Got called into an important meeting earlier at work so couldn't respond to various posts.
At the risk of being accused of derailing the thread, blahblah, I do just need to address a few points. This may be a little long...
Firstly, MsC, it was really kind of you to post in my support. I am not entirely sure you needed to (I'll come back to that point) but I do appreciate that you did, honestly. And I can understand your frustration that the thread has changed. FWIW it has, if you have been here since way back on thread 1 as I have (and indeed before that, because I was on a previous dating related thread) it is apparent. Now of course nothing stays the same, things evolve, but it is disheartening sometimes to be ignored, albeit (I would hope) unintentionally. I know that a number of threads ago, I would try really hard to namecheck everyone, even if just with a hello, or to respond to a question even if it had been asked quite a while earlier. But I have found that my posts get missed, and I know that I am also not so careful about responding to everyone as I once might have been. Which is a shame, but I suppose it is as it is. I do hope MsC that you will post again, I know you often have a different viewpoint to some on the thread, but that's why I like to see your posts, because it would be dull if we all took the same approach.
Rose I hope that it was a genuine enquiry. I do think, I?m afraid that you did come across a little all-knowing, which I have ascribed to the naivety and inexperience of youth, rather than any active desire to put people?s backs up or to suggest that you know about anything other than dating in your 20s (which to be honest we all know about, because we all were 26 once. But as has been said, dating when you?re late 30s and up, is VERY different) but FWIW, and in answer to your original question, I never mention my salary (though lots of men have told me theirs 
), I never say where I went to university. If I am specifically asked what I do for a living, then I am honest. If I am not asked, I don't mention it, or only in vague terms. My dating profile, when I had one, wasn't specific about my occupation. Some dates have walked me home, or dropped me off in a cab post date, and seen my house. It's obvious from the size and location of my house that I am well off. But probably only a quarter of the dates I've been on have seen it.
The reality is I don't do anything wrong. The reason your post touched a nerve with MsC - and probably would have with me 7 or 8 months ago - is that there is no magic answer, there is no one thing I'm ballsing up on date after date. You (and this is a generic ?you?) start the whole OD process full of optimism, because your neighbour's second cousin's hairdresser's niece met her husband on POF, or Match, or wherever and they are deliriously happy. And you think 'I'll have some of that'. And you expect to go on a few dates before you meet a decent man/woman. What no-one outside of threads like this, and people like me, prepare you for is that those people who meet someone immediately are as rare as hen's teeth. Many people get vanisher after vanisher, and next to no dates. Others get dates, but all with people who have misrepresented their age/height/weight/personality, and are entirely unsuitable. And another group, like me, just get rejection after rejection.
No-one likes getting rejected. No-one wants to think that it's possible to spend 4 years OD-ing, on and off, and get rejected every time in that period. Because if it happens to someone else, it could happen to you. So people hear of my experience and rationalise it, and try to come up with excuses, ways to tell themselves they won't be like me:
maybe she's got a face like a bag of spanners
maybe she's hugely overweight
maybe she's got a terrible personality
maybe she has strange mannerisms, poor personal hygiene, extreme views
and then you find out that no, I've got a pretty face, and a good figure, and a warm, friendly personality. So you think well then if it's nothing about HER inherently, it must be something she's doing wrong.
But it's not. It just is the way it is. And it could happen to anyone.
I started a thread once about it, which MsC mentioned, so down was I (around this time last year). I got told that I wore too much makeup, dressed like a slut, didn't have enough interests, didn't have a car, thought too highly of myself, thought too little of myself, and so the list went on. Because the assumption is that if you don't get second dates you're either fussy and rejecting everyone or if you're not rejecting them, that you're getting it wrong. I have had all manner of people most of whom have never been within a country mile of OD and are talking out of their arses on MN, even some posters who normally take a v feminist stance on most things, tell me the problem MUST be with me.
But it's not. It never was. Proof of that is in the fact that the man I am now dating likes me exactly as I am, wearing the same amount of makeup, dressed the same, thinking the same about myself as I did. The only difference is that he is a decent bloke, and not a complete fuckwit. And yes, I have done a lot of the running. But there are good reasons for that, and I am confident I am doing the right thing. Certainly he has had ample opportunity to disappear over the last 6 months if he wanted to, but he hasn't. I won?t be changing a single thing about myself because this current ?thing? whatever it is, even if not a relationship yet, is proof of what I always believed, that it was just bad luck. And in fact by pursuing me then quickly rejecting me, that bunch of fuckwits have saved me from any more time in their company.
What happened to me could happen to anyone. There are no guarantees of success at OD, whatever you do. It's comforting to think that there must be an answer, or a magic solution, but there isn't. Hopefully in the end, perseverence and a massive sense of self-esteem pulls you through, and your luck changes. That's what happened to me.