Also: the biggest trick for being successful online is to keep your profile as brief as possible. Everything you say about yourself someone will find off-putting. You need just enough to show you're likely a real profile and give the people you contact something to ask you about if they decide to respond.

That said, unless you've got some comic gold up your sleeve, you're probably right.

Sounds like he found the butter zone with that.

The real key is to distinguish yourself from the ocean of generic ads and profiles.

So the assumption here is that if something that works for a lot of other people (even in this thread it's about 50/50 amongst the men in the "worked pretty well for me" vs "didn't work" camp) doesn't work for you is that it's everyone else's problem?

It is, like everything, a sort of game. The successful are the ones who adapt. That can mean changing approaches, trying new things, developing new interests, changing standards, etc.

I did online dating off and on for three years before getting into a long term relationship through it, and the one thing I can tell you is that by the end of it (a) I sent different sorts of messages, (b) I had different sorts of profile pictures, and (c) I behaved differently on dates. I paid attention, I didn't assume I deserved anything, I made adjustments, and it paid off. Sure, I'm jealous of the extremely good looking people who don't have to try, but you don't have to be one of them to find success.

To see why this is bad advice, consider if you weren't very good at basketball and asked a friend on how to improve. If they said "be yourself", that would be crazy. Clearly, whatever you've been doing hasn't been working, so doing more of that isn't going to improve anything.

If you actually want tips to meaningfully improve your dating life, feel free to email me (email in profile). Happy to chat more offline.

In dating, some people are after finding someone who is compatible with them, and if you're not being yourself, you're basically misrepresenting yourself, and lessening your chances of finding someone compatible -- as they think you're someone other than who you really are, and if they think themselves compatible with you, they're really only compatible with the image you are projecting of yourself.

So, really, lie about who you are at the risk of incompatibility.. which might be fine if you're just looking for a one-night-stand, but if you're looking for a deeper, longer-lasting relationship, you're doing both of you a huge disservice by lying... not to mention that it's skeezy and unethical.

I could have used "crocheting" instead of "basketball" and the analogy would be just as strong.

From your incorrect interpretation, you made wildly false conclusions about my lying to others, pretending to be someone I'm not, and generally misrepresenting myself, as if you think that's what I do on my dates.

I've learned how to date women by building self confidence, learning tactics, and also just as importantly, understanding what women want at a deeply psychological level. What this results in is my making the right moves at the right times in the right way and advancing the ball forward appropriately. You can bet that I do this with women I'm attracted to, both physically and in terms of beliefs, values, and attitudes. This also means that I back off and move on when I realize that there is no mutual interest. Too many men chase after women who will never be interested in them, and that is a complete waste of time.

Everything you said after your first two sentences is completely false conjecture. If you believe that that's what learning to date women is about, then you are doing yourself the greatest disservice in the world.

If you don't understand that there is skill in dating, then you probably don't understand dating.

(1) The point you just made isn't clear at all and

(2) It's not actionable whatsoever and gives the wrong impression that you don't actually need to do something, when the reality is the complete opposite and you do need to make major changes to your life and approach to dating

The proper advice is to improve yourself, work on your confidence, and understand female psychology. How to do that is not trivial, but once you read and learn more about it, it's not that complicated either.

If you have trouble finding women, move to a big city and start working on meeting people. It's pretty much a numbers game for men of average/below-average looks.

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.

That's been my personal experience anyway. I gave up on it a while back.

Check out theredpill on reddit and never look back.

Yea. As in once you check it out, you never want to see it again...

There are ways of differentiating, like anything else, but it's become much worse in the last 3-5 years.

It works both ways. It's just the majority of women don't respond to the majority of men, regardless of crafting of the message.. though I must say that I've gotten more thanks but no thanks type responses than actual interest, which is still less than 1 in 15 messages out for any kind of response.

Of course the buffet effect works both ways... people tend to see the options, and gravitate towards a level of attractiveness and features they like, which removes most of the pool on that alone.. now, if you aren't in that attractiveness block, your options for matches won't work as well.

I think that OK Cupid does better than most at matching similar attractiveness levels in terms of who you even see. If you happen to get any response from more attractive people (even a thanks, but no thanks) you'll see a shift in the matches coming up all around.

Then again, I'm a bit of an odd duck who tries to read the profile before seeing a picture too closely. So will usually respond if something catches my interest in the writing.. and unlike most men and women, I'm perfectly happy making new friends. Getting serious with someone I met about a year ago via Facebook... All dating site experience for me in the last 5 years has been pretty bad all around.

Would think it would be cool if you had a short (300-500 character) block to write about yourself, where you pick matches on picture and words... so you either see a blurb, or a picture... if there are two matches (either you like both, or both of you like one or the other) then you can communicate and see the full profile. Would probably be a more effective matching strategy at least.

I'm not sure if it's all about the "crafting" of the message. A lot has to do with who you are and what you're trying to communicate.

I'm not a woman, nor have I pretended to be one on dating sites, but I've looked through lots of m4w personal ads, and if their emails are like their ads (which is very likely), they're super boring and generic.

This is really one of the biggest stumbling blocks, for both men and women (whose ads, on the whole, are just as boring as the men): their ads, profiles, and emails are way too much just like everybody else's.

If you can't differentiate yourself from everyone else, there's little reason to pick you over anyone else just like you, and even less reason to pick you over someone who can distinguish themselves.

I assumed the quality would be pretty even.

    > women have less trouble finding
    > partners irl

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 their friends about not being able to find a good man. Women complain that men don't want to be "just friends", men complain that women want commitment they're not willing to give yet.

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.

I think you're limiting yourself to productive relationships with only half the world's population.

A. Don't find them attractive. B. That is not your sexual orientation. C. You're already with someone much higher on your list.

My point here is, an attractive female with a lot of guy "friends", are not her friends, because she has a good personality. That's just a fact of life, no matter what anecdotes you present.