Robratory Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 (edited) I've just recently setup a couple of free accounts on online dating sites, and I think I've already figured out what's "wrong." By "wrong" I mean why doesn't it work better. Whether you're male or female, you always wind up thinking, "So many profiles... why so little success?" So why is this? After a lot of thought, I've concluded this is the problem. In online dating, you put all your requirements up front. Yeah, I know... no big insight, but think about it. When you're hanging out with friends at a bar or an ethnic food festival or whatever, and someone in your group runs into someone they know and introduces them all around, how does that work? Well, the person is introduced, and everyone starts talking. For your part, you decide if they are basically passable or not. Could I kiss him or her? If you can get over that hump, then you start looking for commonalities and watching out for incompatibilities. Oh, he likes Jazz! Darn, she doesn't like Chinese food. Cool, he's into hiking. Great, she wants to travel to 100 countries too! Oh, no, he's a Republican! Wait... did she just say abortion is a sin? And so on and so forth, people start building from there. We give a lot of weight to points in common, and we try to minimize incompatibilities ("well, as long as I don't have to like hip-hop too!"). That is completely different from online dating. Online dating is as if your friend said, "Hey, Jennifer! Let me introduce you to my friend Mike," and you went, "Uh, Mike, you need to know that I'm spiritual but not religious, my children are my life, I love dogs, I love to travel, I can stay home or go out, I love Mexican food, I love to exercise and I hope you do too." What do you think Mike would say or at least think? Ack, let me outta here! So what do you think of my little theory here? Edited November 23, 2015 by Robratory 2 Link to post Share on other sites
SwordofFlame Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Online dating just lets you evaluate people a lot more efficiently. And because of that, it can lead to grass is greener syndrome, that's the problem. Then you have Tinder. The founders think all men and women care about are your physical looks. And judging by the app's popularity, they're right. In a sense, it's no different than when you meet someone new in person. You have nothing to go on but looks in the beginning. Although, you may still run into the dreaded grass is greener syndrome. Link to post Share on other sites
lilmissjava Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Two dimensional personas in OLD can be misleading. Which is why more times than not a person is surprised by how tall or short their date really is, or how much different they look from their photos. Three dimensional people are real and authentic, and communication is instant. And compatibility can be gauged just by a simple one on one conversation. In the OLD world, anyone can be anything they want to be. Even someone they aren't. Compatibility on paper, I never trust it. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
salparadise Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 I have described a similar theory. The order of operation are reversed. In real life we filter thousands of people every day by not noticing them. When someone does catch our eye, we make contact knowing almost nothing about them other than the attraction/chemistry factor. If that's working we are wiling to overlook minor incompatibilities and go for it. Information is trivial unless we uncover a serious dealbreaker, which is usually a character or personality flaw. With online dating we try to select by matching trivial information first and then wonder why we aren't attracted to that person. The answer is, because attraction and chemistry drive romance, and information does not cause attraction/chemistry. We're still looking for a needle in a haystack but we're searching manually instead of waiting for our intuitive filter to alert us when the radar picks up a good one. 4 Link to post Share on other sites
losangelena Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Well, the person is introduced, and everyone starts talking. For your part, you decide if they are basically passable or not. Could I kiss him or her? If you can get over that hump, then you start looking for commonalities and watching out for incompatibilities. Oh, he likes Jazz! Darn, she doesn't like Chinese food. Cool, he's into hiking. Great, she wants to travel to 100 countries too! Oh, no, he's a Republican! Wait... did she just say abortion is a sin? I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure I agree with you, cause things like music preferences, taste in foods, recreational choices and political views are not what I personally base compatibility on. I could care less about most of those things in a mate. Sure, it may make going out easier, but they're not the most important things. I look for things like kindness, empathy, temperament, intellectual curiosity and humor. Can we laugh at the same things? Is he curious about the world and his place in it? How does he treat others and how will he treat me? Does he believe in things like social justice? Is he a good listener/caretaker? Few if any of those things can be ascertained through an online profile. So guess what, you still have to meet them and get to know them, so I don't really care how front loaded their profiles are with their likes and dislikes. That's not the meat of a person. I for one never had a problem meeting folks online. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
LilaMarie Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 The men that don't list exactly what they are looking for are the ones more open to meeting and not as picky. Those are the kind of guys I've dated for at least a month. I don't bother reading the rest of the profile. But that's just me Link to post Share on other sites
truth_seeker Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 OLD is all about STATS - Pics - Height - Body Type - Yearly Income If you're 6'1 or taller, average to above average looking and make good income, women will be after you. If you're a pretty woman with an average to above average figure, men will be after you. This is why a lot of people struggle with OLD. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Ruby Slippers Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 I'm reading a book right now that talks about how if we have a few choices, we tend to make a choice. If we have a lot of choices, we tend not to pick any of the choices. The book gives an example. Someone is giving out free samples of jam in a grocery store. When there are just a few flavors, 30% of people buy a jar of jam. When there are 24 choices, that drops to just 3%. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has stood in consternation in the endless aisle of laundry detergent, trying to figure out the one product that meets my preferences and is the best buy. Too many choices makes choosing harder. If we all went online and had 10 decent options, instead of thousands of random people to sift through, I think the search would be easier. 7 Link to post Share on other sites
SwordofFlame Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 I'm reading a book right now that talks about how if we have a few choices, we tend to make a choice. If we have a lot of choices, we tend not to pick any of the choices. The book gives an example. Someone is giving out free samples of jam in a grocery store. When there are just a few flavors, 30% of people buy a jar of jam. When there are 24 choices, that drops to just 3%. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has stood in consternation in the endless aisle of laundry detergent, trying to figure out the one product that meets my preferences and is the best buy. Too many choices makes choosing harder. If we all went online and had 10 decent options, instead of thousands of random people to sift through, I think the search would be easier. The app Coffee meets Bagel attempts to limit your options to one or two matches a day. However, I don't know if people have had more successful relationships develop from that app vs Tinder or OKC. Link to post Share on other sites
xcupid Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 What's really wrong about online dating (OLD) is that you can't tell if there's chemistry until you meet. 5 Link to post Share on other sites
SwordofFlame Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 What's really wrong about online dating (OLD) is that you can't tell if there's chemistry until you meet. Completely agree, that's why I always ask to meet after 3-5 messages. Link to post Share on other sites
losangelena Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 There's a perfectly good solution to all the problems of online dating. If you all find it so objectionable, then why do it? Just continue meeting people offline. I don't get what the big deal is. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
WaitingForBardot Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 (edited) What's really wrong about online dating (OLD) is that you can't tell if there's chemistry until you meet. Yup. Nothing matters to me until we have met, so I see OLD only as a method to get face to face with women I might not have otherwise met IRL. If we click, then the other stuff comes into play. OLD has people making judgments out of context on rather 1-dimensional impressions of what others are like: Oh, she likes pasta; oh, she hates serial killers (okay that one's kind of a deal breaker, 1-dimensional or not... ..lol..). I read thread after thread of people rejecting others based on criteria that have absolutely nothing to do with whether they would be a good long-term match. When you meet someone IRL, what they are like is gradually revealed as a package where you can take the individual traits in context to each other and as part of the whole person. Just as maybe a rather extreme example because it's often used as a litmus test: I am a shooter, have been my whole life, and my wife hates guns. Had we just been looking at lists to match personality traits she probably never would have even bothered to meet me. However, because she learned about this in the larger context of getting to know me, she was able to see that it did not define me in any way shape or form, and was just something I did that she wasn't particularly thrilled about. Oh, and I've found that putting lots of :love::love::bunny::bunny::):):laugh: in your texts/posts really makes women want to meet you right away!!! ..lol.. Edited November 23, 2015 by WaitingForBardot 1 Link to post Share on other sites
truth_seeker Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Yup. Nothing matters to me until we have met, so I see OLD only as a method to get face to face with women I might not have otherwise met IRL. If we click, then the other stuff comes into play. OLD has people making judgments out of context on rather 1-dimensional impressions of what others are like: Oh, she likes pasta; oh, she hates serial killers (okay that one's kind of a deal breaker, 1-dimensional or not... ..lol..). I read thread after thread of people rejecting others based on criteria that have absolutely nothing to do with whether they would be a good long-term match. When you meet someone IRL, what they are like is gradually revealed as a package where you can take the individual traits in context to each other and as part of the whole person. Just as maybe a rather extreme example because it's often used as a litmus test: I am a shooter, have been my whole life, and my wife hates guns. Had we just been looking at lists to match personality traits she probably never would have even bothered to meet me. However, because she learned about this in the larger context of getting to know me, she was able to see that it did not define me in any way shape or form, and was just something I did that she wasn't particularly thrilled about. Oh, and I've found that putting lots of :love::love::bunny::bunny::):):laugh: in your texts/posts really makes women want to meet you right away!!! ..lol.. I've met women in person who liked me, but if I came across them online would ignore me because I'm under 6'0 and don't post the best pics of myself. Link to post Share on other sites
Wewon Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Online dating just lets you evaluate people a lot more efficiently. And because of that, it can lead to grass is greener syndrome, that's the problem. I agree with this 100%, just based on the complaints that I hear. The inefficiencies of real life causes us to slow down and truly evaluate people which means that we are more likely to put quirks, flaws and mis-steps into perspective. With online dating you can grab a flaw and immediately make a whole narrative around it. You ever notice how many people are deeply and profoundly offended by typos and grammatical errors, yet in real life can't balance their own check book? 1 Link to post Share on other sites
WhirlwindGuy Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 I am terrible at taking / posting good pictures of myself. I have been told by dates that I have met that I look a lot different in person than my pictures. I can take a picture this morning, and meet someone this evening and they would say I look different. Usually that is a bad thing, but apparently for me it is a very good thing. Women I have met have told me I look a lot better in person. Not sure if that is a compliment or not...lol... I think it probably limits me on who responds to my advances though, which sucks. Link to post Share on other sites
truth_seeker Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 I am terrible at taking / posting good pictures of myself. I have been told by dates that I have met that I look a lot different in person than my pictures. I can take a picture this morning, and meet someone this evening and they would say I look different. Usually that is a bad thing, but apparently for me it is a very good thing. Women I have met have told me I look a lot better in person. Not sure if that is a compliment or not...lol... I think it probably limits me on who responds to my advances though, which sucks. You're not photogenic. I suffer from the same problem. Link to post Share on other sites
oberkeat Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 (edited) I'm reading a book right now that talks about how if we have a few choices, we tend to make a choice. If we have a lot of choices, we tend not to pick any of the choices. The book gives an example. Someone is giving out free samples of jam in a grocery store. When there are just a few flavors, 30% of people buy a jar of jam. When there are 24 choices, that drops to just 3%. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has stood in consternation in the endless aisle of laundry detergent, trying to figure out the one product that meets my preferences and is the best buy. Too many choices makes choosing harder. If we all went online and had 10 decent options, instead of thousands of random people to sift through, I think the search would be easier. Very interesting. I've said before that this kid in the candy store effect is exactly how women become serial daters online. This is not gender-bashing, it is simply what I have observed in the years I did online dating. A horrendous amount of girls I met through OLD were multi dating. There are just too many options online, too many guys filling up their inbox, so a lot of women move from date to date with pretty decent guys, never settling on any of them, and sadly never finding a real relationship because they're always looking toward the next guy in their inbox. Some women I had one and done dates have remained active on those sites for months or years after I was done with them. It has nothing to do with not meeting any quality men, it's about women having too many options to choose from and refusing to make a choice. Edited November 29, 2015 by oberkeat 1 Link to post Share on other sites
littlez360 Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 What's really wrong with OLD? Everything... Most of what you need to know about somebody isn't going to come from their keyboard, submitted photo, or how they carry themselves on a computer... Link to post Share on other sites
oberkeat Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 (edited) There's a perfectly good solution to all the problems of online dating. If you all find it so objectionable, then why do it? Just continue meeting people offline. I don't get what the big deal is. I certainly wouldn't defend online dating, but meeting young, attractive, intelligent women who are also single off-line is like getting struck by a bolt of lightning, at least where I live. These women are in extreme demand, and they always have a man. Edited November 29, 2015 by oberkeat Link to post Share on other sites
LilaMarie Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 I'm reading a book right now that talks about how if we have a few choices, we tend to make a choice. If we have a lot of choices, we tend not to pick any of the choices. Too many choices makes choosing harder. This is why eharmony works (for me). Not one flake and they are all great guys, just not for me. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
oberkeat Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 This is why eharmony works (for me). Not one flake and they are all great guys, just not for me. So you admit to doing a little serial dating? This was exactly my point. Link to post Share on other sites
Myragal Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Millions and millions have met their partner through on line dating. So...it has been a positive for 'millions'. Since 99% of these are heterosexual relationships then that's millions of men and women. I really don't see a downside to the concept and process of OLD. Individuals are the issue. We are who we are. OLD doesn't change personality or physical attraction. If someone doesn't post adequate photos, have skills to write an interesting profile, have sense to compose a unique and catchy first contact message, present oneself well in person...then that is nothing to do with anything being wrong with OLD. 3 Link to post Share on other sites
littlez360 Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 I Fear the Day That Technology Will Surpass Our Human Interaction -Albert Einstein 1 Link to post Share on other sites
littlez360 Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Unless you're content with just getting attention from a computer screen. OLD should lead you to eventually meet this person face to face. There's always somewhat of a positive and negative energy between two people when they're in physical presence of eachother. I don't see how this can be gauged via the internet. How one conveys themselves in on the internet is nothing to go by... It's a fact, many people have had success. But I just don't see the logic when actively seeking somebody that you actually want to be with IRL. Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts