KatZee Posted June 8, 2013 Posted June 8, 2013 Free is never great. You get what you pay for. You get a higher quality crowd when people have to pay money to access. Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating « OkTrends These "pay" sites hide tons of things from the general public. They WANT you to think if you pay, that you're in some sort of secret club now. Not true. Overall I've learned, that as a guy online dating is a numbers game regardless of what site you use...You're best bet is to make a general message that you send out to LOTS of girls, and that's how you get results. This is actually what you DON'T want to do. "There is a negative correlation between the number of messages a man sends per day to the reply rate he gets. The more messages you send, the worse response rate you get. It's not hard to see why this would be so. A rushed, unfocused message is bound to get a worse response than something you spend time on. Basically, because the likelihood of reply to each message starts so low, the average man is driven to expand his search to women he's less suited for and to put less thought (and emotional investment) into each message. Therefore, each new batch of messages he sends brings fewer replies. So he expands his criteria, cuts, pastes, and resends. In no time, the average woman on the same site has been bombarded with impersonal messages from a random cross-section of men." Honestly, I tried OLD for about 5 seconds and it was terrible. I never received a message from anyone I was even remotely attracted to, and the messages and winks I did send, were never responded to. I'm a huge fan of getting out there and meeting the old fashioned way.
salparadise Posted June 8, 2013 Posted June 8, 2013 OKC is a typical cookie-cutter OLDS... profiles, profiles, and more profiles, but don't expect the women to initiate, and you can't delete your profile if you decide you don't like OKC. Not true in either case. You can either hide or delete your profile any time. Women do initiate, you just have to make the profile appealing to them. I found it to be mostly a waste of time sending initial messages. Women are bombarded with messages every day. You're more likely to stand out by visiting their profile a few times, maybe rating them 4 stars, without messaging them... makes them wonder why their juju didn't send you into instant pursuit mode. Respond with short, fun messages. Wait a day so that they don't get the impression that you're doing backflips and hyperventilating. Then be conversational, ask good questions. Appeal to the "grass is greener" tendency, give the impression that you're interested, but have options and aren't too easily impressed. There are also some that will visit your profile several times but will not send the first message. If she's visited 2-3 times within a few days or a week, she's probably one of those that thinks it's not appropriate for a lady to initiate, so in that case send a short message with something specific and upbeat about her profile. Like I've said so many times before, some people just do better IRL and some are can create the appeal with words and pics. Do what works best for you.
salparadise Posted June 8, 2013 Posted June 8, 2013 Another thing I've noticed... the women who come to me will stick with the communication and are willing to meet. The ones that respond to my initial message will often seem enthusiastic at first and then do the fade after a few rounds. It's hard to know whether it's a self-selection/filtering effect or if there is a causal relationship, but there is a definite difference between the ones who initiate with me vs. the ones I send the first message to.
irc333 Posted June 8, 2013 Posted June 8, 2013 I'm not impressed with OK cupid at all, actually prefer POF over it. A lot more diversity on POF. And what's the deal with the site letting strangers edit someone ELSE'S profile? I'm new to using okcupid and curious as to other's experiences. What do you think if you go to someone's profile and it says instead of single, "seeing someone". Do you move on and not waste your time? Do you ask them if they are single? (Maybe they put that up to scare away creepers?) Do you use the rating system? How many high ratings do you normally receive by other visitors? How many profile visitors do you normally get per week? (I am sure this varies by your location and other factors so just trying to get an overall feel for others' experiences.)
bananamilkshake453 Posted June 23, 2013 Posted June 23, 2013 Yes, you get it! This is a key element in my theory of the differences, and why some people are so disillusioned. In real life our attraction and chemistry filters are subliminal and always working. It requires no perceived effort. We might go through a normal day and see a thousand members of the opposite sex, but our nervous system will only alert on perhaps five. If one of those five also alert on us, it's like a telepathic message is instantly sent between the two brains, and high doses of feel-good hormones are released. At that point, we don't much care about that person's statistical information, whether they're a dog or cat person, or any other shortcomings which might preclude engaging in the activities for which nature designed this highly efficient system. The attraction-chemistry element overrides all the other information gathering and inhibitive processes. On the other hand, with online dating, it's the reverse order. We focus on information as the first priority, and if a person's stats seem to be in order, and if we approve of their amazingly confusing two-dimensional symbol that gives a few clues as to facial proportions, etc., and if the text-based communications are mutually interesting... we MIGHT actually meet in person to see if that attractiveness-chemistry things is working between the pair. So it's very much a manual filter and it's out of order. Who knows how many times we pass over someone with the attraction-chemistry match simply because the information does not seem optimal... information that only serves to confuse our filter and that nature would discard anyway if the attraction-chemistry thing were alerted first. Beautifully put and I couldnt agree more.I study anthropology and the way our mind and bodies are made are not suited for the robotic world of online dating.It not the way evolution would have intended things to happen.In real life other things come into play.The persons smell (phermones),voice,body language etc etc and all these things combined signal us as to whether a person is suited to us or not.Chemistry obviously plays its part.Chemicals are released in our brain.So all those things that you put so much importance to online would have little or no relevance in the real world of mating.for example you meet the man/woman of your dreams would you really discard them if their exact hobbies didnt match with yours?.Of course for a strong lasting relationship you would have to agree on certain things to avoid conflict, in that sense okc works well to filter out certain people.For example i wouldnt really want to date a right wing facist or someone who didnt believe in gay marriage but at the same would i really care if a potentional mate liked cats? I think the problem is that many people who use online dating sites can become unhumanly unrealistic.Idealistic to the point it becomes unhealthy.After all ,it is in many ways an online people supermarket. You can customize people right down to eye colour etc One person goes another person comes along one after the other in quick sucession .I think its easy to get addicted to the idea that there are so many people accessible to you.in that respect it is extremely unhuman.people become objects to you .And quite easily you could allow someone who you may have had fireworks with in real life get away because of something as silly as how they phrase a word.in the real world you would not even give that a second thought .Your feelings of attraction towards them would be too stong thus counteracting all those frivolous things that online dating sites put so much attention to. when you meet someone in real life they are not just a concept to you but a living breathing person.therefore they have greater meaning to you. thats why i would be reluctant to start something with someone who uses dating websites so extensively .it would be too tempting for them to keep going back ,be it for the ego boost or just out of curiousty.i think it is for many people a hard harbit to break. Although i do agree that in the fast world we live in it gives people another avenue to meet people ,people they would not have been able to meet in there everyday life.with so many people running out of options to meet partners it gives those people a great way to meet their love interest.And of course there have been many sucess stories. its not taboo as it used to be.We no longer see the person using dating sites to be the social recluse of society.it's become urban and hip. Almost trendy in some ways.Admittedly even though i put up a profile on okc, i didnt take it seriously and did it more out of curiousty with my heart not really being in it.From my experience there seems to be a lot of high calibre people on there.good looking ,educated etc etc .i think had my heart in it more i could have met some great people.But just because i still kind of feel that online dating is just too much of a cold place in the sense that it is the exact opposite to how nature works i kind of got put off. And kept it on the downlow i was on there with friends etc so didnt really openly use it properly. if you speak to someone with the intentions of meeting up soon thats different to messaging back and forth for a long time and allowing your head to build a unnatural image of them.so if you ever do meet them inevitably you will let down because chances are they wont be the person you thought they were.as soon as possible get together to then let nature take its course so to speak. 1
salparadise Posted June 23, 2013 Posted June 23, 2013 One person goes another person comes along one after the other in quick succession. I think its easy to get addicted to the idea that there are so many people accessible to you. In that respect it is extremely inhuman. People become objects to you. I agree that this tends to be a problem with the online format, but it's also characteristic of people who have a lot of options in real life. The difference being that in real life that attraction-chemistry filter narrows down the prospects really fast, whereas online everyone with a nice pic and some smooth words looks like a real possibility... until you find out that attraction-chemistry is not confirmed for reasons we don't understand. In real life, a beautiful, graceful, social woman (or man, but men tend to be less selective) will have so many options that it's easy for them to start seeing men as generic human forms that want them rather than focusing on the uniqueness of each individual. After all, uniqueness is not unique. So once again, it's that attraction-chemistry filter to the rescue... when the nervous system says, this one is different, and he really stimulates my hormonal production in a way that make me want to get naked, he becomes no longer generic.
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