Bad first experiences with OLD

[Jethro]

I thought most men would be thrilled to get a message from an attractive women.

 

I sure would. I've been on a popular OLD site for 3 years and can't get a date. It's crazy.

[nospam99]

Status report (on woman number) 2: Met today and had a nice time ... a very nice time (no, not THAT nice, you pervs ). I can't say where this relationship might go but I would rate it an 'OLD enabled' success. Though we exchanged after-date messages thanking each other and saying we each had fun, I won't put more words into her mouth. What I can say from my side is that I met a woman who today I'd call at least a friend and that friendship has some romantic potential. We would not have known each other existed without OLD.

 

But ....

 

It took a LOT of time sifting through hundreds by now of zombie profiles and romance scam messages and a couple of heartbreaking (to me) contacts where I just ignored lonely women reaching out to me. The particular service itself, Ourtime in this case, is overpriced, unsupportive, and as a piece of software poorly designed and coded. They may be better than others in that, as a PeopleMatch service, they do at least have a live, almost-English-speaking customer support team that will answer the phones during business hours to commiserate with subscribers and correct data damage that the system itself has done to your profile. I've been on FB and gmail for years, never paid a penny, and never had a message disappear. I've been on Ourtime a little over two weeks, paid something like $37 for a month (I know other OLDs are more expensive), and they lost many messages. Though a trouble report was 'recorded', it is days old with no substantive action taken. I'm an I/T architect, data modeler, and database administrator with more than 30 years experience. NEVER had any permanent data loss like this happen on my watch and always resolved the losses that did occur in a matter of hours. Back to the romance scams, most seem to be facilitated by negligent maintenance of old profiles. Having had these bad experiences, after the fact I researched and found numerous and consistant reports of subscribers making complaints about the same problems I've reported: romance scams and high percentage of zombie profiles: people, women in my case, who joined who knows how many months ago, left probably because of bad results, yet continue to appear in searches AND system-generated matches. Buyer beware. I have had some success. But I had to spend hours on the service sifting the wheat from the chaff to achieve that. If you're going to try OLD, lower your expectations and be prepared to do the work.

Edited October 14, 2017 by nospam99

[d0nnivain]

I'm kind of horrified at the customer service (or lack there of) & the technical issues. That is just awful. If you are really aggravated call your state's office of the attorney general. They have a consumer fraud division. If this is happening to you, it's happening to others

 

You hit on the single good thing about OLD -- it opens you up to meeting people whose paths would not otherwise have crossed yours.

 

Your "successful" date has you doing better than I did, FWIW. In 90 days I talked to 4 men on the phone & met 2 for dinner. Neither panned out & then I just got off OLD. You already had 2 actual dates in less than a month.

 

I think you are doing a nice thing by documenting your experience. You may want to block & copy it to make it more accessible to non-LS users.

 

Are you having any luck in other areas finding a dance partner?

[nospam99]

I'm kind of horrified at the customer service (or lack there of) & the technical issues. That is just awful. If you are really aggravated call your state's office of the attorney general. They have a consumer fraud division. If this is happening to you, it's happening to others

 

Apparently it is happening to others. Google 'ourtime scam'. But all the other OLD sites get the same complaints: fake/zombie profiles, romance scams, nickel and dime charges, auto-renewal, etc. etc. I just didn't look it up myself until after the fact. I live in NY. I doubt AG Eric Schneiderman would go after an OLD site. Verizon pulls worse s--t than this and he won't touch them.

You hit on the single good thing about OLD -- it opens you up to meeting people whose paths would not otherwise have crossed yours.

 

Agreed. As much of a PitA the mechanics of the site are, there is a value proposition for at least some of the subscribers.

Your "successful" date has you doing better than I did, FWIW. In 90 days I talked to 4 men on the phone & met 2 for dinner. Neither panned out & then I just got off OLD. You already had 2 actual dates in less than a month.

Well ... one meeting and one date (who has now invited me to her place for a home-cooked meal). I hope you know you have my sympathy that you didn't have more success. But who knows? Different OLD site and different circumstances: different genders (you and me), different ages, different locations, even different degrees of plain old luck. Who knows what parameters matter? And be real. Ms OLD and I ain't married yet. The relationship, like any other that hasn't had time to mature, could end tomorrow.

I think you are doing a nice thing by documenting your experience. You may want to block & copy it to make it more accessible to non-LS users.

 

You're welcome. I'm not planning to make my feedback accessible outside LS. Like I said, plenty of people have already done so. I was and am prompted to keep posting here at LS because this is where other users suggested I try OLD.

Are you having any luck in other areas finding a dance partner?

 

Thanks for asking but not specifically. Ironic that IIRC a response that I got in a previous thread was along the lines that, as a senior male interested in partner dancing, women would beat a path to my door. That hasn't happened. As near as I can tell, the women who have responded with any interest are either sadly desparate or saw something else interesting to them about me - my guess is a relatively high energy level but ... I don't know since I don't see the profiles of other guys. I do see a lot of complaints and heard directly from the two women I met that most of the men are still, at our hoary age, only interested in sex. About the dancing, my new friend (getting close to gf) and I haven't really talked about it. She may be interested in dancing and it just hasn't come up yet because of the other stuff (long outdoors hike in foliage season and her love of nature and animals) that we've shared.

Edited October 14, 2017 by nospam99

[dichotomy]

It has been over 12 years since i used OLD, but it was about the only way for me to get dates based on where I lived and my lifestyle at the time.

 

It was a bit crazy out there in OLD, but better than staying home. Eharmony did not work for me - match got me dates. Also the gals did the picking. But thats along time ago.

 

I do like how specialized all the sites have gotten since then - that is focusing on your "type". Everything you can imagine.

 

Its my perception (or was many years ago) that older secure guys 60+ who can get around - are in demand. We men tend to start dying off around our 50's more than women.

Edited October 14, 2017 by dichotomy

[Cookiesandough]

Whats it mean shes a friend with romantic potential? I feel like I often get secretly put in this category. What don't you really like about her? No spark?

[nospam99]

Whats it mean shes a friend with romantic potential? I feel like I often get secretly put in this category. What don't you really like about her? No spark?

 

@Cookies ... The questions you ask could be asked of any man. I'm just me. If you generalize what I say to the men in your life, YMMV .... big time. Keep in mind that this woman and I have only been in each other's physical presense for about six hours. A lot of our 'relationship' has been phone calls, OLD chats, and dozens of OLD messages.

 

I feel that she is my friend. I know her well enough to conclude that she is a decent human being, that I care about her well-being, and that if she called on me for help with something I would respond. I can't read her mind. But the way she has treated me so far, I read her behaviour that she considers me her friend as well.

 

Spark? Hell yes, at least from my direction. We met on OLD. I am a male pig about looks. I don't jump into bed. But I would never have messaged her in the first place if my reaction to her profile photo didn't include a good dose of 'I'd enjoy tapping dat .... eventually'. From her direction, she has thrown me a few almost subtle, low key compliments. She's not jumping me. But she did initiate what is scheduled to be our second date later today.

 

What don't I like? I wouldn't say don't like so much as ideally I'd want 'more'. But I know the more that I'd want is not reasonable. Remember I'm a looks pig. She's not Scarlett Johansson. She and I are in our 60's. I've seen a photo of her from when we were both young. She WAS as hot as Scarlett. Other than that, we are still feeling each other out on common interests. There have been hits and misses. I don't like the misses. There are plenty enough hits to keep me interested in playing this out.

 

The answer to your last question is straight-forward: Friend + Spark + Time in + Two unattached people looking for serious relationships = Romantic potential.

Edited October 15, 2017 by nospam99

[Chilli]

Great stuff nos.

Really interesting hearing your perspective.

Don't get why your a male pig though just because you like a good lookin women , go read all the girls thread ,looks are the first thing they talk about

 

Good luck anyway and if you feel like it be great to keep hearing how your going.

[nospam99]

Time for a status update and some additional personal observations about OLD.

 

I've been dumped. We had two dates and were discussing 'what's next' via phone and email when she emailed me that she was getting back together with one of her ex's. I'm disappointed but, to be fair and objective, it's not that we had enough time to develop a particularly deep relationship.

 

My subscription on ourtime expires today. I didn't re-up and hid my profile. There are enough things I don't like about ourtime that I have 'moved on' to another OLD venue.

 

Started on Plenty of Fish (POF) last week. I'm finding it very much superior to ourtime. While it doesn't advertise itself as 'senior OLD' like ourtime does, it has people of all ages (as does ourtime BTW) and has plenty of user controls to keep the age threshold in play. Impressions:

- Half the price of ourtime when signing up for minimum number of months

- Probably bogus psychological 'testing' that allows POF to 'identify' 'matches' and 'chemistry'. At least they bothered to ask a bunch of questions that ourtime didn't.

- No annoying Today's Matches and Who Do You Like at every login (ourtime) presenting lists of women hundreds of miles away or too many years off age

- Easily configurable searches for age and distance tied into the testing for alleged 'compatibility' and 'chemistry' matching. Downside is they apparently use distance 'as the crow flies' so a potential match across a toll bridge into a county with few roads is listed as closer than one an exit down the interstate that takes half the time to get to. You have to recognize the names of the communities where people live and know your way around.

- Flexible control of Inbox and Sent folders including (if you pay the rather low fee) being able to tell if your target has been online, read your message, and/or deleted it.

 

Overall I like POF much better than ourtime .... at a 'this is a no-brainer' level of preference. However no dates yet. Though I did have what started out as a 'promising' exchange of messages with one woman. Have to see. In a month on ourtime I 'met' In Real Life two women, only one of whom was interested in dating and had two real dates with her, both pleasant, before she broke it off. My POF experience is still new and I have the experience advantage from ourtime of having learned a bit about the 'tempo' of exchange of messages on OLD.

Edited October 26, 2017 by nospam99

[d0nnivain]

Glad you found a platform that you like better. Hope that works out for you.

 

 

Sorry that the lady you met went back to her EX.

[nospam99]

Well, I am discovering that OLD is indeed 'the Wild West' and it has gotten 'ugly'.

 

I have had email accounts that I used only for OLD registrations locked out because of what appear to be brute force password crack attacks.

 

On Plenty of Fish, though it APPEARS to have a broader demographic, I am getting the 'non responses' to my messages that someone (d0nnivain IIRC) reported.

 

Zoosk took my money for a subscription without warning me that I would need to provide a phone number or facebook account to be 'validated' before I could actually send messages. I don't give out my phone number and I won't give them my FB account for fear that it will be subject to a brute force password attack.

 

While I did finally receive ONE unsolicited message from an attractive woman on match.com, apparently because of my well-written profile, match.com later terminated my account. A google search suggests that they do this to many men. Apparently any complaint from a female will result in termination with no explanation and no appeal. Sadly the termination of my account resulted in broken off contact with a woman with whom I had exchanged several (what I thought were) friendly messages. Though who knows? She could have been the complainer.

 

I'm going to keep plugging away using okcupid and what seem to be 'weak' options with POF and ourtime. I don't trust eharmony or elitesingles to do the 'picking' for me. I continue to believe that bad as it is, OLD is way better than hanging out in bars where I expect to find women young enough to be my daughters cruising for hookups with men young enough to be my sons.

 

I'm thinking my early 'success' on ourtime was a lucky aberation.

Edited November 10, 2017 by nospam99