A
male
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:Hi all,So I have been trying to make sense of this... Does online dating really work for men?I ask this because I put up my profile on 2 sites (one famous paid site and one famous free site) and am very surprised to see absolutely no responses. I have a decent profile, decent pictures, and my messages seem fair, sincere and never come across as being overly aggressive and also make references to a girl's interest/hobbies. Still nothing! I would have sent at least 100 messages and got back 3 responses. One said she is not interested, one said 'hi how are you? nice to meet you' and then stopped responding, and the other said that we will get to know each other online first before meeting and then stopped responding. Exactly 3 responses!! There were no responses from the remaining women. I feel very disappointed and also confused. Majority of the women I wrote to read my email, visited my profile, but just did not respond back. I am not sure why this is happening. May be I am so unattractive? Can you please explain what might be happening in my case? What would make you to completely ignore a guy that read your profile and send you a thoughtful message? Your help is greatly appreciated as I am wondering if I should just cancel my memberships to these sites.Thanks Reply to this Question
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female
reader, shrodingerscat  +, writes (30 August 2011):
 As a woman who is on several social networking sites that people also use as dating sites such as literotica, facebook and fetlife, I have to say from a woman's perspective, social networking sites are almost completely different than to a man's perspective.As an attractive woman in her late-twenties, I am used to getting upwards of dozens of messages a week from men who are interested in me sexually because they find me physically attractive.When I was single, I turned most of these men down and sometimes didn't reply to any of them, and here are a few reasons why. Perhaps you might find yourself guilty of one or more of these things and see why you're not getting many replies.One: The person who contacted me did not bother to read my profile, and does not see that I am interested in a certain type of person. That shows that they're ONLY interested in me -sexually- because of my looks, and not interested in me AS A PERSON with a personality. If I say very specifically that I'm searching for a woman age 20-30 for a long-term love relationship who is located at least 100 miles around my location, and they message me as a man who is 55 years old looking for a no-strings hookup and they live overseas, do you think I will bother replying to them? If they can't bother reading my profile and RESPECTING my preferences, then I won't bother respecting them enough to even say "No thanks."As an aside, now that I am married, I STILL get weekly messages from men who did not bother to read my profile and are looking for hookups, even though I clearly state in my profile that I am married and not looking. Don't be this man. Read every profile of every woman you contact CAREFULLY. Don't decide you want to get to know her just because she had a nice picture.Two: If they're unattractive to me. I'll be nice enough to say I'm not interested, but if either his looks or what he's written in his profile have turned me off in some way, there's no need for me to invest further time in that person. It's not being shallow, it's knowing that someone you ARE NOT physically attracted to isn't a good match for a long-term relationship. Trying to drum up sexual feelings for someone you don't find sexy is impossible, and many people have tried doing this and failed miserably. Again, it's not "shallow", it's biology.Three: Their profile is scary, boring, blank, badly written or deeply egotistical. I've run into quite a few of these. There are plenty of things you can put into your profile so there's no excuse for leaving it blank, unless you're simply not smart enough to think of a few paragraphs to write. I like intelligent men so that is a massive turn off. Text speak and a lot of errors is also a turn off, write like you care and I'll care more about you. If you can't spell that great, invest in a program that has a spell check feature. If you write like a 13 year old girl on a cell phone, then I'll treat you as one and not bother being interested in you, so please leave the text speak and missing punctuation and capitalization for your phone. Scary profiles, saying things that show you have absolutely no respect for women, or are cruel, rude or careless. As a person who has been on fetlife for several years, I have seen many profiles that have stated that they have no interest in caring for their partners in completely normal ways that every person needs for a healthy long-term relationship. It's a fun fantasy but I'm looking for someone who lives in reality and can deal maturely with the "not-fun" parts of being a grown up.Egotistical...if you weigh 400 pounds, are living with your mother, jobless and your face looks like you just got done sending it through a meat grinder, then saying "No fat chicks" is going to be a serious red flag to 99% of women. If you're a 2, be okay with dating other 2's. Don't go after a 9 like you "deserve" only dating 9's.As a man interested in women, unfortunately in this culture, YOU have to do the legwork. Very rarely will women message men they're interested in for a relationship, so in order to hook a lady, you're going to have to lay out some great bait. Realize that you're in competition with the other 25 blokes that messaged her this week...and trust, the more attractive, thin and young she is, the more messages she will get. You need to have the goods to win the girl, so pick your pictures CAREFULLY, write your profile CAREFULLY, and read their profiles CAREFULLY. Above all, be patient and persistent. Eventually it will be fruitful.
A
female
reader, Plexi +, writes (30 August 2011):
 Yes of course it works as long as you are willing to put some time into it. It's not like going shopping hun, you don't come home with what you desire right away. If a woman responds to you and corresponds with you for a while and then suddenly stops it's because she's found someone she's more interested in(her loss).
You will not receive a reply for many reasons:
some superficial like they don't like your pic.........this is their loss not yours because you don't want a shallow gf anyways.
some because they are overloaded with emails and can only reply to a select few they think they have the most in common with......
some may not reply b/c of what you wrote in your profile(e.g.you say" must love dogs and watching sports with me"........the girl is allergic to dogs and absolutely HATES sports...........if more then one thing you write on your profile completely clashes with them then it's just not a good match and they recognize that)
Give it time, don't give up and don't contact only the girls you wish you could go out with, also get realistic and contact the ones who are more like yourself!
Good luck hun and all the best
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A
female
reader, rile962 +, writes (29 August 2011):
Maybe your messages are too lengthy and the women get the impression that once they meet you, you'll leech on to them???? Other than that, I'm not sure what to say. I met my current boyfriend online and had a date or two with other men I had met online, so it does work as a way to meet women. Good luck to you.
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A
male
reader, Daniel the love doctor +, writes (29 August 2011):
 As a former Professional Matchmaker, this is one of the complaints I use to hear from guys who tried online dating services. And I would say that a few responses out of many sent messages is usually the amount a typical guy can expect to get from online dating sites.There are a number of reasons for this...1. It may be your picture. Pay close attention to the type of photo that you would like to display online for the world to see. How you look (even if you consider yourself attractive)can either turn on or turn off a woman. You have seconds to impress. 2. She's already receiving a great amount of messages. In addition to the possibility that your message could be lost in the pile and potentially overlooked, you have to basically compete with many, many other guys that would like to get to know her. 3. You may have to re-word a few things. Take a look at what's in your profile. Is there anything that you feel could potentially ruin your chances of meeting women? If not, consider what you're writing in your messages. Does it stand out? Are you complimentary? Again, you have seconds to impress before she moves on to the next possible match. I don't think that you should cancel your memberships. You just need to do things a little bit differently. Have other options besides talking to women online. Try a Matchmaker, phone dating services, and the traditional way... by going out to meet them. Hope this helps! :^)
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