Dating Thread: "Pain, disorder, occasional clarity"

[Liffguard]

On 10/9/2020 at 6:57 PM, Heartofice said:

For others the rejection can be pretty horrendous, although I think it's really important to learn to deal with it and learn from it.

I forgot to touch on this when it first came up. I definitely agree that dealing with rejection healthily is a skill that everyone should learn. The problem that a lot of people experience with online dating isn't even rejection though, it's invisibility. Rejection sucks, but at least it's an acknowledgement that you exist. For a lot of people, the experience of online dating is like endlessly howling into the void.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

In my defense though I really had to do that. 

And it wasn't even the second worst part about that day.

[Heartofice]

13 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

I forgot to touch on this when it first came up. I definitely agree that dealing with rejection healthily is a skill that everyone should learn. The problem that a lot of people experience with online dating isn't even rejection though, it's invisibility. Rejection sucks, but at least it's an acknowledgement that you exist. For a lot of people, the experience of online dating is like endlessly howling into the void.

Completely agree, at least for a large percentage of those online dating it is like that. I think there is a famous stat out there that while 80% of all females on online dating sites are considered attractive by men, a tiny percentage of males are considered attractive by women. It makes a pretty imbalanced set up, and I think also leads to a lot of the poisonous behaviour you see.

So it means that if you are a guy, most likely your profile is going to be ignored, your message won't be replied to and you wont get a date. 

Thats not an excuse for any of the gross crap guys get upto online but it goes some way to explaining it

[Lizard Queen]

LOL. On this other forum I go to, there is a thread for people to post small facts about themselves. I posted that I am 112 lbs and this guy who said in the thread that he's 6'6" tall replied, saying he used to weigh 3x as much as me. I joked that he could have played a tossing game with me. He said he still could, I think with a winky face. He then proceeded to DM me and now he's flirting. LOL

[Fury Resurrected]

13 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Completely agree, at least for a large percentage of those online dating it is like that. I think there is a famous stat out there that while 80% of all females on online dating sites are considered attractive by men, a tiny percentage of males are considered attractive by women. It makes a pretty imbalanced set up, and I think also leads to a lot of the poisonous behaviour you see.

So it means that if you are a guy, most likely your profile is going to be ignored, your message won't be replied to and you wont get a date. 

Thats not an excuse for any of the gross crap guys get upto online but it goes some way to explaining it

As a lady who used to be on some of those sites, I agree that a tiny percentage of men seemed attractive from their profiles to me- but this is far less than in person. Part of it is the vast majority of straight dudes are putting in SO LITTLE effort. Like, they’re sending a lot of messages, but it was rare as fuck to see a profile that told you anything about a dude unless that whole profile was a giant red flag. Here are some tips from me, a begrudgingly heterosexual woman, on what would be helpful to stand out-

 

for pictures-

-don’t use a picture with a fish or a truck. Do not do that- not even if you genuinely think it’s your best picture. Take a new one without a fish. Also don’t use a shirtless picture or a mirror selfie from the gym. You might look hot, but you might also look like a douche and tons of other dudes are doing it so you won’t stand out. Exceptions on the shirtless photo of you are actually surfing in the photo and are into that sport and exception on the gym photo if you are showing that you are some type of bodybuilder or competitive lifter.

-no group photos or photos you’ve obviously cropped your ex out of because it’s from the only time in the last decade you tucked in your shirt. You should be the only human being in the picture.

-no hat, no sunglasses. Both these things make it hard to tell what you actually look like. We want to know if you wash your hair. 
 

-If you have a pet, use a photo with the pet. Everyone likes pets who you would be compatible with seeing as you live with your pet. Your cute pet will be a great ice breaker.

-having a friend take your picture outside helps, natural light is your friend and an outdoor setting looks less like a creepy weirdo from the internet and more like just a person and the internet is a creepy weird place

-in your profile, tell actual things about yourself. Not that you love travel and the outdoors- everyone puts that. If you wanna talk about those topics list a specific vacation you are currently planning or a specific outdoor activity- these tell actual things about you instead of the basic things humans enjoy about life. Be specific about anything you list. If you like books, mention genres and authors, not just reading.

-in messages, do not compliment a woman in a way that puts other women down. Don’t say “you’re not like other girls” or anything comparative. It’s a huge red flag and tons of people do it 

-if someone is heavily tattooed, they probably are sick of talking about it. They also definitely don’t want you to refer to them as “tats”

-in an opening message, introduce yourself. I know your name is probably obvious but it’s a nice thing to do.

-in an opening message, ask a question about something in the other person’s profile. It shows you actually read it, which many people don’t do, only look at pictures. 
 

-if you have something about yourself that you know may be a big dealbreaker for a lot of people, be up front about it immediately (unless doing so could potentially put you in danger, like it may for trans people) If you’re moving to another country next month or are strictly polyamorous or you chew very loudly with your mouth open or if you are in an open marriage looking for secondary partners- it’s better to say so up front so you don’t break your own heart on someone who can’t adapt to your lifestyle, and it will attract people who are in your very same scenario.

-do not ask someone for professional advice no matter what their job is. A hot doctor doesn’t wanna diagnose your rash, an accountant doesn’t wanna look over your taxes. Nobody wants to do their job for free on their off time. If you want to use the job in conversation, ask how they like their coworkers, how they got into it, what their goals are. This is 10000% more true with a “cool job” that you know everyone will be asking dumb questions about.

 

If you follow this advice, you will easily be more positively noticeable than 90% of other straight guys on any site or app and people will feel like they understand more of who you are- dudes profiles usually don’t tell you ANYTHING. Any clue as to what you are like goes a long way.

[Fury Resurrected]

Also- if you have a close single friend who dates people of your gender and orientation, ask them to scroll these apps and sites with you under their account and look at the other profiles and tell you what they think of them. What this person likes and dislikes about other profiles could give you a TON of insight, and that friend could probably use the same favor from you

[Heartofice]

Yeah really good post Fury, completely agree with all of that. Guys in general are pretty awful at online dating from what I can tell. When I was doing it back in the day I would look around to see what my competition was doing and 90% of all profiles were pretty much empty, with "if you wanna know more ask me" written on them, a hazy photo of them in front of their car or topless in a sweaty bedroom.

You have to wonder how they ever got any replies ever. They didn't I'm sure.

Just myself, writing a decently funny and interesting profile, having a good range of photos and a witty headline got me noticed and I did ok. 

But I think we also need to consider why guys make so little effort with their profiles and why they behave the way they do online. I think partly it is down to the stat I mentioned before. Most guys have got such a small chance of even getting a reply to their messages that I think the only worthwhile thing to do in their minds is to just play the numbers game, spam everyone and see what comes back. Watch how different, men and women use Tinder, it's incredibly eye opening.

Then the other part of it is that the majority of guys online really just want some quick sexual satisfaction, that is really all they are after, and they don't wanna put any effort in to get it. They don't really want to have to go through the whole pain of having to actually get to know someone.. they just want to hopefully find the 1/1000000 girl who is happy to share some naughty photos with them. Then if they can't get that, they will log off and go find some actual porn I'm sure. No loss. 

It is kind of sad really. It's why a lot of the newer dating apps like Bumble put all the power in womens hands, because they are really the gatekeepers here, something everyone always knew. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Also- if you have a close single friend who dates people of your gender and orientation, ask them to scroll these apps and sites with you under their account and look at the other profiles and tell you what they think of them. What this person likes and dislikes about other profiles could give you a TON of insight, and that friend could probably use the same favor from you

Would it perhaps be quicker to say that you need to be able to be vulnerable? Not in every sense, but it does take some humility to create a dating profile, and many people don't want strangers to see what they view as weaknesses. 

[Heartofice]

I would have imagined if you were in an open relationship the best thing to do would be to join a community of others who are interested in that. I know friends who’ve done that and that worked for them.

A guy on a normal dating site openly telling women he was in an open relationship would get shot down before he arrived. It would be a huge waste of time. Not to say it doesn’t happen, I know plenty of girls who’ve told me about those experiences and they found those guys ‘creepy’

[Fury Resurrected]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I would have imagined if you were in an open relationship the best thing to do would be to join a community of others who are interested in that. I know friends who’ve done that and that worked for them.

A guy on a normal dating site openly telling women he was in an open relationship would get shot down before he arrived. It would be a huge waste of time. Not to say it doesn’t happen, I know plenty of girls who’ve told me about those experiences and they found those guys ‘creepy’

But those are women who are not poly. This dude would not be shot down or viewed as creepy by like minded people

[Inkdaub]

Fury's advice post is great.  I have not tried online dating sites but if I did I would make a couple of those mistakes I'm sure.  The cool job one likely.  Not the fish and the truck, though.  I have been laughing about that fish line for two days now.  I almost couldn't drive my train earlier tonight I started laughing out loud about that line.  I'm surprised my riders didn't call me in as a maniac. 

I had a coworker offer advice on this subject once.  He said always post pictures of you engaged in an activity...no pics of you just sitting there.  Seemed like a reasonable idea to me. 

[Datepalm]

On 10/16/2020 at 1:56 AM, Fury Resurrected said:

-don’t use a picture with a fish or a truck.

I agree with all the rest but have the strongest opinion about this. I never want to see a fish or a truck again in a photo in my life.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

I disagree about the first message having to be interesting actually. I noticed that whatever I wrote to a girl on Tinder after I'd matched with her, I would only get about the same answer rate. So what I did was to start sending everyone the same message, a waving hand smiley and a happy smiley, nothing more. If she replied to that, usually with a smiley of her own, I took that to mean she'd re-read my profile and decided she was still interested, so then I could write something more thought-out, asking about something in her profile or similar. If I got no reply, I assumed she wasn't so interested after all, and didn't pursue it any further. 

This system worked great, because I didn't have to feel stupid for writing a long message that got ignored, and she didn't have to feel heartless for ignoring the message. 

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

I disagree about the first message having to be interesting actually. I noticed that whatever I wrote to a girl on Tinder after I'd matched with her, I would only get about the same answer rate. So what I did was to start sending everyone the same message, a waving hand smiley and a happy smiley, nothing more. If she replied to that, usually with a smiley of her own, I took that to mean she'd re-read my profile and decided she was still interested, so then I could write something more thought-out, asking about something in her profile or similar. If I got no reply, I assumed she wasn't so interested after all, and didn't pursue it any further. 

This system worked great, because I didn't have to feel stupid for writing a long message that got ignored, and she didn't have to feel heartless for ignoring the message. 

Thats probably not a bad idea. 

One thing I remember from online dating was to next expect the other person to put in any effort when replying initially. You are a nobody to them so creating a situation where they actually have to do work is pointless. So rather than asking a long ass question, saying something short that could get a quick reply works better.

On the other hand, being super boring like saying 'hi' illicits very few responses. 

[Fury Resurrected]

4 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

I never responded to people who just said “hi” unless they were super hot.

I never responded to anyone who just said hi or sent emojis at all, or if it sounded like the same message they sent everyone else. If you are sending the first message and don’t introduce yourself, you are being rude.

[Maithanet]

It's been a long time since my internet dating days, but I remember that I had like a (short) introductory paragraph that I would send to every woman I messaged.  But I also make sure to look over her profile and pictures for at least something I could comment on to show that I was at least making some effort.  Things like asking the name of her dog or mentioning hiking trails I liked and where she liked to go, etc. 

It was still pretty low effort, because you will go crazy investing a lot of time on each message you send (so many will not get a response).  But I remember sending like 1-3 messages a day that way and before long I had a few people I was chatting with, so my success rate wasn't terrible. 

[Liffguard]

So the discussion about message strategies, profile strategies, relative success / effort between men and women etc. is kind of exactly what I meant about finding online dating somewhat cynical. Not that I'm judging any particular posters here, rather I think it's the inherent structure of the online dating set-up itself that incentivises this kind of gamesmanship. When I was engaged with it, I found myself too readily falling into the thought-pattern of winning a game rather than finding a partner, and I didn't like it.

[Heartofice]

11 hours ago, Liffguard said:

So the discussion about message strategies, profile strategies, relative success / effort between men and women etc. is kind of exactly what I meant about finding online dating somewhat cynical. Not that I'm judging any particular posters here, rather I think it's the inherent structure of the online dating set-up itself that incentivises this kind of gamesmanship. When I was engaged with it, I found myself too readily falling into the thought-pattern of winning a game rather than finding a partner, and I didn't like it.

I think that is a totally valid observation, I found it to be quite similar. Essentially you end up treating it as an experiment rather than a way to interact with other humans. It becomes more about optimising your sales copy and iterating on what works until you have discovered the perfect formula! 

Except then you realise it all comes down to how hot you are and you just give up cos you aren't 6 foot.
 

[Theda Baratheon]

I definitely find online dating very cynical as well and just find I don’t like what kind of person it makes you. Swiping past people because they don’t have a full profile or know how to take a decent selfie. It’s all a bit shallow and I totally accept it as a valid way to date in the 21st century but it’s all a bit exhausting really. I wouldn’t say i 100% agree that it’s AS CRAZILY IMBALANCED between men and women as many believe. I think if you’re objectively hot then you’ll always find it easier. If not then it’s a lot more balanced and I think the stereotype of women basically having their pick of men is harmful to both men and women really. In my personal opinion anyway because if you’re not like that it kind of helps to emphasise the feeling of being a bit of a freak. 

[Heartofice]

42 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

 If not then it’s a lot more balanced and I think the stereotype of women basically having their pick of men is harmful to both men and women really. In my personal opinion anyway because if you’re not like that it kind of helps to emphasise the feeling of being a bit of a freak. 

I think the reality is that most guys will rarely get responses from anyone, and most girls will get far too many responses from people they simply aren't attracted to. Women certainly don't have their pick at all, it's still the attractive people who get to choose. 

I think online dating just accentuates the differences in male / female dating and makes it especially cold and calculating. You are able to see quite quickly what forces are at work, in a way that doesn't become apparent with usual dating.