Male Interaction with Women

[Timebandit]

First of all, this post details an experiment that you might find a bit morallly objectionable. In short, I created a fake female profile at an online dating site. The goal was in general to learn more about how men interact with women and in particular to try to learn from the best. Instead I came to wonder about how men really are with women.

 

The profile was created at a dating site operating at national level where I live. I used a picture from a female living in a totally different country. I wold consider her good-looking but not "perfect" (whatever that is). The profile was made up of some copy-and-paste from different dating profiles on other sites. I did not respond to any of the messages I received.

 

Unsurprisingly, an attractive women gets a lot of messages. I estimate the amount of messages to be around 15-20 messages a day.

 

The messages received from men can roughly be divided into two main groups (there are however overlaps):

 

 

• Facts Some men seem overly concerned about giving and receiving facts. Some of the men "write" long factual posts about themselves (they seem like copy-and-paste because they are not in any ways tailored towards the person they are contacting). Some of them also have a tendency of asking a lot of factual questions about the woman, such as where she lives, what she does for a living, if she is ready for christmas and all that. If I am going to be honest, I think I would find these messages extremely boring if I were a woman, and had to be exposed to them more than a few days of my life. The guys that are very factual seems to be the "nicer guys".
  

 

• Compliments: One group of men are in particular concerned about giving the girls compliments. Obviously, her looks is the most common theme often with one-line messages like "You look gorgeous" (sometimes in combination with a "Do you want to write?" question). Other responses includes a compliment about the girls look, as well as going to great lengths complimenting the profile (even if it is just a boring run-of-the-mill profile). Whenever there is a picture of the male attached to the message it usually a picture of a guy showing off his muscles, wearing sunglasses etc.
  

Now I know theres a lot of limitations of using an "anecdotal research design" (yes, thats an oxymoron). Some of the limitations are:

 

• Online dating in general dumbs down communication
  
• Some "quality guys" reckons that this is a fake and does not make any contact
  
• Only certain types of guys are attracted to this profile (as indicated above, I do however think that there are several different types of guys being interested)
  

Even with these limitations in mind I can state some observations:

 

• Some guys seems to be tripping over their feet and forgetting everything about dignity and having a backbone when seeing a good-looking girl
  
• A small minority of guys seems to be doing a lot of approaching. The also seem to use strategies that are based on the assumption that approaching is a "numbers game" (at best - at worst they are just utterly clueless).
  
• I wonder about the rest of the guys - are there many "quality guys" who do not approach? (shyness, fear of being seen as a player, jerk or whatever?)
  
• Almost none of the respondents are using humour, being original or trying to evoke emotions in the girl they are responding too (apart from complimenting her - but based on my short experience here, she will already be quite used to being complimented)
  

 

To be honest I am a bit appalled by this experiement. At best I found the responses boring and at worst they made me cringe. Are men in general really that bad at interacting with women? Are they willing to give away their power and dignity when they see an attractive woman?

 

I would love to hear some responses to this experiment. I would like to hear the girls thoughts and experiences about this. I would also like to hear what guys do in order to try to stand out from the crowd (both in online dating and when approaching girls IRL).

[itsallgrand]

I'm just bookmarking for now. And *semi secretly* laughing.

 

I have to admit that I have thought about doing this in the reverse: posing as a man to see what women respond, to what, and how.

 

Interesting thread this will be for sure.

[LBP]

Interesting. I've never done online dating so I can't speculate on the procedure, but I'm still intrigued.

[nutbrownhare]

Timebandit - this was totally unethical, and very, very funny! I have to say I'm really intrigued by the responses you got; your reactions also seem very thoughtful. I haven't had any experience of this (though I'm tempted to create a profile now ...!), so I'll be watching this thread with interest.

 

Could it also be that guys who do relate easily to women don't need to use online dating sites in the first place?

[GottaLetItBurn]

Interesting. I think most guys ask boring questions because they don't want to come on too strong or overly interested. It could also be shyness.

 

Most people just aren't good at breaking the ice.

[waveseer]

I don't like to give out a lot of identifying details to someone I don't know so the factual guys unnerve me even though most of them are totally harmless (a problem all by itself).

 

Being complimented and flirted with by a man who doesn't know me from eve is really cheezy and a total turn off. That's probably a good thing because that sort is usually only after sex anyways.

[george237]

Whenever there is a picture of the male attached to the message it usually a picture of a guy showing off his muscles, wearing sunglasses etc.

 

hahahahaha. If anyone ever gets a picture of me with sunglasses on showing off my muscles kill me.

[Luke Skywalker]

I've written off online dating for now because the fundamentals suck. If a woman is getting messages from guys all the time, then no matter what you write you are going to have a difficult time connecting with her because you are just another statistic that's trying to connect with her and you are going to be looked down because of that. You get the women there put up on a pedistle like they are pre-madonnas by all the male attention they are getting and no wonder you get this spoiling effect. I don't think male intereaction is the problem at all, I think the vast male attention is the problem.

 

If a woman only got a few emails a week, or just one in a blue moon, then her attitude would probably be a bit different. So I don't know if this is just one of them supply and demand things. But here's the thing. If you just write differently or have a profile different most most people, then you can beat the supply and demand rule. So, we know most 99% of guys are not humorous or will not evoke an emotional reaction -- so now you be the guy that will EXACTLY do JUST that -- and who will you be competing against, maybe just a few others, if at all?

 

That being said, I think the research is helpful and teaches one thing that the Doc Love system already teaches - that humour is the most powerful weapon when dealing with women, as it appears most guys even online doesn't have that. Make her laugh when she reads your profile, or write something that will evoke an emotional connection and you are ahead of the pack.

[Imprecision]

This is one of the best threads I've seen this year.

 

Great job, man.

[LAYAAN]

I do online dating. How about I run another experiment? I will create a fake profile of a male and see how chiks respond. How about that?

But I agree with most of the observations that OP noted. Yes, very few men sound genuine n original. Most of the time they would only complement me on my looks. Gah! men are so visual creatures!

[Timebandit]

I do online dating. How about I run another experiment? I will create a fake profile of a male and see how chiks respond. How about that?

 

You could certainly do that

 

Please give us feedback on your experiment.

 

But I agree with most of the observations that OP noted. Yes, very few men sound genuine n original. Most of the time they would only complement me on my looks. Gah! men are so visual creatures!

 

That is so sad. But of course it makes it easier to stand out as a guy.

[Scorpio86]

So I guess the question is what is the best thing for a guy to say?

 

I've had a go at online dating recently and have had contact with several girls. I suppose I am guilty of being a bit factual ("I do this, I like this, I've been to this city" etc.) and asking mundane questions ("What do you do, what do you like bla bla bla") when writing the first email so as to initiate conversation. I have no idea what else to write about though. Especially when the person I'm in contact with may have only a paragraph of personal info on her profile.

[Timebandit]

So I guess the question is what is the best thing for a guy to say?

 

I would also like to hear some more from the girls. What are examples of initial contacts that made you curious about getting to know a guy further?

 

In general, I do however think, that you get very far by using a bit of humour and a bit of tease (not too much).

[CaptainPlanet]

My hot chick friend set up a dating profile and got something like 98 hits in the one day. She responded to none of them and messaged the ones she liked. I kinda hate her for doing that.

[Nutz]

To be honest I am a bit appalled by this experiement. At best I found the responses boring and at worst they made me cringe. Are men in general really that bad at interacting with women? Are they willing to give away their power and dignity when they see an attractive woman?

 

In a word, yes.

[D_Lish]

Yep, men can send verrrry ZZZzzzzing messages....is it any wonder they get no reply?

Even good looking guys with zilch to say, get turned down for being ZZZzzzzzing conversationlists.

[Timebandit]

My hot chick friend set up a dating profile and got something like 98 hits in the one day. She responded to none of them and messaged the ones she liked. I kinda hate her for doing that.

 

To be honest I kinda understand her.

[Mantis]

I'm sorry, but I don't get the problem here with asking factual questions. Isn't that how you get to know somebody?

[waveseer]

I'm sorry, but I don't get the problem here with asking factual questions. Isn't that how you get to know somebody?

 

I would be much more interested in a man who told me who he was and where he was at currently (without getting too deep) so I could make an informed decision on whether I wanted to meet him.

[Timebandit]

I'm sorry, but I don't get the problem here with asking factual questions. Isn't that how you get to know somebody?

 

Firstly, factual questions are typically rather boring and too many of them leads to something that feels much like an interview. Secondly, I don't think attraction is a logic choice. It doesn't go like: "Ohhhh... he is a carpenter... droool".

 

When someone gets attracted to another person the do so because they get an emotional reaction out of interacting with the person (even thinking about the person). This is why being fun or talking about thinks like hopes and dreams is much better.

[CaptainPlanet]

To be honest I kinda understand her.

 

I'm sure her messages to the men were no more entertaining. Only she had her pretty picture and the promise of sex to back her boring words up.

[JenniferSNJ]

Hm... interesting post. I have a few thoughts...

 

Most guys do not stand out when they approach me (in real life- I don't do the online thing). It's pretty typical- either complimenting the way I look or making some crummy comment about the weather or whatever.

 

Guys that DO stand out (like my ex) usually come off VERY intelligent. I love smart men (and people in general, all my girl friends are VERY smart)... and intelligence is a HUGE turn on for me. I remember falling for my ex because he said he read books. I was only 18 at the time and I didn't know ANY guys that liked to read. eyes: But even now that I'm older, I'm still pretty much a sucker for a well spoken guy. And even if you only speak a few sentences, I can usually tell how intelligent someone is.

 

So I would think if you were trying to mack it with girls online... if I were the girl... you would have to write some well written thoughts to me. And I want to know about you. So give me the "boring" stuff... it's not so much what you say, but how you say it. I like the about me stuff too because I want to know if we have anything in common, if you have life goals, if you have anything of interest to say.

 

Funny is good. But I never seem to date really funny people. I like smart.

[reasonablegirl]

Hmm, from what I recall from my online dating days:

 

1. Emails that indicate that the guy actually read my profile and found parts of it entertaining. The email comments on something I wrote, says something funny about what I wrote, etc.

 

2. The guy ends the email with some kind of question(s) or some kind of comment that requires a response from me and that makes it easy for me to come up with a responsive email. This is super important. If it will take me a lot of work to come up with an response to an email it makes me think that there will be no chance of a connection with the guy. If I am inspired to respond, the guy will probably get a first date.

 

3. There is at least an attempt to spell words correctly and use punctuation and grammar.

 

4. The email is not full of sexual innuendo or inappropriate comments about how I look. Something like "I like your profile" is a great way to compliment without going too far.

 

5. Showing that we have something in common helps to establish a connection.