I’m starting to think guys have it harder on dating websites than girls. It’s known that there are more men than women on these sites, so that’s already an advantage for straight women (as far as more of a selection goes), but does it go beyond that? I haven’t done any proper research, but most of the guys I speak to tell me that they get very few replies to their messages, and fewer initial messages from girls. I wonder if it has something to do with the classic “the guy asks the girl out”, rather than the other way around. I think it’s become less of a big deal for a girl to make the first move today, but it seems that most guys are still the ones to approach the girl. -And of course most marriage proposals are definitely still being done by the man as well. Not to mention more women are still skeptical about meeting a stranger from the internet than men fear meeting a strange women. So, some work goes into maintaining the idea that they’re not just some creep.
A male friend of mine recently signed up with one of the dating websites I frequent. He asked me to fix up his profile a little. I spent about three hours logged in as him and was surprised I didn’t get a single message. The ten messages he’d sent out remained unanswered. I also discovered that it isn’t easy to speak highly of yourself and not sound completely cocky, as a guy. After some difficulty with the task, I wound up leaving a sort of testimonial for him on his profile, as myself. It was a sort of experiment. Either girls would be turned off by it, or they’d find it cute and be intrigued that another girl had such great things to say about him. It’s been about a week since that experiment and you know, he’s gotten a few replies to the first messages he sent out, a few new messages from others, and has even progressed one conversation off of the website and into texts. I take most of the credit for getting him to that point on the site –But he’s still claiming some sort of 20% that I’m not sure he deserves credit for from the start ;-) …It’s also not the first time I’ve heard of a girl helping a guy fill out his profile, or a guy making suggestions to a girl about hers. Sometimes I wonder if we’re all just falling for each other’s profiles written by someone else…
In other news…During another night tired of dating websites, I tried fooling around with my search options. I spent some time looking at some 0% matches and you know, it made me pretty happy I’m not with any of those guys. Some of them were just awful and while I still haven’t found whatever it is I’m searching for, sometimes it’s nice to know who I don’t have to end up with. I was also wondering about the guy who wanted a girl who would go out to the club with him every night. Why is he looking for her online? Wouldn’t he have better luck finding her at the club? -Oh, and today I received a message from a guy who I’m pretty sure has tried to contact me a few times in the past. His message wasn’t so bad, but today I squinted at his picture and went “Does he…Is that…” and upon closer inspection, yes that was a puppet on his hand. It could have been the fact that he also happened to be unattractive, but I never knew what a turn off a puppet could be. I just don’t see myself dating a ventriloquist. The picture just made me frown upon coming across his profile. -Does that exist? Different expressions people made upon viewing different dating website profiles in some sort of video? Well, It should exist, anyway.
Tired Of Dating 
You’re surprised he didn’t get a message for just three hours? Try weeks.
You’re spot on: men are expected to approach and most messages do go unanswered, but I think there’s another big factor that you haven’t touched on. We have to go the extra mile to prove that we’re not creeps.
I hear, time and again, from women I go on dates with that at least 90% of the messages they receive are from weirdos. Out of the remaining 10%, lets say half of those are “not their type” or whatever. Now we’re down to 5%. These are the ones our example lady decides to meet.
Half of those never get to the first meeting due to warning signs being raised during text/phone conversations or he repeatedly postpones, she thinks “bugger this for a lark” and, rightly, calls it off because she deserves better than having her time wasted.
2.5% left. These are the guys that make it to the first date. Great, right? We haven’t got to the liars.
Out of the 26 first dates I’ve been on since December 31, four have turned up in heels. Not due to the comfort factor, which I respect, but because they didn’t believe I was the height I claimed to be. There is, apparently, an epidemic of men lying about their height.
One of my dates was 5’2″. She told me about a guy she’d met who swore blind he was 5’10” then turned out to be shorter than her and 1″ kitten heel. As a legit six-footer who likes a girl in heels, it’s becoming a touch frustrating to be comforted by another petite woman in ballet flats whose cynicism turns to surprise when you introduce yourself.
Then there’s the ones who’ve lied about their jobs or income or hobbies…
…or their wife/girlfriend.
I guess we’re down to 1.5% now.
Well, some of these won’t look their pictures, some will have questionable hygiene, some will still live with their mums, some will turn out to be socially awkward or just plain assholes. A whole lot will be nice guys that there’s just not a spark with.
0.5% left. One guy out of 200. He’s handsome and funny and intelligent and solvent enough to get a second date.
So yeah, we have to prove ourselves.
Speaking from personal experience, I sell myself on my profile pretty well I think, I can spell and, if I may, I’m not hideous. I send out a decent amount of, personalised, initiation messages per week and I’ve hit the jackpot if I get one reply. Right now, across the two sites I’m active on, I have just one ongoing conversation and, rarity of rarities, she approached me.
It’s the first for over six weeks.
“Confronted”, not “comforted”. Although, I don’t mind being comforted by petite ladies… :-D
Yes, I know from speaking to some other friends from these sites that it does take a lot longer than a few hours…But being so used to using them from a girl’s point of view, the three hours surprised me haha
Well, everyone has their own tastes. I’ve seen girls profiles who won’t accept messages from guys under 6ft tall, so I’ve seen many 6ft tall guys on the site -and some are probably shorter. This is a problem for me because I’m short and actually prefer to date guys under 6ft tall. So, although I won’t completely ignore a guy for being 6ft or over, I do find it a turn off and it often deters me somewhat from sending them a message.
I’ve never worried about wearing heels because I can’t walk in them. So, I just hope to find the not-too-tall types =)
And yes, that’s what I mean, I think it’s hard as a guy to talk about how great he is, while still sounding appealing. I think there are more women who are worried about the safety issue of meeting a stranger than men who are afraid of meeting strange women. So, I think a lot more work goes into it on their end. I’ve just added a line about that, as I realized it wasn’t really conveyed in my post, though part of a conversation I recently had with a friend on this topic.
What does this phrase you used mean? “bugger this for a lark”
And what are you knocking socially awkward for? Not all socially awkward is always bad. It’s only bad when they’re also a weirdo. I like socially awkward -I’m a bit, myself =)
But yes, I guess all of my messages that go ignored don’t add up to all that guys out there are sending out =)
I’ll just chime in to point out that “bugger this for a lark” is an exceedingly British way of saying “screw this!”
Ah, thanks. It sounded British, but I wasn’t sure of how to translate it and hadn’t been in the mood to google it =P
I’m curious. I have never used an online dating site; although I am not opposed to trying. For me, I have met and have had good online friendships and some titillating flirtations with women via facebook. While both parties can, and probably do, exaggerate their positive characteristics. One does get to discuss politics, religions, morality, interests, etc. Have you had any romances bloom out of facebook friendships? What’s been your experience–and dose it help if they are real life friends of other facebook friends? What, if any, is the advantage of website dating when you could cull the same information and trust your instincts about people and their posts on facebook?
I personally use FaceBook to stay in touch with friends I already know in person & don’t speak to those I haven’t already met on it.
I use dating websites to find people to meet in person (hopefully for potential relationships.) Of course I have to talk to them online at first to decide if I want to meet them, but I’m not interested in keeping relationships online. It’s something I did as an early teen, and although it can be entertaining, I’d rather meet people who can join me in certain activities/events. The reward after talking to someone online is the eventual in person meeting. There’s enough dishonesty in real life, I’d rather not increase the chance in online relationships. It can be fun to have an internet “pen-pal” but it’s just not something I look for. I have enough people to talk to, I want someone to build in-person friendships/relationships with.
Thanks for the response. I’d say I have a 75/25 ratio of people I know in person to people I know only as fbook friends on facebook. But what I was asking is what’s the advantage of dating websites. I get that both parties are there for the purpose of meeting, but if I strike up a relationship with a new to me facebook friend and it leads to phone calls and an eventual meeting haven’t I accomplished the same thing without a fee to pay?
I don’t pay any fees. I use free dating websites. I don’t have experience with meeting people I don’t know on FaceBook, so I suppose you could use either the same way. I guess dating websites customize who would be a better match for you when it comes to a relationship (some do it better than others) & you’re able to search for & just view those you’d be interested in based on various things about them. With FaceBook, it’s more just randomly anyone or friends of your friends. I feel FaceBook was designed more with the intention of reconnecting with old friends & keeping in touch with current friends. Dating websites are designed more to find someone compatible to you for you to meet/possibly date.
I can confirm that during my time trying to find love online I received very little responses to messages that I sent. It can become very tiresome and you do begin to wonder if perhaps there’s something off-putting about yourself that you just cant see when you are seemingly being ignored by 95% of those you contact. However I often put it down to a mixture of disinterest, a potentially overwhelmed inbox due to the ratio of men to women on most of these sites and possible abandonment of the profile.
But I learnt to build up quite a thick skin about it all. I eventually stopped personalising each message and started firing off fairly generic cut and paste greetings to signal my interest and see who would reply. If I got a reply I’d begin an earnest conversation from there.
But one thing that I think men have to deal with much more than women, again due to the ratio in addition to other factors… is spam! Oh god, the spam! Some of it is fairly obvious:
“hey sxy,
im so hot and i liv near u! chek out my naked pics at gimmeyourcreditcarddetailsDOTcom!”
Others not so much, you would get a message from someone, sometimes with a, clearly stolen, photo from some models portfolio but sometimes from a seemingly genuine person, beginning a conversation. You’d exchange a couple of messages before you’d get the dreaded:
“Hey, I really like you, but before we go any further I’ve just got to make sure you aren’t fake. Can you sign up to this site to prove you’re real? It’s saybyebyetoyourwagesDOTnet”
Yeah, it can get really really frustrating when you’re firing out messages left, right and centre and only getting to talk to scammers. But wherever there are sad, lonely and/or desperate people, there are others ready to profit from them.
There are some fake male profiles as well…But yeah, I don’t get a lot of spam messages. I think I got one or two…But I guess it’s a more popular for you guys.
It’s a hard balance, you don’t want to send impersonal, generic messages to everyone, but with enough ignored messages it’s discouraging to put all that effort into a message for nothing. I’m also somewhere in-between that at this point messaging people.