oaks Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 I've just been counting how many emails I've sent and how many responses I've got during my current 'round' (ie since the previous batch of dates ended and I took a short break) of online dating. I present these for your entertainment. If you already have a firm view about online dating I'm sure these will support it, whatever it is. This is over a 4 month period, and I'm using both free and commercial dating sites. Sent messages to 338 women. Received responses from 23 women. Received 3 unsolicited messages. Received 6 additional "Favourites" "Meet Mes" etc The 6 additional contacts were all women who I wasn't even remotely attracted to, and I assume they hadn't read my profile (there wasn't anything in their profiles that seemed likely to match) and had just seen the photos. I didn't respond to any of those. The 3 unsolicited messages were one spam / fake account, one looking for a pen-pal from overseas (we're still emailing occasionally), one asking good questions about my profile but we weren't looking for the same thing so I rejected her. The 23 responses break down as follows: 4 polite rejections, sometimes stating a reason. 11 initially positive, or at least neutral responses to my emails, answering my question(s) and seeming to want to continue a conversation, but they later rejected me or stopped replying after some emails. 1 just wanted to be friends. We emailed lots. Haven't met and probably won't. 3 I rejected after some further emails or text messages. 4 I went on dates with. Of the 4 dates, one was scary, one was pleasant but no particular attraction, one went to a second date before I made a move and she decided she wasn't interested, and the 4th one is ongoing with more promise than the others but still in the early stages. In the same time period, and entirely for my own amusement, I put a photo on HotOrNot. The (normalized) voting from over 1000 people is currently sitting at 9.9, which amuses me no end. So, there you are. This proves that online dating is great/rubbish. (delete as appropriate)
alexlakeman Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 That's more detailed than my stats!LOL.. but over all about a 10% return, same here..out of ten emails I send out I'll get 1-3 responses.. I was using Match, subscription expired 30-45 days ago, now on POF, but last night I noticed I finally circulated through most of the candidates in my area, so in the next 1-2 weeks I'll go back and subscribe to match if I find a discount code somewhere. OK CUPID s)cks in my area; others have success. So it depends how you look at it. I think it's good, you'll definitely have more opportunity than in person, no way you would have met 300+ women , as you emailed, in that period.. But, like you said, depends how you look at it. If I had a vagina and was female I would the stats would probably be "sent 0, and receive 300 emails"!! LOl
Author oaks Posted June 11, 2011 Author Posted June 11, 2011 OK CUPID s)cks in my area; others have success. At one point I had literally exhausted the supply of suitable women on OKC - either by messaging them already or by hiding their profile. Search results for what I was looking for came back empty. That's when I started using PoF, but now there are new people on OKC again. I wish PoF had an "hide" option for when I've read a profile and never want to waste electrons on seeing it ever again.
nyc_guy2003 Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 In the same time period, and entirely for my own amusement, I put a photo on HotOrNot. The (normalized) voting from over 1000 people is currently sitting at 9.9, which amuses me no end. Not trying to bust your bubble, but I noticed even the ugliest guy with the blurriest picture on that site got a 9.2 in the few dozen pics I clicked through. I am not sure if they are purposely skewing the tallies to encourage more people to join and/or be active on the site.
Author oaks Posted June 11, 2011 Author Posted June 11, 2011 Not trying to bust your bubble, but I noticed even the ugliest guy with the blurriest picture on that site got a 9.2 in the few dozen pics I clicked through. I am not sure if they are purposely skewing the tallies to encourage more people to join and/or be active on the site. It's ok, there's not much of a bubble there to burst. I know that site is a joke.
OliveOyl Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 So that's a 6% response rate, 1% made it to the dating stage, and a .3% rate of "dating success" if you count the woman you are still in the early stages with. Yes that's low. However if .3% turns into a LTR, will it have been worth it?
NicoleM Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 I haven't had much success on POF but I have had some e-mails or quivers on OKC but usually things do not work out. No I am not stuck-up I promise! I e-mail the person and we talk and it usually doesn't go anywhere because the guy is boring or wants more than a friendly date. I actually do respond to my e-mails and I try and give them a chance but in the end either they bail or I do. I think I live in a city where not many people are single or they are too far away and it just doesn't work out when you work alot during the weekdays it is hard to meet-up with them for a coffee when they are an hr or 2 hrs way not really worth my time IMHO.
NicoleM Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 I am not like that. Actually it is the guys that do that ( at least in my area) I e-mail them because they are on my quiver or quickmatch say hello,etc and I am not ugly by any means but maybe my hobbies or boring or maybe my interests are boring who knows but I do not get alot of replys.
alexlakeman Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 So that's a 6% response rate, 1% made it to the dating stage, and a .3% rate of "dating success" if you count the woman you are still in the early stages with. Yes that's low. However if .3% turns into a LTR, will it have been worth it? That's all it takes, that.3%.. Unless you have "game" at the bar / party scene, meet a bunch of single women all the time, etc.. online is here to stay.... That's the same at the bar, anyway.. How many women does a guy talk to a night out at the bar / club vs how many phone #'s he gets that are real? Again, it's different for everyone. I could say it has svcked for me, since I haven't had a relationship evolve out of online in the months that I've been on, but I have had some decent dates, gotten laid a few times, had nice conversations, etc.... beats staying home wondering who am I going to ask out next week .. why are people so reluctant to reply? i get way more replies on facebook Well, hopefully you don't use the screen name you have on here..
Imajerk17 Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 over the year: 196 women I emailed 31 emailed me back 20 of those women actually went out with me on a date 9 I kissed/held hands with 1 I slept with. It's not all good though. The number of second dates is much lower. Come to think about it, most of the 9 I kissed/held hands with I never ended up going on a second date with, often due to the girl not being interested.
Bertram Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 My stats are not that accurate but I would say that over 1 year on match I've probably tried to contact (winks or messages) a similar number of girls and have been on 30+ dates so I would say 10% or so success rate. Of all those dates, I only really liked 1 girl and she wasn't particularly interested (couldn't get past date 3)... In the vast majority of cases I was ready to finish the date within 1 minute of meeting. Women do have an uncanny ability to look better in pictures
PhillyDude Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 why are people so reluctant to reply? i get way more replies on facebook You send messagers to girls on facebook you don't know????????
tb24 Posted June 11, 2011 Posted June 11, 2011 Slight side note, I think hotornot is a bit strange these days. I see nobody (well very very few) rated less than 8. Most are 8.8 - 9.9 i think it's calculated to give people an ego boost rather than an accurate measure. It'd be better if it actually told you the votes you got
Author oaks Posted June 12, 2011 Author Posted June 12, 2011 Yes that's low. I was resisting the urge to calculate percentages, but yes it's low. I was surprised just how many messages I had sent when I counted them all up. However if .3% turns into a LTR, will it have been worth it? Yes. It hasn't been a bad experience, and most of the frustrating bits would apply equally well to dating away from the computer, and even the "scary date" was more crazy than scary (but I ran out of fingers counting the red flags I discovered on that first date, and some of them were big ones).
fishtaco Posted June 12, 2011 Posted June 12, 2011 Compared to my 4 months of real life dating, I'll use my "Violet episode", because that when I started to date for real. From Sep 2010 - Jan 2011: I approached 6 women: 3 rejections 3 dated, with one of them turning serious Out of the 3 rejections: - 2 were "number collectors", i.e. got their numbers but that was it. - 1 was an early bail out on my end. She's my friend, so I had to walk on egg shells. As soon as the outlook wasn't going right, I bailed out, didn't want to create drama. If she weren't my friend I would have pushed through. Out of the 3 dated: - 1 fizzled out after a few weeks - 1 had an amazing first week, loads of chemistry, then the second week she's suddenly in a relationship with someone else (pffft, women, what can you do?) - Last one I was with all the way until end of March (Violet), and we parted ways because her mom didn't want her to date someone that's not religious, and also possibly because I'm not Hispanic. 4 were Latinas, 1 was white, and 1 was black. 3 were from friend's parties (friend's friends), 1 is a friend (still is because I bailed out at the right time), and 2 were from clubs/bars. And there's no way I can get a 9.9 on hot or not, so I say oaks is most likely a better looking guy than I am. Oaks did get one more date than I did, but hitting on 6 women in 4 months is pretty low. Some guys can do that in a matter of hours. They'll have lower percentage, but they'll get more dates. Sending out 300+ emails just does not sound fun to me. I got my statistics by going out partying. Like I said, this proves real life dating is better/worse than online dating. (delete as appropriate).
Arikel Posted June 12, 2011 Posted June 12, 2011 My stats are not that accurate but I would say that over 1 year on match I've probably tried to contact (winks or messages) a similar number of girls and have been on 30+ dates so I would say 10% or so success rate. Of all those dates, I only really liked 1 girl and she wasn't particularly interested (couldn't get past date 3)... In the vast majority of cases I was ready to finish the date within 1 minute of meeting. Women do have an uncanny ability to look better in pictures Men have an uncanny ability to post up their worst picture! I really don't get why they post pics of them looking weird (eg pic looking up their nostrils, pic of them with mouth wide open... etc etc) Lol!
Saxis Posted June 12, 2011 Posted June 12, 2011 Sounds about right... I'm combining my PoF and OKC stats here, but unsure on the exact number of sent messages, but I'd say it's a close guess. 50 Messages Sent 4 Replies 3 Stopped replying 1 Currently dating Also just amusing... 9.7 HotOrNot rating. Gotta be some BS in there somewhere... I live in a small area and most of the users I messaged were probably recently inactive on the sites. The method I used was to search and message the closest matches, within 35 miles or so, and expand out as time went on. I stopped when I hit my maximum distance of 75 miles. Decided I wasn't traveling that far for dates. About the time I was giving up, I stumbled across a profile in the activity stream, clicked on it and read through, but she was well over 100 miles away. Guess which profile led to an upcoming 3rd date? We communicate pretty much every day (maybe too much) and we've done the "meet in the middle" dates which seem to go well, but I think we're both unsure of the distance and holding back. I know I am... but it's hard to pass up when you find someone promising. I've had some possible job opportunities come up in her city though, which are tempting regardless of how this turns out. I might just be out of gas money in the meantime...
Author oaks Posted June 12, 2011 Author Posted June 12, 2011 Sending out 300+ emails just does not sound fun to me. I got my statistics by going out partying. That's true... at times it's tedious. I wasn't missing out on the partying, though, just that the parties I go to don't seem to have suitable available women. Maybe I need to go to better parties.
PhillyDude Posted June 12, 2011 Posted June 12, 2011 I agree It almost sounds like Job seeking to sent out that many emails. I never even seen 300 womn that I was attracted to online-lol Actually I don't think it' been a 100 in 2 years
thatone Posted June 12, 2011 Posted June 12, 2011 (edited) i've only been at the online thing for a short while but my match messages are mostly older than 30 days so i don't have anything other than my recollection to go by. i started with match, then went to OKC, then tried POF last. on OKC messaged 4, got replies from 2, one disappeared and i got a date with the other. i get one liner messages every couple weeks from two others that there's no interest in on my part. on match messaged about 7, got a reply from 1, but she hit it off with a previous date before we got together so never met in person, we still talk a bit on facebook due to a common interest but that's it. got winks from two others, one i'm not interested in the other's profile is deleted. signed up for POF but haven't used it much, don't like the site. messaged two, got a reply from one, she disappeared a couple of days after. got a 'want to meet' notification from another but am not interested. so right at 33% rate of reply? and of the replies only two went past the dating site, and only one of those turned into more than a first date. this is over a span of about two months. here's an unapologetic cynic's review of the three sites... match seems much too 'formal' for lack of a better word. it emphasizes the questionnaires and who their system thinks you should like more than what people actually say about themselves. by being so formal in the questions and answers i think it turns into either just picture surfing for those who disregard the questions/answers or letting the site do what it wants and taking the results as they come in. the few times i've searched through match by my own criteria, the only women i find that i might be interested in talking to NEVER showed up on my list of daily matches. i think the entire system they have in place is designed towards what women want in a dating site, and men are just shown the most physically attractive 'matches' over and over again regardless of any other factor to keep them paying the fees and serving as bait for the women. POF being a glorified classified personals site, is too vague (opposite extreme from match) i generally see two things...a) the women seem confused about what they should put on there due to lack of direction, so they put very little information at all, which leads to, b) not satisfied with the responses they get by typing little or nothing, the women then write a novel about either everything that was wrong with their ex, everything they didn't like about their last 10 messages, or everything they want in the man behind the next message (that they're never going to get because such a man doesn't exist, an open ended invitation to describe everything they want results in a response that contradicts itself). OKC, from a man's perspective,i like. the questionnaires are for determining their arbitrary number that denotes whether you will share anything in common with someone or not but that's where the formality of questions and answers ends. the profile portion of the site asks specific questions but leaves the opportunity to answer those questions completely open ended, so you wind up with gratification for both sexes. from a purely stereotypical standpoint, women get the faux attention fix of being able to answer endless questions about themselves, and men get to read what those women actually had to say in their written profiles and thus can better formulate bullsh*t for initial messages and get more replies. Edited June 12, 2011 by thatone
PhillyDude Posted June 12, 2011 Posted June 12, 2011 ok guys what is best site for online dating? plenty of fish is not doing it for me. craiglist and tango.com
dangerstranger Posted June 12, 2011 Posted June 12, 2011 Since signing up to POF a couple of months ago, I've probably rec'd 20 emails a day on average- so that's over 1000 messages? Holy crap, did I do my math right? You just know that these guys are sending as many messages as possible, playing the odds! I've responded to maybe 10-15 people, I've met 2 and am still talking to both of them, will probably go out with one of them again. I am meeting another guy next week. Sometimes I'll talk with someone for a bit, then decide they live too far away, a few have said things or acted in a manner that turned me off. Sometimes I am responding to be friendly. I've never sent a message to anyone first, and I wouldn't. OKC sucks in my area as well.
dispatch3d Posted June 13, 2011 Posted June 13, 2011 Since signing up to POF a couple of months ago, I've probably rec'd 20 emails a day on average- so that's over 1000 messages? Holy crap, did I do my math right? You just know that these guys are sending as many messages as possible, playing the odds! I've responded to maybe 10-15 people, I've met 2 and am still talking to both of them, will probably go out with one of them again. I am meeting another guy next week. Sometimes I'll talk with someone for a bit, then decide they live too far away, a few have said things or acted in a manner that turned me off. Sometimes I am responding to be friendly. I've never sent a message to anyone first, and I wouldn't. OKC sucks in my area as well. lol reading all the guys POV (.3% success rate, 10% respond rate), and this post from the female perspective really puts things into view. Women just get berated with so many messages that there is no way they can even respond to 10% (seriously, 2 people per day/7 days per week/30 days/month... that's like 400 guys they would be messaging in the course of a month? jesus!). There's no way this is better than real life. Real life girls aren't getting hit on nearly that much. Like 10 guys a night maybe? And that girl was really hot, and would reject them immediately (so it maximized number of guys hitting on her). Most girls go to the bar and get hit on 1-2 times tops if they are lucky. All this kind of convinces me of is these sites are something you put up a profile, and see if some girl hits on you. Otherwise, don't waste your time. I would rather play video games for 2 hours than craft a message that (best case scenario) 10% of women respond to.
ConfusedGuy28 Posted June 13, 2011 Posted June 13, 2011 First couple months of match (last year) - I probably sent 100 messages. Went on 10 dates, nothing came of it. Hooked up with the crazy borderline chick. Got back on match. Since then - I've sent maybe 5 messages these past 3 weeks or so. Mainly just "wink" now. More women seem to be contacting me now as well. I read profiles now (mostly) and wink if someone seems worth my time of talking to. They usually end up writing me first now as well.
Star Gazer Posted June 13, 2011 Posted June 13, 2011 4 dates in 4 months from OLD seems pretty average, if not good, for a dude, IMO. Nothing worth shaking a bitter stick at.
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