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I'm thinking of trying one of those dating sites like OkCupid and/or Tinder, so I took a couple of photos of myself for a profile picture but they turned out pretty bad as I'm not a professional so the lighting was bad, the angles were either too top or bottom heavy, so I think I'll pay a professional for

better quality pictures. Anyways does any one have experience with online dating any tips or general info I should know?

1) Expect a low success rate. 1% of the messages you send will get a response, and 1% of those might have a chance of going somewhere. Remember that you're doing the equivalent of walking into a bar and simultaneously approaching hundreds of potential dates. You wouldn't expect most of those attempts to succeed offline, so why expect online dating to be any different? Don't lose hope after a few failures or get emotionally invested into a potential match before you know if there's any mutual interest.

2) Online dating profiles are better at filtering out bad matches than confirming good ones. It's very hard to write a profile that gives more than a superficial impression of a person, so once you filter out the obvious "wouldn't touch with someone else's ten foot pole" people fine-tuning the difference between "ok, but nothing special" and "OMG TRUE LOVE" isn't really something you can do without having an offline date. On the other hand it's very easy to figure out which people fail your list of dealbreakers, especially on a site like OkCupid where you can see the answers to specific questions instead of just a general match percentage. So quickly rule out the people you're definitely not interested in and then be optimistic about giving the rest a fair chance.

3) It's better to get a 10/10 from some people and a 0/10 from others than to have a 7/10 from everyone. The former gets at least some people really interested in you, the latter just gets a lot of people to put you in the "maybe I'll message them someday" pile and then forget about you. So if you've got your controversial aspects be up front about them. You'll avoid wasting your time on the people who are going to reject you over it anyway, and you'll give the people who are looking for those things exactly what they want to see and maybe get them to respond.

4) You're absolutely right about getting professional pictures. Like it or not people can be really superficial, and an average person with great pictures looks better than a 10/10 with blurry camera phone shots in a bathroom mirror. Though if you can find someone to do it a friend might be better than a professional. Posed studio shots will have good image quality, but can look a bit awkward and excessively formal in a dating context. The ideal is to have normal "everyday life" shots taken by a friend with a good camera and the ability to use it right.

Try POF aka Plenty of Fish. Its free and you can read your mails

Instead of your own pic, use one of a young David Hasselhoff. It works every time.

Here's my advice.

Don't take online dating advice serious.

There are several important rules to follow.

First, you need abs and you need to show them off. If your first picture isn't a selfie of you pulling up your shirt and showing off that sick washboard, you're not getting anywhere! Don't have abs? Don't worry! You can just cut & paste your head on to someone else's body, or heck even just draw 'em on with sharpie. You might think such ploys would be transparent, but as humanolgist (that's a biologist that studies humans) can tell you abs and ab-like patterns have an overwhelming effect on the female brain. It's a biological effect that can't be ignored and will always make you stand out from your competitors. It's pretty much the same thing as those old 3D-magic eye puzzles but for her vagina.

Secondly, comment on her appearance. I can't underscore how important this is. As you probably learned in high school or from commercials for dove soap, women are constantly bombard with messages about their body. This breeds a universal and constant need for reassurance that strangers find them sexually attractive. Also remember the stronger language is the stronger the message is, so terms that might ordinarily seem vulgar or rude are the way to go.

Third, be sure to comment on her ethnicity. This is really important because a lot of people are racist, and you need to signal you're sensitive to that fact. Be sure to let her know that you want her to be your "First Black Chick" or that "You've really got a thing for asians", or "Want some of that latin spice". If you don't might she not be sure you're really OK with her background. If you can tie this into the second point by calling out that "Ghetto Booty" or the like.

Fourth, you've got a penis. Well I assume you do, she shouldn't have to! She needs to know you have a penis. So be sure to show her, if you don't whip that puppy out and send a picture by the 3rd message she'll just move on to guys that are less of gamble. Online dating is a risk so you need to provide all the certainty you can, and "He might be packing like a Ken Doll" isn't a question you want her wrestling with.

Fifth, keep it short. You can't get your point lost in a lot of words. Before you move on to the above points just open with a simple to process greeting like "Hey" or "Hi sexy" and always, always, always including the winky face .

Finally if you don't hear back that probably just means she thinks you haven't put enough effort in. Keeping messaging over and over, the more messages you send before she sends a response the more she'll know you're serious about the whole process. You should always let her know you're looking for a response otherwise she might think you're just sending the messages to be seen. Make sure to mix in a few "please respond"s or "are you going to write back"s for good measure


There's a bit more to being an online dating master, but following these steps should get you on the right track.

^best advice ever!

Honestly, I tried online dating and most of the experience sucked. Made a good friend out of it, and that's all.

Fedoras. Ladies love them.

Seriously, though, I guess you just want to get laid. Tinder excels at that. Picture is important, but if you're at least average, getting a few matches will be easy. Meet up, pull of ye good ol' pickup routing and you got a good night ahead of ye. Easy sex has never been as easy to get by as nowadays.

Beware the Nigerian Princess who needs your bank details, so she can buy a plane ticket to join you

I used POF before it turned into a one night stand generator and it worked out great. We are together an happy.

Tips:

It will take a while.
You need to write and rewrite until your profile is an expression of you.
Watch out for Catfish
Always get one or more of their social media profiles before you meet. That one is key as it will help you learn who they really are.
Always meet in a public place the first time.
Keep the to internet or phone talking for a little while before you meet to learn a little more.
Don't go in looking for a marriage.

I have been on POF and Tinder for awhile.
#1 thing is be conventially attractive.
Yeah, thats how online dating works.
I gave up on it and just decided to meet a girl at school, which kinda worked, im kinda seeing someone now.

I was on Match.com.
I met my wife there (we weren't married at the time )
Worked for me.
YMMV

I'm on Tinder, POF, OKC, and Blendr at the moment. I've only got experience with them in the UK, so they probably differ from how it is in the US.

Tinder feels like an app for physically attractive people in search of one-night stands, and I have received exactly 0 matches over the past few months, not counting the 3 or so total spambots (the majority you can easily filter out). I might be being what others may call picky, but if I'm not attracted to someone, I don't swipe them. Simple as that.

POF seems to be the best blend of free dating site out of all the ones I listed. Easy to use, most people have decent profiles, fakes are relatively easy to spot. No luck on there, either. I had a few replies that suddenly and inexplicably stopped coming.

OKC, at least in the UK, is what you get when you cross Tumblr with a dating site. It's full of rude, entitled, thin-skinned special snowflakes, self-titled rad-fems and misogynists, and a small sprinkling of comparatively 'normal' people. Their 'quickmatch' function is also highly flawed from what I can tell. I somehow ran out of matches in the UK on the third day. I get two or three swipes before it starts suggesting people in France. The filters don't seem to work at all.

Speaking of built-in Tinder-esque systems, they are not really Tinder; I only use them as a quick method of sorting through when I can't be arsed manually going through matches (which on OKC, are largely bullcrap anyway; always look at profiles yourself) and seeing who sticks out.

Blendr is a social meet-up app, with allowances for dating. I've thus far had the most success finding people I like here, but the least success--even including OKC--finding someone who responds. It's also full of fake profiles; more than Tinder, POF, and OKC combined. Most of the fakes are transparent, but it can be annoying sifting through all of them.

Pictures of you wearing a fancy wrist watch, wearing expensive shoes, and driving sportscars.

I've heard from employees having good experience with professional online dating services. They do cost some money, but they almost exclusively made good experiences with them.

If your goal is just getting laid, you should just go to Vegas and pay for it, honestly. It'll be a nice little vacation, you'll never see her again if you don't want to, and you'll cut out a lot of the BS you seem to be struggling with here.

You shouldn't have to go to Vegas to do so, as it should be legal everywhere....but I digress....

 cincydooley wrote:
If your goal is just getting laid, you should just go to Vegas and pay for it, honestly. It'll be a nice little vacation, you'll never see her again if you don't want to, and you'll cut out a lot of the BS you seem to be struggling with here.

You shouldn't have to go to Vegas to do so, as it should be legal everywhere....but I digress....

It isnt technically legal in vegas either.

I did online dating for years before I met my wife through one of the sites I was on. A few pointers:

Use good photos. Paying for a professional shoot is a good idea. Do you have a friend with reasonable skills who could help you out?

Take your time writing up your profile. Absolutely spell everything correctly, pay attention to grammar, and try hard to sound reasonably intelligent (assuming you are reasonably intelligent). After the photos, this was the number one turn off: typos and awkward profiles.

It's a numbers game. I am a straight guy dating in San Francisco where the pool of straight guys is a bit smaller than most, and it took me over five years to meet someone I really connected with (my current wife). I met some nice women along the way, and quite a few who really weren't good matches for me at all. As noted above, these sites are reasonably good at filtering out women who aren't matches, but not so good at finding women who are matches. That takes meeting face to face, over and over. It can be quite frustrating, but be patient.

And good luck!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
If your goal is just getting laid, you should just go to Vegas and pay for it, honestly. It'll be a nice little vacation, you'll never see her again if you don't want to, and you'll cut out a lot of the BS you seem to be struggling with here.

You shouldn't have to go to Vegas to do so, as it should be legal everywhere....but I digress....

It isnt technically legal in vegas either.

It most certainly is, you just need to know where to go (OK, maybe outside Vegas). But I wouldn't bring that up in your profile, nor would I consider including any photos outside of an identifiable brothel.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
OKC, at least in the UK, is what you get when you cross Tumblr with a dating site. It's full of rude, entitled, thin-skinned special snowflakes, self-titled rad-fems and misogynists, and a small sprinkling of comparatively 'normal' people. Their 'quickmatch' function is also highly flawed from what I can tell. I somehow ran out of matches in the UK on the third day. I get two or three swipes before it starts suggesting people in France. The filters don't seem to work at all.

Who uses the OkC quickmatch anyway? Just browse matches, look for a cool profile, and send a message.
Routine for me is :
- Read profile
- Read the personality tab for a quick overview of what I will find in the questions
- Go to the photo tab to check if there are some albums and/or captions that are not displayed on the main profile page.
- Read the questions with explanations, as I feel those give the most information about someone's personality, as well as giving potential conversation openers
- Read the “unacceptable answers” to look out for deal breaker.
- Depending on mood, read more questions.
- Send message, or just like if I am not very interested and/or inspired and/or I feel lazy or too depressed.

I have not got much more success than you did, though.

I have been trying to install Tinder on my phone, but no success. I cannot understand why, but it says it is not compatible with my phone. I have Android 4.1.2 and a LG E410i, I cannot possibly imagine why it would not be able to run such a simple app.

Don't treat it as a main plan or even expect it to be a decent backup. It can help though, but not very likely.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:
OKC, at least in the UK, is what you get when you cross Tumblr with a dating site. It's full of rude, entitled, thin-skinned special snowflakes, self-titled rad-fems and misogynists, and a small sprinkling of comparatively 'normal' people. Their 'quickmatch' function is also highly flawed from what I can tell. I somehow ran out of matches in the UK on the third day. I get two or three swipes before it starts suggesting people in France. The filters don't seem to work at all.

Who uses the OkC quickmatch anyway? Just browse matches, look for a cool profile, and send a message.

For the reason I mentioned later in the post (not wanting to sift through supposed 'matches' manually), and because it suggests the same 'matches' in more or less the same order whenever I manually check them. There's sorting the wheat from the chaff, and then there's sorting the same wheat from the same chaff every time you come to do it. OKC Never seems to update their matches, and when they do, I have to go through the other 99.9% it's given me already. At least with QM once you say no to someone, they don't come back up.

There's a reason why I don't use OKC any more, and it's because it's bad.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
and because it suggests the same 'matches' in more or less the same order whenever I manually check them.

It used to do that for me, but not that much anymore, really. And have you got the email saying

Hey Avatar 720,

We just detected that you’re now among the most attractive people on OkCupid.

We learned this from clicks to your profile and reactions to you in Quickmatch. Did you get a new haircut or something?
Well, it’s working!

To celebrate, we’ve adjusted your OkCupid experience:

You’ll see more attractive people in your match results.

This won’t affect your match percentages, which are still based purely on your answers and desired match’s answers. But we’ll recommend more attractive people to you. You’ll also appear more often to other attractive people.

Sign in to see your newly-shuffled matches. Have fun, and don’t let this go to your head.

(By the way, that is a bunch of crap…)

Maybe, maybe not; that sort of stuff tends to get deleted fairly quickly. Waste of inbox space.

Barring any scientific analysis, I can say that in the US I've gotten laid from Tinder, OKC, and POF, but I'm not sure which has been more productive...if I had to guess probably tinder because women tend to find it fun rather than the profile based sites that are stigmatized. Your results will depend on your location, especially in regards to the quality and type of women using the sites. You can't really stereotype people using particular apps or sites.

I had great success with OKC. My advice:

1. On OKC, answer a ton of questions before looking at anyone's profile. Not just sexy time questions, either. Questions about hobbies, philosophy, kids, etc.
2. Know what you want before looking. Are you looking for a long term relationship, a FWB, someone to join you in your plans for global domination? "I want a person that enjoys reading, relaxing with a glass of wine and ....Damn, she got a nice rack!" She also might vote Green Party. Be careful out there.
3. Don't settle. Too many fish in the sea. Find one that you share some common beliefs.
4. Take your time. Don't rush anything. Don't be afraid to make a few dates with different people, either. Setting up a first date is not a commitment.
5. Make sure you read all of her profile. Ask questions. She might show up and tell you she has 4 baby daddies, and that 2 are in jail for murder, and then watch as she takes her bipolar medication with a 7&7...

Never done it, but my only suggestion would be to be honest about yourself, your interests etc.

If you like playing Warhammer, playing video games and watching movies, say that's what you like doing. You might find a lovely girl who likes the same. Result!

If you like playing Warhammer, playing video games and watching movies, but say on your profile you like going for walks in the park, shopping for antiques and caring for sick animals because you think it'll attract more women then you're only going to end up with someone who likes all that crap, and expects you to do it too, and you won't ever get to spend any time doing what you actually enjoy...

Also, no dick pics. She has to earn it!

And don't go in for the motor boat on the first date. You have to earn it!

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Your results will depend on your location, especially in regards to the quality and type of women using the sites.

Quality? It feels like you are talking about burgers, not women…

 kronk wrote:
Also, no dick pics. She has to earn it!

And don't go in for the motor boat on the first date. You have to earn it!

It funny, as a social experiment, me and my friends set up a profile for an average looking fake women on several sites.
Dick pic in the first 5 min.

I definitely used to pay more attention to the things we disagreed on among my best matches on OKC. I'd read the profile first to see if they were interesting and had decent hobbies, then I'd check the 'unacceptable answers' for any red flags. Frankly there were a few crucial points on which I'd not go out with someone despite matching in many other ways.