stupid OKCupid trix

[nospam99]

or another reason not to waste time on OKC

 

So the way OKC works now (since Dec '18) is you have to Like someone to try to start a conversation. You can message them when you Like them or not. Unless they Like you back, they disappear from your searches - if you didn't take notes or otherwise remember them there is no record on the site that you ever Liked or messaged them. OKC gives you a count of how many Likes you have received. If one of those people ALSO messaged you, you can figure out who they are. But you have to PAY to find out who Liked you if they didn't also send a message.

 

My Like count has been growing. It was up to 48. So I anted up the $20 to find out if any of the 48 were worth trying to contact. Two of them were, so I sent those two messages. One of them responded saying 'sound like a nice guy but dont remember liking you- have been trying to meet people local'. This was yesterday and no response from the other one.

 

But the 'killer' is the last four of the other 48 .... Last one is from Tanzania and 35 y/o. The three before her are all 35 y/os from my community. 35! For those who don't recognize me, I'm 65. Give me a break. How FAKE is that! Sprinkled among the rest are ages 38, 23, 36, and 31. Sorry children, see if your moms Like me, too.

 

My point, if it isn't glaringly obvioius, is that OKC is a waste of time and money. Mea culpa for getting sucked in to giving them a few more $.

[alphamale]

OLD feeds off its member's desperation...

[The Outlaw]

It's always about the money. Can't find a date? Not finding enough matches? Not getting quite enough likes? Well, increase your chances of success for only $19.95! I'll keep my money. It's better the old fashioned way. Online dating just seems to narrow people you're more compatible with down, but it still can't compete. It just isn't for everybody.

[Happy Lemming]

Have you ever added up the total amount of hours you have spent on this on-line dating project?? From your past posts, I know you keep records on who you contacted and how. It seems you are putting a lot of effort (time) and now additional money into these services. Other than "Natalie" have you had any long term relationships out of this or other OLD venue(s)??

 

I still vote for "Real Life" encounters, go where people (you want to date) congregate. Are there any AARP hiking groups?? Or AARP (insert the activities you enjoy) groups??

 

I went to an AARP bicycle seminar with my gf. There were a lot of single people in the age range you are looking for and yes, they were cyclists and active.

 

There is also a local "Cyclist" group in my area that goes on more leisurely "no drop" rides. This appeals to the older crowd who are a bit slower, but still like to ride. I thought about joining them, but I prefer to ride alone and be at peace with my mornings. If I wasn't in a LTR, I would join this group and attempt to meet a woman, as I know she would be active and also liked cycling.

 

Do you think you'll do another "Speed Dating" event?? I know you just went to one, are there other events coming up?? Is there more than one outfit doing "Speed Dating" for your age range??

 

In conclusion, if "OK Cupid" is going to resort to these tricks for money, do you really want to be associated (in any way) with them?? Personally, I just won't do business with unethical companies.

[nospam99]

^^^ Thanks coach. (Not quite as off topic as in the Rave thread - teasing - your personal input is always appreciated.)

 

Yes, I've spent plenty of time on this 'project'. Money? Money doesn't matter. (Ironically that's something Natalie wrote in February about a totally different question.) Dating to search for 'the one' being a 'numbers game' (or so I've seen posted often on LS), I'm not 'giving up', but definitely 'getting tired'.

 

The only other truly long term relationship became a platonic dance partnership. My bad. I had lowered my standards. THAT won't happen again.

 

I doubt I'll throw any more $ at OKCupid. I started this thread simply to 'warn' other people. Sadly, it seems that OKC has gone downhill from 'what it once was'. Also seems that can be said of a lot of the dating sites and apps.

 

I'll keep trying speed dating. No events scheduled now. And at my age, unlike the 40s-50s demographic, there have been loooong gaps e.g. 10 months between events in the schedule.

 

Unfortunately, 'real life' meetings are not working out. My friends know I am interested in finding a partner. But for whatever reason they are not matchmaking. Maybe because they don't know any good women who would put up with me . Plenty of dances and meetup groups I could go to and have. But I'm still reluctant to be the guy who's perceived as hitting on all the women when we're all there to have fun but, superficially, not to pair up. That didn't work out well for Garcon and I doubt it works out for anyone.

Edited June 18, 2019 by nospam99

[nospam99]

My one month 'A-list' subscription on OKCupid expires tomorrow. To repeat, it's something you pay for on the so-called 'free' dating site in order to see who 'Liked' you. It's kind of necessary because only with mutual Likes are you allowed to exchange messages. I can only characterize the pattern of the several Likes I've received, both before and after anteing up for A-list, as romance scams. LOTS of women young enough to be my daughters or granddaughters who live hours away (or in Africa) who only answer about 20 of the hundreds of matching questions. There were three 'old' Likes from before I paid that were reasonable based on age, location, and my interest level. So I sent them messages. The only one who bothered to respond said she didn't remember Liking me (not surprising if one takes a 'shotgun' approach) and was looking closer to where she lives (about 50 minutes away). Conclusion: OKCupid ain't happening. As always with OLD, YMMV, probably with a large regional variance.

[elaine567]

You may be older but you are fit and active, and that is important to you in a partner, so get off that computer, ditch the spreadsheet, and suss out groups, charities, holidays and sports where active and fit older women congregate. Holidays may be expensive but so is putting money into OLD.

You have maxed out on the suitable local woman on OLD, so you need to change tactic.

Yes there are plenty "silver surfers" but I guess there are plenty active 60+ women who rarely even check their emails...

[Happy Lemming]

Just an "off the wall" suggestion, but have you looked into "Silver Sneakers"??

 

https://www.silversneakers.com/

 

Its a program for active senior citizens to work out with one another and may be covered by your health insurance. It is very possible you could meet someone very active that has similar interests.

 

As "elaine567" pointed out, you may have exhausted people in your age range & in your area that are on OLD.

[nospam99]

^^^ HL, I know your heart is 'in the right place'. I've got to wonder though, what do YOU know about Silver Sneakers? At first glance to me, it's got 'a marketing ploy for health clubs' written all over it. Their search pops up all the gyms in my area that I already knew about.

 

Also it's got 'scam' written all over it

- you can't log in without passing some kind of 'eligibility check' - I failed

- there is no explanation of the criteria for the 'eligibility check'

- there is only one help file that, pointedly, does not explain 'eligibility', only links you back to the dialog where my eligibility fails

 

Based on a little research, I think that silversneakers is some kind of medigap/medicare advance plan and to be eligible you have to have a medicare plan that has a business relationship with silversneakers. How do they check 'eligibility'? By having info on all people who participate in the 'right' plans? Thanks but no thanks. One of the things that I do to protect my privacy is I don't do business with an entity that wants information about who my other 'business partners' are.

 

More research ... they actually have an 866 'customer service' number. I called during their advertised normal business hours. At 2:30, 3:15 and at 4:00 hold time, recording said the 'next available customer service representative will be with you as soon as possible'. Do I detect a 45 second timer on the auto message? The muzak sukt. At 5:00 hold time I got the 'high call volume/leave a message' recording. There's a reason that scammers prey on seniors - because most of us are so trusting we make easy victims.

 

HL, I always appreciate your kind thoughts and efforts to be helpful. This one just didn't work out. I'll keep doing meetup.com and match.com and speed-dating (next event in mid-Sept). With regard to meetup.com, even though I haven't and don't expect to meet a romantic partner, as long as I continue to join the 'right' groups, the events are fun and the people are friendly.

[Rayce]

nospam it's a exercise program at LA Fitness. I suppose it's at other gyms too... You might like it. I do an Body Works Plus Abs in a group setting and I love it. It's a great way to meet others our age.

 

SilverSneakers® is the perfect class for seniors wanting to focus on overall total-body conditioning. Your instructor will guide you through a series of exercises using resistance tools to help build muscle and tone. Going at your own pace is encouraged!

 

Here is a video.

 

https://www.lafitness.com/Pages/AerobicClassVideo.aspx?title=Step+Plus+Abs&v=wy23pj%2fcMBAdXmSxBAhc%2fbxvh4QlpjNA7Sz4OYBmIhM%3d

[Happy Lemming]

^^^ HL, I know your heart is 'in the right place'. I've got to wonder though, what do YOU know about Silver Sneakers?

 

I really don't know much about the program. My "older" neighbors (husband & wife) lost a whole bunch of weight on the program and said they feel better.

 

The husband was telling me about he and his wife's success with the program and how much fun they were having.

 

I was just thinking about your age, age range you are looking for and wanting to date an active/fit woman. I figure it might expose you to someone that fits those criteria.

 

This could be a medicare type of program, my neighbors are in that age range.

 

As a side note, I hate what "OKCupid" did to you. I know its a small amount of money, that you can afford. Its just the principle of the matter.

 

I really do hope you find that "someone special".

[gaius]

I think at this point we've all given NoSpam a lot of keys for success. And then given him them again. And again. At this point I don't think he's really looking for a whole lot more suggestions. It's up to him to put the keys in the ignition and drive. If he just wants to post about the latest thing he's doing on OLD, so be it. Everyone's got their own thing.

 

I never knew you could pay OkCupid a bunch of money to tell you that nobody of value on there really likes you, but that seems like an interesting business model they've got going.

[PRW]

In any case get away from Online Dating. Every one of them is a scam to some degree or another,...some are just worse than others.

 

BTW - the only thing that is a bigger disaster than Online Dating is Speed Dating. It just doesn't even make good logical sense from a psychological, sociological, or emotional stand point that anyone ever gets anywhere with that beyond just blind luck. You could create you own "free" speed dating event by running around a room at some gathering you might be attending and talking to each woman for 30 seconds (or whatever the typical time limit is). Since you would be the only one doing it you wouldn't have any competition,...you've stacked the deck in your favor.

 

I'm only a few years behind you in age, but keep in mind that as unfortunate as it is, short of Widows who couldn't help it, people in our age group that are single are single for a reason (present company included). We have decades of history, baggage, issues, drama, and who knows what else we are dragging around with us. That makes it much harder than when were were care-free at 20yo, and both people on each side of the relationship "attempt" are in the same boat. So I always focus on the in-person groups activities and just make up my mind that I am going to go out and have a great time with whoever is there and not worry about "outcomes" because what you try to seek you usually chase away in the process. A marriage is not going to make a person happy unless they are already happy. You can't make each other "complete & happy",...you can only share the "completeness & happiness" with each other that you already have.

[Michelle ma Belle]

It's no secret that OLD are all about the almighty $$ - feeding into members FOMO and getting them to slap down their CC for a chance at finding love...or sex...or whatever it is you're in to.

 

The fact is that the vast majority, if not ALL OLD enlist the help of BOTS to bait and hook you into thinking you're far more popular than you really are in order to get you to commit to a lengthy and often expensive membership.

 

For this reason alone, I've often returned to POF time and again. It's FREE and although you are guaranteed to do a lot of weeding, it's better than most. Unlike every other paid site I've been on, I've done a LOT of actual dating on POF and have been in several short term relationships as a result.

 

Tinder is another option but that too is a hit or miss and men out number women by almost double.

[IwantDate]

It's no secret that OLD are all about the almighty $$ - feeding into members FOMO and getting them to slap down their CC for a chance at finding love...or sex...or whatever it is you're in to.

 

The fact is that the vast majority, if not ALL OLD enlist the help of BOTS to bait and hook you into thinking you're far more popular than you really are in order to get you to commit to a lengthy and often expensive membership.

 

For this reason alone, I've often returned to POF time and again. It's FREE and although you are guaranteed to do a lot of weeding, it's better than most. Unlike every other paid site I've been on, I've done a LOT of actual dating on POF and have been in several short term relationships as a result.

 

Tinder is another option but that too is a hit or miss and men out number women by almost double.

 

I agree. Match, etc. lots of fakes to get you to sign up and $$. I can't see why someone like you needs OLD anyway.

 

OKC and POF mostly trash around here. POF some ok ones but they get bombarded. Match.com gives me highest rate of replies. granted, few might be fake profile though.

 

My reply rate is probably 10 percent between the 3 sites for messages that I get marked "read" I don't send many on the other two.

 

The big problem with stuff like match especially is the women are sooo flaky on there. I'll hold a conversation for a couple days then they ghost you right when I want to ask them out.

 

I currently have one nice looking girl I exchanged a couple messages with and she sounds interesting, stuff in common so I replied back before going to work last night asking if it would be easier to text and nothing. I did also mentioned if she'd like to meet for coffee or lunch at her hangout spot she mentioned she drank at a lot since I was going to be close to the area. Nothing back yet She is 4 years older than me though and her age preference was for min someone 3 years older than me.

 

I seem to be having this problem on OLD. Seldom do women close to my age or older reply and if they do very flaky. Yet, women around 31 to 23 reply back more and hold a conversation with me. And gave me her number. She flaked on my because of religion opinion. Other too far away.

 

Why do these women in their 30s so ghosty and picky for? Why do women in their 20s talk to me more?

 

Currently chatting with a cute 22 year old on OKC who replied back today. I guess I need to stick to young chicks.

 

I think it might be because I'm skinny and look too young too. Hell, just last night I was buying lotto tickets out of the vending machine at work and a customer in the checkout line made a comment to the cashier about the vending machine and if I was old enough to buy them.

[nospam99]

Since several of the replies you folks have given MY thread are generic about In Search Of rather than specific to OKC, I'll re-reply to both types.

 

OKC and 'A-list': yeah the money is chump change. I've said it before - I can easily blow $200 on a date (though most of the time it's way closer to $50). $20 or whatever it was to find out that most OKC Likes are now romance scams (they weren't before the messaging rules change in Dec '17) is worth the 'tuition'.

 

Dating sites and speed dating are indeed scammy. But... I may be wrong but I assume most decent people are attached. Sites and speed dating are at least supposed to be places where if you see a profile, the person that goes with it is looking to meet a potential partner. I see that as 'value'. If I'm wrong, I can live with that 'mistake'. It's critically important to me to be able to assume a woman is 'available' and 'looking'. Counter examples: I work with some really hot and age-appropriate women. But I treat them as 'hands off'. a) They're married b) I don't '**** where I eat' c) It's 'unprofessional' to 'cruise' the office and I'm pretty sure I'm 'professional'.

[IwantDate]

Since several of the replies you folks have given MY thread are generic about In Search Of rather than specific to OKC, I'll re-reply to both types.

 

OKC and 'A-list': yeah the money is chump change. I've said it before - I can easily blow $200 on a date (though most of the time it's way closer to $50). $20 or whatever it was to find out that most OKC Likes are now romance scams (they weren't before the messaging rules change in Dec '17) is worth the 'tuition'.

 

Dating sites and speed dating are indeed scammy. But... I may be wrong but I assume most decent people are attached. Sites and speed dating are at least supposed to be places where if you see a profile, the person that goes with it is looking to meet a potential partner. I see that as 'value'. If I'm wrong, I can live with that 'mistake'. It's critically important to me to be able to assume a woman is 'available' and 'looking'. Counter examples: I work with some really hot and age-appropriate women. But I treat them as 'hands off'. a) They're married b) I don't '**** where I eat' c) It's 'unprofessional' to 'cruise' the office and I'm pretty sure I'm 'professional'.

 

So you have some hot single girls in your office and you wont try and ask them out? Go for it! Unless it's a super good paying job and you don't want to risk it. They work with you so I assume you at least know somewhat about them personally and what type of people they're. I'd be trying to smash it if I were you!

[nospam99]

So you have some hot single girls in your office and you wont try and ask them out? Go for it! Unless it's a super good paying job and you don't want to risk it. They work with you so I assume you at least know somewhat about them personally and what type of people they're. I'd be trying to smash it if I were you!

 

NOT SINGLE. Gee - please read my post.

[major_merrick]

Hmmmm.....how did that commercial go? "Silly rabbit....Trix are for kids!" All I can say is do whatever works for you, and avoid dumping money on things that look fishy. And online dating is fishy....for everybody.

[mr_ybor]

I just jumped back into the app dating thing, and man, I forgot what a trashfire Ok Cupid is. Bewildering because they guys who made it were far from dumb.

 

You can't freaking search for women without kids. It's tripe. Before you say, "Yes you can, you just tick the box for women without kids, dummy."

 

Wrong. All that it does is search the women who bothered to tick the box that they "didn't have kids", and you get like thirty profiles back. Women, especially younger women, don't bother to fill that out (along with all sorts of other details, because you don't have to) but none will show up in the search because it excludes them.

[nospam99]

^^^ The dating sites and apps make their $ (which, really, is what it's all about) however they make their $. 'Ideally' (ain't going to happen) I'd like to see their revenue model depend on 'real matches' i.e. two people exchange messages. I'd happily pay for that a la carte! Or maybe 'buy' an 'account' and draw down that account every time you voluntarily open an incoming message. Like I said, ain't going to happen.

 

OKC clearly makes $ from ads ... same pretty cool ads as POF and Match have - hot, young, female models modeling skin-revealing swimsuits. Marketing is marketing and sex sells. On the one hand there are plenty of free photos of naked and half-naked women all over the Internet. On the other hand, if you're already logged on to one of the dating sites and looking at a page with the ad thumbnails on it, that swimsuit photo is only a click away.

[mr_ybor]

^^^ The dating sites and apps make their $ (which, really, is what it's all about) however they make their $. 'Ideally' (ain't going to happen) I'd like to see their revenue model depend on 'real matches' i.e. two people exchange messages. I'd happily pay for that a la carte! Or maybe 'buy' an 'account' and draw down that account every time you voluntarily open an incoming message. Like I said, ain't going to happen.

 

OKC clearly makes $ from ads ... same pretty cool ads as POF and Match have - hot, young, female models modeling skin-revealing swimsuits. Marketing is marketing and sex sells. On the one hand there are plenty of free photos of naked and half-naked women all over the Internet. On the other hand, if you're already logged on to one of the dating sites and looking at a page with the ad thumbnails on it, that swimsuit photo is only a click away.

 

I don't see any bikini ads on my OkC. Mustn't be in their target demographic.

 

The search Boolean is dumb A.F. though. The last time I did this, the only way I could find more than a couple of pages of women, was literally to set the parameters to every women with kids (who are far more likely to make note of it), and individually open every profile in a tab, and block them one-by-one.

 

I don't know if it's worth it though. There's so few women on there that are my type to begin with. Meh.

[Michelle ma Belle]

 

The big problem with stuff like match especially is the women are sooo flaky on there. I'll hold a conversation for a couple days then they ghost you right when I want to ask them out.

 

 

I seem to be having this problem on OLD. Seldom do women close to my age or older reply and if they do very flaky. Yet, women around 31 to 23 reply back more and hold a conversation with me. And gave me her number. She flaked on my because of religion opinion. Other too far away.

 

Why do these women in their 30s so ghosty and picky for? Why do women in their 20s talk to me more?

 

Currently chatting with a cute 22 year old on OKC who replied back today. I guess I need to stick to young chicks.

 

I think it might be because I'm skinny and look too young too. Hell, just last night I was buying lotto tickets out of the vending machine at work and a customer in the checkout line made a comment to the cashier about the vending machine and if I was old enough to buy them.

 

It goes both ways. LOTS of flaky and dodgy men online doing the exact same things regardless of their age. In fact, I've found men closer to my age tend to be the worst for whatever reason.

 

Welcome to the internet.

 

Ghosting isn't all that unusual online especially when all you've been doing is messaging a bit on the app. I've been guilty of doing this myself at times. I've tried bowing out gracefully with a goodbye message but that has often created more problems for me then just disappearing. Not proud of it but that's just how you have to play things when online sometimes.

 

If I've invested some time chatting with someone and especially if we've been on a date, that's a completely different story. I will always take the time to let them know what's going on rather than drop off the face of the earth.

Edited July 18, 2019 by Michelle ma Belle

[nospam99]

Arghh!

 

TL/DR: another anecdote - that's all, nothing more - I'm just blowing off steam. And warning, I'm not going to proofread this WoT

 

Much as I hate OKC and don't intend to give them any more $, it IS a source of 'possible' dates. In fact in the last week I at least got responses from a couple of women including one super-hot woman who I first noticed on POF more than a year ago.

 

Anyway, I added a note to the top of my profile suggesting that if a woman Likes me they also send an initial message. This is to beat the payment plan that OKC has. You have to pay to see Likes without messages. But there is a fairly clunky way to see Likes with messages for free. Coincidentally, I now get a Like with message every few days. AND OKC sends an email notification when a user gets a message from someone they have not yet Liked.

 

So I got one of those notifications today, logged on, and did the 'clunky' process to try to find the message. Turns out the woman wrote a real nice message and I'd like to meet her. But because of the way the notifications and messages work, I 'Passed' her to keep clunky-checking to make sure she was the only one who had sent a message I hadn't yet seen.

 

There's a 'reset your Passes' function on OKC. So after looking around some more and satisfied myself that she's the only really 'new' message, I used that function to reset my Passes, expecting her to pop up to the top of the clunky list, which is what happened in the past. No luck. At that point I wasn't sure the reset even worked and I was trying to figure out how to get her profile back to where I could see it. I tried a straight up Search based on her age and location - no luck again. I tried the Help pages, thinking to send an email to OKC support to ask 'How the f--k do I get this profile back to where I can see it'. No luck - it appears that OKC has turned off any way to 'contact support'. Maybe because they don't want to pay for enough customer support staff to actually answer emails.

 

So the last thing I decided to try was to Pass on EVERY profile in what I'm calling the 'clunky' list - OKC calls it Double Take. My thought was that if I totally cleared that list out and THEN did a reset, I might then get to see this woman's profile. As I was clearing out DOZENS of Double Takes, fortunately I was paying enough attention to notice when her profile came up again. As near as I can surmise from the way the site works, instead of a reset sorting the Double Take list in whatever order it was originally in (how I would design it if I was the I/T Architect), it adds previously Passed profiles to the end of the list. Oh well. I got to Message the woman in question and now she goes on what OKC treats as a these-two-people-have-liked-and-messaged-each-other-so-we'll-let-them-see-each-other's-profiles list.

 

All's well for now and I'll have to get back to this woman when I have some time to write a decently thoughtful message to her.

 

But DAYUM, the User Interfaces of some of the dating sites suk so bad it's no surprise that people hate OLD. I 'patiently' stick with the three I still use because every now and then each one surfaces a woman who I don't see on either of the other two. Match.com remains my best 'tool' and at the moment I even have a 'bite' there. She lives an hour away. But location is just one of a dozen parameters I've learned people have to deal with when trying to game a 'win' on OLD.

 

LOL ... end of my rant de jure. I hope I either entertained or enlightened anyone patient enough to have read all of this post.

[nospam99]

One of Match's functions is something that shows up on the menu labelled 'Matches' (d'uh). Every day the site provides a list of dating candidates that can be viewed by clicking on that menu item. Up until a week ago that list looked a lot like the similar list that can be obtained by clicking on the 'Discover' menu item. That is to say that for each profile in the list the user saw a photo, the handle (name which could be made up), age, and location associated with the photo, and an indicator (a little green or yellow circle) about how recently the profiled person had logged on. All those items (photo, name, location, age, activity indicator) are useful if not critical in a decision about whether or not to attempt contact.

 

About a week ago 'Matches' changed. Now when you get to the list it's called 'recommendations' AND THE ACTIVITY INDICATOR IS GONE. Well, Match is notorious for 'zombie profiles', profiles of people who haven't used the site for days, months or YEARS. I'd say that removing the activity indicator makes 'Matches' just about useless. I did online chat with a customer support person to point this out but I think all those CSRs are supposed to do is 'sooth' users.

 

Just one more anecdote about one more dating site where, at least IMHO (not really humble ), the site changed the way it worked to make it suk moah.

Edited August 15, 2019 by nospam99