem.

The "We'll keep your CV on file" type response isn't nice either but at least you know what's what and that you don't have something wrong with you that you don't know about that puts people off.

stargazer 68

hollypink wrote: »

He didn't particularly do anything wrong but it's not nice to hear that you would be the fallback if things didn't work out with the other girl.

While I agree with sffc about letting you know and being honest I think the bit about getting in touch with you again if it doesnt work out would be a turn off for me!

Esoteric_

seachto7 wrote: »

This is something that pees me off a bit to be honest. If you meet someone in real life, and are introduced, the first thing you will say is "Hi, how are you?". Obviously, I have just been browsing women's profiles on POF but many of them won't reply to "hi, how are you". It appears they would prefer men to jump through hoops and come out with something unbelievably witty and profound in other to get a reply, which, if it happened in real life would just be odd....:pac:

I don't reply to 'Hi, how are you?' messages. I'll explain my reasoning as best I can.

In real life, you're right, you do approach somebody and ask how they are. In real life, though, you're only going on how the person looks, so are approaching them to speak to them.

Online, you are essentially selling yourself on your profile. If I put effort into my profile, to get my personality across, somebody saying 'Hi, how are you?' strikes me as the same sort of thing I'd get in a pub or a club - interested in my face (or other body parts :pac: ) and wanting to find out about my personality. But because I have expressed my personality quite well on my profile (at least, I think so), I would expect that since the guy has some information to hand when reading my profile, a 'Hi, how are you?' message would be indicative to me that he either hasn't bothered his backside to read my profile, or just doesn't care what's in it, neither of which bode well for a guy messaging me.

If that makes me sound snotty, so be it. To be honest, we all know that women tend to be inundated with messages, and if I get 20 messages in a day, I will reply to the ones which seemed interesting and seemed like they genuinely wanted to get to know me. If I were to reply to every message I get, I'd never be offline, and neither would many of the women here!

Herrick

LyndaMcL wrote: »

Online, you are essentially selling yourself on your profile. If I put effort into my profile, to get my personality across, somebody saying 'Hi, how are you?' strikes me as the same sort of thing I'd get in a pub or a club - interested in my face (or other body parts :pac: ) and wanting to find out about my personality. But because I have expressed my personality quite well on my profile (at least, I think so), I would expect that since the guy has some information to hand when reading my profile, a 'Hi, how are you?' message would be indicative to me that he either hasn't bothered his backside to read my profile, or just doesn't care what's in it, neither of which bode well for a guy messaging me.

If that makes me sound snotty, so be it. To be honest, we all know that women tend to be inundated with messages, and if I get 20 messages in a day, I will reply to the ones which seemed interesting and seemed like they genuinely wanted to get to know me. If I were to reply to every message I get, I'd never be offline, and neither would many of the women here!

So what would you do if a guy messaged, hadn't really read your profile, but you thought he seemed decent enough and was really hot?

Esoteric_

Herrick wrote: »

So what would you do if a guy messaged, hadn't really read your profile, but you thought he seemed decent enough and was really hot?

Wouldn't reply. I don't judge someone solely on their looks and profile content.

LegacyUser

I would love to meet someone and try online dating again. But I unemployed at the moment. This is putting me off creating a new profile as I don't have much money for going out and I think men will run for the hills once they hear about my job status. What do you guys think?

Herrick

LyndaMcL wrote: »

Wouldn't reply. I don't judge someone solely on their looks and profile content.

Nice to see someone that sticks to their guns I'd say your in the minority though.

I've gone through countless womens profiles with the same lines "Please read my profile and be original with your message. I hate the usual boring hi how are you"

Then I end up getting messages from the very women saying something like "Hi hows u? xx"

Who then proceed to ask me things that I have stated clearly in my profile.

Esoteric_

Herrick wrote: »

Nice to see someone that sticks to their guns I'd say your in the minority though.

I've gone through countless womens profiles with the same lines "Please read my profile and be original with your message. I hate the usual boring hi how are you"

Then I end up getting messages from the very women saying something like "Hi hows u? xx"

Who then proceed to ask me things that I have stated clearly in my profile.

Tbh, the best looking guys who have messaged me have been the ones to say 'Hi' and nothing else. I'd rather someone not be an oil painting, and have an actual interest in me and not my pictures (especially since I'm average looking at best!).

I think it's ridiculous for women or men to just say 'hi.' If someone asked me questions that I already had answered on my profile, I'd ignore them. I guess it's more difficult for men to do that though, because men tend to get fewer messages.

Piliger

LyndaMcL wrote: »

Wouldn't reply. I don't judge someone solely on their looks and profile content.

Nor me. Not any more. I'm older and have been down that road. I don't answer lady's smilies, or one word hellos. I also don't respond to interest from outside Dublin. I've been through LDR's and they are a nightmare.

I am 100% convinced that it is women who are the most judgemental on 'looks', not men at all. Men see attractiveness in a wide variety of women. This is why women don't answer so many messages. I have written dozens of very pleasant messages, showing an interest in profiles and aspects of profiles etc that have received no answer. Some have been deleted unread. On badoo, 2/3 of all of the messages I have left remain unread after more than a week.

On the whole, despite the penis photos and the abuse ... I think men actually behave better on OD.

sharper

Piliger wrote: »

I am 100% convinced that it is women who are the most judgemental on 'looks', not men at all. Men see attractiveness in a wide variety of women.

I think the difference is between men as individuals/men as a group versus women as individuals and women as a group.

Men as individuals are more focussed on physical appearance however there are wide differences between individual taste. The effect of this is that most women (probably 90 or 95%) have some set of men that are physically attracted to them on that basis, alone, not knowing anything else about them.

Women as individuals are less focussed on appearance but the differences between individual taste as much smaller. The effect of this is that only maybe the top 20% of best looking men will have women that are attracted to them on that basis alone.

okcupid used to do some interesting blog posts on this type of thing. There is the classic stereotype of the shirtless guy on dating websites and their analysis showed that yes this does work but only if you have a great body that's worth showing off.

All of my percentages are completely made up of course, just based on my own experience.

mood

sharper wrote: »

I think the difference is between men as individuals/men as a group versus women as individuals and women as a group.

Men as individuals are more focussed on physical appearance however there are wide differences between individual taste. The effect of this is that most women (probably 90 or 95%) have some set of men that are physically attracted to them on that basis, alone, not knowing anything else about them.

Women as individuals are less focussed on appearance but the differences between individual taste as much smaller. The effect of this is that only maybe the top 20% of best looking men will have women that are attracted to them on that basis alone.

okcupid used to do some interesting blog posts on this type of thing. There is the classic stereotype of the shirtless guy on dating websites and their analysis showed that yes this does work but only if you have a great body that's worth showing off.

All of my percentages are completely made up of course, just based on my own experience.

I'm female and totally disagree.

miec

I have responded to the 'hi, how are you' messages but I have found that the online conversations rarely go anywhere. An example might be thus:

'Hi how are you'
'I am grand, how are you?'
'Fine. What you up to?'
(I am tempted to say sitting on the couch with the laptop wearing my old pyjamas etc I tend to say..
'Not much, how about you?'
'Taking it easy. where do you live?'
(At this point I want to shoot myself but in trying to be fair I look at their profile which usually has nothing on it but maybe they mention a dog or something)
' I live X town, I see you have a dog, how old is it? What is it's name'
'The dog is called spot. He is a year old.'
'That's nice' I reply.
By this point I have given up, I am bored by the person and going along with the pub analogy, when someone says hi how are you and you reply back fine, etc, the conversation needs to flow otherwise you get bored, the above is not exciting.

I think there is an element of laziness online, a majority of people (please note people - not just men or just women) put nothing on their profile and rely on their pics (even the bad pics) and when they drag themselves to mail you it is the hi how are you or the 'hey hun how's your weekend' and if you do take a punt on them, e-mail conversation is dragged from them. This denotes to me that they are not genuinely interested in meeting someone, they are just dipping their toe in but they also get frustrated at the lack of success and wonder why?

Now I haven't been successful online in recent times but I am interested in people and ask them questions, show interest in their hobbies but I have encountered far too many lazy people online who can't be arsed so for now I have given up, not forever but just for now as its not fun for me at the moment.

>epic rant over

sharper

mood wrote: »

I'm female and totally disagree.

Which bit? Would you say female taste equals the diversity of male? That women are as attracted based on appearance as men are?

Mr_Spaceman

hollypink wrote: »

I've been messaging someone from pof for a few weeks now and he had suggested going on a date which I agreed to. He seemed nice and we had a good bit in common so I was feeling optimistic. I should have known when he was saying things like "I'll come back to you with a plan for the date", instead of just suggesting a day and time. I just got a message saying he'd met someone else from the site and after one date he felt it might go somewhere so that was that. He also said if it didn't work out and I was still on the site, he'd be in touch. All of which made me feel a bit lousy I know you have to take the good with the bad when it comes to online dating but it's not always easy.

Sorry to hear that Holly. I'm sure you don't need the likes of me advising you not to be anyone's second prize.

If yer man with the brass neck does get on touch, ignore him - or politely ask him to jog on.

miec

On the whole, despite the penis photos and the abuse ... I think men actually behave better on OD.

I am disappointed with the above statement - flashing in public is considered a criminal offence and a man sending a random, unasked for picture of his penis is in my opinion no different to a flasher in public. It is offensive to me and upsetting too. That is completely unacceptable behaviour and as a recipient of this behaviour I have very little recourse to confront the individual.

You have the words penis and abuse but yet your statement says that men are better behaved!!!!!!!!!!!

In what way are women worse behaved?

miamee

miec wrote: »

I have responded to the 'hi, how are you' messages but I have found that the online conversations rarely go anywhere. An example might be thus:

'Hi how are you'
'I am grand, how are you?'
'Fine. What you up to?'
(I am tempted to say sitting on the couch with the laptop wearing my old pyjamas etc I tend to say..
'Not much, how about you?'
'Taking it easy. where do you live?'
(At this point I want to shoot myself but in trying to be fair I look at their profile which usually has nothing on it but maybe they mention a dog or something)
' I live X town, I see you have a dog, how old is it? What is it's name'
'The dog is called spot. He is a year old.'
'That's nice' I reply.
By this point I have given up, I am bored by the person and going along with the pub analogy, when someone says hi how are you and you reply back fine, etc, the conversation needs to flow otherwise you get bored, the above is not exciting.

I think there is an element of laziness online, a majority of people (please note people - not just men or just women) put nothing on their profile and rely on their pics (even the bad pics) and when they drag themselves to mail you it is the hi how are you or the 'hey hun how's your weekend' and if you do take a punt on them, e-mail conversation is dragged from them. This denotes to me that they are not genuinely interested in meeting someone, they are just dipping their toe in but they also get frustrated at the lack of success and wonder why?

Now I haven't been successful online in recent times but I am interested in people and ask them questions, show interest in their hobbies but I have encountered far too many lazy people online who can't be arsed so for now I have given up, not forever but just for now as its not fun for me at the moment.

>epic rant over

+1 I agree 100% with all of this, in particular the bit in bold. When people are not having any success, men seem to blame the women, women blame the men, tarring all with the same brush. Some people will not make a real effort, it's the same on both sides I am sure.

Also, your conversation made me laugh - that is *always* the way it goes, without fail. So dull and one of the reasons I don't bother to answer the "hi how are you" messages. A painful road to nowhere and a waste of my time and theirs.

mood

sharper wrote: »

Which bit? Would you say female taste equals the diversity of male? That women are as attracted based on appearance as men are?

Yes, form the females I know personally our tastes in men are very diverse. No, I don't think women judge men on looks as much as men do.

Mr_Spaceman

Piliger wrote: »

I am 100% convinced that it is women who are the most judgemental on 'looks', not men at all. Men see attractiveness in a wide variety of women. This is why women don't answer so many messages. I have written dozens of very pleasant messages, showing an interest in profiles and aspects of profiles etc that have received no answer. Some have been deleted unread. On badoo, 2/3 of all of the messages I have left remain unread after more than a week.

It's patently obvious that the OD 'experience' of men and women vastly differ, generally speaking.

I've lost count the number of carefully-crafted, witty (even if I say so myself!) messages I've sent to women. If I'm lucky I get about 1-2 replies from a couple of dozen. Occasionally one might lead to a date once in a while. That's a lot of time and effort for precious little.

So, as I have never sent a 'Hi, how are you?' message, and my profile is interesting and detailed, I can only conclude that the majority of women are every bit as shallow as men when it comes to OD. Which is fine, really.

But here's the thing. I could get a row here, but maybe, just maybe, men are more honest when we say we are primarily piqued by looks. Because from where I'm sitting it doesn't seem to matter about the effort you put into your profile and messages, if you don't have amazing photos you'll struggle.

Piliger

hollypink wrote: »

I've been messaging someone from pof for a few weeks now and he had suggested going on a date which I agreed to. He seemed nice and we had a good bit in common so I was feeling optimistic. I should have known when he was saying things like "I'll come back to you with a plan for the date", instead of just suggesting a day and time. I just got a message saying he'd met someone else from the site and after one date he felt it might go somewhere so that was that. He also said if it didn't work out and I was still on the site, he'd be in touch. All of which made me feel a bit lousy I know you have to take the good with the bad when it comes to online dating but it's not always easy.

I disagree with other's comment on this. This is a guy who was open and honest about his actions. What he was doing is EXACTLY what most of the other people are doing, men and women, all the time ... except they don't tell you and just 'disappear' from time to time.

OD is like this. You meet a few people for coffee, sometimes overlapping. Then sometimes in the middle of it you meet someone who you think might be special. Some people will keep seeing multiple people. This guy was honest that he didn't do that. I think he should be commended, even though he may have been a little too up front.

mood

Mr_Spaceman wrote: »

It's patently obvious that the OD 'experience' of men and women vastly differ, generally speaking.

I've lost count the number of carefully-crafted, witty (even if I say so myself!) messages I've sent to women. If I'm lucky I get about 1-2 replies from a couple of dozen. Occasionally one might lead to a date once in a while. That's a lot of time and effort for precious little.

So, as I have never sent a 'Hi, how are you?' message, and my profile is interesting and detailed, I can only conclude that the majority of women are every bit as shallow as men when it comes to OD. Which is fine, really.

But here's the thing. I could get a row here, but maybe, just maybe, men are more honest when we say we are primarily piqued by looks. Because from where I'm sitting it doesn't seem to matter about the effort you put into your profile and messages, if you don't have amazing photos you'll struggle.

I disagree. I have not replied to good looking men who sent good first emails etc because we want different things / because they smoke / because of location / because i had a date lined up and am not into multi-dating etc. There are loads of reasons someone male or female might not reply.

Esoteric_

Mr_Spaceman wrote: »

It's patently obvious that the OD 'experience' of men and women vastly differ, generally speaking.

I've lost count the number of carefully-crafted, witty (even if I say so myself!) messages I've sent to women. If I'm lucky I get about 1-2 replies from a couple of dozen. Occasionally one might lead to a date once in a while. That's a lot of time and effort for precious little.

So, as I have never sent a 'Hi, how are you?' message, and my profile is interesting and detailed, I can only conclude that the majority of women are every bit as shallow as men when it comes to OD. Which is fine, really.

But here's the thing. I could get a row here, but maybe, just maybe, men are more honest when we say we are primarily piqued by looks. Because from where I'm sitting it doesn't seem to matter about the effort you put into your profile and messages, if you don't have amazing photos you'll struggle.

I don't think women lie or hide the fact that they judge on looks. Let's face it, everyone does to some extent.

I would definitely go for personality over looks, but in an online dating situation, sometimes personality alone isn't enough because there will always be guys with personality and looks messaging too. All the guys I've dated either from OD or offline weren't what anyone would call attractive, but I found them attractive mainly because of their personality.

Going for personality is great, but there has to be some level of physical attraction too.

riveratom

I don't think guys behave better than women on OD sites, it might be nice to think so, but I don't see how that could be possible. It's not the case in real life so not sure how it could auto-magically change when online. In fact, it could only be worse as all the Johnny Bravo keyboard warrior types are surely out in force.

I'm not sure why the likes of POF don't have screening mechanisms for the penis pics?! It would be simple to implement I am sure - can only assume they can't be bothered - or it would mean less traffic to the site as fewer blokes would sign up.

For me, I think that for guys it's a case of if you fancy someone, you'll email them, or you'll reply to their email. For a woman, she might reply to you even if she isn't crazy about you looks-wise, but she sees something in your profile or in how you come across. I know for me I have to have some level of attraction, and I'm sure nearly every other bloke is the same - whereas girls might be more flexible...maybe.

At the end of the day, the biggest factors at play are your looks and your profile. You can do feck all about your looks (apart from losing weight, if you need to - makes a big difference!), but you can definitely keep your profile spruce and refreshed regularly. Best foot forward and all that.

I find it's working for me - I put up better pics a while back and came across all dynamic (!) in my profile (still truthful of course), and I'm getting lots of attention this past couple of weeks :pac:

Piliger

Mr_Spaceman wrote: »

. . .but maybe, just maybe, men are more honest when we say we are primarily piqued by looks. Because from where I'm sitting it doesn't seem to matter about the effort you put into your profile and messages, if you don't have amazing photos you'll struggle.

Yet ... why do men across the board get so few replies ? I suggest it is because despite all the effort in messages, we are being judged immediately on looks, in total contradiction to what we are always being told ... which I think is politically correct BS.
And I say that as a guy 50+ .. who is definitely, and I know this sounds ghastly, is well above average in looks and condition.
I think women are browsing away on OD ... dreaming of their imaginary prince charming. Men are incredibly visual, but we see beauty or potential beauty in a far wider range of women.

My two cents.

Mr_Spaceman

mood wrote: »

I disagree. I have not replied to good looking men who sent good first emails etc because we want different things / because they smoke / because of location / because i had a date lined up and am not into multi-dating etc. There are loads of reasons someone male or female might not reply.

Okay, fair enough - and I wouldn't criticize you at all for that.

However, I still feel a very poor reply to message ratio would indicate a certain shallowness from a large percentage of women on dating sites.

Piliger

miec wrote: »

I am disappointed with the above statement - flashing in public is considered a criminal offence and a man sending a random, unasked for picture of his penis is in my opinion no different to a flasher in public. It is offensive to me and upsetting too. That is completely unacceptable behaviour and as a recipient of this behaviour I have very little recourse to confront the individual.

You have the words penis and abuse but yet your statement says that men are better behaved!!!!!!!!!!!

In what way are women worse behaved?

For the reasons I set out.