2 ms·
This is an interesting dichotomy to me. I've been married and not dating for a while now, but back in the 2000-2007 era, I was pretty active on the sites availa
by nonameiguess 4y ago
This is an interesting dichotomy to me. I've been married and not dating for a while now, but back in the 2000-2007 era, I was pretty active on the sites available back then. It was great in the really early days. I was able to meet multiple reasonably well-known television actresses since I lived in LA and the overall pool was still small enough. I didn't even have to contact them. They found me!
I always took the approach you're advocating. Get off the site as quickly as possible, ideally only one message, and then meet in person. I didn't see much point in getting to know someone only to find there's no physical chemistry. That worked well in terms of just getting dates. At least back then, plenty of women felt the same way and weren't as overwhelmed by sheer numbers or as cautious, especially at that younger age, being I was still in my early 20s.
It's ironic, though, because I did meet my wife on OkCupid (granting she's my third wife, and I met the other two in school), but not in this way. They used to have social features in the pre-Match Group days, including the ability to post a personal journal and follow other people's journals. Before they also introduced discussion forums, this resulted in online communities of people who all followed each other, talking about basic issues of romance, but not necessarily actually dating since this was spread all over the country and even other countries, not local. At the time, I still lived in LA and my now wife lived in New York, so we "knew" other and talked plenty, but never had any plans to meet. I didn't meet her until years later when we both happened to move to Dallas independently. So assuming you're in to win it and not just to hit it, the only real "success" I ever had online dating was someone I didn't meet until six years after our first message exchange. Most of the people I immediately met never went past three dates.