Dating online

Another problem for want of a better term I'm having is loyalty to a point, I find it hard to think about talking to or making plans to meet different people within a similar timescale, example, yes after I split up I had "needs" and, satisfied them, I also wanted companionship and, found that to a point but, while talking to and meeting her, forgot about scratching the itch.

The dating didn't progress, oh well and so I'm looking again but feeling guilty about messaging strangers about possible future relationships, many of whom don't reply or are unlikely to lead anywhere while I still have those other needs which can be to a point sorted a but easier.

Maybe I'm getting older and dating gas changed a lot since my teens / 20s but I also feel again guilty to a point if I send messages to two or three women in the course of a few days.

Hope that makes sense.

Tallish Darkish & Average wrote:

Another problem for want of a better term I'm having is loyalty to a point, I find it hard to think about talking to or making plans to meet different people within a similar timescale, example, yes after I split up I had "needs" and, satisfied them, I also wanted companionship and, found that to a point but, while talking to and meeting her, forgot about scratching the itch.

The dating didn't progress, oh well and so I'm looking again but feeling guilty about messaging strangers about possible future relationships, many of whom don't reply or are unlikely to lead anywhere while I still have those other needs which can be to a point sorted a but easier.

Maybe I'm getting older and dating gas changed a lot since my teens / 20s but I also feel again guilty to a point if I send messages to two or three women in the course of a few days.

Hope that makes sense.

Obviuosly like me you belong to a different generation and need to perhaps vew this a little differently. This you need to do to perhalps to help with your psyche IMO.

I would take the first date of online dating as equivalent as chatting somebody up in the pub on the  night . Therefore your second date with this person is equivalent of your first date of the traditional method.

I can honestly say I have chatted to more than one lady in a night when I was single and then you weigh up your options and take one forward. So in my eyes there isnt anything wrong with perhaps seeing a couple of ladies initially with a view of taking one forward. As long as you dont take both foward as that is plain cheating .

mysteron wrote:

As long as you dont take both foward as that is plain cheating .

Unless everyone's aware and agrees to it, of course. :p I'm currently seeing three women in various ways, all of whom are also seeing other people… Relationships aren't always so easily defined.

That aside, mysteron made an excellent point about having to adjust thinking to account for the changes that online dating brings. I think there's an implicit understanding there that if you're talking to or meeting someone, they're almost certainly not the only person you are doing these things with, and vice versa.

been on a 9 for 2 or 3 years so no luck must be to fat and ugly hay ho so not for me sorry

tider wrote:

been on a 9 for 2 or 3 years so no luck must be to fat and ugly hay ho so not for me sorry

No such word as "ugly" . Dont do yourself down . I have met many plus size people who are confident and therefore in my eyes very sexy.

If your not happy about your weight then that can always be fixed which may help to give you more confidence. I was very large once so I know how it can feel sometimes .

Glaswegian82 wrote:

Tallish Darkish & Average wrote:

The biggest issue I have is making the first contact, I try and be a bit more exciting than:

"Hi, HRU?"
But don't seem to be able to get the replies...

This is a big thing to note, actually.

When I started online dating, I did research and found that - according to figures I saw - messages from men get, on average, 1 response for every 10 messages they send across various dating sites. This seems to be in part because of the scattergun approach many men take, and in part because a lot of them send a generic message with no account of the recipient.

(A lot of my conversations on those sites bore this out - pretty much every woman I talked to mentioned that she got LOADS of messages like this, and most of them are just ignored.)

My approach tended to be to only send messages to people I was actually vaguely interested in, and to send each a unique message doing three key things:

1) Referencing things mentioned in their profile that we had in common.

2) Asking them questions to give them a potential reason to answer.

3) Treating them like the actual human beings they are - seems obvious, I know, but you'd be surprised…

Without wanting to sound arrogant, I got a reply for roughly every 3-4 messages I sent. Who would have thought that treating other people with respect would be a good idea…? :p

My point, I guess, is that there is so much utter nonsense sent to women that as a man you really need to try hard to stand out. It's tough, and I know it's not any better for the ladies - opening your inbox to dozens of identical, shitty messages must be disheartening. Not to mention the sexual ones, and the abusive ones when you don't respond. It can't be easy.

This is good advise. I got sooo many messages from men on OKC, that often said either nothing but "hi, how're you?", or "you look hot". Often I was poorly matched with these men in terms of answers to the questions too, and we had little in common. I also had some really long weird of self deprecating messages too, some men aggressively telling me how I probably won't reply anyway because no one ever does and all the women on here are awful. Or weirder still, a long list of their specific sexual needs with a comment of if I'm not prepared to do all their kinks its not worth us meeting (this was a first message). The guys I did respond to tended to have actually read my profile and just sent me a nice polite message asking me about my interests, and sometimes telling me a little about their interests, especially if we had something in common. I think it was important for me to see they were interested in getting to know me, a message just saying "you look hot in those photos" just put me off. I wouldn't say I really wanted to be complimented, I just wanted someone to be interested in getting to know me. I guess it could be different if you are just looking for sex though.

mysteron wrote:

tider wrote:

been on a 9 for 2 or 3 years so no luck must be to fat and ugly hay ho so not for me sorry

No such word as "ugly" . Dont do yourself down . I have met many plus size people who are confident and therefore in my eyes very sexy.

If your not happy about your weight then that can always be fixed which may help to give you more confidence. I was very large once so I know how it can feel sometimes .

iam what iam and its ok its good been a lone

Jezebella wrote:

Glaswegian82 wrote:

Tallish Darkish & Average wrote:

The biggest issue I have is making the first contact, I try and be a bit more exciting than:

"Hi, HRU?"
But don't seem to be able to get the replies...

This is a big thing to note, actually.

When I started online dating, I did research and found that - according to figures I saw - messages from men get, on average, 1 response for every 10 messages they send across various dating sites. This seems to be in part because of the scattergun approach many men take, and in part because a lot of them send a generic message with no account of the recipient.

(A lot of my conversations on those sites bore this out - pretty much every woman I talked to mentioned that she got LOADS of messages like this, and most of them are just ignored.)

My approach tended to be to only send messages to people I was actually vaguely interested in, and to send each a unique message doing three key things:

1) Referencing things mentioned in their profile that we had in common.

2) Asking them questions to give them a potential reason to answer.

3) Treating them like the actual human beings they are - seems obvious, I know, but you'd be surprised…

Without wanting to sound arrogant, I got a reply for roughly every 3-4 messages I sent. Who would have thought that treating other people with respect would be a good idea…? :p

My point, I guess, is that there is so much utter nonsense sent to women that as a man you really need to try hard to stand out. It's tough, and I know it's not any better for the ladies - opening your inbox to dozens of identical, shitty messages must be disheartening. Not to mention the sexual ones, and the abusive ones when you don't respond. It can't be easy.

This is good advise. I got sooo many messages from men on OKC, that often said either nothing but "hi, how're you?", or "you look hot". Often I was poorly matched with these men in terms of answers to the questions too, and we had little in common. I also had some really long weird of self deprecating messages too, some men aggressively telling me how I probably won't reply anyway because no one ever does and all the women on here are awful. Or weirder still, a long list of their specific sexual needs with a comment of if I'm not prepared to do all their kinks its not worth us meeting (this was a first message). The guys I did respond to tended to have actually read my profile and just sent me a nice polite message asking me about my interests, and sometimes telling me a little about their interests, especially if we had something in common. I think it was important for me to see they were interested in getting to know me, a message just saying "you look hot in those photos" just put me off. I wouldn't say I really wanted to be complimented, I just wanted someone to be interested in getting to know me. I guess it could be different if you are just looking for sex though.

Whilst in your case you wernt looking for a compliment , you didn't want to be treated as part of a "mass marketing excercise" either . You wanted to be treated as an individual as you should be in my eyes.

I think that makes a difference of whether a guy gets chosen or not.

Well that's interesting what you are all saying, not sure i get completely the concept of OKC but hey ho, so basically when someone "likes" you then they hit the star and it comes up to your wall. So very excited i had look at all these stars well most of them are not even reaching 50% match (right ok whatver……) then read a bit of the bios, some don't say much and doesn't tell me if they are into adrenaline rush extreme sports which i made MY PRIORITY!!!!! on my profile (come on guys just read ok, read what people are saying to whoever wants to look at it 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄) so when i message because of course the guys don't message they pin you and wait to you to message, once again ok…. Then they don't even have the decency to reply (whaaaaaaaaaaaat…………………don't pin me then……………) so yeah basically feel like i don't even want to try to message anymore; i don't get it if you pin someone then don't waste time and just send a message, and yeah a message that says hey and nothing else, WAOW THAT BLOWS MY MIND AWAY 😂😂😂😂😂when i pin someone i message straight away (just logical to me)

So people am i really too old fashion, demanding and way too has been as well??????, geez i feel like i don't stand a chance………………… maybe that's a sign that nothing should happen to me and should just get a dog and/or a cat, oh a bit frustrated actually

many thanks lovely bunch of LH family

Just going to add something that may be of benefit, if you are using a site with a"meet me" or similar function your search results are altered slightly, example, I was browsing the pof app earlier when I got a "someone wants to meet you" alert, looked at my notification bar on my phone and the users avi was displayed but no details, recognised the avi as someone is scrolled past a few mins prior, was able to back up and view profile but app stopped before I could message her and now she doesn't appear in my searches or in profiles visited, am going to create a "stealth profile" tonight to see how many of these wltm profiles I can view...

I used Badoo for a couple of years, you can specify what looking for like most sites. It can be a good site to make friends if you are single, even if not hooking up or considering dating.

If you have kinks - Benaughty.com is an option

A friend of mine found their perfect match on fetlife. it seems a bit daunting at first but its actually a cool site. maybe thats worth giving a go?

I joined OKC but then deleted myself because of a typo in my username (I'm disappointed in myself here). I thought OKC sounded the most promising due to the amount of the questions, and the type of questions.

The only other dating website I joined was a straight edge dating site called Date Edge. Nothing happened, which was good because I realised I wasn't ready to date again.

Good luck out there, people.

As much as dating sites/apps are great, my problem with them is that nowadays they're mostly populated by individuals looking for sexual encounters, not romantic or even necessarily longterm.

I met my partner on Facebook- I had joined it as a kid to play Farmville with no intentions of keeping up with people or finding someone, and one day I got a message in my inbox from a friend of a friend of a friend. (We stayed a strictly online and then long distance relationship for a few years before actually meeting). It's the best thing I'd ever done, and I know without that one event, I'd still be single.

I truly believe that love just happens and can be found anywhere, but if you're set on finding someone asap, what about taking a different approach and looking for friendship ? Love can blossom from anything, so I'm sure you'd avoid more one night stand mentalitied people by joining local clubs/groups, getting involved with community events and such. (This is of course a lot more effort than flicking through faces on a screen, but you'll get a lot more out of it if you have the time).

Good luck ! :)

taggart65 wrote:

Met my other half off POF and a mate met hid now wife on there too , you just need to be lucky .

I have been on tinder POF baddo and free dating .co.uk.

my experiences have been mainly people looking for sex and lots of married men.

when I was looking for a relationship I found I met those who lead me to believe that they were looking for a relationship tried to find things with common with me then turned out to just want sex.

i think you have to be very very lucky to find that needle in a haystack and in the end I gave up.

apologies if it s negative but I had so many timewasters liars and cheats that it really put me off for life.

i am not sure that paid sites are any better and would rather meet people in a natural way I found that you cannot tell if people are telling the truth and there were so many married sex starved men .

i am sure some people do meet their life mate on the internet and I actually met my ex husband online, was over 12 years ago it seems to be so much more sexually focused these days.

that said I have met a small handful of decent guys who I am friends with but out of many dates they are in the minority .

i decided to have a break as it was mentally and emotionally messing my head up people seem to have lost all manners and respect these days and they think this is acceptable.

I think it depends on what you want if you want fwb or hook ups it is great but for me nothing more came out of it.

But good luck shy and chatty you may meet the one you never know

Shouganai wrote:

As much as dating sites/apps are great, my problem with them is that nowadays they're mostly populated by individuals looking for sexual encounters, not romantic or even necessarily longterm.

I met my partner on Facebook- I had joined it as a kid to play Farmville with no intentions of keeping up with people or finding someone, and one day I got a message in my inbox from a friend of a friend of a friend. (We stayed a strictly online and then long distance relationship for a few years before actually meeting). It's the best thing I'd ever done, and I know without that one event, I'd still be single.

I truly believe that love just happens and can be found anywhere, but if you're set on finding someone asap, what about taking a different approach and looking for friendship ? Love can blossom from anything, so I'm sure you'd avoid more one night stand mentalitied people by joining local clubs/groups, getting involved with community events and such. (This is of course a lot more effort than flicking through faces on a screen, but you'll get a lot more out of it if you have the time).

Good luck ! :)

Just saw this and I agree also meant to say that the paid ones entice you in by sending lots of messages before you pay saying people like you then when you get in they are not all there.

i found that the local meet up groups are a great way to make new friends and who knows a friendship can always develop into more.

Good luck with it all

I met my ex of 7 years online, so I think everyones experiences are different.

However I have recently signed up again to online dating and not had much luck at all so far haha

x