The Dating Thread 118. Online and real life dating advice

[Bant]

Dating thread rules:

1. The first rule about the dating thread is you don't talk about it with people you're dating.
2. Develop a thick skin.
3. Do not invest emotionally too soon.
4. It's all BS until it actually happens.
5. Trust your gut instinct.
6. People vanishing, lying & being generally weird is not your fault.
7. You are the prize - they should be trying to impress you.
8. If it's not fun, stop.
9. Loo update is mandatory.

10. No dating the thread.

I'm not sure the knobs have all the success - well, not by any measure most of us would put on 'success' anyway.

I've found that tailing off conversation happens 50/50 me to them in my case. I can't cope with one liners, one a day, and I can't cope with huge long messages as then I run out of things to say and feel boring.

A guy messaged me the other day and said "Let's chat, we have something in common already", so I looked at his profile and went back and said "Well, we're both five foot seven?", he replied. "yeah" and that was that. Shrugs - what was that about then?

I mean in ratio to the success stories, they seem to be the ones having the interactions at least.

We don't hear many tales on here of people meeting lovely people who end up being lovely people. Any why not? It's not like we're a review site only leaving bad feedback, we leave all feedback on here. So why don't we hear more good news stories?

If you just step back and look at the overall picture of it all. It's very much the women saying they're meeting or messaging idiots and the guys saying we can't even get a message back let alone a date.

Info I can see your logic but if that's the case then please get back to online dating and take the ratio back down!

I've met a few nice guys this last month but then life keeps getting in the way for things to develop! Mr southerner has had to go back down south for work so caboshed that for now. Secret ginger is working overtime and cf weekends are out of sync for a few weeks but Mr South Africa is doing well with contact and seeing him again on Friday.
3 good ones, all still text daily

I meet and chat to lovely people, I just don't want to jump their bones, which is a necessary requirement in my book :)

I think the perception here is skewed by the fact it is mainly women posting, I feel sure there are a ton of men who have stories about unpleasant women on dating sites. Also, people wander off from the thread once they are loved up.

We all have the ability to be twats at times, it may be just that some people don't consider our twattishness as unattractive as others do. :)

I agree Out when people are loved up they leave. I'm not posting much now as think it could last with my iron. If it doesn't I would go back onto OLD and I just don't feel ready to walk away from thread yet.

info I'm sure it's the same with women, I have heard a few horny stories from men about crazy women they have dated. I keep trying to work out why I keep attracting knobs rather than nice men, I wonder if there are many nice men on dating sites. I wish there were other ways of meeting people. I might have a look at local 'meet' groups rather than OLD, I would rather meet up, enjoy a hobby with people and then maybe click with someone. I am trying to decide if I should close my profile on POF and give up on it, I'm finding it very stressful and it's taking over my life, I have other things in my life that I enjoy doing, I don't need to be glued to OLD.

Horny stories 😂 sorry I'm such a child today 😂

LM - why don't you post a few excerpts from your profile here and maybe we can help?

It seems you are attracting the 'wrong sort' so it could be your wording or your photos.

From what men tell me of their OLD experience, they have to put up with just as many 'knobish' women. Obsessives, drunks and the very needy feature heavily. Men dont seem to get the angry messages that women do though. I think that when women are rejected, they blame themselves and feel upset. When men are rejected they blame women and get angry.

Like OutToGetYou said, I find that there are lots of seemingly lovely men in line but they just lack the 'phwar' factor and without physical attraction, you're just friends.

Info From what youve said, You may not be getting messages back because you only tend to target 'weapons grade' women who, by their very nature are going to be bombarded with messages and so can afford to be picky. Dont forget that many men will be adopting the scatter gun approach to messaging and loading those messages & their profile with bullshit.

Rise. It's important to note that I would send messages to women that are weapons grade to me

I'm not stupid or naive enough to be sending messages to supermodels!!!

out I have changed my profile so many times, at the moment I just have a list of 'likes' and 'dislikes' and then a short sentence saying I'm not looking for ONS and that I'm looking for someone with similar interests (someone active who likes the outdoors), my profile pictures are not raunchy, one of me with my dog, one of me in a dress and a couple of photos I have taken (I like photography). Happy for someone to have a look at my profile for me.

Ah, I see Info so not 10/10 on the 'lad scale' but a 10/10 on your own scale. Noted.

Well in that case I have no idea where you're going wrong. It might be worth messaging the supermodels after all! (make sure they've got a car first though)

I'm 4 weeks in with Mr Social who is proving lovely and reliable and jump bonesish and fun and happy. He met all my criteria

In this situation you dont feel so much like posting 1) because it might go wrong if you go on about how well its going 2) because others are having a tough time on OLD so dont want to rub in how well you are doing.

But its good. He came off site immediately and then I did too so there are no pressures of others potentially being in the mix. I asked him to an event in July I wanted to go to that I thought he would like and hes going with me. We are in good contact every day and its just easy and happy and feels good. So I guess we are starting to think about being together months if not longer.

Hi everyone, not too much to report my end. I decided myself and Mr City would be better as friends which he graciously accepted (he's the one still living with separated wife - not yet divorced) and we are meeting up this weekend to see an exhibition in an art gallery.

I've not found anyone online I've connected with recently. It can be quite hard work!

Today, I bumped into one of my brothers oldest and closest friends (I've also known him all of our lives) and we have always got on well, certainly nothing romantic etc but it did cross my mind about "what if ...." is it a no go area do you think? I have never been in this situation before. He's not giving me any vibes etc but I was just thinking aloud .... what do you all think?

Why not, Ruby? In for a penny and all that...

Which site is it Lovemusic? I can take a look if you PM the link, as long as it's pof or okc.

rise - I don't get many knobbish or angry women, per se. Boring, yes. A few bitter ones, but outright angriness is rare. It is out there though.

Mostly it's monosyllabic ones who can't maintain a reasonable conversation, never ask questions, or give one word answers.

Or people who just lol! Haha! Everything's so funny! I went to work today it was grate lol! Haha! Wot did u get up to babe xx!

(Shudder)

I'm on POF Bant I will pm you my username.

Okay.

Right, you have six photos. One is of a horse. One is of a sunset. For me, that's an immediate no. I don't want to date a horse.

None of your profile photos are of you in a social setting. They're not bad photos but they're just of you, posing for selfies. You need to have one of you doing something, even a blurry out of focus one of you with other people.

Your profile text is just a list of what you like. There's no description of what you want from a man apart from specifying that they've got to share one of your interests.

What do you actually want to do? 'I'd like to meet someone to walk along the beach with while talking about how much we hate game of thrones' is better than 'I like the beach and dislike game of thrones'

Also, remove the list of dislikes. That's a negative thing. Everyone has things they dislike, but listing a bunch of them puts people off.

I might actually dislike the same things too, but if I saw someone had listed those things on their profile, instead of me saying 'oh wow, they dislike the same things as me' I'd think 'what a negative person, listing all the things they don't like'

Sorry, this is all constructive criticism, I have seen far worse profiles out there, and you're obviously attractive and can spell 'game of thrones' but.. you need to say something more about who you are, give someone an idea of you as a person. Otherwise you're just a picture on a screen with a list of likes and dislikes

Thanks. Bant, I have changed it so many times, have tried a long description, have tried short and sweet.

As for the photos, I have no shots of me doing anything, mainly because I am usually out along or with me children (who are useless at taking photos) so selfies is all I have . The 2 other photos are kind of showing off my hoby of photography, I enjoy reading profiles and seeing people's work (art or photography) used on their profile pics, sometimes it helps to start a conversation?

The lists of likes and dislikes are new (changed it a week or so ago as I thought maybe it's best to keep it simple) but I might change it back to a few short sentences?

Sounds like a plan.

Personally, I like a nice long profile, because I'm chatty myself. It'll put off people who don't like to read and give those who do things to ask you about. Lists of likes are okay, as long as there's other stuff about you too. Lists of dislikes are negative, so get rid of it. You can always bring them up in conversation later

There's nothing more annoying than a profile that only says 'just ask'..

Why? Ask what? I have a dozen other more interesting profiles to think up a reply to. Why make life difficult?

(This wasn't to you, lovemusic , just a personal bugbear)

I hate short profiles too, I quite like reading the long ones, gives me more of a picture about a person.

I have changed a couple of my photos, managed to find a photo of me after race for life (though I look stupid) and a photo of me bodyboarding which isn't a great photo but shows me actually doing something.

Yep, that's better. Less negative, more stuff about you. It makes you seem more like a person (and internet dating is so often just a bunch of photos and random text, like something on eBay) that it's easier to get a picture of you as a person.

The only other thing I can think of is to say what you like in a man, or ask some questions for them to talk about. You'll get more messages from chatty people if you say something like 'I loved my last holiday to XXX - have you been? You should, it's lovely. If you've read this and want to get in touch, tell me what where you last enjoyed going'

Or something like that. That gives them a conversation you've started, let's you know they've read your profile, and gives them something to talk about.

What you have now is fine, by the way, and it's very much individual tastes, but to me some profiles are interesting and some are left-swipingly dull. Yours is much better than it was but it's still a little closed

Ooh profile analysing, that's kinda outing ourselves isn't it. Exciting but scary!!

A bit scary info but I'm not too bothered, I'm sure there are people on MN who know me in RL.