4 ms·

Considering HN is a relatively affluent crowd would anyone who is having trouble online dating pay to have their dating profile edited/rewritten and also their

by bruceb 10y ago

Considering HN is a relatively affluent crowd would anyone who is having trouble online dating pay to have their dating profile edited/rewritten and also their msgs to potential dates (I say to women as would seem to be most likely) . Thus saving time and lessening frustration? There seem to be a lot of decently intelligent men that are not skilled at writing good profiles and msgs. Thoughts on what one would pay, with and without a guarantee of X success.

curiousdater 10y ago
Is it really about what's written??? 90% is visual is it not? How is it for you ... if you don't find her attractive as im sure you look at her pics first.. are you going to bother reading what her profile says?
- bruceb 10y ago
  Do people judge on looks, of course but women less so. How a profile is written can absolutely make a difference. It is your personality translated in to words.
  - curiousdater 10y ago
    Nah as bisexual guy and in my experience women are more judgemental then guys. They after all might procreate with you.
    - greenhatman 10y ago
      My experience is the same as yours, but there might also be a big difference between gay and straight guys. The dating pool is a lot smaller for gay guys. What percentage of people are gay? Like 5%?
    - Consultant32452 10y ago
      Just to put some data on this phenomenon. Women rate 80% of men as less attractive than average. Oddly enough, they message them anyways. https://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/ https://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dat...
      - szemet 10y ago
        Average? That's ok. If it were median there would be some problem here though... ;) (e.g. If every men is the same, except one who is beautiful, than everybody is below the average but one.)
        Consultant32452 10y ago
        Uhh, you can't have 80% below the median. That's impossible by definition.
        szemet 10y ago
        Yes that's my point. But 80% below the average can be a valid/true valuation, no logical glitch here: If the "wisdom of the (female) crowd" says that's the case, then it may be true - so I don't see the issue here... So to clarify - your data says nothing about whether women are judgemental - they may be just realistic ;) If beauty is in the eye of the beholder than how can we argue them?
  - curun1r 10y ago
    From what I've seen, women judge more on looks than men, but what they find attractive is far more diverse than men. OKCupid has some interesting data [1] supporting this. When you consider that most relationships form between people of a similar age, it follows that the man is compromising more on looks. [1] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/christian-rudder-dataclysm-okcupid http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/christian-rudder-datacly...
    - bruceb 10y ago
      Christian Rudder doesn't normalize his dating data. Take what he says with a grain of salt.
- danharaj 10y ago
  Having sat with both male and female friends who were swiping on Tinder, both are important. A poorly written bio does not get a pass from a pretty face and a well written bio can make up for average looks. With how much artistic discretion one has with a camera, lighting, and makeup, everyone should be able to take a good selfie. It's harder to make the case for personality in text than looks with a photo.
- gregpilling 10y ago
  TL;DR - Put some real effort and time into optimizing your dating profile. I think it is how it is written. I met my wife on Match.com 16 years ago, back in the dinosaur age of internet dating. If you look around on these sites, they often have a 2000 character (or similar) limit on the text you can put in the profile, and most ads do not even use 10% of that. "I'm not good at these forms, just ask me anything!" or some useless drivel that does not tell me about the person. My profiles had the most success when I used all the character count, and I spent a fair amount of time editing in Word. Since you get one shot to make a first impression, why not make the best possible? I try to get someone who knows me well to read it, and to check to make sure the tone is correct. Who wants to date someone who comes across as angry or bitter? If I put that much effort into the wording, I would always get a ton of top level choices. The women wrote me, I didn't have to chase them. I think the differentiator was that they could clearly get a sense of my personality (what I thought was funny, etc) from reading the max length profile, and it stood apart from the 100 character competition. At the end of the day, it is a sales job like any other - put on your best presentation, clearly explain your deal breakers in a positive way, and be better prepared than the next guy. Because all you have to do is be more appealing than the competition. If the other guy is more attractive, but seems boring, then you will probably beat him if your profile is amusing. Intelligent women get tired of pretty but stupid guys, they usually want someone with more substance. If you can communicate that in your ad before the first date, then you are several steps ahead. I have an outside sales background; once I put dating in the context of selling it became something I was quite good at. I was just selling myself after all.
- cloudjacker 10y ago
  Replace your profile photos with stock photos of models and see how your results differ You'll be able to come to your own conclusions
ardit33 10y ago
Very polished profiles help to get first dates, but not actually finding good partners. I know/have friends that are actually really good at getting the first date, but strike out after it. At the end of the day you need in person skills, and being polished yourself to be lucky at it. People that are polished in person and come out as they have their stuff together, tend to do much better in meeting people in real life. It seems that most dating apps are geared/optimized towards engagement and keep you swiping more than actually finding a partner. Also, the only success stories I have heard of online/app dating has been only from women.
sotojuan 10y ago
I think the HN crowd would do better at just meeting people in person. People can get "profile reviews" for free (see /r/okcupid), but success depends on a lot of random factors no one can really control. Though I'm guessing "good/serious profiles" are more attractive to late 20s women than women my age (22), so maybe I'm wrong. That said, I hear the demographics in SV are pretty bad for men. Here in NYC, I met my partner fairly easily through a friend (classic way).
- bruceb 10y ago
  One can easily control type of pics and text you write on your profile along with type of messages one sends.
  - sotojuan 10y ago
    Yes, but how many people will be OK with the idea of paying someone to choose what to say and what to send to a potential mate? I'm guessing more than I think (after all, people pay to learn from "pick up artist"). What I like about real life dating and meeting is that if something goes wrong, at least I know what it was (for the most part, definitely not always). I've had friends who don't reply to messages because they simply forget about them or are busy, or decide to not do online dating any more without telling anyone. Maybe that's less common than I think, though.
    - hiram112 10y ago
      You don't need to pay someone to write messages for you. As much as things like PUA and /redpill are hated on this site, I've learned a few grains of wisdom from some of the online dating threads. Advice for Guys: 1. Don't write long messages. 2. Try to keep the ratio at 1/1 or less (you vs them). 3. Go for a number / date as soon as possible. 4. If #2 or #3 fail, move on to someone else. It is a numbers game, and you are at the disadvantage as a 20 something guy. I have had decent success in my 30's using this strategy - far more than I had in my 20's, though a lot of this is due to my age and other factors, not just messaging. Honestly, if I knew at 25 what I know now, I wouldn't recommend any guys that aren't in the top 20% of attractiveness (i.e. tall, fit, good job, social skills) to bother with online dating. It is about as effective as trying to pick up random women at bars at closing time (i.e. it probably won't work, and will waste a lot of time, energy, pride, and money).
projektir 10y ago
Maybe the HN crowd should just make a dating app that doesn't suck? Pretty much all the existing ones have some really bad biases behind them and run on appearance. Message boards and video games still beat them in that department for the more specialized types, which is silly.
- steve-howard 10y ago
  Every new dating app that comes out is an attempt to make dating apps not suck. No one has succeeded so far. There are a small number of people with a ton of success who know how to market themselves, and there are a lot of good people who don't have that skill that find themselves shouting into the void.
  - greggman 10y ago
    Which dating apps are these? All the dating apps I've seen come out are either ways to scam people ("no connecting unless you pay with lots of fake profiles") or are just more of the same ("can only connect on superficial criteria. Don't enforce/encourage detailed profiles. Don't kick off men just asking for sex that basically poison the pot as so many women leave disgusted").
  - projektir 10y ago
    Err, most of these apps are managed by the same company and a lot of them seem to have been created with the entire purpose of making dating worse (Tinder). If all these apps are coming out with an attempt to make dating apps not suck, they're doing an excellent job of falling into all the same pitfalls over and over again. Oh, hey, you homogenized the entire population of a city and made everything about pictures again!
hiram112 10y ago
Agreed. However, it is far more effective to get professional pictures - high quality, one in a suit, one with a Pet, one with some friends / somewhere exotic. You can go on Craigslist and get a 'professional' photographer to do a session with you for $100 or so (relative to COL). You will still need to put in effort with getting some fitting clothes, asking friends for help, etc. Professional, in this case, usually means someone that has a high-end camera and knows enough to use it.

by bruceb 10y ago

curiousdater 10y ago

Is it really about what's written??? 90% is visual is it not? How is it for you ... if you don't find her attractive as im sure you look at her pics first.. are you going to bother reading what her profile says?

bruceb 10y ago
Do people judge on looks, of course but women less so. How a profile is written can absolutely make a difference. It is your personality translated in to words.
- curiousdater 10y ago
  Nah as bisexual guy and in my experience women are more judgemental then guys. They after all might procreate with you.
  - greenhatman 10y ago
    My experience is the same as yours, but there might also be a big difference between gay and straight guys. The dating pool is a lot smaller for gay guys. What percentage of people are gay? Like 5%?
  - Consultant32452 10y ago
    Just to put some data on this phenomenon. Women rate 80% of men as less attractive than average. Oddly enough, they message them anyways. https://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/ https://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dat...
    - szemet 10y ago
      Average? That's ok. If it were median there would be some problem here though... ;) (e.g. If every men is the same, except one who is beautiful, than everybody is below the average but one.)
      - Consultant32452 10y ago
        Uhh, you can't have 80% below the median. That's impossible by definition.
        szemet 10y ago
        Yes that's my point. But 80% below the average can be a valid/true valuation, no logical glitch here: If the "wisdom of the (female) crowd" says that's the case, then it may be true - so I don't see the issue here... So to clarify - your data says nothing about whether women are judgemental - they may be just realistic ;) If beauty is in the eye of the beholder than how can we argue them?
- curun1r 10y ago
  From what I've seen, women judge more on looks than men, but what they find attractive is far more diverse than men. OKCupid has some interesting data [1] supporting this. When you consider that most relationships form between people of a similar age, it follows that the man is compromising more on looks. [1] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/christian-rudder-dataclysm-okcupid http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/christian-rudder-datacly...
  - bruceb 10y ago
    Christian Rudder doesn't normalize his dating data. Take what he says with a grain of salt.
danharaj 10y ago
Having sat with both male and female friends who were swiping on Tinder, both are important. A poorly written bio does not get a pass from a pretty face and a well written bio can make up for average looks. With how much artistic discretion one has with a camera, lighting, and makeup, everyone should be able to take a good selfie. It's harder to make the case for personality in text than looks with a photo.
gregpilling 10y ago
TL;DR - Put some real effort and time into optimizing your dating profile. I think it is how it is written. I met my wife on Match.com 16 years ago, back in the dinosaur age of internet dating. If you look around on these sites, they often have a 2000 character (or similar) limit on the text you can put in the profile, and most ads do not even use 10% of that. "I'm not good at these forms, just ask me anything!" or some useless drivel that does not tell me about the person. My profiles had the most success when I used all the character count, and I spent a fair amount of time editing in Word. Since you get one shot to make a first impression, why not make the best possible? I try to get someone who knows me well to read it, and to check to make sure the tone is correct. Who wants to date someone who comes across as angry or bitter? If I put that much effort into the wording, I would always get a ton of top level choices. The women wrote me, I didn't have to chase them. I think the differentiator was that they could clearly get a sense of my personality (what I thought was funny, etc) from reading the max length profile, and it stood apart from the 100 character competition. At the end of the day, it is a sales job like any other - put on your best presentation, clearly explain your deal breakers in a positive way, and be better prepared than the next guy. Because all you have to do is be more appealing than the competition. If the other guy is more attractive, but seems boring, then you will probably beat him if your profile is amusing. Intelligent women get tired of pretty but stupid guys, they usually want someone with more substance. If you can communicate that in your ad before the first date, then you are several steps ahead. I have an outside sales background; once I put dating in the context of selling it became something I was quite good at. I was just selling myself after all.
cloudjacker 10y ago
Replace your profile photos with stock photos of models and see how your results differ You'll be able to come to your own conclusions

ardit33 10y ago

Very polished profiles help to get first dates, but not actually finding good partners. I know/have friends that are actually really good at getting the first date, but strike out after it. At the end of the day you need in person skills, and being polished yourself to be lucky at it. People that are polished in person and come out as they have their stuff together, tend to do much better in meeting people in real life. It seems that most dating apps are geared/optimized towards engagement and keep you swiping more than actually finding a partner. Also, the only success stories I have heard of online/app dating has been only from women.

sotojuan 10y ago

I think the HN crowd would do better at just meeting people in person. People can get "profile reviews" for free (see /r/okcupid), but success depends on a lot of random factors no one can really control. Though I'm guessing "good/serious profiles" are more attractive to late 20s women than women my age (22), so maybe I'm wrong. That said, I hear the demographics in SV are pretty bad for men. Here in NYC, I met my partner fairly easily through a friend (classic way).

bruceb 10y ago
One can easily control type of pics and text you write on your profile along with type of messages one sends.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  Yes, but how many people will be OK with the idea of paying someone to choose what to say and what to send to a potential mate? I'm guessing more than I think (after all, people pay to learn from "pick up artist"). What I like about real life dating and meeting is that if something goes wrong, at least I know what it was (for the most part, definitely not always). I've had friends who don't reply to messages because they simply forget about them or are busy, or decide to not do online dating any more without telling anyone. Maybe that's less common than I think, though.
  - hiram112 10y ago
    You don't need to pay someone to write messages for you. As much as things like PUA and /redpill are hated on this site, I've learned a few grains of wisdom from some of the online dating threads. Advice for Guys: 1. Don't write long messages. 2. Try to keep the ratio at 1/1 or less (you vs them). 3. Go for a number / date as soon as possible. 4. If #2 or #3 fail, move on to someone else. It is a numbers game, and you are at the disadvantage as a 20 something guy. I have had decent success in my 30's using this strategy - far more than I had in my 20's, though a lot of this is due to my age and other factors, not just messaging. Honestly, if I knew at 25 what I know now, I wouldn't recommend any guys that aren't in the top 20% of attractiveness (i.e. tall, fit, good job, social skills) to bother with online dating. It is about as effective as trying to pick up random women at bars at closing time (i.e. it probably won't work, and will waste a lot of time, energy, pride, and money).

projektir 10y ago

Maybe the HN crowd should just make a dating app that doesn't suck? Pretty much all the existing ones have some really bad biases behind them and run on appearance. Message boards and video games still beat them in that department for the more specialized types, which is silly.

steve-howard 10y ago
Every new dating app that comes out is an attempt to make dating apps not suck. No one has succeeded so far. There are a small number of people with a ton of success who know how to market themselves, and there are a lot of good people who don't have that skill that find themselves shouting into the void.
- greggman 10y ago
  Which dating apps are these? All the dating apps I've seen come out are either ways to scam people ("no connecting unless you pay with lots of fake profiles") or are just more of the same ("can only connect on superficial criteria. Don't enforce/encourage detailed profiles. Don't kick off men just asking for sex that basically poison the pot as so many women leave disgusted").
- projektir 10y ago
  Err, most of these apps are managed by the same company and a lot of them seem to have been created with the entire purpose of making dating worse (Tinder). If all these apps are coming out with an attempt to make dating apps not suck, they're doing an excellent job of falling into all the same pitfalls over and over again. Oh, hey, you homogenized the entire population of a city and made everything about pictures again!

hiram112 10y ago

Agreed. However, it is far more effective to get professional pictures - high quality, one in a suit, one with a Pet, one with some friends / somewhere exotic. You can go on Craigslist and get a 'professional' photographer to do a session with you for $100 or so (relative to COL). You will still need to put in effort with getting some fitting clothes, asking friends for help, etc. Professional, in this case, usually means someone that has a high-end camera and knows enough to use it.