Jonathan asks: “I’ve been trying to meet women online for the past few months with zero luck, and my friends have said similar things. Contact a girl, and you’re lucky if you get a response, much less a nice one. I don’t get it. I thought online dating was supposed to save me time. Why is this so hard?”
I wish this were an easy answer Jonathan, because your question rings true for many of the men I’ve worked with in the past few years, as well as friends and even dates who have asked me a similar question. In my opinion, the answer is a complex one, and I’m unsure if explaining it in great detail it’ll make a difference with what you’re really after: meeting more women, or perhaps just meeting The Woman of Your Dreams. With that in mind, I’ll only go into the why’s briefly, and try to spend more time on the how’s (what you can do to increase your responses).
Things To Consider When Dating Online
Few people realize that most dating sites keep all users listed indefinitely, and some refuse to purge their database of old members, even if said former members have found love and deactivated their account.
While you can read the Dating Site Fine Print of any individual company you sign up with to find out, I’d just assume the site you’re with does this. As well, most of the up-and-coming and/or popular dating sites will either pay folks to chat with members, fluff the numbers a bit with fake profiles, or both. I’ve come across numbers as high as 30% where the people listed, for whatever reason, weren’t actually available to meet – so this is a factor to take into account.
Next up, women get a lot of messages, depending on their age and demographic. When I sign up at a dating site to review it, I often get hundreds of messages in the first few days. I should note I’m a bit older than the average, highly-desirable range for ladies of 29-35, so younger women may get even more. My advice with this point? Avoid the newest signups because they’re likely inundated with messages anyway, and if you can, see if anyone over 35 appeals to you in your searches – heterosexual women between 35-45 get fewer messages than any other age range according to OkCupid.
When there’s a lot of competition for a woman’s attention, they have to filter whom they want to respond to right off the bat. What many women do (including myself) is look at a person’s profile before they read the message. As an example, if I’m using OkCupid, I first look at the pictures (do I find this person physically attractive at all?), then their basic demographic information (kids? age? location? religion?) and then any of the questions we’ve both answered that we strongly disagree on. (For more on this topic, take a peek at Hacking OkCupid To Your Advantage). If anything on there is a strong no for me, I might still read their email (if it’s more than a, “Hey! You’re cute,”) although I’m more likely to either delete (if I have a lot of messages waiting), or politely say we’re after different things and wish them the very best in their search.
What Does This All Mean For You?
Well, you need a fantastic profile that really showcases your strengths, attractiveness and wants in a partnership or relationship (be it casual or long term – the process is the same). Your pictures are a whole conversation in and of itself, so all I say here is: make sure they’re very recent (last 3-6 months), they showcase your face as well as you doing something that you love, and that they show you off at your happiest. (For more help, try 4 Reasons Why Your Online Dating Profile Isn’t Working, and Why You’re Not Getting Responses). The words you use – depending on the site you’re on – will also help tremendously with the results you get. See How To Write a Dating Profile for comprehensive help, or ask me for Free Dating Profile Help.
Some other suggestions? Know what you want your final outcome from online dating to feel like before you start anything, make sure you’re 100% accurate and honest with everything you share and do, and make a point when you do email a woman of commenting (respectfully) on whatever drew you to message her in a bit of detail.
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