I'd almost rather have gotten no response

[Misskitty16]

I agree with most of what Sportster is saying. It's too bad, because there is nothing we can do about it. Women have it harder in that regard. Men can accumulate wealth - they can get an education, get a better job, make more money. But a woman can only do so much in the beauty department. I can work out seven days a week, and I won't ever have long legs, or big blue eyes, for example. Youth and beauty are fleeting, hence one of the reasons we have a harder time as we age.

[Rosti87]

I guess it also depends on where you live, but I know many women who are below average looking (and far from thin) women who always seem to have dates from OLD. I also know of several older women at my firm that date around a lot as well (one who is getting married). But I live in a population dense area, so that could make the difference.

 

And Batya, I know you said you messaged many men, but you got a lot of responses, right? Most men don't have that luxury, and many are lucky even to get 1 response for every 100 emails they send.

I agree demographics plays big in the dating pool. Large urban centers or communities with large active older populations probably get more dates than small towns and rural areas.

 

And I personally know of couples in their prime where the guy is an IT worker making 6 figures very fit and tall and has a heavy set girlfriend who works in a lower paying profession and they are perfectly happy.

[John John]

I agree with most of what Sportster is saying. It's too bad, because there is nothing we can do about it. Women have it harder in that regard. Men can accumulate wealth - they can get an education, get a better job, make more money. But a woman can only do so much in the beauty department. I can work out seven days a week, and I won't ever have long legs, or big blue eyes, for example. Youth and beauty are fleeting, hence one of the reasons we have a harder time as we age.

 

I hear you, Misskitty. I can only imagine the pressure that some women must feel in this department. But rest assured...women put just as much pressure on us to look good as well. I workout and take care of myself for me, but I'd be lying if I said the initial motivation (when I started years ago) was to be more attractive to more women. It's actually not as easy for not great looking men to compensate with wealth as it used to be.

[cbh1979]

Back to the original post, I wouldn't have bothered to message someone who says something like that on their profile and nothing else. She might've been joking, or she may not have been-the fact she responded tends to make me think it's the former-but the bottom line is someone who says that has some baggage that you probably don't want to deal with. I think practically everyone has had bad experiences dating, but if you stress that first and foremost when introducing yourself to people it just doesn't leave the best impression.

 

As for the response rate, I do agree that a lot of women on these sites think of themselves as 10s and respond accordingly. As for the volume of messages they get, who knows, but I have had more than one tell me that most of the messages consist of guys looking for sex. Naturally, they're going to be wary of anyone on a site like that. My best luck has been with those who are down to earth. Sorry to say, there are a lot on there that will flake out on you for whatever reason.

 

I should add, too, that just because someone doesn't respond right away doesn't necessarily mean anything. I'm recently out of a relationship begun online where she didn't reply to my initial message for 3 months. I never asked why it took her so long to write back-I suspect she was dating someone or recently out of a relationship-but just keep that in mind.

[hyden]

I must have just gotten lucky. A few weeks ago, I created my first ever online profile (on POF). Within an hour, I recieved 3 'meet me' requests. I sent a decent length message and recieved a response indicating that she liked my lessage and would like to talk further but had to go to bed. (it was about 10:30pm). After 2 days of messaging on POF, we traded cell numbers and text for another week. We met for a quick lunch during the work week last week. Nervous as hell, but it went well and we now have plans to go out this saturday. Since I began talking to her, I have recieved several other 'meet me' requests, but I have no interest in trying to manage more than one interest at the moment (from what I hear, that is a poor approach to OLD, but hey, i am new to it).

 

Short background: I met my ex-wife at 20, we were together until 33. After we split, I jumped right into a relationship with a girl I have known since I was 12 (we dated on/off in HS) and we were together for 4 years. We split amicably as we just realized we werent meant to have that kind of relationship. With that in mind, I have never dated as an adult...let alone OLD. So, I am either going to blindsided somehow, or I am lucky.

 

I suppose like playing the lottery, it can happen. (we all have the one friend that never buys scratch offs, then does one day and wins 500.00 on their first one). Silly comparison aside, I hope this goes well. I just wanted to share a recent, seemlingly positive experience.

[cbh1979]

That's awesome! There are definitely positive experiences with OLD. You already know, though, that putting all your eggs in one basket and focusing on one interest can turn out badly, so I won't mention anything about that (I did the same thing.)

[Ms Darcy]

For me, as long as I'm physically attracted to her (and I have to be from the get-go, attraction for me does not develop over time), enjoy hanging out with her, and have core values in common, she's a contender. Every single guy I know is like this, though VERY few men would say this out loud in real life.

 

I hear you saying that dating is easier for women because a) men aren't really all that picky so long as physical attraction is there and she's nice enough and b) unattractive women can get attractive partners easily.

 

I hear you. I think most guys I know espouse this POV as well. In my opinion, and of course I may be wrong, men are often just as picky ... just "differently" picky. I only have anecdotes as well. I had a male friend who I was talking to/providing support when his ltr ended. He wouldn't commit and I couldn't figure it out. She was (in my opinion) waaay more attractive than him and they had common interests. It was through a LOT of conversations that we were able to pinpoint some things. He liked curvy-ish girls with a hint of crazy and vulnerability who were idealists and into nature. None of that he would ever put in a profile or be able to articulate. Instead, he would just say stuff like "it didn't click." Or "I wasn't feeling it." Or "there was no spark." Or "I wasn't feeling the chemistry." Seemingly magical stuff.

 

To me, it's not that he wasn't picky. He was. It was just that he was not able to articulate it fully.

 

Attraction is very personal and based on a lot of things. I don't fault anyone for that. But I did realize that for me, the more dating experience I had and the more in tuned I was with my emotions and feelings, the more I was able to identify the things that worked/didn't work in previous relationships as factors that would eventually impact my attraction. So, I would date guys who weren't particularly ambitious or educated because I didn't want to rule out a good potential and found it was actually a bad move as it played out. Physical attraction isn't the primary for me. It's a combination and I have a need to feel safe, nurtured, provided for, jovial, inspired, and intellectually stimulated by my partners (as I would expect to do the same for them). So that translates for me into identifiable needs.

 

Does that make me more picky? I don't know about that. Plenty of first dates ended and I didn't hear from the guys again whereas I was interested so obviously they weren't into it - which is fine. But the point is, I feel like my male friend was only actually interested in 2% of women. So, his pool was very small. But of that pool, many weren't very interested back. Now, in practice, that means he reached out to 100 women ... but that's still a SMALL number of the total population and the likelihood they would be interested in him seems small.

 

I always the points about unattractive women having partners is kind of ... well ... forgive me but mean. Not saying YOU are mean but we seem to equate unattractive with overweight. While I always advocate for a healthy weight and lifestyle, overweight women can be very attractive actually. I think a pretty face and the right attitude is key. Skinny girls with "ugly" faces can do fine in dating (e.g. get plenty of interest). But thin/average/pleasantly curvy girls with pretty faces are definitely in high demand. I have a colleague who has had more male interest than anyone that I know because she's very confident and always well-dressed/wearing makeup. I have a former colleague who I actually don't think is at all attractive but she's VERY confident and has a doting, attractive husband.

 

Here is my own controversial statement: I think true confidence and femininity is not very common. So the women who have it, no matter their size or perceived attractiveness, do very well.

 

Once again - finding someone to have a healthy and meaningful relationship with is equally as hard for both teams, and I know women definitely have their struggles too.

 

I agree with this. And for me this is the bottom line.

[John John]

 

I always the points about unattractive women having partners is kind of ... well ... forgive me but mean. Not saying YOU are mean but we seem to equate unattractive with overweight. While I always advocate for a healthy weight and lifestyle, overweight women can be very attractive actually. I think a pretty face and the right attitude is key. Skinny girls with "ugly" faces can do fine in dating (e.g. get plenty of interest). But thin/average/pleasantly curvy girls with pretty faces are definitely in high demand. I have a colleague who has had more male interest than anyone that I know because she's very confident and always well-dressed/wearing makeup. I have a former colleague who I actually don't think is at all attractive but she's VERY confident and has a doting, attractive husband.

 

I agree with everything you said Ms. Darcy, but I wanted to clarify some of what you said in this one statement. I did not mean, nor was I implying, that overweight automatically equals "unattractive." I was using this as an example because many women on here have been vocal about men apparently only demanding thin women. As I have said in recent posts of mine, "curvy" is absolutely fine by me. I'm more into the face, but of course, few would find truly morbidly obese people attractive (it's a completely differently lifestyle). I was trying to make the point that even average and below average-looking women have more opportunities for dating than their male "counterparts" (in terms of attraction "level"). Whenever I say that women have it easier, women then say "this only goes for young beautiful women," and I tried to argue this point. I am certainly not one to judge what is/isn't attractive to all people, only I can judge what I personally find attractive in women

[Ms Darcy]

I guess it also depends on where you live, but I know many women who are below average looking (and far from thin) women who always seem to have dates from OLD. I also know of several older women at my firm that date around a lot as well (one who is getting married). But I live in a population dense area, so that could make the difference.

 

And Batya, I know you said you messaged many men, but you got a lot of responses, right? Most men don't have that luxury, and many are lucky even to get 1 response for every 100 emails they send.

 

I may be an outlier then because I got messages and sent messages out too. I didn't get many responses either!

 

I will add, I think that it's tough emotionally to be the asker, and men tend to be the asker. When you are the asker, there is an implication of interest that you simply don't have on the askee's side. As the askee, I haven't always been immediately interested but I tend to try to give it a shot a few times.

 

As men are more frequently the askers, I am sympathetic to that emotional frustration.

 

For women, it can be a challenge not being the asker. It's like there is a lack of control. I have heard women complain about the low quality of men (or low quantity of men) who reach out. The advantage that the asker has is that he's already filtered out, at least attempted to, what he thinks is low quality.

 

So both people filter and you just hope you can mutually filter to each other.

[John John]

And yeah Ms. Darcy, being the asker a lot of times can be rough, because all the risk of rejection is put on us. Especially with online dating, since so many of us guys know we're competing with full inboxes most of the time (because many guys who would never dare ask a woman out in real life can hide behind an email and ask out whoever they want). Rejection doesn't sting as much as it did when I was younger, so I'm not too bothered by this to be honest.

[hyden]

That's awesome! There are definitely positive experiences with OLD. You already know, though, that putting all your eggs in one basket and focusing on one interest can turn out badly, so I won't mention anything about that (I did the same thing.)

 

Agreed. I wasnt even really sure I was looking at that point. I was bored on a Saturday night and figured I would see what the whole OLD thing was about. Sort of lucked into this contact. If it doesnt work out, I wont take it personally as I know that it is (generally) a numbers game.

[Sportster2005]

Society seems to be trying to force us to accepting overweightness as attractive. It is not. I don't care what the marketing people at Dove say. Women are very vocal about their disdain about beer guts. And they should be. And don't even get me started on the double standard of women refusing to date shorter men. They turn around and call us shallow for overlooking heavier women, but feel perfectly justified and turning their noses up at shorter men. Absolutely stupid. At least overweight people can usually lose weight, a short person is pretty much stuck.

 

I speak as a former obese man. I didn't like it for health reasons, and self image. So instead of trying to convince the world fat was O.K. I decided to lose the fat instead. Funny thing, when I lost weight I started to get more attention from more attractive women.

 

Other than that I think the rest was brilliant.

[John John]

Society seems to be trying to force us to accepting overweightness as attractive. It is not. I don't care what the marketing people at Dove say. Women are very vocal about their disdain about beer guts. And they should be. And don't even get me started on the double standard of women refusing to date shorter men. They turn around and call us shallow for overlooking heavier women, but feel perfectly justified and turning their noses up at shorter men. Absolutely stupid. At least overweight people can usually lose weight, a short person is pretty much stuck.

 

Other than that I think the rest was brilliant.

 

Yeah I didn't wanna go there with the height versus weight issue...but how many women's profiles have we seen with headlines that say "don't message me if you're under 7ft?"

 

You rarely see men so mean and vocal about weight (If a guy said "don't message me unless you're a size -2," he'd be crucified), but it's definitely not fair how we're labeled as "shallow" if we prefer to date fit women (when we are fit ourselves), but women aren't called out for preferring taller men. I'm not tall, I'm 5'8" and I do just fine myself, but I know several guys who are in the very short range (I guess 5'6" and below?) who have EVERYTHING going for them but struggle a bit because of their height (which can't be changed). Why should they have to settle when they workout 6 days a week, are good looking, nice guys and have great careers?

[Realitynut]

Haha! I don't think I've been matched with an ex....someone I went on a few dates with, yes.....and also....my own brother! EEEkkkkkk! At the time we were both single within 2 years in age and in the same city....I guess it was bound to happen but I had to block him right away. lol

 

Yep...with my twin bro on eHarmony a few years back....and my ex on POF. EHamony only had me matched up with guys in Texas...and I'm in Illinois. The prob with eHarmony is that they filter out TOO much. Guys....and a guy poster did it a few posts above....will post they want women/girls UP TO THEIR AGE...but not over. The above poster said he was 27...but had the range of woman's age to 26!!! Aargh

 

I don't want a guy too much older than me...cuz he will have one foot in the grave. I have had TWO guys in the last week who thought i was in my late 40's. One guy was 61 and has known me casually for more than a year. When he found out i was his age, he was surprised. The other guy was probably in his 40's himself. Soooooo....there ya go.

 

My opinion....for what it's worth....many women age better than men. Especially if the man only sits in a recliner with a beer. My problem at this point is...i can't get off ena!

[Misskitty16]

I agree that women can be just as shallow as men. I had asked my friend why she deleted a nice guy on Match and she said "he was bald". That's it? He was bald? And the height thing? Forget it - sorry, but if you are 6'4 you will get more booty than a cat in heat, with most other things being equal and you are not hideous or obnoxious.

[John John]

I agree that women can be just as shallow as men. I had asked my friend why she deleted a nice guy on Match and she said "he was bald". That's it? He was bald? And the height thing? Forget it - sorry, but if you are 6'4 you will get more booty than a cat in heat, with most other things being equal and you are not hideous or obnoxious.

 

At least some of you admit this! Then, don't get angry at us if we prefer to date women who are fit, especially when we are fit ourselves (I do, however, have issues with men who are morbidly obese who "demand" fit women, that's not right). I personally don't ever "demand" anything that I do not already offer. I think I'm very fair in that regard.

[Misskitty16]

At least some of you admit this! Then, don't get angry at us if we prefer to date women who are fit, especially when we are fit ourselves (I do, however, have issues with men who are morbidly obese who "demand" fit women, that's not right). I personally don't ever "demand" anything that I do not already offer. I think I'm very fair in that regard.

 

I don't get mad at this. I maintain the same philosophy as you - I don't demand things I don't have. That doesn't mean I won't date someone who is better looking than me or has more than me (a high degree of education, for example), but it won't be on my "make or break" list.

 

But honestly, even if I were a 10, I wouldn't require that in my partner.

[John John]

I agree with you 100%. I have dated girls who were "below" me in some aspects (and I hate that term), but we clicked and were attracted to each other. It's not always as simple as "well, the guy and the girl are 'equals,' let's set them up together."

[towardfuture]

Had a thought about this last night before I went to bed. Part of the problem is the message delivery system. The way it is structured on the sites, and because of dating social norms, men message women (ALL women are delivered, men select who to message), and women select from the subset of men who message them. The result is this: imagine 10 men and 10 women on a beach. Each man messages 7 women, but only really is interested in 3. Meanwhile, each woman receives messages from 5 men, not knowing which other women the men messaged. As a result, each woman responds only to the 'best' person in their list, who, it turns out, is the same person for every woman. Therefore the end result is that 9 out of 10 men receive no response, and 9 out of ten women find the person they 'chose' unsuitable (not his first choice, he only wants sex from them, unavailable because he only chose HIS first choice etc). This is actually documented somewhere in those OKC trends posts, but I can't find it right now. Men message women within +/- 2 points of their 'attractiveness' rating mostly equally, where as women respond to messages from men who are 8/9/10s (regardless of their own attractiveness) and anyone below the ~84 percentile receives almost 0 messages.

 

This happens in real life too of course. I know a guy who makes 6 figures in his twenties, is physically attractive, etc., who has 13 women he's actively dating with absolutely 0 effort from him -- who are basically competing for him. Meanwhile I know a guy who makes 40k a year, is physically attractive and hasn't been on a date in 2 years.

 

But anyway, tackling this problem with OLD I think they should change the content delivery system. One thought is that women should have some indication of how many other *women* are interested in their choice. Not so they can compete, but so they can know where they really stand, tackling this strange OLD phenomenon where 6s think and act like they're 10s to other 6s because they receive the same mass message pickup lines from male 10s as every other woman on the site. Another thought is that they should limit the amount of messages men send per day so they have to be more selective with their messages. While that would seem restrictive at first, if every man has the same restrictions, rather than sending messages to 7 out of ten women, they only send the messages to the 3 they really like and have a higher response rate. This would be hard to enforce though -- I would foresee men just making multiple profiles to get around any restrictions

 

Just some thoughts. More may come later

[John John]

This is starting to remind me a lot of my Game Theory classes I did in my MBA.

 

Although I do agree with you, men tend to go for women within +/- 2 or so points of their "attractiveness," while women (even if they're 1/10s) all seem to chase the top 20% of men thinking they have a chance with such guys. It's hilarious. I think if many (but NOT all) women weren't as unfairly picky as they were, men would have a lot less to complain about. And this is coming from a guy that's doing quite well with OLD. I think men are a lot more realistic with their expectations than women realize (they all assume we're demanding the 10/10 runway models, when we're SO not lol)

[Rosti87]

I agree that women can be just as shallow as men. I had asked my friend why she deleted a nice guy on Match and she said "he was bald". That's it? He was bald? And the height thing? Forget it - sorry, but if you are 6'4 you will get more booty than a cat in heat, with most other things being equal and you are not hideous or obnoxious.

Too funny... But there is truth in there.

[Realitynut]

My ex was short (5'8") bald, poor...or at least acted poor...very heavy...but active....

 

I met him zip-lining and never even gave him a second glance. Then we kayaked...still i ignored him. After about the 4th meeting...at a meetup. He came up to me and said something clever. I remember the exact moment...my head almost spun off! He had a PERSONALITY! AND...he liked me. After that we became the best of friends.

 

He pursued me...he was very attracted to me. 2 years later...he ended things with me...after a year of being intimate...and him hot/cold.

 

He said he wanted to be free to do what ever he wanted to do...without being in a relationship! I know he still likes me 'physically'....but the 'mental' thing for him wasn't there. Or the emotionally attached. Where as i became emotionally and mentally attracted WAY before i was physically attracted.

 

I read a book once...lol. Said a guy has to be attracted to a woman physically first. Then it goes to mentally...then to emotionally. A woman, it's opposite. A woman is attracted to a man first mentally, then emotionally, than physically. Sometimes not until they kiss.

 

Sure was that way with me!

 

Just a thought. It said there are LOTS of women men will be attracted to...but they can't progress to the deeper level.

I feel that is why many times you might see a fairly hot woman, with a not so hot guy...and we automatically assume he has money. Could be he's just a nice guy who treats her with respect...and ADORES her! lol

Yes...we are hijacking thread.

 

OP...i think maybe she was being funny. Did you respond...? And did you hear back?

[Misskitty16]

I totally agree. So many women don't give men enough credit and think as long as a woman is attractive, that is all they will look at. Looks only get you in the door - looks alone won't keep a quality man. I have had men that were totally hot for me that I never got a third or fourth date with - so clearly, something was missing, because the chemistry certainly was there. It's not enough.

[fifregister]

OP that woman comes off as b*tchy. Despite the fact that I don't want to date ex-cons, cheating husbands, raccoons dressed up as people, etc. on the site, I do not actually write it. It comes off so bitter and jaded. And her message sounds hostile so just drop it. I'm mildly amused that you still said "I'd ALMOST rather have gotten no response." So you still would rather get a response. Any sort of response, even a crappy one.

 

I'm gonna apply the Drake equation to the scenario of dating in Manhattan and illustrate how CRAPPY it is even when your chances are considered "good"

 

8.4 Million in all 5 boroughs

Let's say 1/2 are men: 4.2 Million

Let's say I want to date 30-40 year olds and that's 10% of all men in all ages: 420,000

In my income bracket: 21,000

Assume 1/3 of them are single: 7,000

Assume I'm attracted to 1/10 people: 700

Assume (generously) that 1/2 of that are attracted to me: 350

Assume that I run into 1/5 (1 in each borough) by daily commute or online or through whatever means: 70

Assume that about half result in some sort of date: 35

 

It's basically 35 out of 4.2 Million potential men in a massive city like New York. So what are the odds? 8.33^e-6

 

You see how the odds become astronomically small and then if you factor in all the other things in life like relationship issues, timing, goals, it confirms that yes, I will die alone.

[Misskitty16]

Now that I think about it and after reading Fif's post, I agree. At first I thought it sounded kind of funny, but no - it does sound b*tchy. Even if she had added an "lol" that might have helped. But just "confirmed crazy" - nah. Here is a guy trying to reach out to her and that is the best she has? Nope, I agree with Fif.