Also mid-30s and like you, I very much enjoyed the hey-days of OkCupid, that is before Tinder landed and everyone began to swipe dozens of faces per minute and express their personality via unicode icons. That very moment online dating lost all its splendor for me and I was instantly part of the "older set". Which frankly I don't mind a bit. Sure, there are probably still old-school platforms out there, and with plenty of the "as much as a decade older than you", vegan women, but that's uh for another day (or decade)

This probably works if you're an average guy looking for an average woman. In that that case, you are most likely to be compatible.

It doesn't work so well if your interests, tastes, or personality are off the beaten track, however.

I have a lot of unusual interests and prefer to find women who share them. So my success rate at just randomly rolling the dice and having women just randomly roll the dice in return (such as with short profiles or speed dating) has been pretty low.

What has worked reasonably well for me has been having really detailed profiles. That way women really know what they're getting when they contact me, and I they're likely to be women who self-select to be relatively compatible with me by the time they reach out -- though there's always the chance that we just won't have much chemistry when we meet in person, and that tends to happen more often than not (though not as often as when I meet random women at bars, clubs, work, or wherever).

I've also never posted pictures of myself (though I have sent them upon request). That, along with my interests, helps to select women for whom looks aren't critically important, which is important for me (despite being above average in appearance myself.. I just don't want to be sought after primarily for my looks).

Another thing that's helped enormously is to find some way that immediately sets you apart from the crowd. My profiles/personals effectively scream "freak!" and that attracts freaks in return -- which is exactly what I want. That can be a huge turn off for the normals, but an attraction for people who share my tastes.

Not to get too philosophical, but I think it's important to somehow signal to others that you are like them. That's why dress codes for subcultures are still so important. They're systems of signaling that you share common tastes, world outlooks, interests. The same has to be done on dating sites, whether you do that through a pic of your biker tats or punk haircut, or (as in my case) by just detailing your interests.

Personality is, of course, also important, and that can come through your writing (or pics). I still have to work on that.. maybe take a creative writing course. My profiles are definitely way too dry.

I'm a woman and felt similar reading that response. I'd never pay much attention to a guy if he has nothing on his profile because, as you said, the interests and such are too far off the beaten track. It definitely works for a wide range of people, but really doesn't for a certain subset.

I wonder how a dating service focused on detailed profiles, later meeting, and customizable search range would do...

I think that's what OKCupid is focussed on and good at.

I recall OKCupid could ban you if you didn't provide a picture.

Do they actually check to see if it's actually a person of you? Or could you provide, say, a picture of a fluffy bunny?

If it's flagged, actual people will review the primary profile picture and decide whether they believe it is a picture of the account holder that meets their (quite reasonable) guidelines. Jokes, nudity, too close, too far away, obvious fakes, etc. will get your account locked.

So no, a picture of your pet rabbit will NOT work as a primary profile picture.

>I've also never posted pictures of myself (though I have sent them upon request).

Recently I tried creating a profile and was told a picture was required to proceed. Is this a newer requirement?

>It doesn't work so well if your interests, tastes, or personality are off the beaten track, however.

How did you manage to infer that my interests were so pedestrian?

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything about you in particular. Obviously, I don't know anything about you. I was just commenting on the strategy you were proposing and voicing my opinion on the odds of it working for different types of people.

If that strategy worked out for you despite you being really different from most people, I think you must have just gotten lucky to meet some people who were also really different from most and also like yourself.

In my own experience, there just aren't enough people who are compatible with me to have a short profile and just roll the dice. Over and over the dice rolls fail. But, who knows, maybe it's just bad luck.

This seems to be good advice. The more you know about a person, before you can properly meet them, the more likely you are to find out something that seems massively off-putting and shatters your impression of you.

I know a sample of 1 is nothing etc. but I read an article [1] a while back about a woman who tracked everything she could about every date she went on for two years, and one of the most interesting things I felt was that if she met someone through a dating site, it meant that she knew a lot more about them up-front, and thus didn't like them as much.

[1](http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/what-you-can-lea...)

That's a really interesting article. The part that most resonated with me came at the end:

  "People can look great on paper but it doesn't mean that they are
  the right person for you.

  "That was basically what came from this whole project - chemistry
  can't be quantified. I have no idea why this guy I am falling for,
  even though he looks terrible on paper and then another guy is
  awesome on paper and I don't care about him at all."

I wish more people tracked the data about their dating experiences and shared their results.

I don't want to put water down your enthusiasm but Portland and San Francisco have entirely different dating scene. What you did to be successful in Portland, won't make you successful in San Francisco or another city.

As a woman, no longer in my 20s, my take on your 5 tips.

1. I sort of did the same.

2. I like to banter a bit with Tinder matches. I like to see if you can write. Writing shows personality, hopefully humor, and level of education. I tend towards wordiness, but I too had to pare back my texts otherwise I seemed wordy and overeager.

3. If I got a sense you could spell, had decent grammar, a brief exchange would be OK but I'd be hesitant to meet with somebody straight out the gate without some banter. Banter is the fun part of meeting new people.

4. Agree!

5. Thank you from all the older women on Tinder :-)

+1 While living in a 55+ coop. All of us polled together a list of what opening statements lead to a date on various chatting apps. The #1 opening statement was, "You look like trouble...". The #2 was, "Backstreet boys or Nsyc".

Turns out blasting a simple message to as many girls as possible is the best way of online dating.

> I was able to average 2-3 dates per week

That sounds like a part time job by itself.

Good advice, all of it. And written in less space than what I just typed -- shorter means better. (=

Your advice on picture is dead-on, too. Obviously be in your photos but doing something interesting and don't take the picture yourself. I think mine were: cuddling a stray cat, on a hike, and biking in Seattle on vacation.

> Open your age range to include women who are older than you are (try as much as a decade, not just 1-2 years).

I remember an OKCupid stats review where they were talking about the age ranges opened for the genders. Women tended to do 5 years over to 5 years under, and men tended to do 5 years over to 10-15 years under. The analyst admonished the men for being ageist and not opening up higher to match... despite the women having the same range for higher ages.

Age is a weird one when it comes to love.