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| | 600 emails to get 5 dates???Page 8 of 14 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14) |
Overall the patterns showed that men were fine with taking long shots (rejection), while women stuck more with a 'sure thing'.
Makes sense. Comparatively speaking, online or IRL, you'll find the same.
THIS golf ball would have cut down on all those annoying golf ball emails by one had you simply declared in your profile that you were only interested in tennis balls.
No, you're absolutely right. Others are pointing out that they write in their profile to ward off any golf-balls, but they still write. Yeah, that will happen, especially on a free site like this. BUT you're correct, pointing it out CLEARLY would avoid a lot of it. On Match, they have it listed in a separate preferences list. A gal mentioning within a paragraph in her profile "i like guys taller than me" or "i prefer guys being white" can be missed out on.
And of course, gals going out of their way, showing their frustration in their profile getting golf-balls no matter what, will scare good catch guys. She wouldn't have to have any bouty-bouty attitude about it... she could just write it at the bottom of her profile, separated, as if it was part of the site -- just a list of what we don't have here:
My Dating Requirements in a Guy:*
Height: 5'9 - 6'4"
Body Type: Average, Thin, or Athletic
Occupation: Employed & Financially Secure
Ethnicity: White
Religion: Not religious or Non-Fundamentalist
Politics: No Preference
Kids: Has none
Smoke: Doesn't or trying to quit
Drink: Drinks but not more than 3 times a week
*If you do not meet these basic requirements, I will have to delete the email and not respond.
(See how that stands out? Now I look gay by putting it up there as a mere example. But it catches the eye, right? You'll still get golf-balls, I'm sure.. but what Hawking points out -- a lot would be wiltered away, with no excuse of missing it by skim reading) | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 11:24:27 AM |
It's the process that's the problem, the expectations of something better that may be found in the next hundred messages that keeps us from not meeting.
Yeah, I would agree with this statement. If someone is receiving 'lots' of messages (women), then yes they have to sort through to separate out the 'quality' messages. If in week one of being online she is messaged by a guy that is somewhat attractive, mildly compatible, almost the right income, etc.; she will probably be kind of excited and have a little bit of a confidence boost. If she receives a hundred more messages the next week and the top guy is even more attractive, higher income, even more compatible than last week's guy; then why even consider last week's guy. But hmmm...maybe she should wait until next week's 100 messages play out. How long does she wait until Brad Pitt (sorry Jinx, sorry Brad) messages her?
It is kind of like playing a game that rhymes with 'chaps'....how long do you let it ride? If you are lucky Bond girl, then you roll all night and leave with a carload of cash. Isn't this kind of the same psychological effect? Give it one more roll! Until a certain comfort level is reached and she finally walks away.
The friend I mentioned in an earlier post couldn't make up her mind on which guy finally stop at until a few weeks had passed. It was.."Well, I like this one but...". The next one was similar with a few extras (horses, hot tub). The one after that just added on a few extras on the one before(horses, hot tub, sports car, motorcycle) . Finally she stopped when it seemed like it would be really hard to top the last one. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 11:27:42 AM | Again after reading WIP's post, I go to "the rules are, there are no rules!"
Finally back to the heart of the matter. Everyone's experience is different on here some have success some don' t etc etc. Boils down to so many factors as individual as the posters. Comes down to how well you market yourself, what you have to market, how realistic you are being about what you are looking for, where you are looking, what your motives are etc. The first thing I learned about online dating and dating IRL in new millenium is that there are few rules and as a result alot less etiquette than there used to be IRL. It seems to me you need to be a salesman with a thick skin to succeed out there and not end up feeling snubbed these days. Lots of suggestion have been mentioned to improve your chance online and in real life but it is difficult to compare one persons experience to anothers without all the facts. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 12:47:06 PM | nice theory, Hawking, but no.
the main reason the golf balls email is because they don't read the profile and simply respond to a picture.
This may be true in many cases. But there are other common scenarios. Many other men may actually read the profile and match the listed requirements. But she doesn't like photo(s). Or he may be rejected due to other requirements not listed on the profile. Other men may realize that he doesn't exactly match her stated requirements. But he matches most of them. Therefore he still emails her and hopes that she may overlook the few items that he doesn't match. One example would be a man who is 1-2 inches under a woman's height requirement. But he meets all of her other listed requirements. | |
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Cmaj7
| | Joined: 6/2/2010
Msg: 180 | |
| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 12:52:24 PM | I hope not. I don't think there is that many women in this area. I suspect there is some truth to it. Perhaps embellished a little for impact.
I did read once somewhere on the wonderful Internet that men will generally find it easier to like women. Where as women find it more difficult to find interest in men. That would explain why men have to contact so many women before getting any interest. And you know if you read it on the Internet it must be true ;) | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 1:47:22 PM | From what I've seen so far, there's a different reality for men and women on here. I think trying to describe our experiences to the opposite gender is still interpreted through your own genders eyes.
It is like our clothes shopping habits. Men more than women will go into the store, find what they need, take what is offered, buy it and leave. Women will hit several stores try stuff on over and over- making it into a huge event. Women generally love clothes shopping more as evidenced by the 10 to 1 men's to women's clothes store ratio. They are very discerning about what they buy and also have more variety to chose from. From men availability of desired clothes is limited and they make due (or they don't get to wear shoes. From this women wonder why men wear plain stuff and men wonder why women spend so much time shopping.
The advertised ratio on here is 1.5 to 1 men to women. Doesn't sound so bad until you start scaling it up. There are 1000 women for every 1500 men here and that varies by area. If everyone paired off, 500 men would be left single.You or choice is to be left behind single or try something to get your self in the mix.
Somehow, I don't think people would come here if they had a full social calendar/ desirable dates lined up in real life. To ask them to walk away and remain single is not a choice. Learning to be happy with yourself is one thing, but choosing permanent isolation instead is not normal. Many people want to be paired up.
In real life, with the ratio of men to women to be 1 to 1, that nature designed us to pair off. But in internet dating, many of us are chasing the same thing- attraction, status and personality. The 80/20 rule seems to hold for both genders- 20% of the people get 80% of the attention. It just makes you believe that this does not work the same as real life.
Maybe its smell, maybe behavioral clues that we can't pick up on through a computer screen. Or maybe the media has us convinced that everyone out there looks like movie stars and we should be able to find one for ourselves. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 2:08:47 PM |
The advertised ratio on here is 1.5 to 1 men to women.
I just did a quick count for my area -- of people online today. Sunday late afternoon, that should be a good indicator of active users as far as comparisons go. Guys hit 31 pages. Girls hit 12. I on the other side of the state, in a more populated area in a burb-city with only a 10 mile radius: Guys pages was OVER the max of 35, girls 16. I selected body type of Average, Slim, Athletic to narrow the search (and by what most would desire as a bonus). And I put ages 21-35, the popular age range. I'm sure it varies for different age ranges.
I could buy that there's a 1.5 ratio or around that, as far as people who have made an account here. But as far as active people are concerned, I would say it's over a 2:1 ratio -- so a bit more sausage on the sandwich, right? lol | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 2:32:33 PM | | Well, the main thing here is about your looks. they dont really care about what you put on your profile. If you really good looking( model look) even though you dont share the same hobbies , they'll meet you. One of my friend he's a model very good looking man I made it try it one day to see the difference. He got 30 messages in 15 minutes from women who did not mind paying for his drink. No matter what you wrote in your profile if you're not a good looking one you would have to play the lotto really hard in order to get that date. | |
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LACali
| | Joined: 5/3/2010
Msg: 184 | |
| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 2:40:14 PM | | When men complain about this and then mention how the woman in question is getting 50 emails a day it is because they only email the most attractive women who can't even read all the emails they receive. Most of these guys are not on the same level. The same goes for women who want men who are not at the men's level. There are thousands of wonderful people who aren't perfect-beautiful, accomplished, wealthy etc. just average looking, great folks but they are mostly ignored. Then everyone goes around complaining that they get no responses. If you're sending out 500 emails with no responses then something is going on with you. Or online dating is not your forte. I found what I was looking for because I didn't expect him to be perfect. Just certain areas that were most important to me. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 4:41:57 PM |
I could buy that there's a 1.5 ratio or around that, as far as people who have made an account here. But as far as active people are concerned, I would say it's over a 2:1 ratio -- so a bit more sausage on the sandwich, right? lol
As usual- I think your right CR-
I read a post from a mod/tech support guy who had quit a few months ago. He basically said in the 4 years he had been here, the ratio was climbing due to more men, the response rate for email had dropped to a third of what it originally was and the place was becoming polluted with fake profiles. As with many system that mankind sets up, people always work to try to find a way around them, game them to increase their odds and/ or corrupt them.
Another thing is the number of guys that will message girls and say really crappy things to them. This just puts them off being here and ruins the experience. Frankly it has no place on a dating site and serves no good. Some try to put it under the blanket of honesty- but its really just showing what angry shltheads they themselves are. Admin would do well to try harder to put a lid on it and may need to pay some one to check up on it and ban users. Sure the abusers could create new profiles, but enough times would shut them down. Then again- Admin may want us to pay to be here too. That would probably scare all the ladies off. LOL | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 6:45:52 PM | Surely this thread must be getting close to having a limit put on it, but considering it's almost the only active thread in this otherwise largely dead forum, hopefully they'll let it keep going, but if you don't hear from me again after this...
Divine: I'm telling you, I do not email women who disqualify me in their POF profiles (see one caveat below). Do you think I'm lying? Any man who does this, particularly in a large market and on any semi-regular basis, is a freakin' moron. Thousands upon thousands of women writing next-to-nothng in their profiles and you can at most email 1200 of them in a single month, and you choose to waste some of your 1200 emails on the 10% of women who preemptively told you to go take a hike? I wouldn't worry too much about what these guys are up to. They are learning to tie their shoes between tapping random keys at random profiles. My dear lady, you have done all you can, and I applaud you for it, though I believe you discredit the majority of men based on the actions of a relatively loud minority. I'd just find a tennis ball and email him myself.
Now strangely enough, I'm going to disagree with the man who disagreed with you disagreeing with me.
My female friends who are on this site actually meet/have met a good number of men. I wouldn't doubt all of them are meeting the same top 10% men over and over again, but I'm quite certain it's a fallacy that most women on here aren't interested in meeting ANY men. They just don't want to meet MOST men. 20/80, someone said? I wouldn't be surprised if it was 10/90.
WIP: As I've said before to you and I'll say again, your profile is usually QUITE adequate. You tell the freaks to stay away. Some don't because they're morons (see second paragraph), but you've done the best you could. I have no bone to pick with you. But you're highly unrepresentative of most women on this site. I can't speak for the 600:5 golf ball but this 2000:0 didn't email any women that said they wanted to play tennis, and I'm not sure why nobody believes me when I say that.
CR: Actually, I once suggested to Admin there SHOULD be a text section designated "My ideal date" or whatever, you know, like 99% of other sites, which would help people feel less self-conscious about stating such things if everybody had that option. Guess that would cut down on the site's "revenue model," though.
Mr. F: I like your style, man.
V95: My one fairly recent meeting through Match actually occurred with a woman whose requirements I matched in every way except I was a couple inches short on the height. But I didn't email her asking her for a date. To make a long story short, I seriously thought I knew somebody she knew, based on something she said in her descriptive area -- turns out she didn't know that woman, but she kept writing me anyway and we eventually met. However, that was a very unusual situation there and under normal circumstances I wouldn't email a woman who disqualified me by an inch or two no matter how perfect she seemed otherwise, despite the fact that that one particular instance kinda worked out -- the difference being, I wasn't really trying to make anything "work out." Kinda like when I occasionally email a woman on POF because of our forum interactions, though I obviously don't meet her qualifications for dating -- because I'm not emailing her about a date. That one time it turned into something like a "date" is meaningless -- generally speaking it's a bad idea and a waste of time to email a woman who disqualifies you in her profile.
"When men complain about this and then mention how the woman in question is getting 50 emails a day it is because they only email the most attractive women who can't even read all the emails they receive."
Again, another argument for bringing back the "no first contact emails in the past 24 hours" search. I hate to tell you women this, but most guys are not very good at figuring out which women are receiving 50 emails a day. We know what repulses us, and we know what a supermodel a milion miles outside of our league looks like. In between is a "gray area" the vast majority of women fall into. That's thousands of women! (On POF, in major metros.) What's the difference between a woman in the 40th percentile and a woman in the 60th percentile? I have no idea! That's why it was really nice when POF took the guesswork out of this madness and just TOLD us which women weren't receiving any first contact emails. Shockingly, most of those in that search were not dogs. Well, shocking to some of us men -- probably not shocking to you non-dog women who weren't getting very many first contact emails! The only more useful search on the site was "Not Viewed" which somehow also got buried (though buried alive in that case).
Instead of taking away that "no emails" search, POF should have expanded it so we could also see "less than 10 first contact emails in the past week" or something. Because I'd use the hell out of that thing -- the only reason I would KNOWINGLY send an email to a woman receiving 100 first contact emails a day is if she was the world's most perfect woman for me, in which case, why not waste a SINGLE email to that woman? But for the most part, I'd much rather send emails to women (who I find attractive) who might actually have time to read my emails, but I, like most men, have little idea who these women are. So, again, I have to email nearly all women (who don't disqualify me in their profiles and don't look like supermodels) to assure that I hit those that might give me a chance. Which is how you can end up with 2000 first contact emails in 3 years: by having no idea where you fit in in the dating world, and POF doing absolutely nothing to help you figure that out.
BTW, every time I check the Bay area's gender ratio on active profiles (that is, people who have been online over the past 24 hours), it pretty much is 1.5 to 1. Not sure why other areas would be all that different, isolated Alaskan lumberjacking towns excepted. But as I said in one of the gender ratio threads, women getting a massive number of emails is more a function of the total population of an area, not gender ratios. Even if women outnumbered men 5 to 1, the most popular women would still get hundreds of emails in an area with thousands of users. But in an area with 10 users where men outnumber women 5 to 1, the most first contact emails a woman would get is 10, until someone new moved in. And here I actually agree with jinx and WIP: so what if men vastly outnumber women if the vast majority of men are playing golf? Women might actually outnumber "tennis" men by a substantial amount. Sausage fest advantage: tennis men. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 8:22:52 PM |
My dear lady, you have done all you can, and I applaud you for it, though I believe you discredit the majority of men based on the actions of a relatively loud minority.
my dear Hawking... after 5 plus years on this site and living in two different cities at the time, i can assure you that i do NOT discredit "the majority" of men based on the actions of the idiots.
but i am curious... do men get random emails like this:
Seriously...you sound like a total beyotch .... like...what ius atractive about u...
for i had not even LOOKED at this man's profile, much less sent him a message.
or this:
I'm a white male, but if you also like black guys and threesomes please write me back.
again, i had not looked at this man's profile, nor messaged him. and fortunately for me, he lives on the other side of Canada.
there is one man who is currently in my matches and under his previous profile, his fourth message to me was "can i lick you all over?" while none of the 3 previous messages gave... uh... rise to such a suggestion. he sent me an email under this profile that was deleted and blocked.
if someone like me dares to suggest that we are NOT attracted to these blatantly sexual come-ons, we are then treated to abusive emails along the lines of "stupid fat chick, you should be thanking me for the attention, what other man would even *offer*?"
i'm not discrediting the many based on this - i know there are good, kind, decent men out there (my sister is married to one) - but that loud "minority" is NOT a minority. from my perch up here on the cusp of my 50th birthday (which feels suspiciously like a spoiled "best before" date), those men are in the majority.
and i suspect that drivel like that is what comprises a LOT of the emails received by the young, beautiful 20% of women, too. which would go a LONG way to explain the 600 emails to get 5 dates!
the real miracle is that so many women stick around to try to find her needle in the haystack of male stupidity that is displayed by so many.... | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 8:45:11 PM | So send me an email ms. bovine and I will see what we can do!
Look I know women recieve nasty emails. Problem is some of these guys would rather recieve an nasty email than none at all for 6 months!
Having a "loud mouth" is not a bad thing so long as what comes out makes sense. Feisty is sexy! Bland is trash. JMHO
So your 50, so what, ain't the end of the world, as long as your breathing it's a good day. What's that saying"any day above ground is better than the alternative!" hahaha
But I digress, "so many women stick around", frankly I speak only for myself, but think other men would be sympatico. If a woman is so burned by lewd emails, nasty comments, horrific dates, I'm sorry for her experiences, but I'd rather she leave, try again later or not at all, than to stay and take it out on the other guys.
What in essence the women of this thread are asking is, " men put up with our preferences, meet our tests, be attractive, emotionally and fiancially stable, email us first, THEN if we decide, amybe we'll read your email, mayb we'll respond, but a dtae, you'll have to wait for that.
Seems a bit one sided, which is why I respond to women who write me, and only 5 to 7 a month, who I feel a kinship to in spirit. That is also why I have a 60% response rate. But other men, they want the package as you eluded to "barbie w/boobs" not my thing, need alot more upstairs where it counts, and downstairs(where her heart should be). | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 9:00:50 PM | ^^^The deck is stacked the way it's stacked - realistically or based on each person's perception from their own experience. So now what? Men are free not to participate if they don't like the rules. Women aren't asking men to do anything - so much as they are going with their dating preferences (and in some cases requirements).
Look I know women recieve nasty emails. Problem is some of these guys would rather recieve an nasty email than none at all for 6 months!
Why is that? Men would rather be acknowledged (allegedly) for writing an e-mail than not responded to when either way the answer is no. Is that about ego? Attention? What? This site is a place to get a yes or no and move on, not a place for response etiquette. Who cares so long as you get your answer? Women tend not to want a response if it's a no, because it's a false hope situation - and something tells me that if instead of read-unread/deletes, if women responded to all e-mails then men would start complaining about how 90% of their e-mails returned are no's and how depressing it is to be told no most of the time. I still think anything but an enthusiastic yes will be a complaint.
Men are free to not play that game if they don't want to. I know myself and friends of mine will sit back and not play the game if we don't like the rules - and it's because we'd rather not date if it's not in our best interest. Men have that same option. Because men tend to compete with each other rather than support each other, they tend to feel that excluding themselves will only give other men an edge. Should that bother a guy who doesn't want to deal with the rat race? No. But for some reason it does.
WIP: As I've said before to you and I'll say again, your profile is usually QUITE adequate. You tell the freaks to stay away. Some don't because they're morons (see second paragraph), but you've done the best you could. I have no bone to pick with you. But you're highly unrepresentative of most women on this site. I can't speak for the 600:5 golf ball but this 2000:0 didn't email any women that said they wanted to play tennis, and I'm not sure why nobody believes me when I say that.
My point doesn't refer to men who have an unclear idea what a woman wants. My point is in reference to men who have the information and either choose to ignore it, or try to negotiate the information to get themselves considered. HOWEVER, why men bother to message women who have no information to go on is beyond me, since it's a crapshoot and likely won't pan out. I assume that it's because her picture is enticing, but who knows. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 9:28:27 PM | "The deck is stacked the way it's stacked"
True true, as I said earlier, nothing said in this thread will change damn thing. since 90% of guys won't even see it, they will not know this little morsel of information exists. Further as you said, "men are free to not play the game" and "myself and friends of mine will sit back and not play".
Kinda reminds me of Vegas. I go there once or twice a year, just for sh1ts andd giggles. I put 1 or 2K in my kick, and play the games, kinda like blackjack. I do it for thrill and fun, almost a busman's holiday for me, as risk is built into my everyday job. Although I've left with a few grand a number of times, most times I know the odds are stacked in favor of the house. given that I still choose to play, exactly up until the amount I'm willing to lose, then walk away.
The guys here don't understand the rules, the house(ladies) always win, by either choosing or not playing. As you implied "The deck is stacked the way it's stacked", for me it works, who knows why, but that's the way it is. But like the schumk off the plane his first or second time here, over extending himself, is what the house(ladies) count on. So the game will continue, until men wake up smell the coffee(doubtful) and see if they have no success, don't feed the b1tches ego, just bail and move into real life venues, where you will be accorded the respect a human being deserves.
Hey here's an idea, a paysite for guys, go there, post a profile, better screening, more mandatory questions, and a limit, if a woman does not go on 3 dates a month, and mandatory sending of 20 first contacts by women eery month,, you would undu she gets banned for 6 months the first time, 6 the second. Now the kicker would be the guys rate the woman on a date, if she fails 3 times, same bans go into affect. It would cost more for guys, th atraction to women, it would be cheaper, also the number of guys would undoubtedly be 4 or 5 to 1 men to women. Maybe a deal could be struk with Markus, Plenty of Real fish you undoubtedly would draw the best men, the sex guys wouldn't want that competition, and it would be attractive to real daters, not ego boosting seekers, email whores and dinner whores.
I like it. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 10:04:32 PM | Hey here's an idea, a paysite for guys, go there, post a profile, better screening, more mandatory questions, and a limit, if a woman does not go on 3 dates a month, and mandatory sending of 20 first contacts by women eery month,, you would undu she gets banned for 6 months the first time, 6 the second. Now the kicker would be the guys rate the woman on a date, if she fails 3 times, same bans go into affect. It would cost more for guys, th atraction to women, it would be cheaper, also the number of guys would undoubtedly be 4 or 5 to 1 men to women. Maybe a deal could be struk with Markus, Plenty of Real fish you undoubtedly would draw the best men, the sex guys wouldn't want that competition, and it would be attractive to real daters, not ego boosting seekers, email whores and dinner whores.
I know you must be kidding here as it is so obvious. Why do you think some chat sites and dating sites are less expensive for women than for men. Obvious answer is women are the main attraction and until men stop doing most of the chasing and women stop doing most of the picking things will not change. Some men will get aggressive because that's what happens to some people when they get competitive and/or frustrated. Some women will come off as being demanding but thats what happens when you have too many choices to choose from ( good bad or ugly ) or you get frustrated from catching the flack from the frustrated agressive or sexually inappropriate guys. Nobody said online dating was going to be a nice place to flaunt your shingle. As I said before its tough to stay here if you are the shrinking violet type. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 10:17:53 PM |  Good luck getting that one started mr. evil. There would be virtually no women left after 1 year. If babes were on here messaging us left and right we'd probably be "choosy" too. Can't blame them i'd want the best "bang" for my buck as well. It is what it is. They can't fully understand most guys position on this. They don't face it or have to deal with it. It's foreign to them. The same can be said for their point of view, we can't understand it either. God many of us have tried. If some of the ladies memory ingrams were impressed into a computer chip the lack of logic would be quite fascinating. | |
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E_keys
| | Joined: 10/3/2009
Msg: 193 | |
| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 10:37:55 PM | Well, I'd be happy to use this site as an equal-opportunity dating tool. I have a decent attitude, and a million people live here. Reading a profile and guessing whether I fit his preferences seems to be harder than I thought, though, certainly much harder than comparing his profile to my preferences. As a result, men I contact first don't talk to me for nearly as long as men who contact me first. (Not all men who contact me, just the ones from that pool that are interesting to me.)
So I sit back and wonder what I'm missing. Frankly, except for superficial nonsubjective things, our stated preferences are hard to interpret. He wants intelligence? Fitness? Sanity? Goodheartedness? Well, yeah.
He wants to go sailing every weekend? Ok, that's a good example telling me I'm not interesting to him - which is too bad if he thinks my problem is that he's not good-looking or tall enough. My honest answer would be "Sorry, I get so seasick, and I'm really looking for someone who digs me for going with them in what they love to do." I imagine he might reply "Don't bail just because I sail! How nuts is that!" And it is kind of nuts .. but not to me.
I think if my profile were more strictly factual it would say, "You should be a guy who can banter with me in just the right way over email so that it's a flirt vibe right away and I feel I NEED to meet you." "You should be a guy who makes me feel that you would be interesting to explore." Feelings like these are what I am really responding to online. But writing that in my profile might be worse than useless; at best, taken as a conversation starter when in fact I wouldn't want it to be in the conversation at all.
At worst "hey babe, YEAH, explore THIS!"
btw Hawking, you described the things I hated most about Match right away. Watching myself type in all those superficial "height preferences" I'm in fact highly suspicious of, real though they feel ... then getting login screens saying "Like you, Joe has a dog and is the oldest child!" Yet when I tried to filter by "please don't be somebody with kids" the system seemed to ignore it completely. POF searches are unwieldy but at least they're willing to come up with zero matches if your filters are tough.
So I'm interested in the "how do I match him?" thing, and I'm also looking forward to comparing locations. I suspect that my current zip code and my new one coming will not be the same on POF - though I checked out the m4w's on craigslist and they are just as scary! | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/13/2010 11:58:24 PM | Well, to be fair, the quotes like this pointed out...
Seriously...you sound like a total beyotch .... like...what ius atractive about u...
... doesn't go with the whole "you won't eliminate many golf-balls" sort of thing. It's a free site, you'll get crazy emails, sure. But OPTIONAL preferences and optional filter-blocks corresponding to each would end up solving the non-crazies who are golf-balls.
if a woman does not go on 3 dates a month, and mandatory sending of 20 first contacts by women eery month,, you would undu she gets banned for 6 months the first time, 6 the second. Now the kicker would be the guys rate the woman on a date, if she fails 3 times, same bans go into affect. It would cost more for guys, th atraction to women, it would be cheaper, also the number of guys would undoubtedly be 4 or 5 to 1 men to women. Maybe a deal could be struk with Markus, Plenty of Real fish you undoubtedly would draw the best men, the sex guys wouldn't want that competition, and it would be attractive to real daters, not ego boosting seekers, email whores and dinner whores.
Well, that'd be impossible, pretty much. First, in order to be remotely feasible, you'd have to force the users to mark each other as planning on going out on a date, then acknowledging that you did go out on one. Making women (who are not headed on a date) write 20 emails a month -- or about 1 different guy a day, 5 days a week on average, would be far too much... and even if they did play that game, you'd have fake interest across the board just to stay alive. I think it'd make it more crazy. They'd be getting tons of email AND have to send an initial one out every day on top of that (fake interest 95% of the time).
Also, if a lady gets a stream of emails, SHOULD there be some pressure for her to do initial emails? Why?
I don't think it's unfair that women don't do initial emails (for the most part), just because there's a gender unbalance in actions.
But there could be interesting things to eliminate what you point out about attention & dinner whores. Basically like marking someone for Spam -- but in that sense. I think in the case of email whoring, a guy could mark her as being in an email exchange with plans to meet.... and she can confirm that. If she gets a lot of markings of email exchange with plans to meet, but never confirms that, but the system still seeing she writes... or she does confirm that, but there never was a marking by the guy they went out on a date -- then she could be labeled as "possible email attention seeker".
You could go one step further for the "dinner digger"... heck, you could do a lot of key things people find, on both genders. The system can only play smart as far as emails go (exchanges occur in system)... but then warnings racked up by various guys toward a gal would "rate" her by the system. If women were warned about that, such types of gals go somewhere else. Also, when applied to other things for both genders both ways, like blatantly lying about themselves in their profile and whatnot -- then it'd force people to be real.
Instead of banning, they'd make it so you couldn't take off your profile and an embarrassing warning would be on there for some time to teach ya a lesson. :) | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/14/2010 12:39:10 AM | Plain and simple, I don't write first messages here because I'm currently choosing, in line with this site's functions, to not circumvent my own "no Intimate Encounter, etc" mail settings.
Why? I decided, given the current functions of the site and my experiences having tried it, that for me (and I'd venture to guess many women), sending first messages fails the cost-benefit analysis with this site when it comes to avoiding the men who are strictly seeking sex.. [Passing a cost-benefit analysis = plusses outweigh the minuses, benefits outweigh the costs.]
This has nothing to do with timidity, or fear of rejection, or thinking I'm some kind of princess, or traditional gender roles, or whatever. I'm just letting the site do the heavy lifting (clearing the way of horn-meisters), and I see no reason to send first messages.
And while it might seem that I'm "complaining" about my PoF experiences, I'm not. I find most of the "bad stuff" to be hilarious.
I don't lack for dates and I mostly meet fellow tennis players ... because I use my brain to screen ... we just don't click for the long-term we seek. So far.
Men I've met from PoF have been shorter than me to more than a foot taller than me, thin, athletic, average, "a few extra," and big. Some fudged on their height (I expect that for men who are actually 5'9" and under). A handful fudged on their build. With hair on their heads and/or faces, and without (I prefer balding with very short hair, and clean-shaven, but that's just a preference). With jobs, unemployed, retired. College, no college. Construction workers, military, sales, public sector, entrepreneurs, consultants. Different ethnic backgrounds, mixed ethnic backgrounds. Born American, immigrant. With physical limitations, and without. With a car, and without.
Yep, I'm one fussy b!tch ... sights set on height, a hot body, a full head of hair, money, and prestige ... and I'm going to stay at the cr.aps table so I can keep gambling on upping my "take." Just in case you missed it, that's sarcasm. (Mr F , good catch. However, Jinx is Bond's American counterpart - his equal - she's not really a "Bond girl.")
Say I get 100 (non-forum related) messages. Here's the approximate breakdown:
10 men are obviously strictly fishin' for some nsa strokin'. No crystal ball needed.
35 men don't live on my island, and they are ignoring my clear statements about LDR. No crystal ball needed.
It's distance for me, but other women have other sorts of clear statements in their profiles that are ignored by men.
10 men have factors that they must have/want that I don't meet (no crystal ball needed):
must be religious, must want to birth babies, want a woman with kids, want a particular ethnic background (not mine), want bbw, want a steady f-buddy, want a fwb, must be an age or height that doesn't include mine, ... [this list goes on].
So far over half are ones who had no basis for writing to me with the expectation that I'd respond favorably.
In other words, 55% are clear "no-brainer golf ball problems" on his end.
I don't know what the source of his "problem" is (after all, he is an individual), but I do know that it is HIS, not mine.
I don't care what they look like, as it makes no difference to me.
30 men have obvious - no crystal ball needed - factors in their profiles/messages where they make golf balls of themselves for not just me, but for many people. Some other people may, of course, think this sort of stuff is okay ... but I think it's craptastic:
*Blatant mis-matches in their information -- for example: "athletic" or "average" when they have pictures that look like they are 9 months pregnant with twins, they say they are late 40s/early 50s when they look to be early 60s+, claim to have a 4-year degree+ but are unable to spell simple words, etc.
*Their writing is so poor, they can't put together a very comprehensible sentence or paragraph
*A nonsense profile (they type random letters or characters, or repeat some phrase over and over, etc.)
*Only one pic of him, and it's not a recognizable person photo: way too blurry, or way too distant, or obviously really old, or a grainy-blurry-poorly lit web-cam pic, or sunglasses indoors, or photoshopped
*A first message where he says he loves me, proposes marriage, and/or lays out his plans for "our life together. " [I'm not making this up.]
These men can look (if they have decent pics) really hot to me, and I'd still think "no way."
5 men don't make it past my screening for compatibility:
*Strong beliefs in things that are totally incompatible with what I believe (did they even glance at my profile?);
*Negative about relationships, dating, women , and/or life in general;
*Significant (not minor) lifestyle, interests, and activities that are totally incompatible with mine;
*A first message that consists of a demand (not an invite) that I call his number, i.m. him, or write to his personal email.
Call this crystal ball if you like ... but I know I don't want to move to the woods to help him start a commune, or spend one weekend a month flying to Vegas to gamble, or go clubbing as my primary entertainment, or attend "sacred gatherings" based on moon phases, or ... [the list of things that don't match me one bit seems endless.]
These men can look really hot to me, and I still think "no way."
Within the 35 men above, about 15 of them are also totally physically unappealing to me.
Similar to when men say "I'm not interested in fat women," I don't need a crystal ball to spot this 15% of the total.
Nearly always, this isn't their inherent "looks," but instead how they choose to present themselves.
Like women, men choose to market themselves - send a message, bait their hooks - certain ways.
Among the "bait offered" are looks that I, personally, am totally turned off by:
Harley dude, Grizzly Adams, Hippie Jesus, Santa-beard (any color), Dog the Bounty Hunter, Gene Simmons, Nick Nolte mugshot, dirty-t-shirt-with-holes-self-portrait, 'stached or comb-over or feathered 70s, parachute-pants or mullet or rattail 80s, hair and clothes like Jerry Seinfeld circa early/mid-90s, dress like Morty Seinfeld or Frank Costanza, his-Mom-still-picks-out-his-clothes-at-Sears, and uber-Ed Hardy-ed. Oh, and balding-with-long-hair :shudder:
Good on him for rockin' those personal styles. Some woman is gonna adore his bait ... but that woman is not me.
This is identical to how a man might be totally repulsed by "too fat" or "too skinny," but weight is much harder to change than clothes/hair. Seems a safe bet he really wants to look how he does, and he actually wants to attract someone different than me.
And that leaves 10 actual possibilities, most of which will eventually move to meeting, and some of those will go to 2+ dates. We actually have things in common, and good conversations. Go figure.
No, I am not going to decide that obvious, no-crystal-ball-needed golf ball incompatibility is okay.
He may think it's okay, but I do not.
He may not give any thought to compatibility ("me likey picture, me send message" ?? "me desperate for a date"?? "me horny" ??), but I do.
He may think it's "all about the pictures" in both directions, but I do not.
He may think ANY physically attractive (to him) woman IS datable, but I absolutely do not think that ANY physically attractive man is datable - not going by "standard good looks" or even my own "wow, he's hot."
He might have the energy or interest to flail at non-possibilities, but I do not.
He might want to go on dates he never should have considered in the first place because they inevitably won't work out, but maybe he's just seeking "opportunities" to call women gold-digging b!tches who misled him. Thanks, but I'll pass.
To each his/her own.
If you don't like your results, consider doing something different. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/14/2010 4:38:39 AM | | I think there is too much over analyzing about this topic in this thread. I mean if one uses more than one avenue, to find dates/matches or whatever and keeps at it, the dates will eventually happen. To me it all is a question of how much time should be spent on trying to find dates, along with expectations. Nothing good comes easy, except maybe winning the lottery. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/14/2010 7:50:30 AM | Now for you all new to online dating, as inane as my "suggested" site sounds, life without those restrictions, actually functioned that way, early on in online dating!
Yes online dating in the late 90's functioned exactly that way. Women answered emails, women wrote emails, women dated. Maybe it was the fact that it was relatively new, or the women participating were bolder, REALLY independent(not the fake sh1t we read on here) or the fact that fewer tried it, it wasn't a business.
Point is online dating worked. Now POF has morphed for many into a FB kinda site. Dozens of both men and women, are all about chat buddies or penpals. Yeah some are about sex, others though are just about the weird sh1t they can say facelessly from behind a computer terminal. In other words a way to amuse themselves.
Yes there were fewer choices, you didn't have 5,000 people to choose from in a given metro area, but it was dating and fun.
I stick to my statements here, far too many women, think of this place as "man lotto" the ticket is there profile, the drawing is daily(emails) and THEY select the winner, based on some unwritten criteria. Or they just "poof" you if they are here for chat or ego boosting.
Guys that's why I say, write only a small amount of women. Those who attract you, you seem to fit what she wants, you share commonalities. Then meet ASAP to see if there is chemistry. No your not going to appeal to all of them, but I assure you, your response rate, and your date rate will be better. At least that's how it works for me.
Here in dixie, there's a boatload of women who are gorgeous, in my age range. I get emails as I said 2 or 3 times a month, sometimes a few more. They are attractive, seem intelligent and are age appropriate. If they read my profile, as I read theirs, why the heck would they write me? Do any of you think I'm a "God fearing christian", what would make them think I like NASCAR, or my favorite "camping", what would make someone think a NYC guy would be about becoming Grizzly adams, davy crocket or daniel boone?
So no, it's not just men who are guilty of not reading profiles, women also turn out to be goof balls not tennis balls. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/14/2010 8:05:52 AM | I have noticed....that I' have better luck in getting responses from people who are completely new to online dating when they join a website...esp if you're the first person to send them an email
Just something I've noticed. | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/14/2010 2:26:30 PM | hey when I was new to this, I'd email any guy who piqued my interest....
guess what a 99% read/delete responce. It goes BOTH WAYS! | |
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| 600 emails to get 5 dates???
Posted: 6/14/2010 3:22:20 PM | The biggest mistake most people make is assuming someone is "available" and interested in dating and/or a relationship merely because they have a profile. People might be dating someone else, might not have visited the site for a while, etc.
Another mistake is that even if someone is "available" is to assume they are "dateable." There are a number of women (and men) on these sites that lack the fortitude or whatever you want to call it to actually follow through and go beyond a few e-mails back and forth. It's nothing to do with standards or how attractive or appealing you are, or even an impression that there is or is not chemistry.
It might be due to mental illness, lack of time and willingess to put forth effort into an actual relationship, distance and other demographics and so forth. Some are ego-stroking to see how many responses they get, some believe the grass is always greener, some are eloquent when they can think about it and respond in short e-mail messages, but can't carry an active conversation and so forth.
Then there's "Liars' Poker." Having misrepresented age, weight, interests, appearance, lifestyle, etc., etc., finally getting called on a bluff is terrifying to these individuals. Ironically, this is even more the case when they perceive YOU as being out of their league. While some might take the chance, many others might not go through out of fear, or even a belief that it's too good to be true (like you are married and stepping out, or are even a bigger liar than they are).
So, lack of responses, or getting only X dates out of a 100 is a result of a lot more factors that your positives/negatives or the perceived standards of the person you contacted. | |
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