It's no secret that I maintain a couple online dating profiles. I'd say my experience so far has been a success - assuming the goal is to meet and interact with cool people.
I've created a couple of fake female profiles to see what a girl's experience is like in this whole online dating thing. The results are gross. On a profile with nothing but a generic blurb and a mildly attractive picture, I've gotten at least 10 messages every day (20% of which are direct solicitations for sex), 50+ profile views every day, and just a general feeling that dudes are gross and nasty and covered in some sort of slime (or muck).
This ratio sucks from both ends. Women have to wade through the filthy spam of dudes trying to spam their filthy dudes all over. Messages from men who have more to offer rarely or never get read.
Something to note - I've never gotten any direct solicitations for sex sent to my real profile. Dudes are gross creeper pervs - that's what you learn.
Things I've Noticed:
Here are some things I already suspected about people, but my online dating experience has helped me confirm.Men Are the Worst.
In my normal experience with my real personal profiles (we'll use my OkCupid profile because it provides more data), I've averaged about 15 profile views a week, and over the course of 6 months, I've gotten 42 incoming messages. These include automated messages letting me know that someone I liked rated me highly and replies to messages I've sent. I feel like that's probably somewhere near average in the OkCupid bell curve for a dude in Utah.
Let's compare that to what happens to a woman's profile. For comparison's sake, let's assume that I'm a mildly attractive dude.
This ratio sucks from both ends. Women have to wade through the filthy spam of dudes trying to spam their filthy dudes all over. Messages from men who have more to offer rarely or never get read.
Something to note - I've never gotten any direct solicitations for sex sent to my real profile. Dudes are gross creeper pervs - that's what you learn.
People (girls?) Don't Read.
Say a girl asks that only people looking for a committed long-term relationship message her - that makes me assume that she's not looking for dudes who just want to hang out. Makes sense to me.
Say a girl who wants a committed relationship, and has made that clear on her profile, happens upon my profile. My profile clearly states that I'm looking for a short-term relationship at most (a few months to a year).That means that if I'm interested in you, I plan on thinking you're cool for a year max... Maximum (that's what a few months to a year means). So, if you're looking to get married and have kids, then my profile tells you that I'm the wrong guy to message right? Well, I guess it only does if you don't read my profile. So I get messages from those girls - but I still don't want to get married and father your children.
Reading is helpful - though I guess some girls might assume I took the time to write out a profile just because I love typing so much.
Stupid things:
You'd think that with all the different personalities and quirks people have, you'd be able to tell the difference between someone who's sarcastic yet playful, over someone who's become jaded against everything this world has to offer. If that's how you feel, don't trust your instincts. Why? Because nearly every profile uses the same phrasing, verbiage, imagery, and words. Taken out of the context of online dating, a lot of sentences or phrases could mean something, but when they show up on most profiles, they just become noise. Here are some of my favorites (favorite = things I've noticed that no longer have any meaning):- "I'm not good at describing myself/ I don't like describing myself" -Of course you're bad at it, the only time you do it is when you're trying to fall in love (get freaky) with people online. You have no experience; none of us do. I don't, but I didn't bitch about it in my profile.
- "I like all kinds of music" - Oh good, that tells me that you have heard music before (I have learned that you aren't deaf.)
- "I won't respond to guys who have pictures in the bathroom with their shirt off" - Easier than writing that in your profile is deleting those messages. Or even better, reply to those messages telling that dude he's a douche (let's face it, he is).
- Terms like "easy-going," "fun-loving," "intelligent," "optimistic," ect. - No one thinks that they hate fun, thinks they are stupid, thinks they needlessly hate stuff, or thinks they are... the opposite of easy-going (hard-to-go?).
What I Don't Get:
Humans usually only continue a behavior when there's an associated reward. It makes me wonder - how successful are those dudes sending out thousands of messages a minute to every girl ever? Do people respond to that? I'd like some input here, if there are any women reading this shit. If a guy begs you to take his wiener to sexual pond, is there some instance where you'll allow that after a short interchange of electronic messages?
I could be wrong - maybe these dudes get laid on the reg, but I'm doubting it. So, if these guys aren't getting sexy, what's the drive to act like a pervert asshole douche-can sweetheart-fucker? Anyone have some insight?
Conclusion:
Online dating is like normal dating, but it's easier to ignore people you don't want to talk to. (I'll bet you were expecting something much more comprehensive.)
