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Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

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Re: Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

#111

Post by pmoriarty »

peteretep wrote: post #15
Thriptic wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would venture to guess that many "higher quality" women have less trouble finding partners irl. They don't need to use online dating.

> 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…

If a guy can't even get laid, he's going to have a lot of trouble finding a partner for life.

Women, on the other hand, usually have little trouble in at least meeting and dating prospective partners. That critical first step is a lot harder for many men.

Re: Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

#112

Post by pmoriarty »

wallace_f wrote: post #96
overcast wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

#113

Post by projektir »

pmoriarty wrote: post #85
paulcole wrote: post #26

I'm a man and in my late 20's (currently mid-30's and been with my partner for a few years now) had a great time using OKCupid. I was able to average 2-3 dates per week and received replies to ~25% of my messages. Before anyone asks, I am average appearance. I don't drive (bicycle only). Things I had going in my favor: I'm white, had a flexible job (could meet whenever) and vegan diet (probably the biggest help as ve…

This probably works if you're an average guy looking for an average woman. In that that case, you are most likely to be compatible. It doesn't work so well if your interests, tastes, or personality are off the beaten track, however. I have a lot of unusual interests and prefer to find women who share them. So my success rate at just randomly rolling the dice and having women just randomly roll the dice in return (suc…

I'm a woman and felt similar reading that response. I'd never pay much attention to a guy if he has nothing on his profile because, as you said, the interests and such are too far off the beaten track. It definitely works for a wide range of people, but really doesn't for a certain subset.

I wonder how a dating service focused on detailed profiles, later meeting, and customizable search range would do...

Re: Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

#114

Post by pmoriarty »

muninn_ wrote: post #14
sneak wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nah. The issue is that women generally have higher perceived self worth than men do in this regard, and so are more selective.

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.

Re: Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

#115

Post by djsumdog »

autokad wrote: post #3

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 wrong? then i considered their world view, and i face palmed myself. same thing happens, women say try online dating, its so easy! my response rate (let alone something that leads to a rl meeting) is about 1/50. not worth it. i wonder if online dating will become…

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.

Re: Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

#116

Post by paulcole »

pmoriarty wrote: post #85
paulcole wrote: post #26

I'm a man and in my late 20's (currently mid-30's and been with my partner for a few years now) had a great time using OKCupid. I was able to average 2-3 dates per week and received replies to ~25% of my messages. Before anyone asks, I am average appearance. I don't drive (bicycle only). Things I had going in my favor: I'm white, had a flexible job (could meet whenever) and vegan diet (probably the biggest help as ve…

This probably works if you're an average guy looking for an average woman. In that that case, you are most likely to be compatible. It doesn't work so well if your interests, tastes, or personality are off the beaten track, however. I have a lot of unusual interests and prefer to find women who share them. So my success rate at just randomly rolling the dice and having women just randomly roll the dice in return (suc…

>It doesn't work so well if your interests, tastes, or personality are off the beaten track, however.

How did you manage to infer that my interests were so pedestrian?

Re: Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

#117

Post by projektir »

b6 wrote: post #75

It sucks for everyone. For women, it sucks because they're being bombarded and spammed. For men, it sucks because it can be nearly impossible to break through the noise. I'm a guy. I'm extraordinarily serious about relationships. I never spam women because I'd hate to have it done to me, and I hate anything that makes humans dread talking to each other, anything that degrades the glue that allows humans to get along…

> I accept a lot of this as just The Way It Is. The one thing I would hope to change in the minds of women, the one memo to women I would send, if I could, is: we have the internet and airplanes. Please don't write me off because I don't happen to be in the same city right now! A lot of women seem to want to cripple OKCupid to be, e.g., OKCupid NYC.

I dunno if this is a women specific thing. Location-based matching seems to just be a "feature" of pretty much every dating website out there, so people get used to it.

Re: Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

#118

Post by pmoriarty »

paulcole wrote: post #116
pmoriarty wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This probably works if you're an average guy looking for an average woman. In that that case, you are most likely to be compatible. It doesn't work so well if your interests, tastes, or personality are off the beaten track, however. I have a lot of unusual interests and prefer to find women who share them. So my success rate at just randomly rolling the dice and having women just randomly roll the dice in return (suc…

>It doesn't work so well if your interests, tastes, or personality are off the beaten track, however. How did you manage to infer that my interests were so pedestrian?

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything about you in particular. Obviously, I don't know anything about you. I was just commenting on the strategy you were proposing and voicing my opinion on the odds of it working for different types of people.

If that strategy worked out for you despite you being really different from most people, I think you must have just gotten lucky to meet some people who were also really different from most and also like yourself.

In my own experience, there just aren't enough people who are compatible with me to have a short profile and just roll the dice. Over and over the dice rolls fail. But, who knows, maybe it's just bad luck.

Re: Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

#119

Post by pmoriarty »

rak00n wrote: post #106
lumberjack wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meetup.com always has interesting events.

Nope. Not everywhere.

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.

Re: Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

#120

Post by pmoriarty »

nitemice wrote: post #60
paulcole wrote: post #26

I'm a man and in my late 20's (currently mid-30's and been with my partner for a few years now) had a great time using OKCupid. I was able to average 2-3 dates per week and received replies to ~25% of my messages. Before anyone asks, I am average appearance. I don't drive (bicycle only). Things I had going in my favor: I'm white, had a flexible job (could meet whenever) and vegan diet (probably the biggest help as ve…

This seems to be good advice. The more you know about a person, before you can properly meet them, the more likely you are to find out something that seems massively off-putting and shatters your impression of you. I know a sample of 1 is nothing etc. but I read an article [1] a while back about a woman who tracked everything she could about every date she went on for two years, and one of the most interesting things…

That's a really interesting article. The part that most resonated with me came at the end:

  "People can look great on paper but it doesn't mean that they are
  the right person for you.

  "That was basically what came from this whole project - chemistry
  can't be quantified. I have no idea why this guy I am falling for,
  even though he looks terrible on paper and then another guy is
  awesome on paper and I don't care about him at all."
I wish more people tracked the data about their dating experiences and shared their results.
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