Theory : Certain personality types will never succeed with OLD.

[Shosh]

Hi Keenly,

if you would like more specific advice, how about you post your OLD pics, profile or what you write to girls online? Maybe some posters can see where you go wrong?

 

In general I agree that the pictures are most important. You don't have to look like a supermodel, but you should look decent enough and be smiling in them if you want a reply (from me at least). I am currently dating a guy whose profile was not very good and his messages were rather boring and dull (short messages without questions in them) but I liked his profile pic (he was smiling like a little boy and looked cute) so I kept replying and eventually met him for coffee. Now we are on date 6.

 

So yeah, I guess what many people say is true, your messages don't matter that much if she likes your pics.

[GemmaUK]

Allow me to clarify, you need to actually make it past the first three messages to get to that point.

 

 

I understand how to play ball. I know how the dynamic works. Its just not happening for me on my experience.

 

90% of the responses ( if I get one ) to my initial messages.

 

" haha "

 

" thank you "

 

" yeah, me too "

 

" I'm right there with you "

 

" yeah I like that too "

 

" that's awesome "

 

" you're funny "

 

" I don't get it "

 

" yeah "

 

 

I do my part. It seems I'm the only one playing ball. Either that, or like my theory suggests, the OLD atmosphere is incompatible with my personality .

 

Its not a BAD thing, and I'm not whining about it, rather investigating if the theory is plausible.

 

Looking at the responses you get I'm wondering what questions you are asking in mails as it doesn't look like there are any questions to reply to.

 

I've been disappointed when I don't get asked a question as that to me is playing ball - throwing the ball to me so that I have something to respond to and I'll then ask a question myself if I am interested.

I'll see a lovely looking guy who ticks all the boxes but if he gives me no question to respond to I figure he doesn't want to get to know me at all.

 

Just one question in a mail keeps the ball in the air.

 

There's something else which I find some folk do too:

I've mailed some guys who seem great, only to be the only one who asks questions - then a conversation starts - next day though it's like the conversation never happened as he drops the subject and mails to ask 'how was your day?'.

This gets tedious as you have to get another conversation going - and then the next day - groundhog day...

 

I'm not suggesting that either is your current style but if you think it might be then you could try stepping up on questions.

 

It's never a good idea though to do as some do and reel off 'what is your favourite colour, food, film, book in a list - I never reply to those as there's too many questions to respond to and they are just one word answers.

[mammasita]

What happened to your LDR? No worky?

[BikerAccnt]

I don't even blame women for it either. Think about it, if you were getting 50-60 messages a week from different women, wouldn't you hold out for a girl that has Mila Kunis' face and Kim Kardashian's body? .

 

 

Yuck...Good God Man, No. Not that combination. Neither does anything for me..

[Woggle]

Mila Kunis looks good but nothing Kardashian is attractive to me. You can come up with better examples can't you?

[soccerrprp]

If you have a crappy attitude and it shows in your profile and messaging, your chances are diminished. Yes, it's about the looks, external attributes mostly. For the initial interest and possible first meet-up, but after that, your personality will count. If success is getting that first meeting, then personality is not so important. If it's being able to create and maintain a LTR, then, yes certain personality types will fail.

[irc333]

I'm in 100% agreement with Innocent man, though some have touted, "Well, you need to put something in your profile to make it 'stand out' among the others'

 

Bleh, whatever, I've taken tips and advice to improve my profile and the like, I got some responses, but hardly some of them turned into actual dates. Though I do admit I have had the most amount of online dates last year. Probably like 5 dates in one year (that's a record for me in a year. lol)

 

But I can guarantee, if these same women..online met you in REAL life, they'd have no problem going out with you

 

ONLINE dating has made it easy to reject men they probably would have NOT rejected in real life.

 

 

Do yourself a favour, and quit hoping to find someone on OLD. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but the odds are way stacked against you, or anyone. It will damage your confidence so much, that you will start to doubt you can even get someone in real life.

 

Imagine starting 20 conversations in real life, and not getting past the hello, haha stage. It would shatter anyone. People judge you on very superficial qualities on old, and it's difficult to even get past 2 or 3 messages. Due to the massive choice, everyone has the attention span of a gnat. So unless you are super attractive/impressive in the first moments, you have almost zero chance. Even gross chicks that you wouldn't touch with a scabby stick in real life, have a greater choice on OLD, than your average dude.

 

The best way to get women, especially to punch above your weight, is familiarity. This is why you are finding a level of success at your workplace. They see past the basics that make you what you are, and notice all the finer/important details that are impossible to convey on the internets. There is little chance to develop any of this familiarity on dating sites. It's either be very attractive, or very funny, or gtf.

 

If you've done the whole work thing, and don't want to return, the next best thing is activities, where there are regular meetings with females. I'm not saying you can't use OLD, but see it for what it is. A means to piss away a few hours, and get an ego boost. As a way for a man to meet a potential partner, it is awful, and totally counter-productive.

 

(Cue the 2/3 dudes that say they met their woman on OLD and she is amazing etc, etc , etc.)

 

 

If you have a crappy attitude and it shows in your profile and messaging, your chances are diminished.

 

Man, you wouldn't believe the amount of women that have such an attitude lately in their profiles, in fact, the longer they've been on the site, the MORE they would add sarcasm and condescension to their profiles over the course of time they've been on the site.

 

THough, it appears that women can get away with negativity and sarcasm towards their audience in their profile more so than men, I think.

[irc333]

It's looks and a few other superficial things like income/occupation, etc. It is what it is. Not to mention the amount of messages women get, your message very well could get buried, never to be read.

.

 

Agreed...most women just read the "basic" stats height, body type, income level (if on Match.com) , profession and of course pictures.

 

I get a kick out of people who say "take better photos", so if you take an ugly person and take "Studio-like" pictures by getting them professionally done....you just took an ugly person and put him/her in just a more appealing setting. Doesn't change the fact that they are ugly. lol

 

That's like taking an idiot and motivating him, what do you have as a result...a motivated idiot. LOL.

 

I've been disappointed when I don't get asked a question as that to me is playing ball

 

So it's about asking the RIGHT questions to a woman? I think i Know what you mean, but believe me I've done that, taken the time to note their activities like for instance , Kayaking, I say more than just saying, "I like kayaking, too"

 

I say something like "Oh, I have this type of kayak, and my favorite places to go kayaking are <name favorite river/state park>."

 

Still doesn't work.

 

I recently emailed a woman that had "Wild Life Researcher" in her profession and she talked about what she did.

 

I used hte same technique in my initial email, how I am an environmental advocate, and had done some volunteer work in HER field"

 

I am guessing her thought right now:

 

"Great, you know about tagging the yellow belly sappsucker and using radio telemetry devices in the same forest I work in, but....sorry, you're too short for me to date and Oh...good luck in your search"

 

LOL

 

AND....there ya have it. The advice I had taken on elaborating a bit more when contacting women online only to result in a non-response anyhow.

Edited January 25, 2014 by irc333

[BikerAccnt]

But I can guarantee, if these same women..online met you in REAL life, they'd have no problem going out with you

 

\

 

I call BS on this one. How many RL women have you dated the past year as opposed to OLD?

 

If you're unattractive on OLD, your unattractive in RL. And unless you are in an activity where they get to know you in RL, unattractive wins over personality 9 times out of ten.

[Smthn_Like_Olivia]

I get a kick out of people who say "take better photos", so if you take an ugly person and take "Studio-like" pictures by getting them professionally done....you just took an ugly person and put him/her in just a more appealing setting. Doesn't change the fact that they are ugly. lol

 

That's like taking an idiot and motivating him, what do you have as a result...a motivated idiot. LOL.

 

I agree that women can become shallow when it comes to online dating because of the overwhelming number of messages, BUT...

 

I also think that a good majority of men have NO CLUE about what makes them look good as far as pics go, my guy included. I can't count the number of men's photos I saw with upwards nose hair double chin shot with the serial killer frown. Really?? My guy had about 4 or 5 photos. None really great, but I could clearly see how he looked. His written profile was not that great, but it did show a little vulnerability. I favorited him on a whim and he messaged me.

 

We kept our profiles for awhile and continued to message each other through the app even after our first date. He said he never got messages and didn't understand why I was so attracted to him. So as an experiment, I told him what pic to put up from ones that were exchanged between us. He put the pic up and within minutes, started getting messages and meet me requests. He was astonished. He took the pic down at the end of the day, but still proved my point. Initially, it IS about the pics. After that, its about the personality and what you bring to the table.

 

I'm one of the few that is bigger on personality than pics because for me, a man's personality can make him FAR more attractive than his abs. I think the women on OLD that put too much weight on pics and written profiles are defeating themselves. I don't mind rolling the dice, and as a result, I found an absolute gem. He is the kind of man I could spend the rest of my life with, and there was NOTHING in his profile that could've led me to believe that.

[Keenly]

What happened to your LDR? No worky?

 

Was never really an R. And I'm still talking to her, but the communication went from an explosion, to now its kind of a trickle. And its not from my end. Several days ago I noticed I was getting two word responses to texts so I backed off a little. If we are being honest here, it kinda feels like once all of her friends got back in town from winter break, I wasn't really needed anymore. Can't win them all

 

 

As far as pictures, I have this one and the one I used Here around Christmas time with the Santa hat. Few pictures of me exist since I rarely take them ( and who wants to see a guys profile of only selfies ? )

 

If you guys are curious about what I'm sending, I can copy paste a few.

[Smthn_Like_Olivia]

^^^I've become quite the master at selfies. People just don't know how to work them. Cropping and photo editor is a fabulous thing!

 

I'd be interested to see some of your messages. I don't really get why people need a well crafted message to respond to someone either. "Hello, how are you?" was always good enough for me.

[Keenly]

^^^I've become quite the master at selfies. People just don't know how to work them. Cropping and photo editor is a fabulous thing!

 

I'd be interested to see some of your messages. I don't really get why people need a well crafted message to respond to someone either. "Hello, how are you?" was always good enough for me.

 

Tried that strategy. All I got where " I'm doing good. You? " end of conversation. There isn't really enough to work with or make myself stand out with that. Plus, so many women have lists these days, and on these stupid lists are things like " don't bother messaging me if you are just going to say hey or hello how are you "

 

As soon as I am feeling not so lazy, I'll get out of bed and paste some example messages.

[irc333]

I'd be interested to see some of your messages. I don't really get why people need a well crafted message to respond to someone either. "Hello, how are you?" was always good enough for me.

 

If you're a man saying those words to a woman, women hate when that's all your saying to them. In fact they pretty much delete any type of short "hi" or "Hey how are you" initial emails as lacking in intelligence and substance.

[Keenly]

If you're a man saying those words to a woman, women hate when that's all your saying to them. In fact they pretty much delete any type of short "hi" or "Hey how are you" initial emails as lacking in intelligence and substance.

 

The irony is the depth of their profiles are usually

 

" hi I'm Stephanie, I like unicorns and rainbows. If you want to know just ask ! "

[irc333]

I recall a man on POF that contacted a woman local to him, and just like many other's he got ignored...you know, the usual.

 

Then he spots her at some kind of downtown fair, approaches her and chats her up. He gets her # and about the 5th date they are really hitting it off.

 

Then he reveals to her that he did see her on POF and had contacted her. She was quite suprised because she stated, "If I knew that was you online, I never would've ignored you!"

 

 

\

 

I call BS on this one. How many RL women have you dated the past year as opposed to OLD?

 

If you're unattractive on OLD, your unattractive in RL. And unless you are in an activity where they get to know you in RL, unattractive wins over personality 9 times out of ten.

[Smthn_Like_Olivia]

This is just so silly to me. Maybe its because I'm a woman who grew up spending a lot of time around boys/men, but how else do you start a conversation with someone?? The problem is that they just want to sit back and let you to carry the conversation. If I find someone interesting, if I'm interested enough to RESPOND, that I make just as much effort to make the conversation interesting.

 

This was our first exchange:

 

Him: Hi, how are you?

 

Me: Well, hello. I'm good. A little under the weather, but good. How are you?

 

Him: I'm doing good. I hope you feel better.

 

Me: Thanks. I'm working on it. Have you managed to meet any nice people on here? You don't sound like you're ready to be back on the dating scene?

 

Him: I have not met anyone. And I have not dated in a long time. I'm nervous and have no idea what I'm doing. Last time I dated there was no technology involved.

 

It was all down hill from there. In these first couple exchanges, I noted that he could spell, therefore somewhat intelligent, and he was honest. Good enough for me. People need to get over themselves. I'll be damned if a simple "Hi" or "Hello" is gonna keep me from meeting a great person.

[Phoe]

Keenly, you are cute and have a great personality. I've said it before, if you messaged me on OLD I would date you happily.

 

I think it's gonna be a matter of numbers, some luck on your side, and some good timing that you are able to message the right girl at the right time. That's really all there is. My boyfriend messaged me the very minute I signed up. Had he been online at a different moment, or I'd signed up the next day instead, I would not have met him. He had a crap time of OLD before me and was fed up with it. It seriously just came down to perfect timing, the stars seemed to align for us. If timing had been different he may have given up on old and continued being single. I may have met a few guys who turned out to be not good for me,had a lousy time, and given up too. But instead, I met an amazing man and deleted my account 2 days later.

 

 

Just gotta have the right timing to catch the right girl while she's there.

[Keenly]

This girl listed game of thrones as one of her favorite shows

 

"Game of thrones starts up again soon

Have you ever watched the walking dead?"

 

Here is one to another girl.

 

"Hey there.

 

Your profile really stuck out to me, one of the few that made me smile.

 

I'd rather like to get to know you. Slowly, of course. You could be a rapist I see you have a thing for hot nerds. Well, I can't speculate as to the level of my attractiveness, But I'll die with my nerdiness tattoo'ed on my sleeve.

 

I have one question though. I see you have a nice left handed acoustic on the wall behind you in one of your pictures. Now would that happen to be yours?"

 

Here is a girl I was rather impressed with, and would have (possibly will?) enjoyed just talking to.

 

 

" Hey there. I have to start off by saying its so completely refreshing to see a woman who thinks on a deeper intellectual level than what I'm used to reading on OKcupid.

 

I too like to speculate, debate, and dissect the psychological and sociological aspects as to why people act the way they act and why they feel the way the feel.

 

My name is Pat, and I would very much enjoy actually having a conversation about obscurely specific topics , for example , the topic of behavior control. Why do people practice this ? What makes some one feel the need to tell another how to live or love ?

 

Anyway, if you want to talk a whole lot of nothing , I'd be most obliged. Have a great day "

[Keenly]

Keenly, you are cute and have a great personality. I've said it before, if you messaged me on OLD I would date you happily.

 

I think it's gonna be a matter of numbers, some luck on your side, and some good timing that you are able to message the right girl at the right time. That's really all there is. My boyfriend messaged me the very minute I signed up. Had he been online at a different moment, or I'd signed up the next day instead, I would not have met him. He had a crap time of OLD before me and was fed up with it. It seriously just came down to perfect timing, the stars seemed to align for us. If timing had been different he may have given up on old and continued being single. I may have met a few guys who turned out to be not good for me,had a lousy time, and given up too. But instead, I met an amazing man and deleted my account 2 days later.

 

 

Just gotta have the right timing to catch the right girl while she's there.

 

Thank you Phoe, I am flattered. Not only because I know you are very attractive, but because I've told you a billion times you do things that make the perfect girlfriend, exactly the kind of girl I'd like to end up with some day. All the more motivation to not give up, yet still have no expectations of the OLD aspect to work out. I can make these gambles, because they are free. One day, I might get lucky

 

You definitely did get lucky.

[Keenly]

Damnit, I double posted myself so I can't edit.

 

 

In my message examples, the VERY first one is so short because that girl was CUUUUUUUUUTE as hell. She wasn't hot, she wasn't sexy, she was adorable. She was like 5'1 , freckles, a bow in her hair, bright blue eyes, making a smile with a scrunched up nose, and I was so amazed with how cute she was I was unable to really come up with anything to say. Speechless.

[BlametheIrish]

The irony is the depth of their profiles are usually

 

" hi I'm Stephanie, I like unicorns and rainbows. If you want to know just ask ! "

 

Lmao,

That is all

[Phoe]

Thank you Phoe, I am flattered. Not only because I know you are very attractive, but because I've told you a billion times you do things that make the perfect girlfriend, exactly the kind of girl I'd like to end up with some day. All the more motivation to not give up, yet still have no expectations of the OLD aspect to work out. I can make these gambles, because they are free. One day, I might get lucky

 

You definitely did get lucky.

 

As long as you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep your chances as high as possible. I know if I got any of your example messages I'd eagerly have a conversation with you, they're great messages.

 

 

If a girl doesn't respond, it's not because you did something wrong, it's because it turns out that girl really just isn't what you are looking for.

[Smthn_Like_Olivia]

I don't know, Keenly. I think those are great initial messages. Do you get a response from either of those??

[Keenly]

I don't know, Keenly. I think those are great initial messages. Do you get a response from either of those??

These were actually all sent last night, so its way to soon to tell if these specific ones worked or not.

 

However, that is the overall vibe I'm putting out there in my messages. Unique to every profile I am interested in.