To all the unmatchables...

[mr_ybor]

The most "serious" site i used was match, and it was pretty hopeless tbh. Pof was more or less hopeless. I did have a casual 3 month fling with one i met on there. On both these sites most messages were ignored.

 

Strangely enough, my last girlfriend came from Plenty of Fish. She messaged me first, though, and that was almost six years ago now (2014). I had one more date from Ok Cupid just after we broke up, and that's the last I ever went on. Everything went all dead air.

 

I don't think anyone who's even had a slight bit of success on a swipe-based app, would even imagine writing hundreds, if not thousands (like I did back in the day), of personalized messages only to get a return rate of close to nil. It's a exhaustive and demoralizing endeavor.

 

I live in the UK and tinder has been the best app of all surprisingly. Im in a fairly remote location but I reset my account a week ago and have 60 matches and another 40 likes, 10 women initiating. Im clearly not totally ugly.

 

Sixty matches in the sticks?! Share your secrets, guru, LOL. I did the absolute worst on Tinder. I've tried on-and-off again, four or five times now. I've had acquaintances do okay with it, but it's beyond me. I don't think I'm a bad looking guy, either.

[an0nym0us123]

I had a 8 month relationship from online 3 years ago. Id only been on the dating site 5 minutes before she messaged me. 15 months on it this time and not much to show.

 

I dont know why you have no matches as you have said you have women hit on you in real life. My first photos on tinder were terrible. 2 or 3 matches a week (a year ago) New account will be ranked better in tinders algorithm so i dont know how it will fair. My radius is 80 miles covering 250,000 people. Some of my matches were on an island, one was a woman wanting to cheat on her husband.

 

I dont really have any secrects as i dont think im that good looking, i tried lots of photos on photofeeler and used the best ones. I would not go too much by what it says but you get women to score your attractiveness. Mine are 8/10. Different lighting made a huge difference. Some only scored 5/10.

[chillii]

.

The site l used , you couldn't send 100s of message anyway, being very fussy and selective l wouldn't even find 100s l'd even want to meet.

l'd maybe found 1 or 2 profiles in a week say , that l actually really liked. Then you had to like them , and if they liked you back then you could message each other, chat whatever.

And yeah , l did meet some quality women very close to what l'd be looking for but in the end met my gf who was exactly what l was looking for.

This why l always say be very selective, for me anyway quality is far better than quantity buttt , that's me. l'd rather not even bother with anyone if they weren't what l'm looking for in the first place.

That was just a free site called Oasis, don't see it mentioned at all round here.There was a lot of crap on there to bit sifting through there were also a quite a few genuine quality women just out there quietly hoping to meet mr right .

Edited September 21, 2019 by chillii

[mr_ybor]

I dont really have any secrects as i dont think im that good looking, i tried lots of photos on photofeeler and used the best ones. I would not go too much by what it says but you get women to score your attractiveness. Mine are 8/10. Different lighting made a huge difference. Some only scored 5/10.

 

I dunno, I've gone through so many pics over the years. Nothing seems to make a lick of difference. Photofeeler put me somewhere in the 7s or 8s for the pics I posted up there. ¯\(°_o)/¯

 

On Tinder, too, I've got the smart photos feature turned out so it'll put the most right swiped of your pics first... in theory.

 

 

 

 

.The site l used , you couldn't send 100s of message anyway, being very fussy and selective l wouldn't even find 100s l'd even want to meet.

 

I'm not particularly fussy. I'm decent looking, but not so much I could have that kind power (with OLD anyway). I'll make more effort with someone I really think I'll click with, but really, everyone's waiting on mutually matching so you can start an actual convo.

Edited September 21, 2019 by mr_ybor

[chillii]

l looked at the pof too , and it appeared to have some very nice women on it here , but most of them hadn't been active on there in years, l think 3/4 were just stolen profiles from other sites. Looked at that Zoosk too, that also had some nice women , here that gets pretty good reviews , but it seemed to have this ridiculous pay system, think you had to buy coins all the time or some bs so l didn't bother with that.

Edited September 21, 2019 by chillii

[mr_ybor]

l looked at the pof too

 

PoF is pretty much a dumpster here in the U.S (at least in every city I've tried it in). It's pretty well known as where more, ummm, lower class individuals hook up, lots of single moms looking for replacement baby daddies, bad tattoos, lots of citybillies, ghetto fab types, guys with selfies in cars, tacticool pics, fishing in MAGA hats. If you find someone on there, it's definitely a diamond in the rough. Sooooooooo many profiles seemed dead or fake. The whole thing is super sketch.

Edited September 21, 2019 by mr_ybor

[an0nym0us123]

Pof is full of unemployed single moms here with snapchat filter. I messaged some over the months why I dont know, hardly anyone responded. It begs the question who the men are that have got these womens attention, im assuming its handsome dudes going after easy sex. Glad i am off there now.

[chillii]

Don't forget to before being too hard on yourself. A lot of profiles on all of them l saw were either fake or stolen from other sites or she just hadn't been back in 6mths, sometimes years. So you can't get a reply anyway.

Mine had a thing showed when they were on or last on and when you searched you could set it to show the most recent on first.

Then when you looked through the list but from about page 4 or something onward , they hadn't even been back for 6 or 12mths.

Some searches say just a fairly open search , l'd get 100 pages, so about 1000 women, and that little trick saved me a wholeeee lotta trouble.

[Rayce]

I have only been back on match a week or so.... this is the message I got this morning.

 

"im 70, ive been looking for something serious for a long time. i cant even get a date for dinner from this site am i ugly or something"

 

This is better than most of the messages I have gotten. Most are simply just one word... Hello> I am not sure how to reply to those except to say hello back. I have sent out about 7 messages now myself, 5 that have been read and 2 still in delivery mode. I have not gotten any replies.

[chillii]

Haaa, well at least he sounded honest anyway, hope he finds himself a nice woman to have dinner with soon.

But yeah see your replies or the lack of, people gotta remember all that stuff before they get too disheartened

[Rayce]

I think the main problem with OLD is the amount of fake profiles or profiles for people who don't pay. We all might do better if the only people that were in the database were paying customers. It's useless if all you keep getting is fake profiles which is what happened to me the last round on match... catfish after catfish. yug.… I don't like catfish!

[mr_ybor]

"im 70, ive been looking for something serious for a long time. i cant even get a date for dinner from this site am i ugly or something"

 

If I get to 70 and I'm still single, it's just hookers and good Scotch until the sun doesn't come up on whatever beach I'm bumming at! I barely have patience for this B.S. at my current age.

[Ellener]

'I think the main problem with OLD is the amount of fake profiles or profiles for people who don't pay. We all might do better if the only people that were in the database were paying customers. It's useless if all you keep getting is fake profiles which is what happened to me'

 

agree Rayce, plus the basic matching program doesn't seem to work- I get contacted by people hundreds of miles away for example. Or 30 years younger!

 

Match.com does seem to be a lot about making money for match.com too, two emails saying I had a message led to a link selling upgraded membership or something. Quite a few links seem to be selling something that 'boosts' views.

[mr_ybor]

^

Set your age and distance parameters, hoss. Any non-trash site will filter for that. Even crap apps like Tinder won't serve up matches not in a mutual distance or age spec overlap.

 

If Match doesn't, it's epic crap. Ditch it.

[nospam99]

^

Set your age and distance parameters, hoss. Any non-trash site will filter for that. Even crap apps like Tinder won't serve up matches not in a mutual distance or age spec overlap.

 

If Match doesn't, it's epic crap. Ditch it.

 

Match doesn't filter for mutual distance and age spec overlap.

Neither does POF

Neither does OKCupid

Neither does ourtime

Neither does eharmony

Neither does elitesingles

 

I guess, according to you, they're all 'epic crap'.

 

Tinder does? That's ONE.

 

Ya know. I haven't tried Tinder because of the 'hookup site' rep, at least in my part of the world. I did try Bumble. Again in my part of the world, the same women I'd already seen on Match.

 

BTW according to me, Zoosk is 'epic crap' because only after they took my money did they reveal the requirement that the paid user had to share their FB. On the epic crap scale, trolling for Personally Identifiable Information beats handing out lists of superficially failing matches. It's pretty clear to me that social media facilitating identity theft is a horse that's already left the barn.

[mr_ybor]

Match doesn't filter for mutual distance and age spec overlap.

Neither does POF

Neither does OKCupid

Neither does ourtime

Neither does eharmony

Neither does elitesingles

 

 

Ok Cupid does as long as you stay off the "DoubleTake" trash. Stick to the real filtered search. Bumble does. Hinge does. Coffee Meets Bagel does.

 

 

 

Honestly, at the end of the day, most of all this dating app nonsense is owned by the ****show that is IAC, so any loyalty is a complete joke to begin with. Pick what ones the Boolean operands work on... or don't, your choice.

Edited September 30, 2019 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
off topic

[SumGuy]

I have only been back on match a week or so.... this is the message I got this morning.

 

"im 70, ive been looking for something serious for a long time. i cant even get a date for dinner from this site am i ugly or something"

 

This is better than most of the messages I have gotten. Most are simply just one word... Hello> I am not sure how to reply to those except to say hello back. I have sent out about 7 messages now myself, 5 that have been read and 2 still in delivery mode. I have not gotten any replies.

It can take time and seems to come in waves, at least for me.

 

From my point of view a guy who just says hello has given up or is just fishing. I really don’t get why it is so hard for guys to send a decent message, and certainly keep out the “woe is me BS.”

I mean seriously, it’s like asking a stranger to be your emotional care taker. Perhaps the male equivalent of a detailed list of must haves.

 

I bet though if he messaged women from 65-75 he’d get a dinner date (just assuming your under 65 Rayce)

 

At least it isn’t a message chastising you for aspects of your profile

 

I wouldn’t read too much into a delayed response to messages (after all it has been only a week). If a man you messaged seems to be all that he may be in the middle of meeting women and doesn’t want to message too many at once.

Despite what forums might have you believe all the men I know in their 40s 50s get plenty of interest on Match (some to me surprisingly so) they just don’t post to forums.

 

I’ve found for me the cycle of a bunch of great matches to none is about 6 weeks. Patience is a virtue.

[Ellener]

'Match doesn't filter for mutual distance and age spec overlap.'

 

Well it looks like it does nospam99 - it's the first 'filter' on the front page, age and distance!

And 2 refined filters in the detailed search.

Have to pay to get all the features?

 

I've been through and set all the filters but even the most basic 'must have' switches don't always work, like non-smoker.

 

The program allots so many matches at one time then you have to search yourself, it says 'that's all for today'. It's time-consuming to search and there's no 'keyword' feature.

 

If you don't use the site for a few days the program sends out messages. I suspect they are 'marketing messages'? At any rate follow the link and the profile is usually 'no longer available' online.

 

I'm not very good at technical stuff but I am quick to spot patterns and things which are a bit 'off'. Match website is not a great feat of computer technology. Or ethics- lining up the non-paying customer who can't respond to messages then letting messages be sent to them by the paying customer isn't very cool except as a marketing ploy.

 

Of course it could be I have something set which means 'send the unlikely. The unlikelier the better'

 

I'm glad I tried it ( in an I'll try anything once vein...) but it's not really me so far.

 

I can see why so many people get frustrated and disheartened- and I myself wouldn't personalize that as 'what's wrong with me?'

 

I can see that so much has changed since I was last 'looking', dating doesn't even seem that popular in general any more.

 

'At least it isn’t a message chastising you for aspects of your profile '

 

'A woman likes a fixer-upper', Sumguy?!

 

'I’ve found for me the cycle of a bunch of great matches to none is about 6 weeks. Patience is a virtue.'

 

Ok, ok already! Being patient. Geez!

[elaine567]

I've been through and set all the filters but even the most basic 'must have' switches don't always work, like non-smoker.

 

I guess because it doesn't want to reduce the matches to ridiculously low levels, so low you would likely give up.

Cut offs for distance are probably a bit fluid too. Upper limit 50 miles, but if good match at 52 miles, then many may not be too bothered.

But smoking may be different. Smoking is often a hard deal breaker for non smokers especially...

[SumGuy]

I'm wondering if the % match thing they send is an indication that this person meets some, but not all, of your criteria like non-smoking.

 

I get pushed matches ever day around 5pm. Some are based on my criteria and others recommended based on who I have liked in the past. Surprisingly the later has some pretty good recommendations.

The two criteria I see consistently ignored are distance and age (sending me matches to those younger than my search cut off).

 

The filters seem to work when search on my own. When searching myself I sort by distance, about the only way to handle the numbers.

 

The matches they send you though are just based on the filters you set. I presume there is no filter for shirtless bathroom selfie cleaning a bass on the counter.

 

I recommend patience but not inaction...don't wait for people to respond to your messages before sending out others.

[nospam99]

'Match doesn't filter for mutual distance and age spec overlap.'

 

I take 'mutual distance and age spec overlap' to mean she meets my distance and age spec AND I meet hers. For sure than ain't happening. Most of my matches are farther away than my distance spec and/or out of my age range. Also for lots of my matches I'm out of her distance or age specs.

 

And then there's the 'her height spec' thing. On occasion I try contacting a woman for whom I'm 'marginal' (within 2 years of the top of her age range or within an inch of the bottom of her height range). When I do, my 'batting average' goes from .250 to close to zero.

[Ellener]

I looked it up on match, says 'depending on how broad/narrow your preferences are and how often we send your matches to you, we may not always have new Mutual Matches for you each time. When this happens, our systems automatically broaden some of the criteria, such as location or age, and send you matches as close as possible to your preferences under the heading "Members We Selected for You" (since they're not technically "matches")'

 

I've tried to set mine with as many limits/must-haves to avoid this as possible but looks like the program over-rides it anyway.

 

'I presume there is no filter for shirtless bathroom selfie cleaning a bass on the counter.'

 

SumGuy I'd be way too polite to be that specific But it is an issue of 'the numbers game' in that the majority of people I don't have a lot in common with so far it would seem.

 

I will say all my other relationships are thriving with me being intentionally more upbeat and relationship-aware ( if that's a thing ) and I made a new close friend in the past few weeks who has been a lot of fun to hang out with.

[nospam99]

FWIW the dating sites have enough information in their databases (age, location, height, body type, religion, latest activity, interests, race, education, marital status, parental status, WHETHER OR NOT THE PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY EXCHANGED MESSAGES) to filter and sort a lot better. There could be 'static' filters (applied to a list like the one Match sends every morning) or 'dynamic' filters (turned off or on as the user views a result set from a search). They choose not to. I assume because they want to deliver large lists to justify false claims about how many potential dates they have for users. Personally I find it a waste of time to 'swipe left' through dozens of women who I already recognize as either of no interest to me or not interested in me. (Except for the occasional bikini photo from a woman who's clearly into yoga ), I'd rather get one or two 'good matches' a week than dozens of bad matches every day. At the moment the biggest mismatch on lists is distance. The biggest mismatch on searches is lack of activity. I've even had a couple of women who might date me if they lived across the street send me responses that 'the distance will not work'.

[SumGuy]

...

'I presume there is no filter for shirtless bathroom selfie cleaning a bass on the counter.'

 

SumGuy I'd be way too polite to be that specific But it is an issue of 'the numbers game' in that the majority of people I don't have a lot in common with so far it would seem.

If you did it would not be uncommon.

My positive attitude on being "odd" is that person out there for me likely has the same problem...so we'd be like two peas in a pod. The odd pod!

[Ellener]

'I've even had a couple of women who might date me if they lived across the street send me responses that 'the distance will not work'.'

 

That is weird nospam99, that would be one of my 'nos' dating someone I might bump into every ten minutes!

 

What I have found is a) changing details of the profile frequently throws up more matches and b) having such a narrow search criteria for where I'm living I just get tons and tons of 'default non-matches' anyway.

 

One guy today had a profile wearing a t-shirt where all the 'blue' liberal states were labelled 'dumbf*&kville USA' Seems like a strange attempt at making a first impression to me, being up-front obnoxious, but maybe that's his 'filter'?

 

'The odd pod!'

 

If I ever have a partner and share a home again that's what we'll call it SumGuy