Jump to content

Bad first experiences with OLD


Recommended Posts

sI'm 'getting started' back in the dating game after decades away. I've posted elsewhere for 'technical' advice and one of the suggestions I received was OLD. Of course I've also seen several posts that OLD is going to be a big FAIL and a waste of time.

 

I decided to try anyway and 'registered' for both ourtime and elitesingles. Right away I noticed that to actually CONTACT someone the registree had to pay several dollars - certainly more than a reasonable amount to simply try out the 'service'. Well, with previous warnings about likely results, that i.e. these sites getting some money from me is NOT going to happen at least for now.

 

But in addition to that bad first impression, I f--ked up - and this would be funny if it happened to someone else. Ourtime, along with a bunch of other photos, showed several of 'cute' women living near me. Foolishly, because I didn't bother to RTFM (Read The F.... Manual), I clicked a control under the lady's photo thinking it would go to a page with additional information about her. After poking around I discovered I had sent her a flirt. I figured out how to 'delete the flirt' and tried to send her a message to apologize for my newbie error. Of course that's when I got the first marketing screen explaining that I had to pay to send a message. I shrugged and hoped the delete worked.

 

Next day (today) I get notifications that she flirted back and viewed my profile. There are also messages in my inbox which I can't read without paying. Now I want even more to apologize. So I drill the 'subscribe' options to see how little I'd need to pay just to send one message. Cheapest thing I found was a little more than $36. Sorry, pretty lady, I don't want to apologize that much. At this point I'm really pissed off at ourtime for setting that much of a revenue trap. Live and learn.

 

Anyway, if any loveshack reader sees this post, happens to be on ourtime, and it willing to do me the favor of passing along a message to the possibly offended woman AND loveshack allows enough communication so that I could share my ourtime userid, that of the lady and a couple of sentences of my apology, please reply. Moderators, I don't want to break any loveshack rules so please warn me if I'm getting close to that with what I just requested.

 

Back to my bottom line conclusion: OLD SUX and I haven't even really signed up yet. :p

Edited by nospam99
Link to post
Share on other sites

$36 isn't that much. It's the cover charge & a few drinks at a local bar. Check around OL; you might find some coupons. I found a 1/2 price coupon for e-harmony back when it was the most expensive site out there.

 

But the fact that there is a cost isn't the problem with OLD. Somebody owns that website (Match.com) as a business & they want to make money. Don't get mad because they want to make a buck.

 

The problem with OLD is that there are flakes. From that lady's perspective you look like a flake. You flirted. She was interested. You disappeared. She doesn't know why. Now she got her feelings hurt. Yes, you would like to apologize but you didn't & nobody is going to do it for you.

 

Read the manual & carry on.

 

Some sites are totally free but they don't pay to advertise Plus you get what you pay for

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
Cookiesandough

Well, that site is for seniors exclusively ,I believe, and isn't very popular yet... . Perhaps you should try a free site or at least match(I think it's much cheaper) to begin with. There are older people on there as well and more popular so a larger selection.

Link to post
Share on other sites

cookiesandough

 

 

nospam99 is in his 60s according to one of this first threads, the one where he received the advice to try OLD.

 

Wading through the 20 somethings on Match sounds tedious. Personally I'd pay $36 for ourtime, which is owned by Match, just to not have to deal with "the kids". I felt it was too young for me when I tried it in my late 30s. My 65 year old MIL says Match & most of the big name national dating sites are terrible for anybody over 40.

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Author
Now she got her feelings hurt. Yes, you would like to apologize but you didn't & nobody is going to do it for you.

 

#sigh# Of course you are right. I suppose I should get off my ass, spend the $, and 'fix this'.

Link to post
Share on other sites

You don't have to nospam & because it's OLD she may not be receptive to your apology. People lie & flake on the internet all the time. Maybe it will be refreshing & something will come of it.

 

Believe me I hated OLD. I only did it for 3 months. It was a terribly negative experience for me.

 

The cost was not its main failing.

Link to post
Share on other sites

That lady who responded was almost certainly a fake profile attended to by the site owners. It's very common on dating sites and stimulates interest in subscribing by having bots reply to make it look like you're already popular. Just forget it ever happened.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Author
Believe me I hated OLD. I only did it for 3 months. It was a terribly negative experience for me.

 

I signed up for a month and sent my 'apology'. By signing up I also got to SEE the flirt and message 'she' sent as well as her profile. If she's a bot, she's a pretty sophisticated bot and is simulating an interesting woman. I'll be curious to see what the overnight brings.

 

Since we're turning this into a more general OLD bashing topic, do you mind sharing some details about hating OLD and why you regard it as terribly negative? I'll hazard a guess that you were inundated with predatory horndogs.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I was not inundated. Everybody I matched with was well educated, successful & intelligent. They were all looking for something serious. I never got a single disrespectful comment.

 

 

I did e-harmony about 12 years ago. I had never had problems finding a new relationship but I was approaching 40. I had never really met a man outside of an academic environment. I'd been with a guy from grad school for 10 years. When we broke up I actually met my next long term BF at a high school homecoming football game. It was right after 9/11 & the small private school had reached out to get as many alums back as possible to comfort a firefighter who lost everybody in his house. He'd been off that day so he wasn't one of the first ones in.

 

 

Anyway . . . that's not about OLD.

 

 

So here I am approaching 40 & "everyone" said to try OLD. I was reluctant. A friend was a bartender. She was on Match. It used to make me cringe when customers would say they saw her on there.

 

 

So I decided to try e-harmony because it was the most expensive & that questionnaire thing was a p.i.t.a. I figured the guy had to be serious if he went through all that. I knew I could get a hook up almost anywhere. Not to be egotistical but no reasonably attractive willing woman has that difficult of a time finding a ONS.

 

 

So I go through all this & then the system sends you possible matches. Most I didn't find attractive or interesting but some I did so I would message them. Although I'd read The Rules -- women don't make the 1st move -- I figured OL was a little different. I couldn't very well sit across the internet with a smile & a come hither look. Most men did not respond which was demoralizing. Later I came to realize that even after you stop paying, the system still sends your profile to others so when they contact you the system says renew your membership & see who contacted you; in that sense it was similar to you having to pay to apologize to the lady.

 

 

I had set my profile to a 50 mile radius because I wanted to be sure to include NYC. I thought I'd get more matches in my age / education range that way. A lot of guys rejected me on distance alone.

 

 

But almost every night I'd sit there & message 1-3 men & I rarely got a response.

 

 

I made it to the end of the process with about 4 men. E-harmony makes you jump through a bunch of hoops before you can exchange real contact info like an e-mail address, which leads to phone #s. I was also very wary of meeting a stranger off the internet.

 

 

So I met 2 guys. Both were fine on paper. I was not attracted to either & had I met them IRL first I never would have gone on a date with them. I was really trying not to be judgy about looks on a photo only.

 

 

The other 2 guys, we just couldn't get it together to actually meet.

 

 

When my subscription ran out, I focused on meeting people the old fashioned way.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Cookiesandough

I try eharmony and in my mid 20s and found it to be barren wasteland...

 

At least in my area. I think it's way too much effort for most people attracted to the lazy environment that is OLD

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Author

Thanks for sharing, d0nnivain. I'm not getting how that was terribly negative but I suppose that's a matter of perspective.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Thanks for sharing, d0nnivain. I'm not getting how that was terribly negative but I suppose that's a matter of perspective.

 

 

 

I'd reach out to 3 men per night for let's even say 2/3 of my subscription time, so 3 x 60. That's 180 men. I bet less than 20 ever responded, which is about 10%. I don't remember how many men messaged me. I doubt it was more than 1-2 per week; over the course of 12 weeks (3 months) that is not a lot when I hear about other women getting bombarded. Most nights I'd come home & my inbox would be empty. I even tried broadening my age ranges upper & lower but that didn't help.

 

 

I just felt demoralized.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Author

Actual cost was a little less than $37 for a one month 'membership'.

 

Anyway I sent the 'apology' message to the woman I accidentally flirted. And I sent another message to a woman I tried to chat with but she didn't respond. And now ... both their profiles are 'unavailable'. The 'unavailable' help message has some generic BS. But I noticed that there is a control where any member can Block another member. Occam's Razor says I've been Blocked ... without any apparent notification/explanation. My message writing skills must be vehwee, vehwee baaaaaaaaaad.

 

Again, this would be ROTFLMAO funny if it happened to someone else. Looks like this will be in the running for the worst $37 purchase I've ever made. Good thing I didn't sign up for the 'deep discount' 6-month or one-year plans. Lesson learned. Of course this has NOT made me a fan of OLD.

 

If something changes, I'll post again. But I'm assuming I'm not going to be finding any 'romance' at Ourtime.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Author

WTF? The 'accidental flirt and apologize' woman sent me a very nice message and her profile is no longer 'unavailable'. Sorry if I'm wearing readers of this thread out with the drama but whatever is going on 'under the hood' at Ourtime is a mystery to me.

Link to post
Share on other sites

See, now you are experiencing the ACTUAL problems with OLD -- people are nuts & inconsistent! Welcome to the internet age of dating. <sigh>

 

 

Rant away . . .

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Author
See, now you are experiencing the ACTUAL problems with OLD -- people are nuts & inconsistent! Welcome to the internet age of dating. <sigh>

 

 

Rant away . . .

 

Touche. But NOW I'm 'satisfied' since I have, at the very least, gotten my money's worth in entertainment for about the cost of three tickets to horror movies - nothing like an emotional roller coaster to get the heart pumping. I've got another potential dating relationship simmering. But if that doesn't pan out, I'll flirt this lady again on purpose. Even with rejection and ghosting, this may play out as 'fun' as 40 years ago. :p

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Author

My 'adventure' has continued. My 'accidental flirt' lady and I have exchanged several messages. The pace has been slow, with both of us clearly feeling each other out. As recently as yesterday we've both suggested that we meet in real life and we are at the stage of negotiating a way to do that. I assume she is more concerned about safety that I am and I have no problem with that. For me, this has been FUN. Even at an 'advanced age' (I'm early 60s, she's mid 50s), I'm getting what feels through the filter of ancient memory like the hormonal butterflies of youth or at least early adulthood. i.e. 'Courting' is making me feel young.

 

Nevertheless I still have major complaints about the application that is moderating this OLD activity. I'm on Ourtime, so I can only speak for that site.

 

1) While the site labels itself as for 50+, there are no apparent age restrictions. Women as young as 20 are members though they may be bots. If I was interested in a sugar baby, I know where seekingarrangement.com is.

2) One obvious indication of someone else being interested in you is that your profile has been Viewed. There are two problems with this. First the site is constantly presenting every member with randomly selected profiles via facilities called Match and Who Do You Like. These features can not be turned off and they generate View reports resulting in members being advised that people who most likely have no interest in them have Viewed their profiles. Second, whenever a member checks an old communication like looking at an old message to see what they had said, it is reported as a View on a profile even though the profile itself has not been accessed. This report is a false indication of interest.

3) There is no facility to generally restrict your profile. While I can 'block' specific indivduals, if I really don't want women contacting me without me contacting them first (like now), it can't be done.

4) The Matches and Who Do You Like profiles mentioned above are not filtered. They can be from anywhere in the US and of any age.

 

In addition to my first paragraph 'progress report', I wanted to share my observations about some pretty frustrating 'features' of a particular OLD site, all of which can changed with relatively minor coding effort (for reference on my observation on coding effort, when working I was a senior level I/T Architect and designed and deployed several applications in what would be called 'the Cloud'). Sorry if TL : DR

Link to post
Share on other sites

Glad you & the first lady are talking. Hope you get a successful 1st meet soon. Do heed the cautions to make it short, cheap & public . . . like coffee or a drink.

 

Why do you object to women contacting you first? Although I was frustrated by the guys who didn't respond when I did that, I thought most men would be thrilled to get a message from an attractive women.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Author
Glad you & the first lady are talking. Hope you get a successful 1st meet soon. Do heed the cautions to make it short, cheap & public . . . like coffee or a drink.

 

Thanks for the hope. Based on communication so far, if it happens it will indeed be short, cheap, and public.

 

Why do you object to women contacting you first? Although I was frustrated by the guys who didn't respond when I did that, I thought most men would be thrilled to get a message from an attractive women.

 

It is more painful to me to reject someone than to be rejected. I would be thrilled to get a message from an ATTRACTIVE woman. Getting a message from a woman who, to be coarse, I'd 'kick out of bed for a warm blanket' (which applies to most of the women in the demographic I'm dealing with) is a chill rather than a thrill.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, OLD will make anybody grow a thick skin. Think of it this way, saying thank you but no thank you quickly with a modicum of fuss is the kindest thing you can do.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Author

Status report 1: first lady had apparently ghosted me :( but did finally send a message after 5 days AND AFTER I had first entered this post. At the very least I'd say she's being a flake (yes, I was warned).

 

Status report 2: date WAS scheduled Saturday but then cancelled. The excuse (to help a friend) is as legit as excuses can be but, again, flakedar is pinging. This second woman is, at least on paper, socio-economically 'out of my league'. I teased her that I'm Larry Fortensky to her Liz Taylor. We reached the point where we agreed to go hiking together after an exchange of friendly messages. I expect nothing more than friendship out of this relationship and I think she understands and agrees. She is FUN to talk to and I expect she will be fun to hang out with.

 

OLD BULL****: I deferred posting my photo in my profile assuming I would cut down on 'undesirable' contacts. But after a few days I did post a photo. I was correct big time. With a photo in the profile, I am indeed getting more attention from the 'kick out of bed for a warm blanket' crowd. More importantly and very annoying, I am getting a mini-flood of contacts from 'children' (20-45 y/os - recall that I am in my 60s) from all over the country. These 'ladies' (or bots) cleverly encode phone numbers or gmail addresses into their profiles. Many of their photos look like Victoria from DAZ 3D. A waste of time and, by volume, overwhelming any legitimate contacts. This could be easily prevented in coding by implementing an auto-delete filter parameterized with rules like no contacts outside of configuable distance or age thresholds.

Edited by nospam99
Link to post
Share on other sites

Get the league business out of your head. Be happy that you found somebody who even knows who Liz & Larry are.

 

 

If you are so inclined perhaps make your own app with those features you seek. You might make bundle in your 3rd act.

 

 

Hope the date goes well.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I am no longer a fan of OLD. My last relationship was OLD and the one before him was OLD. Lots of players and guys looking for hookups and FWBs. Not too many are looking for committed relationships anymore and I am just too old fashioned so I am sticking to my roots and going to date the old fashioned way. Save my money. Lots of scammers using the 419 scam on there too. I will never forget how angry I was hearing that particular accent thinking I was speaking to an American. I gave him a piece of my mind and a few Southern cuss words too. He was absolutely clueless to what I was calling him too. Luckily he did not have my real contact information such as my email or my cell number. I turned his butt in to the dating web site for fraud and he was deleted. Beware of the scammers out there. They will try to give sob stories and try to get you to send money overseas. Lots of people have fallen for this and its really sad. They are con artists and know just what to say.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Author

Status report 1: met first lady yesterday for the 'short, cheap, public'. She 'checks the boxes' for me but from the way the 'informal date' went, I'm rather sure I don't for her. She was polite and moderately friendly throughout but no flirts and no encouragement coming my way. I'm disappointed but can't complain about OLD on this - I got to meet a decent, attractive, unattached woman who otherwise would have been 'a ship I didn't even know was passing'. No reciprocal 'chemistry' - it happens.

 

Status report 2: still on a literal 'rain check'. The date we planned and postponed is outdoors and the forecast is for several days of rain.

 

SHOW-STOPPING OLD FAIL: Talking with first lady, one of the topics that fell into conversation was our shared frustrations with the QUALITY of (other) OLD contacts. This is still an annoyance to me because I keep getting romance scams. So I spent about an hour this morning carefully updating my profile to warn potentially interested women what not to waste their time and mine with e.g. contacts from hundreds of miles away. Later I got emails about new 'flirts' (BS messages built into the Ourtime system). But when I logged on to clear out these flirts my hour of profile editting was GONE. Needless to say, I am pissed and this is, in terms of the BUSINESS that this OLD site says it is running, totally unacceptable i.e. failure. Their customer support is M-F so it will be tomorrow when I phone them and, assuming my profile hasn't been restored - stranger things happen, tear them another a---ole. Again, I am so glad I didn't register for more than a month.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Author
SHOW-STOPPING OLD FAIL: Talking with first lady, one of the topics that fell into conversation was our shared frustrations with the QUALITY of (other) OLD contacts. This is still an annoyance to me because I keep getting romance scams. So I spent about an hour this morning carefully updating my profile to warn potentially interested women what not to waste their time and mine with e.g. contacts from hundreds of miles away. Later I got emails about new 'flirts' (BS messages built into the Ourtime system). But when I logged on to clear out these flirts my hour of profile editting was GONE. Needless to say, I am pissed and this is, in terms of the BUSINESS that this OLD site says it is running, totally unacceptable i.e. failure. Their customer support is M-F so it will be tomorrow when I phone them and, assuming my profile hasn't been restored - stranger things happen, tear them another a---ole. Again, I am so glad I didn't register for more than a month.

 

So of course when I phone support I only get to speak to an glorified clerk who has to deal with all the stupid 'how do I do this' and hostile 'this sucks' from subscribers. They do what they are empowered to do and they only know about what's going on from what the business lets them know.

1) The missing profile: I am told that a COMPUTER PROGRAM detected the word 'address' in what I wrote and solely on that basis decided to remove all the essay parts of my profile. The Customer Service Representative (CSR) restores my profile.

2) Almost immediately my photos disappear. No explanation is provided. The CSR restores the photos I uploaded AND a photo that I never uploaded but did provide as a URL in some of the messages I'd sent. No explanation for the 'extra' photo. I point out that the system is parsing 'private' messages and that as an IT security practitioner I regard that as identity theft.

3) Almost immediately all but the last of my sent messages disappear. Not for the first time I wonder if I've pissed someone off to the point that they are sabotaging my account because .... they can. No explanation is given. The CSR says this is beyond her power to restore. She says she is opening a formal trouble report for tech support. I request a trouble report id number and she gives me one.

 

I don't mean to bore people. I'm sharing the bad parts of the experience so that others uncertain about trying OLD have more ideas about the gotchas. The good part is that although none of the contacts have developed beyond phone calls and one casual face-to-face, in less than two weeks I am 'meeting' women with romantic potential that I almost certainly would not meet without OLD. There are even more 'kick out of bed for a warm blanket' i.e. no potential women (a few have messaged me without me contacting them first) who I strongly suspect I'd be able to meet if I wasn't being such a 'pig' of a guy by applying a looks filter with a high threshold.

Link to post
Share on other sites
×
×
  • Create New...