Outcast Posted November 23, 2005 Posted November 23, 2005 Even if you do it that way, the only thing you 'prove' is that a proportion of a huge membership who may or may not have viewed both profiles happen to be very shallow. We don't need a bogus 'experiment' to prove that. We already know that's human nature. This 'experiment' purports to 'prove' that ALL women are shallow.
alphamale Posted November 23, 2005 Posted November 23, 2005 We don't need a bogus 'experiment' to prove that. We already know that's human nature. . Look OUTCAST, governments, non-profits, educational institutions spend millions if not billions of $$$ each year doing studies that prove the obvious and what has been known for ages. You know these studies....."eating mcdonalds everyday for 7 years causes immense weight gain"... and "women who dress like prostitutes tend to have more sexual partners"... WTF
a4a Posted November 23, 2005 Posted November 23, 2005 Look OUTCAST, governments, non-profits, educational institutions spend millions if not billions of $$$ each year doing studies that prove the obvious and what has been known for ages. You know these studies....."eating mcdonalds everyday for 7 years causes immense weight gain"... and "women who dress like prostitutes tend to have more sexual partners"... WTF Hey Alpha...... apply for some grant money..... funny thing is you'll probably get it! a4a
Outcast Posted November 23, 2005 Posted November 23, 2005 that prove the obvious That something may seem 'obvious' to you doesn't mean it is. You think all women are shallow and will say that's 'obvious'. It isn't true. Read up on 'selective perception' and 'confirmation bias'. Until you understand and accept how you yourself may make flaws in analysis, you cannot even begin to conduct a decent analysis of anything.
centered Posted November 23, 2005 Posted November 23, 2005 1) women go for looks even if the dude is dumb and a player 2) women repeated will go for looks even if the dude is dumb and a player 3) women don't particularly like "nice guys" unless they are also good looking and/or rich 4) online match-making services do work if you have particular qualities 5) people online with great looking pictures get the most interest and responses 6) there are a lot of dumb, naive and ignorant people online 7) a great looking stud can get laid at will and will have women throwing themselves at him regardless of his other qualities... What a great idea, Alpha! I might try this for the guy experiment sometime. See if all guys are really so shallow. Photoshop a picture of Angelina Jolie a little bit and write up a bio including boob size, type of Harley she likes, and where some of her tats are. I wonder how many hits I'd get? Your statements above need to be qualified a bit, though. I don't think ALL women go for looks, even if he's a player or dumb. Certainly younger, less experienced ones might. But what about women who are past childbearing, have already been through a marriage, had kids, raised the kids, have a solid job and aren't looking for a sugardaddy, etc. Isn't it just possible that women like that are looking for a guy with a great personality and some intelligence? I noticed that point #4 talked about having "particular qualities" -- so maybe that's what you meant. That's what I was looking for when I tried the on-line thing. "Particular qualities." In early 2004, my friends encouraged me to try Match.Com just to see what would happen. I made a nice bio, put up a nice picture, listed some specific things I was looking for, and got a zillion hits and e-mails from guys who clearly had only looked at the photo and hadn't bothered to read what I wanted in a guy. Within two months, my bio was viewed 1,976 times. I received about 600 e-mails in that time frame, most of them from obvious players. I tried dating a few of the more promising ones, but quickly gave up on the whole thing because it was clear these guys were either severely damaged goods or total players lining up their weekend timeslots. I met a nice guy off-line, dated him for about 5 months, broke up with him for a variety of the usual imcompatibility reasons, then took a few months to get re-centered. I wasn't meeting anyone IRL for awhile, and my friends were once again encouraging me to try Match.Com. I still had some of the year's subscription left, so I thought "What the heck?" This time, I decided to be super-picky. What did I have to lose? I updated my bio, and learned how to do the on-line search thing in Match.Com. I decided to really narrow the options just to see what who came up in the search. For fun, I put in that I wasn't interested in driving more than 5 miles, that I didn't want any more children, that the guy had to be at least 5' 11", speak some German, was into astronomy, have a college degree, be divorced and helping raise a kid or two, be between 42 - 47 years old, not bald, somewhat athletic, like to camp and hike, is spiritual/religious but not a narrow-minded Bible-thumper, have middle-of-the-road or liberal politics, was into having some adventure, likes to read, knows how to write a poem, likes science-fiction, is a cuddler, and is open to a real relationship. This time, I ignored most of the e-mails. I decided to take charge of my search and not be so passive. I ran the super-picky search I had built and came up with a list of 10 guys. (I was surprised that I would even get 1 potential match, much less 10!) Of those 10, I quickly narrowed it down to 6 guys who had real potential. And of those, I dated 4 of them. All 4 were terrific guys. None of them were Mel Gibson or Tom Selleck material, but that wasn't the focus of my search. Still, they weren't all that bad looking. They were all tall, they all had particular physical traits that were distinctly male and appealing (e.g., hairy chest, broad forehead, strong shoulders, etc.), and they all had nice smiles. So the potential for chemistry was there from the beginning. But what I really wanted was a personality that just captivated me. Of those 4, only 2 had the right mix. The second guy was a former DJ for KFOG in the Bay Area, spent some of his weekends volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, now worked as an I.T. Manager at a large company, and lived alone. He'd never had kids, but he was good with them and didn't mind the idea of me already having a daughter. He was 6' 3", trim, athletic, full head of dark glossy hair, great kisser, smart, and a great talker. He and I clicked well, and may have gone on from there. But the reason I am not with him now is because of the first guy from my finalists list. My first guy wasn't as tall as the DJ (only 5' 11"), he was a little out of shape, had a receding hairline, wore glasses (and needed them!), was not yet officially divorced (but his soon-to-be ex had already bought a house with her new guy, and they were 2 years separated and waiting for the divorce paperwork to be final). He was just coming out of a relationship with a rebound girlfriend, and he had some baggage to deal with. Ordinarily, NOT the type of guy I'd have dropped the single, good-looking DJ for! But what he had the guy #2 didn't was a unique blend of interests and background I never ever thought I'd find. he was, quite literally, my match. Not only did he have every single characteristic and interest I'd listed in my silly search criteria, we shared so much of the same background and experiences. We'd gone to the same college, had some of the same teachers, had the same major as undergrads, had many of the same favorite books and movies (but with enough new favorited to keep it fresh), he spoke some German, had travelled almost as much as I, had a daughter the same age as mine who attended the same school mine used to attend, his parents are still together in their first marriage just like mine still are in theirs, our value matched, our night-owl sleep patterns are the same, and so much more. We can talk in a kind of short-hand to each other just based on mutual shared experiences. And many of his friends are friends of my friends. It was likely he and I had met each other in the past when we were both in different relationships and not looking. Like ships that passed in the night. And yet we've found each other. It was all kind of amazing. And it was because of Match.Com and my super-picky search. All I did was send an electronic "wink" to him almost 9 months ago -- no words -- and he took it from there. We're still together, almost 9 months later, and very happy. My daughter and I are having Thanksgiving dinner with his family. And though he is very sparing with words of deep emotion, he told me he loves me last week, and I'm just floating on Cloud 9 still. It hasn't all been easy, though. He had a fair amount of stuff to work through. And I expect there will be more stuff ahead for him to deal with. But everyday, our relationship grows stronger. We both didn't expect an on-line dating service to actually work, and both of us weren't interested in someone just for their looks. So I think it really is all about what the *searcher* is looking for. These services *can* work if you really know what you want, and you have the patience to filter through all the mismatches that get thrown at you.
Tangerina Posted November 23, 2005 Posted November 23, 2005 Hmmm... in my experience most of the people that I know who ended up with good relationships with people that they met online met the person in some way that wasn't related to a dating site... For example, I met my current wonderful, lovely boyfriend on MySpace... and yeah, he was e-hitting on me, but lots of other people were e-hitting on me on there and I didn't pay them any attention, but this guy seemed interesting and went to my school so we decided to hang out... I wasn't looking for him, it just happened.... I have met a lot of friends on this one REM chatroom, and my friend has now been with a guy in England (she moved there for college) that we met on there for going on 5 years... my sis also dated a guy we met on there, but they only got together after we all met in person and liked found out they liked each other... I think the good side of online dating is that it increases the foot traffic so, yeah, you have to sort through way more dorks, but you are also more likely to come accross the good ones than if you weren't trying to meet people... my best friend's dad met his new wife that way... overall, though, the relationships that started online that seem to work out the best are the ones that you weren't looking for when you just find a good connection.... same in real life, too, I think....
Outcast Posted November 23, 2005 Posted November 23, 2005 These services *can* work if you really know what you want, and you have the patience to filter through all the mismatches that get thrown at you. Exactly! You *must* be 'super-picky' if you want to find the person that's just right for you. That should be obvious overall, though, the relationships that started online that seem to work out the best are the ones that you weren't looking for when you just find a good connection... I don't think so much that it's that they work 'best' - the ones that work out aren't necessarily qualitatively better. It's just that much nicer that a great relationship happens as a serendipitous bonus to your other online communications.
battleworn Posted November 24, 2005 Posted November 24, 2005 Been on a variety of sites, date.ca (American Singles really), match.com, Yahoo personals, true.com, eHarmony and LavaLife. For here in Canada, LavaLife is by far the best. They've done a lot of marketing here so it's the most popular site. POF is fun to chat on, but it's little too unstructured, and the search is mediocre. Been on a few dates. First was OK, but not great. She was quite attractive (weakness for redheads) and smart, but she was a little abrasive. Went on 2nd date, but that was it. 2nd gal, kept postponing so I just told her forget it. Some people can't bring themselves to just say no outright. Then I decided to pull my ad and re-evaluate. When I went back I made it a numbers game. Just sent lots of 'winks' and 'smiles' to anyone that looked halfway promising. This generated lots of mail and hence work, but nothing that went past chatting. Quantity != quality. At this point whittled down sites to LavaLife and plentyoffish.com. The others just blew. What worked finally was pulling my ad when I was busy so it wasn't always there looking desperate. Sending targeted mails helped a lot rather than just smiles. Somehow everything has just fallen into place this last while. Met three great women, been on a few dates. I can't believe I've gone from zero to having to decide between 3 smart attractive women. I'm just an average guy, no six pack, no smooth talk. Oh and as for fun, tried the Intimate side of Lava and had one hot encounter. Recently separated and looking to experiment. Chat to sex took 3 days. Fun, but now my curiosity is satified. Advice: 1. Don't chat forever. Some women just want penpals. Screw that-- meet them within a couple of weeks at most. 2. The old cocky/funny bit works just a well online. 3. Know your target audience. I'm short (5'4) so I only look for women my height or less. I'm not a clubber so I ignore the party girls etc etc. Obvious I know, but some people chase after the beautiful people, even if they don't have anything in common. 4. Don't lie. Fine to put a good spin on things, but nobody likes being lied to, and frankly it would be hard to keep track of what you said to who. 5. It's not magic. Online is a good way to interact with a lot of people. It won't make you smarter or better looking. Just increases your odds. 6. Don't be there continously. When you see someone on every night for weeks on end, it sends the message that their either incredibly popular, or more likely desperate. Pull your ad for week or two then come back looking fresh.
battleworn Posted November 24, 2005 Posted November 24, 2005 Oh one more thing. Fake ads. All sites have them. Like the recent lawsuit alleges, some may be site sponsored. But there are just a lot of kids goofing around as well, or adults as alpha has shown. Usually if they don't have multiple pictures and sound too good to be true (hot chick open to all types of men), they're a fake. Or a hooker.
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