For those of you who do online dating, what tips do you have and what have you learned

[bodenbiscuit]

From experience?

What are the signs a man is actually going to be worth your time?

Do you think a decent man should want to go out for dinner? I am in two minds about this. If it's a distaster you don't want to be stuck for hours. OTOH I think if someone suggests dinner it shows that they are more willing to make an effort to spend time talking, not getting drunk and increasing their chances of getting laid!

I would say avoid men with shirtless photos. I had one guy message me that he had been sleeping with his best friend's girlfriend while the friend was on holiday - how to make a good impression!

Maybe it was the same dude, boden

Ah dating. Such a poor RoI.

i did online dating for a while.
before giving up after meeting men who were looking for women made of breasts and/or new mothers for their kids and/or who were Ronnie Corbett lookalikes.

1. meet as soon as possible. do not get into the endless emailing/texting back and forth. meeting quickly will save time and will filter out the tyre kickers.
2. be prepared for the fact that a fair few will be already married or in relationships. they're easy to spot after a while and generally give themselves away.
3. anyone who says "i love you" before meeting up is only looking for sex.
4. don't presume that a man who has a photo of him with his child on his dating profile is genuine. some men sometimes use their kids as a gateway to sex.

loads more - will ponder this further .

oh yeah - i agree with above.

just go for a drink or coffee first, so you can make a quick getaway if he's a wrong 'un.
do not do dinner on a first date. its way too much time and you'll be sorry if you don't like him.

also - do not be afraid to cut a date short if you know in your heart he isn't right for you or is a weirdo, or married etc.

Yes, good advice on cutting it short. I stayed for a second drink with cocaine bogey man because he bought the first round and I felt that I had to buy one back for him. So I got another round and downed my lemonade before legging it as I thought it would be rude to do otherwise

So my tip is take some change that you can fling at him if you're not even with the bill yet and you need to make a getaway.

My top tip is not to spend too much time worrying if he likes you - concentrate on whether you like him. Could have saved myself a lot of agonising if I'd followed my own advice!

yep - i must say i really do think its ok to cut short a date.

if you stay, when you already know you never want his hands anywhere near you, then everyone's time is being wasted.
just make your excuses and go. they don't even have to be that convincing.
who cares? its only a date. not an exam.

once i had a few dates under my belt, i really stopped giving a flying fuck what they thought of me. what was important to me was whether i wanted to be with them.
life is way too short to be appeasing strange men.

This is a great! I've been OLD for about 6 months and thought it was just me that got all the weird ones!
I try and book a drink near me, and always now chat on the phone first. It has actually stopped me heading out on a few dates that would have been a total waste of time. You can suss so much out on the phone first.
I had one guy who wrote lovely messages, pitched it just right, then every time I suggested we chatted on the phone, avoided it and made endless excuses. When we eventually spoke, it was very obvious he wasn't English as he had said, and he definitely hadn't written the messages or his profile. I have nothing against dating anyone not native English, but he obviously lied and that's my issue!!
I had a bit of a knock of confidence at first, now I go out with my head firmly on my shoulders and have met a nice one, and on our 7th date.
...I also read the post about messaging too much and getting drawn in and ending up doing strange bedroom antics........been there too!!!

remember - weird men are weird partly because they are predatory.
over their lifetime, they will have honed and refined their craft - their radars, tools and resources to zero in on available, single women.
they are often very, very sly and highly able to suss out and then try to isolate the single women from the herd.

all i ever get is drunks, beggars, weirdos, possible sex offenders, sex addicts, married men and losers. all of these have developed their craft to zero in on available, single women.

Agree about chatting on the phone first, you can tell an awful lot more from someone's voice than a message.

Completely agree about meeting in person sooner rather than later, if they genuinely want to meet someone they will - the ones who message for ages, make excuses not to meet etc are usually married of just like the attention of messaging imo

Tubbs
remember - weird men are weird partly because they are predatory.

Not all of them... some men may just be completely inexperienced. Or lack social polish. Or not be NT.

I suppose it depends if your definition of "weird" is "made inappropriate remarks about how he'd be having a go on my tits soon" or just "is into obscure Manga comics and doesn't own a TV"

well i certainly found that the weirdoes are very quick to zoom in on the breast situation, straight off the bat.

Also, it depends on the Manga comic they're into too. if its Legend of the Demon Womb he's into - its definitely time to run for the hills call it a day.

Never ever go for a meal on the first date. Sometimes you know within a minute that you are not interested but you have a coffee out of politeness. To sit through a meal would be torture.

I drove to meet one guy and saw him waiting for me. I nearly drove past and went home as I could see he wasn't my type. I did meet him and he wasn't.

I find a lot of men are over-enthusiastic at first so I don't give my number out any more. My phone would be pinging morning till night, it was ridiculous. If you do swap numbers, chat first. You can learn a lot eg bit heavy, slagging off the ex, too boring.

Most men are not out for sex straight away but if they are, you can usually tell by the messages eg they ask for photos etc. one guy was putting pressure on me to wear 'sexy high heels' on a first date. I didn't go.

Tbh I found it fun at first but the novelty soon wore off.

Also be aware of what you are portraying in your profile. Occasionally I would look at women's profiles, particularly if they'd looked at mine first, and I was always surprised at how slutty some of the photos appeared.

I suspect the women were probably lovely, however 40 year olds doing duck face during a night out wearing a low cut top and a head full of crap extensions are always going to make guys think you would be up for some sexting.

I used to always make sure I was wearing normal clothing and pulling normal faces and that god help to weed out the guys just looking for sex.

My tip is if you get chatting to someone then don't delay that first meet up as I think that the longer you leave it the more nerve wracking it can become. By drawing it out there can be a big build up for it to then flop and cause you disappointment.

Me and DH met up 3 days after we first swapped messages and we went out for a drink.

Oh good idea for a thread!

i've been doing this about a month, only met up with one man in real life, he was nice. But not seen him again...........

I'm going through profiles now, sending thoughtful messages with a question to men whose profiles I like. At least two thirds of the time, I don't hear back from them! I am messaging men about 3-6 years older than I am, so although I know men want a younger woman, surely they can't all be ruling me out. (I needed my thick skin for this. A man with kids who didn't want any more kids (so, snap) had listed as his interests, psychology, health and fitness, he lived near me. So I messaged him. He messaged back JUST to say ''I hope you find what you're looking for '' Wow. I think I'd have felt better if he'd just ignored me! Such a strange response!

I've had some compliments on my profile from the kind of men I'd hope to meet up with, so I don't think I'm getting that part wrong. I just can't seem to get from messages to DATE.

writerwannabe I think that's really good advice. A few times, I feel I scared a man off wanting to meet up 'too soon' but really, what are we all doing? The one guy I met up with, we exchanged a few messages and I knew he had a sense of humour so I quickly suggested meeting up before we revealed something that would 'put the other off'. I would like to see him again. I thought we got on well. He's still looking............. I guess.

Bodenbiscuit that is quite a story to top!! Not sure I can top it, but I did once go on a date years ago (5+) with a man who had anorexia. I'm certain of it. He even mentioned that he could wear children's clothes, and seemed half proud/half apologetic. He wouldn't take milk in his coffee.

If someone doesn't ask to meet within say ten or twenty messages, I just stop. I've had that go on and on and you think - when are they going to ask me out? (Yes I know I could but in my experience it's best to see if they are keen). And then I realised there is a lot of plate-spinning going on - guys responding to messages just enough to keep you (and several others) on the go, but not actually showing much interest or asking to meet.

Oh God I've had so many awful dates! The one that I think tops them all tho is one a few years ago with someone I met on Guardian Soulmates. He seemed perfect, nice looking, articulate, interesting, arty, worked in a similar field to me. He wrote long emails about his life and I was really looking forward to meeting him. First thing was, he was about 2 inches shorter than me ( and I wasn't wearing heels). Then, we were chatting about previous relationships and he said his last one had ended because his girlfriend's friends had beaten him up! I was a bit shocked and asked why. He then confessed that he was a transman ( a female to male transsexual!). All the messages he'd sent me and he hadnt bothered to mention he didn't have a dick! I mean, I'm fairly open minded but it wasn't what I was looking for. I was really shocked, as apart from the height, he looked very masculine, stubble and receding hairline. Suffice it to say, I never met him again...

I'd have absolutely no problem with a transman but I would be taken aback if it was only disclosed after meeting. These sort of things should be up front (so to speak).

I once went on a date with a guy who had put very misleading photos of himself on his profile.

We agreed we would go out for something to eat in a nice pub and when he turned up I didn't even recognise him because of how different he looked.

We sat down and I asked the waiter for some menus and my date then told me that he didn't fancy eating as he'd already had something at home before he came out. As a result I had to sit there like an idiot and eat a 3 course meal on my own

During that date he wouldn't stop talking to me about his psychotic ex and how she stalked him and how she vandalised his motorbike. Thrilling stuff.

He then walked me to the taxi rank so I could get home and he asked me if I wanted a kiss, lol. I gave him a very firm no!

When I got home he sent me a text message to thank me for the date and asked if he could see me again as he felt we'd had a connection

He said, "I like a girl who enjoys her food!"

I told him that no offence, but I hadn't felt any chemistry and I thought it would be wrong of me to lead him on by agreeing to see him again.

I had also had a man message me and ask if he could wrap me up in tin foil and have sex with me as he had a fetish for robots...

ditto to nearly driving off when i saw what my date looked like. he had not provided any photo prior to our date and i had not insisted. i would now.
sorry but i knew he was a total mismatch for me.
gritted my teeth and went through with drinks.
stayed for 2 drinks even though i wanted to leave before i even had my first one.
that was in the early days. now i would not stick around for more than 1 drink, if i can see its going to go nowhere.
just make excuses, be firm and skedaddle.

Lois indeed, what a perfect way of putting it, plate-spinning. I do wonder if these guys want a pen pal, or are they brave enough to go out and risk meeting up with somebody

awholelotofnosy wow that takes the BISCUIT. wow.

Any 'separated' man who texts his 'ex' during your date isn't really separated.