Recently a buddy of mine at work has told me how 'easy it is' to pick up women online, particularly with the site POF. He goes on and on about how him and a buddy of his, chatting up these girls and somehow getting laid not soon after. A good friend of mine was on the site to find a relationship and told me what a nightmare it was for him because of all the lying he realized about them when they eventually met up. These girls he met would lie about their age, used photos of themselves from years ago and even lied about the fact if they had children or not.
Part of me wants to sign up and see what happens. I have tried it years ago, but vowed never to do it again, as I found most of the people I met were just into games or had unrealistic expectations of finding "the one".
Does anyone out in PERB land have any tips, advice, good or bad stories about online dating?
It depends if your intention is merely to get laid for free, or casual/short term dating/ or ideally long-term dating/serious relationship. If it's the first, there are sites and apps where that is potentially possible, but you may have to lower your expectations/standards and wade through a lot of crap to the point of it hardly being worth all the time and effort. It's definitely easier to see an SP for a guaranteed thing and it might not even be that much more expensive in the long run (if you're the one paying for dinner/drinks/events/etc on these dates), not to mention it saves you time. But it is possible to hook up with people from dating sites. Since one-time hookups with someone you just met online are a pretty superficial thing, it depends greatly on your appearance/attractiveness and age, BUT also on how confident, charming, interesting and witty you are. I do personally know a few guys who are able to frequently have sex on the first or second date with cool/pretty girls they meet online, but they have looks and skills that enable them to do this easily and they do put a significant amount of time and effort into it.
Whatever your intentions, I have a ton of tips, such as:
- Put some effort into your profile! How would you like potential dates to see you? Even those women who might be up for some NSA sex do care what you look like, whether you share interests, about your personality, etc and do read the profiles thoroughly. Post as many photos as possible, make sure to show your face very clearly and smile and some photos of you having fun, showing your personality or individual style, doing activities you enjoy/that ladies might also enjoy or at least find a turn-on, like playing an instrument (but please not every pic should be of you mountain-climbing or snowboarding!)
- Be very selective with who you message. Copy and pasting a generic message to as many women as possible apparently seems like a good idea to a lot of guys but it really is not appealing to women, we can tell. Nor does it actually save you time. Carefully look through the profiles to determine who you should even bother to message in the first place. For example, don't message someone who states that smoking is disgusting if you smoke. Don't message someone who states that they are only looking for a soulmate if you are only looking to bone. Don't message someone whose profile makes it clear that they would not be interested in you (if they have restrictions about age, religion, location, interests, etc or live far away from you and don't drive. Read their profiles!).
- Don't message someone whose photos get your spidey senses tingling: like if the pics look old and don't have dates in the captions, or are all filtered Instagram pics or Photoshopped/heavily altered in some way, at weird angles or are distant silhouettes where you can't really see what they look like. And don't do any of these things to your own photos.
- After eliminating as many people as you can in these kinds of ways (On Okcupid, for example, read the match question answers! These can tell you a lot), you should be left with the ones who are more likely to respond and who you are more likely to be compatible with.
- Take the time to write a well thought-out personalized message to them, starting with the ones who were online most recently. Check your messages frequently. If you can catch the person right after they've messaged you and are still online it's more likely to keep the conversation going.
- If chatting is going well, ask to switch to text message (not immediately of course, but don't be afraid to suggest it or you may just end up in an endless penpal situation which can easily happen on these sites).
- Try a few different sites. Personally I'd go with the 3 free sites/apps that are most used and well-known in your area.
There's also an app you can download called Tinder. Kinda like the mobile dating version of hot-or-not. To maximize the use of it, take some really good activity px (sailing, tennis, wine, skiing, etc) and set up an alternate facebook account.
I disagree. When I see a profile that is all/primarily distant activity photos I think, "Hmm, this guy must be really unattractive physically, since you can barely see him, and probably has little personality or charm either, so he has very deliberately crafted this image that he thinks will convey that he is a super fun guy because he does tons of activities and sports." By all means include some, but make sure that you are still the main focus of the photo and are clearly recognizable. Show how you normally dress (or would dress on a date), not just how you look in cycling gear or a skydiving suit. Use activities the type of woman you want to attract might actually want to join you in doing. Tinder is one of the most superficial dating apps by the way so have a good main photo, most people will judge you based solely on that photo.