El Brujo Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 I posted an ad as a woman on a popular OLDS I won't name. This, at the same time I had an ad on that site as a man (which I am). I will not say where I got the necessary pics which enabled me to pose as a woman, and either way, it doesn't matter anymore because I took the fake profile down on the 2nd day. But it proved something I've been trying to tell people about for years. My REAL profile (male) has been up on said site for just over a month, and has gotten ONE measly message from a woman who found my profile; and I got a polite reply from another woman whom I messaged. OTOH the fake profile (the imaginary woman) got OVER 80 in just 2 days!!! Most of them just had "hi" or "hey" in the subject line, and those messages had no content... but about 3 or 4 of them were from sincere guys, and I felt really ashamed because of one guy's message which sounded like he really needed a close female friend in his life. But I learned 2 things from the sh**ty thing I did: 1. Guys, you need to be more articulate if you're going to send messages to these women. "Hi" or "hey" in the subject line, with no message content (or one that makes you sound like a cave man) does not cut it. Remember, you're pursuing these women, so you can at least give them a reason why they should let you pick them. 2. Ladies, you need to start picking the guys. You need to A: get over your fears that the guy will say no, B: stop being hung up on tradition and rules, or C: understand that the man isn't going to bite you. Any woman can get hit on by jerks, but if you women want to stop complaining about good guys being so hard to find, well then you're going to have to pick them yourself. Fortes fortuna adiuvat. IMO any guy who can't handle the woman making the first move is either a wuss, or a PUA who can't stand to have the tables turned on him. Like it or not, the times they are a-changin'... I can't control that. But I CAN tell you only what I learned from my little bit of naughtiness on that site. You can adapt to the changing times, or you can ignore me and tell me I'm full of crap (it won't be the first time)... but facts is facts.
ThsAmericanLife Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 I LOVE experiments... although, I feel sorry for the guys who posted to you. Yes, I totally agree that women need to be ok contacting guys first!!! Towards the end of my OLD experience, I realized that the best men I met were the ones I contacted first... AND with no pictures. Yes... not intuitive. But definately a better outcome all the way around. Thank you for sharing the results of your experiment!!!
fortyninethousand322 Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 1. Guys, you need to be more articulate if you're going to send messages to these women. "Hi" or "hey" in the subject line, with no message content (or one that makes you sound like a cave man) does not cut it. Remember, you're pursuing these women, so you can at least give them a reason why they should let you pick them. Nice experiment. I already do all of these things. I get a bunch of profile views but no responses. Like seriously, zero. The last time I got a response was in March. The girl deleted her profile shortly thereafter.
Author El Brujo Posted October 5, 2011 Author Posted October 5, 2011 Towards the end of my OLD experience, I realized that the best men I met were the ones I contacted first... AND with no pictures. Yes, you understand perfectly well what I mean. You have my respect because of it. Men are like fruit in an orchard... any woman can walk beneath the trees and let the rotten fruits drop onto her head, or she can reach up to pick the tastiest ones. Like Tommy Lasorda said, taste the fruits of victory!
Art_Critic Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 although, I feel sorry for the guys who posted to you. If my math is correct that would be most of the guys on LS who do online dating, most of them use the shotgun approach to dating
laotzu Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 I wrote a good profile and put up some decent pictures, and got lots of contact and messages from girls. I'm not that great looking. I think if guys write something sincere and intelligent - and have some pictures of themselves smiling - they'll get some contact from women. On the other hand, I agree, girls should probably be more forward OLD. But frankly, most of the girls online weren't worth the time, in many respects.
Author El Brujo Posted October 5, 2011 Author Posted October 5, 2011 Another no-no for us guys: writing creepy poems in the message box. I've never actually done it myself, but apparently it really scares the crap out of women.
FitChick Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 I wish men would check out the competition first and then write their profiles. Maybe we'd see less "I like eating out or eating in. I like going out or staying in with a bottle of red wine, watching a DVD. I like to travel, watch TV, sports. I don't really know the type of woman I am looking for other than she is gorgeous so please email me" blah blah blah.
oaks Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 If my math is correct that would be most of the guys on LS who do online dating, most of them use the shotgun approach to dating Probably true. It's a pity that people feel the need to create fake profiles to do this sort of research (when it's been done before, and published).
AHardDaysNight Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 This is not surprising. It has been shown that there are more men than women on online dating sites.
Andy_K Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 It's not really the number imbalance causing this though.. it's the competition. The more guys write to a girl, the fewer will get a response. The fewer responses guys get, the more messages they send out. It's a positive feedback look which results in girls getting hundreds of messages and being unable to filter the decent ones, and guys sending dozens of messages out and receiving extremely few replies, no matter how good their message. Online dating sites need to stop this behaviour. There needs to be a limit on the number of new girls a guy can write to per day.
ChessPieceFace Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 Nice! So from your little experiment, the results showed that women on OLDS get 1200x the messages that men do! That's incredible. Well, I'm sure that has to be skewed due to guys searching for the newest profiles and trying to be among the first to message the new blood... but that's still really crazy. I wouldn't feel too bad about it.
Author El Brujo Posted October 5, 2011 Author Posted October 5, 2011 Yeah... it's enough to make a person wonder if women really want to meet a man after all. OTOH if women were the more aggressive sex, we guys would spend most of our time trying to figure out new ways to dodge women's come-ons... But I digress... I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the high rejection rate for men online has something to do with the inarticulateness of their "me Tarzan, you Jane" messages. Why not just say in your profile that you're looking for a woman you can crack over the head with a club and drag back to your cave by her hair?
oaks Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 Why not just say in your profile that you're looking for a woman you can crack over the head with a club and drag back to your cave by her hair? I'm sure there are fetish sites for that.
fortyninethousand322 Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 But I digress... I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the high rejection rate for men online has something to do with the inarticulateness of their "me Tarzan, you Jane" messages. Why not just say in your profile that you're looking for a woman you can crack over the head with a club and drag back to your cave by her hair? Well then you will be surprised at my extremely low response rate (less than 1%), considering that all of my messages were articulate, well thought out messages that reflected the fact that I had indeed read their profile. I have never written a "me Tarzan, you Jane" message.
ThsAmericanLife Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 Yeah... it's enough to make a person wonder if women really want to meet a man after all. OTOH if women were the more aggressive sex, we guys would spend most of our time trying to figure out new ways to dodge women's come-ons... But I digress... I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the high rejection rate for men online has something to do with the inarticulateness of their "me Tarzan, you Jane" messages. Why not just say in your profile that you're looking for a woman you can crack over the head with a club and drag back to your cave by her hair? part of the problem is that OLD is a relatively new development. People jump on not really knowing what to expect, and for lack of info... expect it to be alot like dating in real life. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. OLD is a whole new animal... requires some adjustment... Frankly, I still MUCH prefer meeting people in real life. And am not convinced that OLD really offers as many options as people want to believe. Seems to promote alot of bad habits and bad behavior in the big scheme of things.
NoReallyThatHappened Posted October 5, 2011 Posted October 5, 2011 I totally agree. I messaged my now future hubby first and I'm SO glad I did.
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