8 ms·

when i was young, my female friends would say just be yourself, happy, etc and someone will just come along. i did that, failed, and i said why did it go so wr

• voltagex_ 10y ago
  Set yourself up with a profile as a female - yes, it's very very bad.
• sneak 10y ago
  One of the reasons most women put little/no effort into online dating is because the median quality of men is generally so low. There are ways of differentiating, like anything else, but it's become much worse in the last 3-5 years.
  • pottersbasilisk 10y ago
    why would the quality of women be higher than men on dating sites ? Is it some american cultural thing? I assumed the quality would be pretty even.
    • Thriptic 10y ago
      I would venture to guess that many "higher quality" women have less trouble finding partners irl. They don't need to use online dating.
      • peteretep 10y ago
        > women have less trouble finding > partners irl Sexual partners? No trouble at all. Life partners? Much trickier. Men have the sexual discernment of rabbits, but are pretty choosy about who they're willing to actually commit to. There's a non-trivial proportion of men who are only in their current relationships for easy access to sex. Men complain to their friends about not being able to get laid, women complain to their friends about not being able to find a good man. Women complain that men don't want to be "just friends", men complain that women want commitment they're not willing to give yet.
        • overcast 10y ago
          fyi. There is no such thing as guys, and girls being friends. I know women think they have guy friends, but those are just guys that want to have sex with them. Consider this next time a female questions this line of thought. Would their best guy friend turn them down for sex, with the response of "I don't want to ruin our friendship", of course not.
          • deleted 10y ago
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          • wallace_f 10y ago
            I am a man that has a lot of friends who are women that I don't have sexual interest with. Especially true with older female friends. One of my old professors... She's pretty old and that'd just be gross and weird. I think you're limiting yourself to productive relationships with only half the world's population.
            • pmoriarty 10y ago
              I also have had many female friends who I didn't want to have sex with. Sometimes it's been because I didn't want to ruin our friendship, other times because I simply wasn't attracted to them, and yet still other times because I thought it just wouldn't work out between us and didn't want just a one-night-stand.
            • overcast 10y ago
              Sure, and in that case, you A. Don't find them attractive. B. That is not your sexual orientation. C. You're already with someone much higher on your list. My point here is, an attractive female with a lot of guy "friends", are not her friends, because she has a good personality. That's just a fact of life, no matter what anecdotes you present.
          • bdamm 10y ago
            This view likely means that, as a man, you have some work to do to find your moral base. I know this because I've been there. You don't have to go through life objectifying all women. Seek help. Good luck.
      • throwaway91111 10y ago
        Isn't this true of men as well?
      • wallace_f 10y ago
        But wouldn't that mean the quality of men would be relatively higher then?
    • mikelyons 10y ago
      The measures of quality for men and women are different. A woman's quality is how hot she is, a man's quality is how much status, motivation, wealth, strength and awareness he's cultivated. Looks for women, energy for men. (the energy you come across with, not how much energy you have) If sex is your #1 desire and motivator in life, life is much easier for women.
      • kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
        You forgot height. That's most important above all else. Princess shouldn't have to ever slum it with someone below 6ft.
  • tracker1 10y ago
    Well, men tend to outnumber women in such sites, so that's the start... also, people are only likely to respond (with interest) in the top 10-25% of people they communicate with based on looks... from there, personality comes into play. It works both ways. It's just the majority of women don't respond to the majority of men, regardless of crafting of the message.. though I must say that I've gotten more thanks but no thanks type responses than actual interest, which is still less than 1 in 15 messages out for any kind of response. Of course the buffet effect works both ways... people tend to see the options, and gravitate towards a level of attractiveness and features they like, which removes most of the pool on that alone.. now, if you aren't in that attractiveness block, your options for matches won't work as well. I think that OK Cupid does better than most at matching similar attractiveness levels in terms of who you even see. If you happen to get any response from more attractive people (even a thanks, but no thanks) you'll see a shift in the matches coming up all around. Then again, I'm a bit of an odd duck who tries to read the profile before seeing a picture too closely. So will usually respond if something catches my interest in the writing.. and unlike most men and women, I'm perfectly happy making new friends. Getting serious with someone I met about a year ago via Facebook... All dating site experience for me in the last 5 years has been pretty bad all around. Would think it would be cool if you had a short (300-500 character) block to write about yourself, where you pick matches on picture and words... so you either see a blurb, or a picture... if there are two matches (either you like both, or both of you like one or the other) then you can communicate and see the full profile. Would probably be a more effective matching strategy at least.
    • pmoriarty 10y ago
      "the majority of women don't respond to the majority of men, regardless of crafting of the message" I'm not sure if it's all about the "crafting" of the message. A lot has to do with who you are and what you're trying to communicate. I'm not a woman, nor have I pretended to be one on dating sites, but I've looked through lots of m4w personal ads, and if their emails are like their ads (which is very likely), they're super boring and generic. This is really one of the biggest stumbling blocks, for both men and women (whose ads, on the whole, are just as boring as the men): their ads, profiles, and emails are way too much just like everybody else's. If you can't differentiate yourself from everyone else, there's little reason to pick you over anyone else just like you, and even less reason to pick you over someone who can distinguish themselves.
  • throwaway91111 10y ago
    Is that the median quality of men, the median quality of men reaching out to you, or the median interactions you've had with men overall? Honest question.
  • muninn_ 10y ago
    Nah. The issue is that women generally have higher perceived self worth than men do in this regard, and so are more selective.
    • ThrustVectoring 10y ago
      I think it's more general than that: everyone has higher perceived self worth than they actually have. And so the response rate sucks in general, since everyone's going after folks outside their league and never settling for what's actually reasonable for both parties.
      • muninn_ 10y ago
        Some truth to that, but in general women are more selective than men. Men have a much higher range in terms of IQ, attractiveness, personality, etc... than do women who tend to fall toward a median.
        • schrodinger 10y ago
          What makes you think that?
          • muninn_ 10y ago
            Just personal observation
        • deleted 10y ago
          [deleted]
    • pmoriarty 10y ago
      If you think women generally have a higher sense of self-worth than men, you should really take a look at the prevalence of anorexia, bulimia and depression in women vs men.
      • muninn_ 10y ago
• lumberjack 10y ago
  Don't bother with online dating. First of all the quality of women is much lower than any you'd meet IRL. Secondly, they purposefully set absurdly high standards. Thirdly, if physical looks aren't your strong point, you cannot really make a good impression because that is what they are going to be judging you on. What you write in your profile is close to useless If you have trouble finding women, move to a big city and start working on meeting people. It's pretty much a numbers game for men of average/below-average looks.
  • cgb223 10y ago
    As someone who just moved to a big city and has been waiting for an excuse to ditch Tinder, what activities or events would you recommend to do to meet people?
    • lumberjack 10y ago
      Meetup.com always has interesting events.
      • rak00n 10y ago
        Nope. Not everywhere.
        • pmoriarty 10y ago
          It also varies a lot depending on what one considers interesting. In my own experience, 90% of meetup.com (like 90% of everything) is crap. Occasionally, in a large metropolitan area with a large online presence, there's a bit of interest to be eked out of it for me, but mostly not.
  • valuearb 10y ago
    Yea, none of this true. The best application of the numbers game is to message a dozen girls a day online, and it works.
  • toodlebunions 10y ago
• superioritycplx 10y ago
  Don't ask fish how to fish. Check out theredpill on reddit and never look back.
  • pyre 10y ago
    > Check out theredpill on reddit and never look back Yea. As in once you check it out, you never want to see it again...
  • st3v3r 10y ago
    Yes. Check out theredpill, laugh and/or cry that such a thing is real, and then close it and never look back.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • mtreis86 10y ago
    Please dont. That subreddit is gross. Its like asking sociopaths how to make friends. The answer may make sense on some level, but to follow their advice is to discount a large range of human emotions. The red pill is the last place to go for real advice. Talk to your grandparents. Talk to women themelves. Listen. Ask questions. Stop trying to manipulate people.
• bobdole1234 10y ago
  Just wait, the dating pool for men and women flip later in life. Quality men pair off with significant stability early on, and the remaining single men have significantly larger viable age range than women can generally expect. Also: the biggest trick for being successful online is to keep your profile as brief as possible. Everything you say about yourself someone will find off-putting. You need just enough to show you're likely a real profile and give the people you contact something to ask you about if they decide to respond.
  • jbooth 10y ago
    Counterpoint: A friend of mine had an okcupid profile where he dedicated 500 words to denying that he ever had sex with a bowl of macaroni and cheese. It was hilarious, and he's the one person I've met in my entire life who reversed the equation presented in the article. That said, unless you've got some comic gold up your sleeve, you're probably right.
    • bobdole1234 10y ago
      I suspect none of those 500 words were about him directly, so the respondents had something to ask about, and no information about him specifically to dislike. Sounds like he found the butter zone with that.
    • pmoriarty 10y ago
      Different things work for different people. I once had quite a few positive replies to a personal ad where all I did was list things I hated. The real key is to distinguish yourself from the ocean of generic ads and profiles.
  • taneq 10y ago
    Even without pairing off, simple age dynamics skews it in favour of women first and then men. Young women statistically want to date older men (even if only by a few years) since older men are more capable, confident, and have far more resources. Men want to date younger women (usually again by only a few years).The end result is that men have a much tougher time competing up until mid-20s, and then roles suddenly reverse and women in their late 20s and beyond are left wondering 'where all the men went'.
• majormajor 10y ago
  > i wonder if online dating will become so bad for men, that it will be bad for women too, as the quality men realize its not a favorable arena. So the assumption here is that if something that works for a lot of other people (even in this thread it's about 50/50 amongst the men in the "worked pretty well for me" vs "didn't work" camp) doesn't work for you is that it's everyone else's problem? It is, like everything, a sort of game. The successful are the ones who adapt. That can mean changing approaches, trying new things, developing new interests, changing standards, etc. I did online dating off and on for three years before getting into a long term relationship through it, and the one thing I can tell you is that by the end of it (a) I sent different sorts of messages, (b) I had different sorts of profile pictures, and (c) I behaved differently on dates. I paid attention, I didn't assume I deserved anything, I made adjustments, and it paid off. Sure, I'm jealous of the extremely good looking people who don't have to try, but you don't have to be one of them to find success.
• vecter 10y ago
  "Be yourself" is absolutely the worst dating advice a man can ever receive. Seriously, don't take dating advice from women. They give you bad advice not because they don't care for you (they genuinely do want to help and their intentions are good and pure), but their advice is bad because they don't understand what it's actually like to date women. It's not their fault either. Before everyone jumps on me for hating women, I don't. I love the women, they're wonderful. I'm not making a moral judgment, just stating a practical fact. To see why this is bad advice, consider if you weren't very good at basketball and asked a friend on how to improve. If they said "be yourself", that would be crazy. Clearly, whatever you've been doing hasn't been working, so doing more of that isn't going to improve anything. If you actually want tips to meaningfully improve your dating life, feel free to email me (email in profile). Happy to chat more offline.
  • L_226 10y ago
    I think when most people offer "be yourself" they actually mean "don't pretend to be someone you're not".
    • vecter 10y ago
      I don't necessarily disagree, but it's still bad advice because: (1) The point you just made isn't clear at all and (2) It's not actionable whatsoever and gives the wrong impression that you don't actually need to do something, when the reality is the complete opposite and you do need to make major changes to your life and approach to dating The proper advice is to improve yourself, work on your confidence, and understand female psychology. How to do that is not trivial, but once you read and learn more about it, it's not that complicated either.
  • pmoriarty 10y ago
    You miss that dating is not a game for some people. That's the crucial difference between it and basketball. In dating, some people are after finding someone who is compatible with them, and if you're not being yourself, you're basically misrepresenting yourself, and lessening your chances of finding someone compatible -- as they think you're someone other than who you really are, and if they think themselves compatible with you, they're really only compatible with the image you are projecting of yourself. So, really, lie about who you are at the risk of incompatibility.. which might be fine if you're just looking for a one-night-stand, but if you're looking for a deeper, longer-lasting relationship, you're doing both of you a huge disservice by lying... not to mention that it's skeezy and unethical.
• vacri 10y ago
  I can't recall the name, but a comedian once said "People tell me: 'Don't worry about love, you'll find it when you're not looking for it'. When's that? When I'm asleep at night? Are they going to creep in through my window?" :)
• djsumdog 10y ago
  I really feel like online dating only works for people who are at least average to very attractive. If you're near average or anywhere below, you're kinda totally out of luck; both men and women for various reasons (although even that situation - women still have the upper hand as far as number of responses and the ability to actually go out on more dates). That's been my personal experience anyway. I gave up on it a while back.