Online Dating Paradox

Using Picture Rating Sites for Profile Attraction

Matt Savage — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:40:51 +0000

Editors Note: I wrote this article in mind for males specifically, however, the same process should work as well for females if not better.

Rise of the Picture Rating Sites

Back in the early 2000s, a small little picture rating site know as HotorNot.com hit the Interwebs in a big viral tidal wave with it’s unique but simple concept of rating people based on their looks. Though not quite novel in the history of men, as we have been rating women for on some sort of scale for ages. However, with this new innovative move to the Internet, the practice of objectifying everyone and anyone on a one to ten scale could now be streamlined on a massive scale. Essentially, HotorNot became the Henry Ford of objectifying peoples beauty and lack thereof.

Regardless of whether people found this type of mass objectification demeaning or not didn’t seem to matter much, as the HotorNot site flourished, along with hundreds of other photo rating sites like: Rate My Body, Rate My ExGirlfriend, Rate Your Rack, Rate My Bottom, and so on.

Though these various rating sites can seem a trivial waste of time, which usually they are, they do have some usefulness to those in the online dating game. These sites can serve as an independent and somewhat unbiased source for determining the attractiveness of our own pictures. These same pictures, the good ones, can then be used for placing on our dating profiles.

Using HotorNot for Your Photo Rating

So which photo rating sites do we choose from since there are so many? Well, the easiest one is the one that started it all, HotorNot.com. The reason to use HotorNot is because it’s the most popular, has the most people who vote and rate pictures and thus will make your job a lot quicker.

Now, despite HotorNot being our best option for rating profile pictures, it’s not completely ideal for a few reasons.

First, the majority of people doing the rating are of the male species and they mostly only vote on the female of the species. This is why, while browsing the site, you’ll notice a huge disparity in the number of votes between females and males. Sorry fellas, that’s just the way it is. Luckily though, we don’t really need thousands of votes to get a good determination of what’s good and what isn’t.

The second reason, so I’m told, is that some of the votes you get will come from other guys, mostly of the homosexual variety… not that there is anything wrong with that. These ratings and opinions are still useful as they are objectifying your picture the way we want, however, it’s not exactly the target market we are shooting for… unless of course it is.

So with those two caveats in mind, you’ll need to understand that the ratings you get from these sites may not be completely accurate, but should be good enough for our purposes.

The Picture Assortment Process

The first thing to do is get a crap load of pictures of yourself. This includes simple profile shots, to activity shots, to professional pictures. Anything taken within the last year that you look reasonably good in.

Now most of us might not be able to pick out the most attractive pictures of ourselves but we should be able to get about a dozen or so pictures that come close to what we think is attractive. Then from here we start narrowing them down.

If you don’t have that many good photos, then it’s time to break out your camera and do a photo shoot. If you can have a friend take them that’s even better, but if not then you’ll have to figure out how to take your own pictures. It’s complicated but it can be done.

Also, don’t get too caught up in picture quality, it doesn’t have to be from a 20 megapixel camera or anything, it just has to be clear. There is even some research that suggests that there isn’t much difference in peoples profile selection criteria on dating sites between those with cell phone pictures and those with professional quality pictures.

Your main concern is to capture your natural photogenic qualities, which could mean taking hundreds of shots from all different angles and lighting. This is the way models do a photo shoot to get their best pictures, so why shouldn’t you?

The Picture Rating Process

The process is simple. You upload your pictures to HotorNot, wait until they get approved and then start rating other peoples pictures. Once you begin your rating, then your main picture goes into the queue for other people to rate. The more people you rate, the more people that rate you, simple right?

Just repeat this process until each picture gets around 50 or so votes. This ought to be enough to get an objective rating, which in most cases will be above 6.

Since the HotorNot ratings are a little skewed in the upper echelon of the rating scale (most people rate from 5-10), then you have to consider anything from 6-7 to be mediocre and anything 8 and above to be good.

Personally, I would get rid of any pictures that rate under an 8 and since I’m a bit picky I try to really find a great picture of myself that has a photo rating of 9 or above.

Once you’ve gone through about a dozen to two dozen different pictures, keep the top 3 to 4 to use for your online dating profile pictures. Make sure they are not all too similar though, like I said previously, you want an assortment of simple profile pictures to activity shots, etc. Variety is important.

The Backup Plan

So you’ve got your best profile pictures, you’ve tested them on the picture rating sites and now you’re all set to stick them up on your dating profile. Well, hold on just a second, there is one last thing that we can do to help insure that we have our best profile pictures.

That one thing is to ask a female friend of yours to look at your dozen or so pictures and have her pick out what she thinks are the top 4 pictures that she thinks is the most attractive. Thus we get some redundancy on the picture rating process.

If the female friend’s top suggestions mesh with the rating sites’ top rated pictures then you know you’ve done well. If they don’t match, then it might take some consideration on which you feel would be more reliable. In either case, you can always swap out pictures down the road anyways, so try not to hurt your brain too much when reconciling your top 4 photos.

—
Stay tuned in the next couple of days for how to test your “About Me” section of your profile.

Announcing the 45 Day Online Dating Challenge

Matt Savage — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:55:59 +0000

After doing an extensive online dating profile case study in the last post, it got me to thinking about my own Internet dating efforts and realized that I’ve been slouching lately. A quick look at my own dating profile made me realize that it was about due for some renovations and updates.

After even more thinking, I realized that I should probably spend a certain period of time where I essentially go all out, guns blazing, in the online dating realm. I’m talking complete testing, re-testing, and overhaul of my dating profiles followed by 30 days of sending out messages to potential dates. It would basically be an experiment to see what happens when a guy really puts in a ton of effort with Internet dating.

Preseason

So here’s the plan. For the next two weeks, until the end of February, I will be focused on testing and maximizing my personal dating profile so that it is the most attractive, seductive and engaging profile that I can possibly have. This will be accomplished in a number of ways:

Testing my title subject line using Google website optimizer and Google Adwords
Testing many different profile pictures of myself using picture rating sites like HotorNot.com, with the goal of finding three attractive and engaging pictures for my profile.
Writing 3-5 different “about me” sections using different approaches and writing themes and then testing the response rates using Craigslist.com
Doing some off-line lifestyle improvements, like getting a new hair style and burning off my beer gut as to be more presentable in the event of any real life dates.

Of course, this is just the beginning, but also a very essential step in preparing for a super ninja online dating offensive. Like they say, a good offense is a good defense. In this case, our defense is our dating profile.

45 Day Online Dating Challenge

The next step of the 45 Day Online Dating Challenge is the actual onslaught itself which will begin on March 1st and go for a full 30 days.

In this part of the challenge I will be using at least two different free online dating sites, one of which will be PlentyofFish.com and the other will be OkCupid.com. On both sites, my dating profile will be optimized using the tested profile components from the preseason above.

Each day I will send out a total of 10 cold email messages to attractive women on the dating sites, 5 using PlentyofFish and 5 using OkCupid. In order for a message to count it has to be an unsolicited email to a different girl every day. A girl who initiates contact with me first doesn’t count towards the ten, but should that girl meet my standards of attraction and personality then of course I’ll keep things going. So by the end of the challenge I will have sent out at least 300 dating emails.

We aren’t talking about silly cut and paste emails either. I will be trying all kinds of different tactics for the initial contact email and follow-up emails. The whole point to this challenge isn’t just about the numbers, it’s about finding the best approaches to winning the online dating game.

Although, being the number crunching statistics kind of guy that I am, I will be keeping track of all kinds of things along the way, from click through ratios, to first email responses, to number closes, to real life date conversions, etc. I think this type of stuff is important as it helps us to compare best and worse practices. It helps us to refine our online game so that eventually it isn’t so much of a chore but an efficient tool for getting those actual dates.

Join the Challenge

Now here’s where things get exciting. If we can learn anything from my experiences in the 45 Day Online Dating Challenge, then just imagine what we could learn if we had a whole group of guys and women experimenting and going all out with their Internet dating aspirations.

So, if you’ve been in a rut lately or have been discouraged by the lack of online dating results, then consider joining me in the challenge. Think about it and if you’re willing to try some crazy ass shit for the next 45 days or so, then let me know in the comments.

Also, if you do decide to join in, I’d encourage everyone to track their progress on their own blog and chronicle what you experience. Make sure to send me the link so that I can put it up and link out to you, though certainly understandable if you want to keep it private too.

Stay tuned in the next couple of days for the first preseason profile optimization post.

This is going to fun!

Online Dating Profile Case Study

Matt Savage — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:30:27 +0000

I recently received a request to critique an online dating profile from the PlentyofFish dating site. And though the profile was already fairly decent and well written, there were certainly a number of things in which I would change, or at least test out for comparison purposes. So we are going to go ahead and do a little case study on the profile with that person’s permission of course.

To honor the anonymity of the guy we are critiquing, we’ll simply call him the Jman when referring to him from here on in.

First Impressions of the Dating Profile

At first glance there were three big faux pas that stood out at me:

His picture, the only one on the profile, looked like it was taken from a high school year book. You know the type I’m talking about, all dressed up in a nice suite and tie with the fake stonewashed backdrop. The picture section is one of the most important parts of a person’s profile and if you neglect that then it won’t matter how creative the rest is, lets face it, the first impression of the main profile pic is all the difference in the world between a high click through profile or not even on the market profile.
Scrolling down a bit further, further, further still, and even further down, you begin to realize that this is quite possibly the longest “about me” section that has ever been written. I did a quick check in my word processor and this sucker clocks in at a little over 1,000 words. EEK! Don’t get me wrong it was creative, witty and funny, but your goal with your dating profile is not to write an autobiography, it’s point is to create just enough interest to get her to write a message or at least respond to your initial email message, and that’s it. If you provide too many details about your life, then what is your prospect’s motivation for getting to know you?
In Jman’s profile title line, in his “interests” section and a couple times in his “about me” section he alludes to the following, “I am looking for you,” or some variation. Essentially he is trying to speak to the reader of his profile directly, saying that you, whoever the hell you are, is the one he is looking for. I understand that it’s a bit of a hard sell tactic but it comes off beta-male to me.

Let me explain. If I were to make blanket statements that “you” in general is THE person I am looking for, then what does that say about me? I don’t know you, or any of “you” who are reading my profile, so how the hell would I possibly know that “you,” some random girl or dude or some 45 year old basement dweller is the one for me? It’s like saying, “hey world, I have no standards and I’m willing to settle for any of you jerks no matter how ugly or pathetic you may be.” A man should have standards and know what he wants, so Jman, even if this was not your intention, you need to remove needy wording like this which on a subconscious level is harming your profile.

The Interests Section

Here is one part that confused me, the only thing in the Interests section is the word “you,” which I just ranted about. Other then removing that, a lot of things that are listed in the About Me section should probably be moved up to the Interests section. This will help to shorten up the long-ass About Me section. I’ll point out what I mean as I go through and break-down the rest of the online dating profile next.

Jman’s Online Dating Profile “About Me”

This is long, so I’m going to break it up into chunks, with Jman’s actual profile text quoted and indented, with my remarks following. Let’s take a look:

I am splendifferous, uniquely creative, and dynamic.

There is no need to announce this as it already shows through in your writing. It’s better to show people your good qualities through example and stories than announce it out-right.

I have learned throughout my time some very important life tips that may or may not help you on your journey.
Life tips such as Life Tip #237:
Never lend your fog machine to a guy who wants to set it up near a smoke detector. Or better yet, make sure he uses it improperly to get out of school for an afternoon.

What’s cool about the fact that I own a fog machine, is that for years me and some friends set up a haunted house in my garage every Halloween. Its things like haunted houses in your garage that bring out the ingenuity in people. Power drills make witches stir brew, oscillating fans can make heads spin, and of course, the fog.

That inventiveness carried me into college where I majored in criminal justice and sociology. (I also found some time for some ROTC and to hone my technology prowess)

I’m known in my family as the fixer man, if it has an error, virus or a blank tv screen, I get to be the hero of the day. Superman better watch out!
My friends laugh with me, at least that’s what I think. That is, except for the time I adamantly fought for my idea that sushi was a fish caught off the northern coast of Japan; at that moment I don’t think they were laughing with me because, I wasn’t laughing.

Like most guys in St. Louis, I love the Cardinals. In fact I was at the last game ever at Bush Stadium II.

I have climbed in City Museum, seen the Cathedral Mosaics, the Art Museum and all that makes St. Louis Great.
So what do you think is the best attraction St. Louis has to offer?…
Really?…
I like that place too. We should go.

I own socks that are more colors than black and white. I know that a brown belt goes with brown shoes and a black belt goes with a ninja. Beyond that, my fashion sense is more than t-shirt and jeans but less than the black tie affair.

I’m unquestionably questionable. Or was that delectably delirious? No no, it was fantastically fanatic.
You know, you’re right, that was charmingly cheesy. (but it was the good cheese, right?)

All of this stuff is brilliant, I love it. Very witty, very entertaining and definitely the core of your profile. It shows that you have a good personality, that you’re adventurous and funny. Also it’s written in a way that doesn’t give away all your life details, it tells some quick stories and witty remarks while keeping an air of mystery and intrigue. Solid stuff.

What I’m doing with my life?
Currently I am on these quests:
– A quest to find the grail.
– A quest to burninate the village.
– A quest to find out if the man who told me I have a plethora has any idea what it means to have a plethora.
– A quest to find you.
– And a quest to find a killer barbecue joint. Happen to know of any around that are as good as Super Smokers?

Really however, I work in safety and regulatory compliance for facility operations in a not-for profit company.
Pretty much my job consists of researching how many ways one can be unsafe on the job and preventing such unsafe from happening.

I’m really good at
Stuff. Completely random stuff.
I can swing dance, but ask me to dance to rap and I stink.
Coloring inside the lines is a skill I have.
I can cook.
I can sing the lyrics to songs after only hearing them once or twice.
I am also really good at remembering that little thing you told me you liked and making sure that it pops up at a time to completely surprise you.

The first things people usually notice about me
People notice me? Sweet. My cool glasses make it hard to miss me. Add that to the fact my height is 6′2” and I stand out like the candy salesman at a dental convention.

My favorite books, movies, music, and food
One awesome job I once had was being a Wedding and Prom DJ, so my musical tastes are very eclectic. (I am also not ashamed to say I know the cupid shuffle and electric slide, also would be more than willing to teach you)

For example, my iPod has 2415 songs on it.
And the last 10 songs that were played:
Fleetwood Mac — Tell Me Lies
Jay Z / Linkin Park — 99 Problems/Points of Authority
Smiling Face — James Taylor
Revolution — The Beatles
You Belong With Me — Taylor Swift
Black Mercedes — One Block Radius
We Will Become Silhouettes — Postal Service
Gotta be Sombody — Nickelback
Geek in the Pink — Jason Mraz
Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go — Wam!

I would also like to shamelessly plug the new Micheal Buble CD, Crazy Love; I think he’s a pretty good artist.

I eat anything that doesn’t move on the plate, but have a special love in my heart for barbecue, huevos rancheros and a good amaretto and coke.
The six things I could never do without
My Glasses.
Pants.
Communication.
Love.
A broken in pair of tennis shoes.
Music.

This section is a bit of a problem because it’s following your best material and starts to get boring with all the different lists. I’d chop out this entire section, take some of the things in these lists and stick them in your Interests section… but not all of them. Pick and choose the best and quirky things you like, maybe 6-10 things in this section to put in the Interests, for example: Eclectic Music, Pants, Cooking, Swing Dancing, etc. It’s OK to generalize as that leaves more room for intrigue. Also, sometimes listing specific things will be cause enough to disqualify you from some people’s dating pools.

I spend a lot of time thinking about
You. In a totally creepy stalker-ish way. I mean, wait, I think about puppies!
The most private thing I’m willing to admit here
I once had a roommate put Habenero sauce in my mouth whilst I was napping with my mouth open.

I know you are joking around here but absolutely get rid of the part about being a creepy stalker. The last thing you want to do on an online dating site is to put the thought into a girl’s mind the possibility that you could be a creepy stalker. In a world where the worst thing you can be defined as by a woman on the Internet, “Creepy Stalker” takes the cake, so don’t even plant the seed in her mind, no matter how witty you think your writing is.

In fact, the better thing to do is pull the old switcheroo and call her the creepy stalker (in a playful way of course) when you message her. This puts her on the defensive and removes the idea that you could be a creeper.

You should message me if:
*You think Budweiser, Ribs, Toasted Ravioli and Gooey Butter Cake is a good dinner (and you know the commonality between those items).
*Laying out a blanket in a field and gazing out at the stars seems like a neat thing to do.
*Flopping on a couch watching a movie, visiting a local restaurant, going to a professional sporting event, or dancing in the moonlight pique your interest.
*You love life and have fun!
*My uniquely creative personality hasn’t made you crazy yet.

Better yet, you should message me because you’re awesome and that’s what awesome people do.
So press the button above that says wink, or maybe that other one that says message, and see what happens!

This last part is a good example of a “call to action” and is an important piece to anyone’s online dating profile. There probably isn’t any need to change this.

The First Date Section

For starters a first date would have to include you and me. Probably food and an activity of some sort, one of your choosing.
After that, we’ll see where it goes.

Personally, I don’t think the first date section is usually a big deal and try to keep it really general and simple. What the Jman has here is ok, but would change it up a bit. First, you don’t need that first sentence, it’s implied that two people are required for a date and that word “you” is used again; remember my above rant? Next, don’t imply that she is the one choosing the details of the date, you are the man, you are responsible for coming up with a cool date, don’t leave her the burden of figuring out the date, and thus don’t imply it in this section. A simple sentence or two that says something like going out for a coffee and a light lunch ought to be enough.

Recommended Online Dating Profile Revisions

First thing get rid of that year book picture and replace it with the following three pictures:

A profile shot where you are not looking directly into the camera, but slightly off to the side, not smiling but with a “pondering the meaning of life” look. Recent research by OkCupid shows that for men this is the best look. I believe the reason that it works is because it is non-confrontational, though it’s just a theory right now.
Then have one picture that shows your full body height, perhaps one where you are standing around with your friends. The reason I say this, is because Jman is 6′2″!!! He has the height advantage and he might as well make sure he uses that advantage.
The third and final picture should be something that is going to peak interest and make the viewer ask a question about it. This would be taken in the context of doing something out of the ordinary. It doesn’t have to be a clear shot of you or show any great detail, it’s whole purpose is to hook the viewer and make them ask questions, no captions necessary, the picture should speak for itself. For example, in my own personal online profile, I have a picture of me swinging on a rope off of a cliff into a raging river, which gets me a lot of messages asking about it.

Next thing would be edit down the “About Me” section of your dating profile following the advice I gave above. It definitely needs to be shorter and will probably hook girls better by leaving out details. Sometimes the trick to writing a great profile is not how much one puts into it, but how much one can leave out and still convey attraction.

Final Thoughts

I think with the above picture changes and the witty profile text that gets left in, the Jman should have a much more solid online dating profile, have an increase in response rates and hopefully hook more high quality ladies into dates.

Penpal Dating

Matt Savage — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:57:51 +0000

Back in the day, before the Interwebs came along, there was such a thing as Pen Pals. The concept of a pen pal was that you basically write letters, with an actual pen and paper, to another person or friend who is a long distance away. It was kind of a neat concept at the time, when we were more closed off, communication wise, to other parts of the world. Having a pen pal allowed one to share a bond with someone of a different culture and become pals. Now a day’s, with the exception of email, that concept has basically died.

When the practice of having pen pals did exist, there were of course stories of people getting involved with penpal dating, in other words people who develop a strong relationship through the mail, they end up as dating penpals.

It’s really fascinating to me that this type of penpal dating existed, it almost feels like it was the equivalent of online dating, except not nearly in such a large quantity. Though similar, there is a big difference, and that is the ability to create a bond with the other person through a physical object like ink on a piece of paper. There is something that is a lot more intimate and charming about the process of dating penpals.

I’m almost curious to actual try something like this, though not even sure were I would begin. I suppose I could sign up with a penpal service and try to find a nice girl to become penpals with and just see what happens.

I actually do enjoy writing letters, though these days it’s mostly through email. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s all through email. It’d be pretty cool and a heck of a lot more personal to send some snail mail every once in awhile. It’s even nicer when I receive a personal letter in the mail, which doesn’t happen too often. I think my grandma is the only person who sends actual physical mail to me, like postcards and hand written letters, it’s always nice.

So, out of curiosity, is there anyone out there that has had or still does have a penpal? Is there anyone who’s gotten into a relationship in this way, through penpal dating? Let me know your thoughts down below in the comments.

Plenty of Fish Password Email

Matt Savage — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:21:52 +0000

So every week I get the above email in my inbox from the PlentyofFish.com dating site. And every week, they decide that it’s a good idea to remind of my password by spelling it out right there in the middle of the email. Yep, it’s that spot that I blanked out in yellow, and it doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside either.

You see, most people tend to use the same passwords or password variations over and over again at different sites because it is simply easier to remember that way. Now, despite that it wouldn’t be a disaster if someone hacked into my online dating profile, they would have a password that I might be using on other sites too, sites that are probably more important to me.

I understand that it’s not like PlentyofFish is making this stuff public or anything; it does go straight into my email inbox. However, why risk it, why the need to send you an unsolicited password reminder every week? I don’t get it. Are we so forgetful that Markus needs to send us a password reminder every week? Not likely. And even if we did forget our password, why can’t they do what most sites do and only send the password when requested, you know those little links that say, “forgot your password.” That’s all you really need.

Yea, it’s only a free dating site so maybe no one is concerned that much about security but it just doesn’t sit right with me when I get an unsolicited email blatantly shoving my “secret” password into my face, or anyone else who happens to gain control of my inbox, but that’s just me.

Sample Online Dating Email Messages

Matt Savage — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:28:00 +0000

Lately I have been getting really good at having great flirty conversations on PlentyofFish. I’ve found that the most successful email message exchanges, regardless if I initiate contact with the girl or she does, is all about banter.

What do I mean by “banter?” Well to put it simply, it’s a kind of humorous, playful, seemingly spontaneous conversation in which both parties are in good spirits. It is also kind of like teasing in a sense, you know, like when you were a little kid on the playground and that girl or boy would punch you in the arm for no reason, it’s because he/she really had a crush.

I’d like to share one sample conversational email thread with a cute girl who had actually contacted me, asking a simple question about my dating profile, which is filled with interesting conversation bait as any good online dating profile should. The names and certain details have been changed to protect the innocent and not so innocent (I’ll let you decide who’s who:-). Also, I will be adding my own commentary afterward in the blue writing to explain what is going on in my diabolical mind.

Email Message #1: From Jane

I’m curious how your marathon went. Did you find minimal padding was ideal or were you aching afterward?
You seem very unique, and interesting.

~Jane

Now right off the bat, I have a cute girl contacting me all because I put in a ton of effort into my dating profile. There’s all sorts of interesting stuff that I’ve written and re-written, one of which is about my running/marathon hobby that baits her into sending me the first email message. Also note that she calls me “unique” and “interesting” so you know that I’ve got her attention, which makes the whole process a heck of a lot easier.

Email Message #2: From Me

Hi Jane,

The marathon went well and though I was sore afterward, the recover was shorter than usual. I do believe that minimalist shoes allow your feet to move more naturally and is beneficial to creating a more efficient foot strike. I’ve done a lot research and self experimentation in this area; it’s pretty interesting stuff. Are you a runner?

Also, I’ve been trying to figure out what the heck that costume is in the third picture of your profile… lion king outfit???

-Matthew

Ok, there are two parts to this and both are pretty important. Most guys royally screw up here by either saying something sexually offensive or spilling their guts with a boring ass life story, possibly professing their love for this girl that they haven’t even met.

First thing I did was to answer her question briefly but also in a way that shows I know a lot about my hobby, running, without being arrogant. Second thing I did was to make sure I ask her a question or two. This step is important because it allows her to easily continue the conversation and keeps things moving. Also, if you ask her a specific question about her profile, it shows that you actually read it and paid attention to something other than her boobs!

Email Message #3: From Jane

Amazing, but I suppose it shouldn’t be so surprising. In high school I was forced to be a runner, and sort of continued after but to a much lesser degree.

I have nooo idea what it is, it has horns so maybe a mountain goat of sorts? I was in charge of organizing an attic full of costumes that the high school drama club and the local community theater uses and…that happened .

~Jane

Ok good, she took the bait from the last email message and responds with some more interesting things about herself, yet still she doesn’t do much to keep the conversation rolling, so in my next email I’ll have to get more creative.

Email Message #4: From Me

Ha ha, well, whatever it is it’s funny. You seem like you might be prone to getting into mischief… like the kind of girl who’d explore their parents’ forbidden attic or that old creepy abandoned house down the street.

Pop quiz, where would you rather go exploring: a distant mountain range, a tropical paradise, a vast wilderness or the urban jungle of a foreign city?

Extra points for being creative:)

This is where I drop the bomb and go all in. This is what I like to call a qualifying email message. The reason it’s called a qualifying message is because it’s designed to elicit an answer that will allow me to either filter her out as a girl that is not my type or gives her a chance to show me that she is my type. Note that this is designed for me personally and would be different for other people based on whatever their preference in dating type.

Email Message #5: From Jane

A little trouble is good for the soul. I love abandoned houses, I just try to avoid the illegal actions (breaking and entering and such).

I love mountains, last month we went to trail days in damascus,va and that is a beautiful place to explore, but what’s more interesting is digging through the people. There were so many different “types” of people all with fascinating stories. I adore cities also, back alleys and finding those amazing restraunts that no one else realize is there, or the authentic belly dance shop that draws you in (or whatever your passions may be at the time). I find it’s a lot like antiquing, when you find something that looks like junk but inside is marvelous (I greatly enjoy going to garage sales like that too).

Wow, she sounds super awesome right? She really gets into it and was able to elicit a personal and emotional response. She is revealing stuff about herself that she wouldn’t if she wasn’t attracted and interested in meeting me. She passes the qualifying question and the only thing left to do is to put the nail in coffin and arrange the meet up.

Email Message #6: From Me

Wow, you are adventurous, I think we need to start an explorers club, what do you think? How about we make our first adventure to get some ice cream cones?

There’s no need to keep the conversation now, the only goal is to get her number, real email or other contact information. Too many people get stuck in the online dating forever zone which seems to be a consistent problem. Your goal with online dating on sites like Plenty of Fish isn’t to make a pen pal, it’s to get dates in real life! So rather than let things fizzle in the virtual online realm, you need to move the interaction to an actual real date as soon as you’ve created attraction.

Email Message #7: From Jane

That would be great, you can call me this evening, here’s my # (555) 555-5555

~Jane

It worked!!! Not only did it work but it was done in only 7 email messages. There you have it folks, one of my best examples/sample of successful online dating emails and messages from where else but the PlentyofFish dating site.

Vegetarian Singles vs. BBQ Singles

Matt Savage — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:26:00 +0000

Are you having trouble looking for dates with high I.Q.s and great bodies? Well, all you have to do is a search on your favorite online dating site for the word “vegetarian.” Yup, that’s it, one simple search for vegetarian singles and you easily narrow down the gene pool to the hottest and brightest. What’s that? You think I’m full of crap? Well ok, this might be a little controversial but hear me out and let me tell you about my not so scientific research.

So there I was poking around my favorite free online dating site, PlentyofFish.com, when I stumble upon a little known component of the Plenty of Fish dating site. Buried in it’s advertising section is a page in which you get a demographic breakdown of members based on the interests listed in peoples dating profiles. Yea I know, if you’re a stats junkie like me this is a pretty sweet find.

Naturally, my curiosity got the best of me and I started plugging stuff in. For some reason the word “zombies” popped into my head and figured that was as good a place to start my search as any. This search brings up a whole statistical breakdown from gender, income ranges, education, marital status, height, body type and even drinking ability.

So lets see, people who are interested in zombies are mostly: males, making less than $25,000 a year, are big and tall/BBW, and drink more than 3 times a week. Awesome!

You might imagine how much fun you could have with this thing just plugging in random weird crap. For instance, did you know that people interested in necrophilia have a 300% divorce rate? Who would have thought that?!

Despite my juvenile usage of this neat Internet tool, I decided to put my mind to better use.

Recently I had an argument with a friend of mine which I declared that the overall population of vegetarian females was hotter than the overall population of omnivores. It was a heated debate and my friend being anti-vegetarian for some reason refused to believe my theory. In addition, I wrote a post a few weeks ago about how vegetarian dating should be one of the categories in which to filter potential dates by.

However, now I have a chance to somewhat prove my point. I did searches with the Plenty of Fish demographic tool for interests involving the words vegetarian and barbecue. I figured people don’t write “omnivore” or “carnivore” in their interests section so I had to go with a more round about word, thinking that a majority of people who like “barbecue” are big meat eaters.

I plugged all the data from my searches into a nifty spreadsheet, made some graphs and this is what I got:

So as I suspected, a large majority of vegetarians are female, which shouldn’t be much of surprise to anyone. Of course, men are all about the BBBQ’s. For those Simpsons fans out there, you know what the extra “B” stands for.

The education level is certainly interesting, showing more vegetarians with higher levels of education. I’m not sure if this means that smart people are deciding to take better care of their bodies or whether eating a vegetarian diet makes you smarter. Either way there seems to be some correlation there.

Of course this was the graph I was most interested in. You see, I’m a bit of a drinker myself and it’s important to me that I can drag my female dates out to my favorite watering holes with me. Even when I’m browsing chicks on the Plenty of Fish site, I tend to filter by drinking habits… is that wrong? Anyways, I’m a little disappointed to see that a large majority of the vegetarians on the site don’t drink at all. Is there such a thing as being too healthy? Although, I suppose you could always use your date as a designated driver…

Last but not least, the characteristic that I’m sure most guys filter in their online dating searches is body type. Come on now, don’t lie fellas, we know what’s up. According to this chart, if you like thin, then you’ll love dating vegetarian singles.

So there’s your Online Dating Stats 101 course for the day. That is all.

10 F*cked Up Online Dating Stories

Matt Savage — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:18:00 +0000

Sure, plenty of people have found love on the Internet. Some find promiscuous flings. Some even end up getting married. This article isn’t about those types of online dating stories. This is about those once in a life time circumstances, when the person you meet online turns out to be a compete disaster of an experience, you know, once that “real life” thing kicks in.

Without further ado, I present the 10 most F-ed up online dating stories you’ve ever heard.

1. Quasimodo Needs Lovin’ Too

Bobby Finstock from the Pointless Banter blog has had plenty of adventures in the online dating realm and fortunately for us readers, they almost always end up in disaster.

In one of ole Bobby’s finest intimate encounters, he provides us with his hilarious night with a girl/it that he dug up from the Adult Friend Finder site.

“When we got to the restaurant my “date” got of the car and walked liked Quasimodo half bent over. One of her legs was severely longer than the other, giving her a very interesting gait. We went into the restaurant and ate, while the conversation was good all I could think about was that she was freaking me out a little bit.”

Read the Full Story

2. Your 7th Grade Teacher

So, there you are filtering through a bunch of skeevy emails from a bunch of skeevy dudes all thanks to a prank. This is what happens when your best friend decides to post a casual encounters ad for you on CraigsList. Well this exact story happened to one girl and what she found was pictures of her 7th grade middle school teacher in her inbox. Yea it was awkward when she called him out on it, but after he offered to send her MORE pictures, then it just turned out-right F’ed up!

3. So… What’s Your Sign Again?

While perusing the Plenty of Fish forums (always interesting) I found this little gem of an online dating story:

“The saddest (therefore, worst since I find all women nice in some twisted way) was a woman who showed me her X-rays on the first date. And I offered to take her to the hospital the next day, and then to a doctor’s office not far from the hospital. She had terminal cancer. I doubt if she is still alive. I suppose I was the last guy who treated her to Chinese take-out.”

Yikes! Talk about a weird situation. Not that I’m making light of Cancer or anything, but man that’s one hell of a first date to deal with.

4. Missed Connection or Just Missed?

This little tidbit I found on the You Suck at Craigslist blog, which is hilarious by the way. It’s not exactly an Internet dating story, really more of an Internet dating fantasy. Because really, what’s worse than a creepy guy sending messages on an online dating site than a creepy guy who fantasizes about dating then posts it online?

Read the blog post here.

5. The Handicapped Hater

E from Geek’s Dream Girl shares one of her weirdest online dating stories. The guy is pretty normal at first but then he drops a prejudicial bomb on her. Nope, he’s not racist, not homophobic, he’s anti-handicapped.

“Now, I can understand hating racists, rude people, the willingly ignorant… but the handicapped have no choice in the matter. You choose to be racist. You choose to be willingly ignorant. You don’t choose to be an amputee.”

Read the Full Story.

6. You Want Me to Drink What?!

Like the previous story, this guy turned out to be pretty normal at first, even offered to buy the gal a plane ticket to come visit him. Every thing went great on their dinner date, which eventually lead to kissing, and then to the bedroom. Unfortunately this is where things started to go downhill. Apparently the guy turned out to be a self-righteous douche-bag and the night ended with the following:

“Then he says, ‘you know what, if you can do this little thing for me we will work out and you can have all the credit cards you want. DRINK MY PEE, baby.’”

Read the Full Story.

7. The Shark Attack Girl

The video speaks for itself.

8. Well, We’re Not Blood Related…

So you meet a real nice girl online, you have great chats, she has a sparkling personality and for some weird reason you get along like you were family. Oh yea, did I mention neither of the two parties had pictures on their profiles… so you can imagine the awkward moment when you go out on your first date to meet your sister!

Now granted she was only his step sister but that’s still a little weird, right? Well apparently she was into it!

Read the Full Story.

9. Would You Like Some HIV in Your Coffee?

This one is just truly scary. Imagine that you’ve found the love of your life through an online dating site. You are really sure she’s THE one. You finally fly across the Atlantic to meet her when upon your arrival, you find out that the love of your life is really a level 9 psychotic bitch. Here’s what this poor sap had to deal with:

“I found a note on the kitchen table saying that she wanted me out of her house and if I didn’t get out by midday she was going to call the cops. This is even though I had been cleaning her dust infested apartment and looking after her daughter. Next to this note she had also left another note which horrified me. She claimed she was HIV positive and that she’d been putting her blood in my milk and food.”

Read the Full Story.

10. You Got the Right Stuff, Baby…

Jami from Date Wrecks has tons of ridiculous online dating stories but this one really takes the cake. Again, this guy starts out to be a completely normal nice guy in the beginning but by the end of the story you can’t help but feel bad for how pathetic the guy is. Here is one text message she got from him after their third date:

“I want to turn into a metal monster and pierce you with a drill penis killing you and having to assimilate with me so we can be one.”

Wow, just wow!

As you might imagine, this sends up a major red flag. The worse part is that trying to get rid of the schmuck just makes things worse, to the point where he sings New Kids on the Block into her voice mail. The actual sound recording is in her post.

My summary isn’t doing this any justice, just go read the full shit show right now.

—

If anyone can beat these 10 stories then please post your messed up online date in the comments or shoot me a link to the article.

My Cougar Dating Story

Matt Savage — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:31:00 +0000

One year ago…

She’s sitting down the bar twirling a tiny straw around in high ball glass of what I presume is a gin and tonic. She’s got a tight body and is all prettied up with make-up, hair and a sexy outfit, a bit overkill if you ask me, well at least for being in a small dive bar on a Tuesday night. She’s definitely older than me, probably in her early forties, about ten to twelve more years than myself. She keeps making eyes at me; those extra long stares, some people might call it the “fuck me eyes,” but whatever it is I know there is definitely some attraction.

I flash her a few smiles and acknowledge her flirtation. At this, she rises from her bar stool and walks directly over and sits next to me. Her legs crossed in a way that exposes her upper thigh and her cleavage stretching tight against a thin black blouse. She immediately opens up to conversation, introducing herself and exclaiming how she never approaches guys at bars like this…yeaaa right! It’s at this moment that it dawns on me. She is on the prowl. Oh my god, it’s a cougar!!

I had often heard many great cougar dating stories from some of my more sexually active college friends, stories that seemed beyond the realm of possibility to me, but tonight it looked like the cougar was finally attacking my scrawny nerdy boyishly handsome self… alright maybe I’m embellishing a bit but hey, I look young!

By the way, for those that don’t know, a “cougar” is a slang term for an older woman who pursues and dates much younger men, with the age disparity usually having a gap of at least ten years or more.

The cougar dating scene has really only become in vogue recently, within the past decade, as previously this type of behavior was taboo or socially unacceptable for older women at the time. However, now cougar dating is almost catching on as a fad. It seems to evolved to the point where it’s a sign of power and individuality for those older women. Some of them are divorcees simply looking to have fun, not ready to settle down again. Some are high powered executives who are more dominant and looking for a boy toy. I can’t really say where the term cougar came from but it seems to fit well as a metaphor for this type of womanly behavior.

Ok, lets get back to my story…

Finally, after she buys me multiple rounds of drinks and we have a lengthy yet flirtatious conversation, we end up back at my place…yadda yadda yadda… I now have my own cougar. Well actually she has me.

The next couple months go great. Basically she calls me on random nights when she’s feeling energetic, it’s always on her terms, but the best part is she always buys when we go out, or brings me beer or wine when she comes over. It’s almost like have a sugarmama I suppose.

Whatever type of relationship we have, it’s certainly not a serious one and it can’t last. And as with most cougar dating stories this one ends up with an unemotional and mutual ending. I can’t say that it was one of the most meaningful relationship I’ve had, it wasn’t at all, but holy shit, the sex was fantastic!

Present day…

So that little gem of a story occurred well over a year ago now. I’m not really looking for anything like that now. I really want more of a committed relationship a little closer to my age range, which is why I am still scouring the online dating scene. The experience was certainly nice though for a little fling and I learned a lot in the bedroom as well, which really helped me out. So in that respect, for you single younger guys out there looking for a little more experience I actually recommend finding yourself, or at least being prey, to lovely older woman.

There are even niche online dating sites popping up these days devoted particularly to cougar dating to help make the process more efficient. Hell you could probably even find plenty of them on free dating sites like Plenty of Fish if you look hard enough.

Vegetarian Dating Options?

Matt Savage — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:49:00 +0000

It just occurred to me that Plenty of Fish doesn’t has an option to categorize oneself as a vegan or vegetarian. There are plenty of other things to categorize oneself by like religion, body type, preference for children, your drinking/smoking habits and even if you have a car or not. All of these very clear lifestyle choices that one would certainly consider when looking for a potential relationship. Yet the one thing that isn’t categorized is a person’s eating habits.

Now maybe it’s just me and I live in a large liberal city, Boston, with tons of mostly liberal college students with a pretty good chunk of them, from my observation, being vegetarians or vegans. I’m not sure why I’m relating liberalism with the propensity towards vegetarianism but it seems to be the case. Anyways, from this growing trend I think that it is apparent that more and more people will want to date and be in relationships with people of similar eating habits.

It makes sense to filter dates in this manner, particularly when on large dating sites like PlentyofFish.

For example, the last girl I dated was a vegetarian. Though I tend to lean towards a mostly vegetarian diet, I’m still an omnivore and consume meat on an occasional basis. This got pretty tricky when we’d go out to eat on dates. Sometimes I would forget that she was a vegetarian and take her to places with little options for that kind of diet… oopps! Luckily for me, she was pretty easy going with having to deal with restaurants filled with voracious carnivores, but I have heard some stories where the omnivore/vegan dates really butt heads.

There was a good New York Times article last year called, “I Love You, but You Love Meat,” which nicely illustrated the potential dating conflicts that meat eaters and vegans can have.

“…many vegetarians say they cannot date anyone who eats meat. Vegans, who avoid eating not just animals but animal-derived products, take it further, shivering at the thought of kissing someone who has even sipped honey-sweetened tea.”

Sometimes it probably goes a little too far but I certainly don’t blame people for only wanting to date others with the same eating habits. After all, eating is a pretty big part of our lives, it ranks way up there on the needs scale, right next to stuff like… breathing. When you’re eating three times a day, at least one of those meals is probably with your spouse, doesn’t it make sense that the two should be on the same page diet wise?

As far as online dating sites go, there’s one for every niche out there. Of course, this certainly means that there are vegetarian and vegan dating sites to cater to this crowd. Take the site VeggieDate for example which caters to people with all kinds of variations in veggie like diets from lacto ovo vegetarians, vegans and even macrobiotic diets… whatever that is.

So here’s my thing, with the rise of preferences for a certain dietary lifestyle in a relationship, shouldn’t this be a category choice added to the mainstream online dating sites like Plenty of Fish? Isn’t one’s choice in food just as important a quality in a date as their drinking habits? Perhaps I’m nitpicking a bit but I think I just might be on to something here.

A quick search in the PlentyofFish forums with the word “vegetarian” brings up a crap load of threads, over thirty, all with the same heated debates about dating vegetarians, vegans and the like.

What do you guys and gals think? How does ones dietary choice affect your online dating habits?