ChessPieceFace Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 I'm looking into making profiles on some dating sites, but it's not going well. Isn't the point of putting in information to narrow your results to more suitable ones? Well, it doesn't seem to work so far. On OKC I answered a bunch of the "Match Questions." For example, one was whether you'd want to date mostly in your own race. I said yes. However, in picking "best matches" I'm now seemingly getting MORE women outside my race. WTH?? What bugs me (using this question as an example) is that there's rarely much specification. In this case of races. I put "somewhat important" for this question since I could certainly imagine dating some other races, but not all of them. But since it's so unspecific it's practically useless. I was also thinking about the stupid algorithm it must be using. There were a lot of really, really stupid match questions (for example easy logic problems) that I skipped entirely. I did so because if I pad out my questions with a bunch of garbage questions, it will dilute the ones that matter. I was actually thinking of going back in and removing some of the questions I did answer, so the match % can focus on questions that are most important. Anyone have advice on how to use OKC (or other sites) really efficiently? Are any of these free sites actually of any use in terms of compatibility matching?
Star Gazer Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 Those questions help you find a match as in percentage. It doesn't filter out people, like by race, smoking, drug use, etc.
MrCastle Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 I did better on OKC when I didn't answer match questions. I would put what I wanted people to know in my profile, and search using the criteria I wanted. Then I'd read their profiles and publicly answered questions and if I liked what I saw, would message them. Answering the match questions did more harm than good, and don't get me started on the quiver matches or whatever it was called when they'd show you 3 profiles they think you'd like. It's like they took the opposite I was looking for and gave me profiles that fit that. 2
Author ChessPieceFace Posted August 5, 2013 Author Posted August 5, 2013 Those questions help you find a match as in percentage. It doesn't filter out people, like by race, smoking, drug use, etc. That's my point. Some of these questions should be filters. I got several questions about drug use, answered them all "no" with the strongest setting. But like you said it isn't a filter. Does OKC have filters? I also notice you can pay for "A-list" but that's just BS unless it's somehow really amazing. Answering the match questions did more harm than good Well that sucks. There's no way to filter OKC effectively then? How about other sites?
Star Gazer Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 That's my point. Some of these questions should be filters. I got several questions about drug use, answered them all "no" with the strongest setting. But like you said it isn't a filter. Does OKC have filters? Yes, there are filters, in the match searches.
MrCastle Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 OkC is very very sneaky, as are all OLD sites I suppose. Before I signed up, when I was curious as to whether or not I wanted to join, I entered in my zip code to see what kind of women were in my area. It was about 10 pages of Victoria's Secret models. I was so giddy I joined that same night. Once I joined, those profiles disappeared. I never saw any of those women again. Got an email saying I was rated hot by enough people that now I was going to have more attractive people in my searches which is pretty messed up, but probably just a marketing tool to keep you active on the site. Anyway, my results never changed. I'm a hispanic male that put race doesn't matter -- for some reason, my results were heavily skewed towards black women. If I went through 10 profiles, it would be 7 black girls, 2 hispanics, and an asian. Very rarely did they show me any white women, and where I live, it's almost completely white. They were going out of their way to show me only minority profiles. Overall it felt too shady to me. I was only a member for a few months before quitting. 2
Author ChessPieceFace Posted August 5, 2013 Author Posted August 5, 2013 I hadn't noticed too much problem finding white women (before I put in the match info LOL.) If I drank and was into sports and wouldn't mind dating single moms, I'm sure a lot of them would have been interesting to me. As is, not so much. It's 2013. We have pretty good computers. There have to be good dating sites. If not, someone should get rich off of making the first one.
MrCastle Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 I hadn't noticed too much problem finding white women (before I put in the match info LOL.) If I drank and was into sports and wouldn't mind dating single moms, I'm sure a lot of them would have been interesting to me. As is, not so much. It's 2013. We have pretty good computers. There have to be good dating sites. If not, someone should get rich off of making the first one. I don't think it's just the actual site. I mean algorithms are tough to perfect, especially with something as unpredictable as human nature. My issue was more of the quality of women I was getting. It was two extremes. Girls I would never message in my life, not if I was paid to do it, and women who I thought were a perfect match but wouldn't respond. OLD was a supplement to my real life dating life and just something to get me a few more options, but real life proved time and time again that it was easier to find success and OLD was frustrating so I just said screw it, real life interactions from here on in. 2
Author ChessPieceFace Posted August 5, 2013 Author Posted August 5, 2013 (edited) I just don't know where to go IRL to meet girls I'd be compatible with. Rule out bars because I don't drink or smoke; I could accept a girl who drank once in a while but not most girls that go to bars. I don't like most sporting events ... the sport activities (like played sports) I do like would probably be mostly males. I don't see many solo female golfers, etc. I guess there's the gym, but that could make your gym experience uncomfortable really quick. People are mainly there to work out, not to find dates. Ask and get rejected by 10 women, and those are 10 women you could see there in the future and be embarrassed by in perpetuity while you try to work out. I guess I could frequent places of business that have a girl that seems nice or interesting... go in a few times and if she shows any potential interest then ask her out - odds are she's taken, but who knows? Speed dating seems interesting on paper but I don't think it would be for me. Saving time is nice but it seems to reward the most shallow tendencies. They say get a big circle of friends ... at my age (37) most of my friends are married, most people my age are already taken. I have small circles of friends through family members, a few of the girls I do like but they're too young and/or aren't really compatible. I don't get it. I don't understand how so many people just randomly meet "the love of their life." I know I kill my chances by working at home or working in jobs with few employees where I don't deal directly with the public, but still. Where are homebody introverts supposed to meet each other? Aren't dating sites supposed to help introverts like me? Edited August 5, 2013 by ChessPieceFace 1
soccerrprp Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 OKC has always been a strange site for me. Yeah, it seems to be much more arbitrary than other OLD sites. And the quality of the women, once active, is suspect. It does have the %match and weighted questions, but it still seems far too arbitrary. I also understand that OKC intentionally withholds the more attractive matches to get you to pay for their additional features and tools. Yup, rather sleazy... 1
MrCastle Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 I just don't know where to go IRL to meet girls I'd be compatible with. Rule out bars because I don't drink or smoke; I could accept a girl who drank once in a while but not most girls that go to bars. I don't like most sporting events ... the sport activities (like played sports) I do like would probably be mostly males. I don't see many solo female golfers, etc. I guess there's the gym, but that could make your gym experience uncomfortable really quick. People are mainly there to work out, not to find dates. Ask and get rejected by 10 women, and those are 10 women you could see there in the future and be embarrassed by in perpetuity while you try to work out. I guess I could frequent places of business that have a girl that seems nice or interesting... go in a few times and if she shows any potential interest then ask her out - odds are she's taken, but who knows? Speed dating seems interesting on paper but I don't think it would be for me. Saving time is nice but it seems to reward the most shallow tendencies. They say get a big circle of friends ... at my age (37) most of my friends are married, most people my age are already taken. I have small circles of friends through family members, a few of the girls I do like but they're too young and/or aren't really compatible. I don't get it. I don't understand how so many people just randomly meet "the love of their life." I know I kill my chances by working at home or working in jobs with few employees where I don't deal directly with the public, but still. Where are homebody introverts supposed to meet each other? Aren't dating sites supposed to help introverts like me? I'm an introvert myself for the most part so I know where you're coming from. I'm in college but go to bars but only a few times a year. And I don't do clubs, nor drugs of any kind. I've never even smoked a joint. I guess it's harder if you're looking to settle down. Right now, I would never date a woman who did drugs long term or make her my girlfriend, but a casual hookup? Sure. I'm 25 so what I find important and what I'm looking for is obviously different. I would suggest joining clubs of some sort that play to your interests and see if you can get anything done there. You have to at some level break free of your introverted ways (depends on how introverted you are) -- introverts will usually have a harder time finding dates because they don't go out as much. 2
sweetkiwi Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 OkCupid is a weird place And coming from me that is saying A LOT. 4
dasein Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 Forget all those site features where they match you or send you prospective matches. They are there to boost revenues by keeping the average inactive member more likely to renew, not to help you with your goals. Sift profiles, mail to them, rinse repeat. Good luck.
amazingdrummer Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 Forget about all the dating site profile stuffs. I am very introvert but loving person. When I was single, I tried OKC and made a long and well-described profile there. I did quiz and answers tons of questions to find my match. Guess what, people rarely messaged me, like 3 -4 messages per month. Now, when I told my bf how unlucky I was with online dating, he made up a fake profile, put some of my cuter pictures on it and barely said anything. And I got 20 long messages for the first 12 hours since the profile was up. Some of them seemed to be good looking with good jobs. So, lesson learnt - most of online daters don't really care for your profile or personality, but they do care if you look cute enough, .
Author ChessPieceFace Posted August 5, 2013 Author Posted August 5, 2013 ... so how did you meet your BF then? As for cute pics, sure they're good to have and will get you replies but are those the replies you want? In my case, I do care about the pic but I never reject someone on the pic alone. I'd imagine that other people looking for deep compatibility would feel the same way.
New User Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 OkCupid is a weird place And coming from me that is saying A LOT. In my experience it's still much more..... classy? then POF. But I definitely met some very damaged women on OKC. Borderline stalkers, level 5 clingers, and just garden variety crazy.
amazingdrummer Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 ... so how did you meet your BF then? As for cute pics, sure they're good to have and will get you replies but are those the replies you want? In my case, I do care about the pic but I never reject someone on the pic alone. I'd imagine that other people looking for deep compatibility would feel the same way. And my bf was one of the very few ppl that messaged me when I was "sounds too prude to date". About my new profile, my bf did it just to prove to me that it's easy to attract men. No, I don't care for those replies, I actually feel kinda disappointed. It's not very happy to receive messages saying that "we have so many things in common" and my profile was nearly blank.
sillyanswer Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 I was also thinking about the stupid algorithm it must be using. There were a lot of really, really stupid match questions (for example easy logic problems) that I skipped entirely. I did so because if I pad out my questions with a bunch of garbage questions, it will dilute the ones that matter. The questions aren't stupid... and they are presented (vaguely) in the order of most divisiveness which is rather clever when you think about it. Yes, it's worth skipping questions you think are totally useless in helping you find a match. Some of those logic problems are good for some people (who want to find someone who can answer logic problems). For the questions that you feel strongly about and want to have your ideal date holding a specific view, make sure to pick only one (perhaps two) of the 'answers you'll accept' and then mark the question as 'mandatory' (it isn't really mandatory... there is a paper out there somewhere that explains the maths unless it got pulled when the site got bought by Match (and I think they changed the algorithm after that paper was written, but the principles are the same)). Then, when browsing profiles, as well as looking at the overall percentage you can click on the "the two of us" link and look at their answers. If you then select the "unacceptable answers" link on the right (or "questions I care about" or "questions she cares about") you'll quickly get to see the areas in which you disagree and the areas you both felt were important.
Seductive Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 I don't want to be a debbie downer, but my experience is that online dating is a waste of time. It's great for batting practice, but most of the people just want to e-mail or text back and forth. If you do meet them, things don't follow through. A person may say "Let's keep in touch", and they don't even respond to your follow-up. I have talked to other people, and they agree. You're not going to find the highest quality people online. OLD caters to the very lazy or the very busy. I'm surprised at how many grown adults can't spell, can't put together sentences or have poor social skills (Hey, I want to eat your flesh baby!) You may ask, "How do you meet people?" The same way before OLD existed. The happiest couples I know met through friends and real-life events. When you meet someone in real life, there's a chance that you can develop a connection. There are success stories from OLD, but you're going to have do a lot of searching through piles of time-wasters. Good luck. 2
Drseussgrrl Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 I don't want to be a debbie downer, but my experience is that online dating is a waste of time. It's great for batting practice, but most of the people just want to e-mail or text back and forth. If you do meet them, things don't follow through. A person may say "Let's keep in touch", and they don't even respond to your follow-up. I have talked to other people, and they agree. You're not going to find the highest quality people online. OLD caters to the very lazy or the very busy. I'm surprised at how many grown adults can't spell, can't put together sentences or have poor social skills (Hey, I want to eat your flesh baby!) You may ask, "How do you meet people?" The same way before OLD existed. The happiest couples I know met through friends and real-life events. When you meet someone in real life, there's a chance that you can develop a connection. There are success stories from OLD, but you're going to have do a lot of searching through piles of time-wasters. Good luck. OLD has been a mixed bag for me. I found that most men didn't even bother looking at my questions. My answers made it very clear that I'm an agnostic liberal, yet I'd have dudes messaging me who were clearly religious or conservative. I mean what the what? What would we even have to talk about? I went on a lot of really bad dates. I mean - like I started losing faith in the male gender as a whole. I began to wonder why these dudes' mothers hadn't taught them how to conduct themselves on a date. I had one dude ask if I had any weed or if my friends did. He spilled a drink on me, too, and didn't apologize. I emailed a lot with guys and had nothing materialize into an actual date. I met some men who were nice enough but felt no chemistry. Several just wanted to casually date and have sex. All that being said I did meet my boyfriend on OKC but it kind of feels like a fluke. I have several other friends who have also met their sig others online. Sometimes I wonder if it's the area I live in, however, as almost everyone seems to do it here. 1
Babolat Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 I'm looking into making profiles on some dating sites, but it's not going well. Isn't the point of putting in information to narrow your results to more suitable ones? Well, it doesn't seem to work so far. On OKC I answered a bunch of the "Match Questions." For example, one was whether you'd want to date mostly in your own race. I said yes. However, in picking "best matches" I'm now seemingly getting MORE women outside my race. WTH?? What bugs me (using this question as an example) is that there's rarely much specification. In this case of races. I put "somewhat important" for this question since I could certainly imagine dating some other races, but not all of them. But since it's so unspecific it's practically useless. I was also thinking about the stupid algorithm it must be using. There were a lot of really, really stupid match questions (for example easy logic problems) that I skipped entirely. I did so because if I pad out my questions with a bunch of garbage questions, it will dilute the ones that matter. I was actually thinking of going back in and removing some of the questions I did answer, so the match % can focus on questions that are most important. Anyone have advice on how to use OKC (or other sites) really efficiently? Are any of these free sites actually of any use in terms of compatibility matching? I set up a profile on OKC last weekend and have seen similar findings. When I search on Body Type, either the women are lying or it's not working! And, to the race question, same here, it get lots of results for woman outside my race. I actually laughed at one last night; the woman listed herself as Athletic, though in her profile she said "I have a few rolls on me". Something to think about: bad data in is bad data out. I work in IT, we say this all the time. The data going in (how users are answering questions and entering data) determines the data going out. And, though I like the questions on OKC, they can be a challenge to answer.
Babolat Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 I just don't know where to go IRL to meet girls I'd be compatible with. Rule out bars because I don't drink or smoke; I could accept a girl who drank once in a while but not most girls that go to bars. I don't like most sporting events ... the sport activities (like played sports) I do like would probably be mostly males. I don't see many solo female golfers, etc. I guess there's the gym, but that could make your gym experience uncomfortable really quick. People are mainly there to work out, not to find dates. Ask and get rejected by 10 women, and those are 10 women you could see there in the future and be embarrassed by in perpetuity while you try to work out. I guess I could frequent places of business that have a girl that seems nice or interesting... go in a few times and if she shows any potential interest then ask her out - odds are she's taken, but who knows? Speed dating seems interesting on paper but I don't think it would be for me. Saving time is nice but it seems to reward the most shallow tendencies. They say get a big circle of friends ... at my age (37) most of my friends are married, most people my age are already taken. I have small circles of friends through family members, a few of the girls I do like but they're too young and/or aren't really compatible. I don't get it. I don't understand how so many people just randomly meet "the love of their life." I know I kill my chances by working at home or working in jobs with few employees where I don't deal directly with the public, but still. Where are homebody introverts supposed to meet each other? Aren't dating sites supposed to help introverts like me? I hear you, as I am in a similar position. Try MeetUp.com and join some that do things you like to do. For me it was hiking, biking, PaddleBoarding, Kayaking, Yoga, etc. Don't go into it with intent to meet a woman though. Do so to increase your social circle and to have some fun. I like to go to bars/outdoor festivals to socialize, hang out with my friends, listen to a band, but not to meet women. And remember, if you meet her there, there is a good chance that is what she likes to do, not always the case though as I am not there to meet girls. And don't look at bars as "drinking". I have a few girls I go to bars with now, friends, and I have a blast. It's a social thing. Pay attention to how much she drinks, gauge it from there.
Babolat Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 In my experience it's still much more..... classy? then POF. But I definitely met some very damaged women on OKC. Borderline stalkers, level 5 clingers, and just garden variety crazy. Same experience, but really, you are going to mee them anywhere..I don't think it's unique to OLD.
Seductive Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 (edited) When you aren't invited to real life events there isn't a much of a choice. Honey, you can just show up. . Take a salsa class. Go to a nightclub where they have salsa and tango nights. Join a meetup where they have bowling nights, singles parties,volunteering, hiking, dinners, and even skydiving events. Joina seminar or a book club. You don't need to wait for an invitation. People are scared of showing alone, but we have to take initiative. If we are waiting for someone to come along with us, we might be waiting a long time. There's so many opportunities out there Edited August 5, 2013 by Seductive
Seductive Posted August 5, 2013 Posted August 5, 2013 May I add that bars aren't always sleazy. It's sleazy if you can't behave yourself. I've had decent dates from bars before. I usually just order a drink and read a book on my iPhone. The guy knows I'm not there to get laid, so he will act accordingly. He asked me out to dinner. Was very gentleman like, but we weren't a good fit. He turned out to be a 24 year old that was still trying to figure his life out.
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