Twenty-ten Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I used to have a membership to Match and years ago it seemed like decent guys. Met a few then I wasn't interested in, but I was much younger then and much pickier (late 20's). Anyway, right before my membership was ending (after many disappointments including date no shows, guys not who they said they were, etc) I chatted with this guy online. Seemed a great match, he liked what I liked, including music and even food. He had the same views on everything and lived by me. Perfect and he was cute too. Too good to be true. And the sad thing was he was too good to be true. He was married and had a daughter. He was only looking for a mistress not a girlfriend or wife. I complained to Match about him but as far as I know he was never removed. I cancelled my membership and never renewed. I think now it's mostly a cesspool of married guys. I cancelled 2 years ago and still get email from guys who saw my profile. Interesting you say that, I had one married guy contact me too and his profile said he was single. In conversation it slipped about his wife, and I said "your wife? what do you mean your wife? and he said yes technically I am married but we are divorcing and she is just living with me for now until she can find a place of her own but don't worry we are definitely over. Yes ok and I was definitely born yesterday too, pretty impressive I can speak huh? I complained about the decoy profiles to Match and said it was unfair that I bought a month membership only to find all the profiles of interest were fakes, and to not be able to tell they were inactive until after purchasing the membership was completely unfair. I told them it was false advertising. I never even got a response email from them those profiles are prob still there. Scummy site.
USMCHokie Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 The thing is, many of the guys I met were married. After a few times of this, I got stung so I gave up. Yes, there are decent guys, but meeting married men changes minds. Yep...repeated experiences tend to make us assume that all our experiences will be similar...so we get frustrated and avoid the experience altogether... I'm in that same boat...but my experience was simply lack of interest from women...so I got fed up with it, thinking that all women would not be interested...
CarrieT Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 You've got to get out to meet people. There's no way around it. Believe me, I know it! I have joined a dozen+ MeetUp.com groups to no avail, work out at the gym every morning, hang out at local coffee houses where I see people chatting (and I chat them up), and I go to wine tastings. Not sure what else to do or where else to go or what else to do -- I am far from a wallflower! I engage in very interesting conversations but they don't ever seem to turn into dates!
greatgirlfriend Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Interesting you say that, I had one married guy contact me too and his profile said he was single. In conversation it slipped about his wife, and I said "your wife? what do you mean your wife? and he said yes technically I am married but we are divorcing and she is just living with me for now until she can find a place of her own but don't worry we are definitely over. Yes ok and I was definitely born yesterday too, pretty impressive I can speak huh? I complained about the decoy profiles to Match and said it was unfair that I bought a month membership only to find all the profiles of interest were fakes, and to not be able to tell they were inactive until after purchasing the membership was completely unfair. I told them it was false advertising. I never even got a response email from them those profiles are prob still there. Scummy site. In my case the guy emailed me his info and included his first and last name and town. I was able to Google him and found his info online. Pretty stupid on his part, but I was able to find so much from this and it was him. Other times I met the guys and found out when they slipped on having wives. Yet another time I had a man's wife call me saying he had a wife. It has turned me off to meeting guys online because this has happened more often than meeting a truly single guy.
Barky Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Well I don't know what to say. Unlike, it seems, EVERYONE else here I've had the time of my life with online dating. Slept with exactly 20 women in the few years I've been doing it, the 20th just a week ago. Had at least a half dozen quality relationships come from it as well. I can only conclude that the vast majority of folks on LS have some severely dismorphic looks and/or the interpersonal charm of an iguana.
Chitowngirl Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 As soon as I saw my ex on one of these sites( while we were living under the same roof and he was begging me to give our marriage another try no less) I knew they were'nt for me. He has himself advertised as an honest (lie), caring (only about himself), man looking for a "real" realationship( sex, sex, sex) who wanted someone to put, and I quote, someone to put butterflies in his tummy". This is a man who has at least one personality disorder, and likes to sleep with prostitutes. Ladies that's whats out there, and especially on most of those dating sites. If I meet someone down the road, I want it to be in a normal way where I have no preconcieved notions. Just getting to know them in person little by little, and hopefully recognize warning signs if they're there. Good Luck girls. There have to be a few good ones left. lol --- too funny. I wish I could flag my ex who is on match.com with: has a Serious STD and won't tell you about it, bicurious, needs anger management, and makes 6 figures but is a cheap bastard.
meerkat stew Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Well I don't know what to say. Unlike, it seems, EVERYONE else here I've had the time of my life with online dating. Well despite having fun with it and a generally positive experience, there are lots of crazies online, moreso than out and about IMO.
Twenty-ten Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Well I don't know what to say. Unlike, it seems, EVERYONE else here I've had the time of my life with online dating. Slept with exactly 20 women in the few years I've been doing it, the 20th just a week ago. Had at least a half dozen quality relationships come from it as well. I can only conclude that the vast majority of folks on LS have some severely dismorphic looks and/or the interpersonal charm of an iguana. Says the guy who claims to have slept with 20 chicks, and had 6 "quality" relationships in a couple of years (a four month fling is not a quality relationship dear). Online is not about quality it is about quantity, if you have no standards then sure it is a endless supply of people. Personally I'd rather have Saint-Jacques aux poireaux once a week than a McCheeseburger every day.
amerikajin Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I tried the online dating thing and just got fed up with it. If you happen to find someone who doesn't post something obnoxious in her handle, then you end up communicating with people who have serious anxieties, phobias, or other social disorders. There's a reason people use online dating...
Crazy Magnet Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Nothing on the internet could be scarier than real life. They are all REAL people, with REAL lives. I mean, how many nutty wack jobs have we all met and gone out with that we didn't meet online? Married men still go after mistresses, crazy psychotic women still date men, it doesn't all happen online. It's only the vehicle of introduction which differs. Yeah, you get some bizarre coffee dates, but coffee dates do not imply marriage, they are only a hello. How is that any worse than a toothless man smacking your ass in a bar and spitting on you while implying he's going to hit that later!?! Coffee dates make great stories to tell your friends and can make for hours of hilarious facebook status updates. Sometimes, you actually meet a person that you want to date, sort of like real life. We don't want to date everyone we meet there either. I met one. I've now got THREE couple friends who met online (one married couple, two engaged couples) so it does work. It takes no more weeding out of weirdo's than real life takes. Online dating is like...one big fun adventure!!! It's like a game show, but better!! What's behind Door #3?? Oh, YIKES, CLOSE DOOR #3! Now Door #4... I guess I went into with an open mind and a good attitude. I realized there would be weirdo's out there, but again, there are weird people in real life too.
1_trick_pony Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I've generally had good experiences with online dating as well. I live in a small college city and just don't have easy access to a diversified pool of single men. I sat down and went through the stats. I should note that I've never been a 'marriage minded person'. In other words, I've been looking for boyfriends rather than a potential husband. Over the course of about 10 years I've been on 11 dates through online dating sites. Two lea to multiple year relationships that I enjoyed and overall considered good experiences in my life. The break-ups were civil and irrelevant to the fact we met on-line. Two lead to more casual, fwb type arrangements which was fine as it was understood by each party. Five were first date busts; nothing noteworthy, just lack of chemistry, attraction, relationship goals, etc. One was a psycho and one, the last one and hopefully the last one is the wonderful man I'm with now and have been for about a year and a half. All and all I'll bet one would have similar numbers in the live dating pool.
Twenty-ten Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 , how many nutty wack jobs have we all met and gone out with that we didn't meet online? None! I know right away if someone is relatively sane or not therefore have never gone out with a whack job I met in person. Online you NEVER know until you meet them Online dating is like...one big fun adventure!!! It's like a game show, but better!! What's behind Door #3?? Oh, YIKES, CLOSE DOOR #3! Now Door #4... that was funny. But seriously who has time for that? I had a good experience as well but not on Match. For the most part online sucks. It's like any social place in life in some places you feel it's your scene, others you wouldn't set foot if someone held a gun to your head. Well you might for kicks but not to find a mate, no way!
flc Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Maybe it is an age thing but online dating was never a problem for me but being 50 looking for women 40-55 is a different audience. The dynamics favor the women but that also makes it worse for men as women get so many emails I am sure it difficult to sort the good from the bad. I did it for about 1 year and had a response rate to email at about 10% from that I would probably meet 1-2 women a month. In that time I dated one women for 3 months and another I have been with for about a 1.5 years now. So it worked for me, maybe I was just lucky. Only had a couple of weird situations most were very normal
Crazy Magnet Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 None! I know right away if someone is relatively sane or not therefore have never gone out with a whack job I met in person. Online you NEVER know until you meet them I think we are essentially saying the same thing. I view the coffee "date" as meeting someone, not going on an actual date with them. If they are nuts, I don't keep going back for more. But in every relationship it takes a good three months at least for the truly insane to come out. lol There's no way to detect that kind of nuts until a significant amount of time has passed.
torranceshipman Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Mortensorchid' date=' what kind of vibes/behaviors are you presenting that attracts these kinds of guys?[/quote'] It isnt MortensOrchids fault - these guys are out there, unfortunately,and if you are single and attractive, they'll hit on you. You can't know that they're bad until you've interacted with them for a little bit (note how Morten walked as soon as she saw those signs).
1_trick_pony Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I'm not sure if LS allows you to post links, but here's a pretty funny one about the 'strangest pictures on dating sites' http://blogs.nerve.com/scanner/2010/02/09/quick-claim-this-tumblr-idea/
sunrae Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I just had to delete my match acct. a little to overwhelming and after chatting with someone and getting naked photos sent to me, I was like no thanks. One gut I went out with happened to know my best friends boss.(we figured it out though dinner one night) He went their office to ask why, I havent called him back... My friend said, one you are physco, because you are stalking her through my boss, and two she is out of town you freak, had you not pulled this stunt she may have called you back. I Give Up. (throwng hands up in the air)
zebracolors Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Don't know if any of you have any experience with Plentyoffish? I joined up even though I was not actively looking to date, just to maybe make friends, because I am already with someone. And if it didn't give the option to set my status to looking for just friends I would not have bothered. But it does actually. However I didn't like that it only gave me the option to let only men OR women message/contact me, not both. I was just looking for friends! At first it looked great. There were alot of forum categories to participate in. And I met alot of their forum regulars many of which seemed like nice people. And I enjoy conversing with people on forums, meeting people and offering advice or encouragement where I can. However I found their forum rules too way too strict. Imagin if there were rules like this here on LS and as an example, being temp banned from posting (at all) because you're posting alot in the Marraige and Partnership boards even though you're single or divorced! Well I kept getting banned just because I kept posting in the UK forums, apparently because Im from the US. As if I'm not allowed to make friends or chat too much with people in other countries! Also the site creators apparently think EVERYONE's perfect match is always going to be between 10 and 75 miles from where they live, so alot of people who were looking for dating complained that they only got seen by local singles and so on. I know they do that for convenience but as we here who are in LDRs know that just really is not always the case! Anyway I could go on. I was just a little irritated at the forum mods, so after the third ban, I just deleted my profile. Sorry for the long rant, but I just had to get that off my chest.
greatgirlfriend Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Don't know if any of you have any experience with Plentyoffish? I joined up even though I was not actively looking to date, just to maybe make friends, because I am already with someone. And if it didn't give the option to set my status to looking for just friends I would not have bothered. But it does actually. However I didn't like that it only gave me the option to let only men OR women message/contact me, not both. I was just looking for friends! At first it looked great. There were alot of forum categories to participate in. And I met alot of their forum regulars many of which seemed like nice people. And I enjoy conversing with people on forums, meeting people and offering advice or encouragement where I can. However I found their forum rules too way too strict. Imagin if there were rules like this here on LS and as an example, being temp banned from posting (at all) because you're posting alot in the Marraige and Partnership boards even though you're single or divorced! Well I kept getting banned just because I kept posting in the UK forums, apparently because Im from the US. As if I'm not allowed to make friends or chat too much with people in other countries! Also the site creators apparently think EVERYONE's perfect match is always going to be between 10 and 75 miles from where they live, so alot of people who were looking for dating complained that they only got seen by local singles and so on. I know they do that for convenience but as we here who are in LDRs know that just really is not always the case! Anyway I could go on. I was just a little irritated at the forum mods, so after the third ban, I just deleted my profile. Sorry for the long rant, but I just had to get that off my chest. I just put a profile there. I'm not really looking for anything more than friends because there is someone I really like (a friend) but we are in the early stages of going from friends to exclusive and not sure what's going to happen (so I keep my options open). Many guys are emailing me romantic emails. Not just that, but I stated in my profile that men with children need not apply and I'm getting all the fathers contacting me, saying make an exception for them, etc. I've even gotten a few nasty emails saying how dare I "hate" kids or "discriminate" against them. I don't hate kids, I just don't want to date a guy with kids. I don't think that's discrimination, just preference. I've gotten many responses for sex too (I never email back).
zebracolors Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Yeah I remember alot of complaints about that too while I was on there. I didn't have a problem with their policies on PMs, and it let you weed out the people who have criteria that you are not interested in. For me it was really just the narrow ruled forums I had the most problems with.
You'reasian Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Believe me, I know it! I have joined a dozen+ MeetUp.com groups to no avail, work out at the gym every morning, hang out at local coffee houses where I see people chatting (and I chat them up), and I go to wine tastings. Not sure what else to do or where else to go or what else to do -- I am far from a wallflower! I engage in very interesting conversations but they don't ever seem to turn into dates! The key is to stop trying. Do the things that you normally do at these activities and focus on those things. Don't do anything extra or silly to get other's attention - just enjoy yourself and use your time productively. You'll meet them when you least expect it.
USMCHokie Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 The key is to stop trying. Do the things that you normally do at these activities and focus on those things. Don't do anything extra or silly to get other's attention - just enjoy yourself and use your time productively. You'll meet them when you least expect it. I used to think this too, but now I believe that you have to be somewhat proactive and do things to put yourself in dating situations. There is a certain amount of "try" that is required...if you just live life, you may end up waiting a lot more than you want...
sagetalk Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 This further confirms my point...women (and I guess men too) focus their attention on the top 5% and bottom 5% of the online dating pool... I don't think many young attractive women like average men to be honest with you. What they like is drama which the top 10% and bottom 10% provide plenty of. The ones that are seriously looking for a real relationship do like average guys though, they are hard to find on a dating site. Most of those girls are just looking to get their ego stroked, once again something the top 10% and bottom 10% of guys are pretty good at.
bac Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I have recently dated a few guys with the same issue. They all stated in their profiles that they have great jobs and lots of money. In fact, I even had dinners in restaurants with them. During the dinners, they confessed me that they were going to lose their jobs next week. Kind of wierd. And, the reason to confess that was not their desire to get rid of me with ease. They still wanted to continue dating me to finally get laid. BTW, also, some of those successful guys had the cheapest apartments and 15-20 years old's cars.
greatgirlfriend Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I don't think many young attractive women like average men to be honest with you. What they like is drama which the top 10% and bottom 10% provide plenty of. The ones that are seriously looking for a real relationship do like average guys though, they are hard to find on a dating site. Most of those girls are just looking to get their ego stroked, once again something the top 10% and bottom 10% of guys are pretty good at. Generally speaking when I was in my 20's, I avoided average guys. I only wanted hot guys. I was hot and wanted another hottie. Then again at that time I wasn't searching online for men (I wasn't even online then).
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