dating web site Archives

November 6, 2009

Friday Advisory – How To Succeed On Dating Web Sites

Aside from all the seriousness that you approach dating with, sometimes you need to relax, take a step back, look at the whole thing and smile. So, without further ado here’s your Friday Advice – How To Succeed On Dating Web Sites.

1. Undress to your underwear (well, if you’re home, most likely you already are) and look in the mirror. If what you see ain’t Brad Pitt, Hugh Jackman or at least Daniel Craig – admit it that there will be girls who simply not going to like you. It ain’t exactly the end of the world, after all, you also don’t like warm beer or oatmeal cookies.

2. Take a few pictures of yourself. Don’t take pictures of you with your car, it’s like saying “Here’s where I have spent all my money for”. Don’t take pictures with someone else’s expensive car either – it would be like saying “Here’s where I would’ve put my money if I had them”, which is even worse. Make sure that none of your body parts isn’t significantly larger than the rest (yep, I am talking about that beer belly).

3. Put up your pictures in your dating profile. Also, it might make sense to fill your profile on a dating web site with information about yourself. Please, DO NOT specify the size of your male organ – no one would believe it anyway, and you really don’t want to date those stupid ones that would.

4. In case you actually have a sense of humor – don’t hide it, but tread carefully. I’ve seen cases when just two statements (Looking for long-term relationship and Looking for partners for orgy) have caused severe brain malfunction for at least one of the girls on dating web site, so she closed her profile and vanished in the great unknown.

5. If you picked a “romantic poet that is young at heart” type of image – it might work, of course, but those who would be interested in such image are usually either those skinny hairy girls who neglect the shower or really interested in the poetry too much that by the time you get to a real deal you’d be retired. But if it is your choice nonetheless, please choose faster, so you would stop stealing attention from real guys.

6. If a girl, in response to your first two sentences says you’re funny – she’s actually laughing at you.

7. If she’s too eager to embrace you from the get go – that’s a trap.

8. If she’s there once in a blue moon – she has a boyfriend (or husband, or a child) and just likes to mess around with people’s heads once in a while.

9. If she’s online from 9 to 5 – she’s definitely married, just bored at work.

10. If she’s online every single evening from 6 to 10 – you would have a hard time taking her out for a date, because while she’ll be wasting her time on you someone out there might snatch the guy that’s just right for her. And you know she just can’t let that happen!

11. If she’s online only from midnight to 3 or 4 am – she’s definitely from another country.

12. The most horrible thing is that you see her online on Friday or Saturday night. That means that whoever she’s dating had found something better. Do you need some other guy’s rejects?

13. If she wrote that your dating profile stole her heart this usually means there was no heart there in a first place.

14. If, after couple of meaningless exchanges she sends you a link to some other site – it’s a spamming robot. You don’t want it.

15. If the only picture she has in her profile was taken 15 years ago on a cell phone camera this means even she understands the ugly truth.

16. If the picture looks too good to be true – it probably is. If you suspect that the picture is done a bit too professionally, chances are that this is a professional bride.

17. If she has too many pictures with different men – maybe you’re in luck. Chances are all those guys are her friends but none of them are good enough for her, so that’s where you move in.

18. If her dating profile has a bunch of pictures like “me with girls in cafe/at the beach/in restaurant” and most of them are the same girls – be careful. She might find some spare time for you, but most likely you will end up paying for her and her friends, partying all the time without ever getting closer. Maybe (just maybe) one of her friends being really drunk will agree to a blow job, but won’t be able to perform anyway because she will fall asleep.

19. There’s a separate class of girls on any dating web site, I call them “talking questionnaires“. Even if she’s going to agree to devote her attention to you, for the next 30 to 40 minutes you are going to be answering your questions. Even longer, actually, if you really could remember what was the middle name of your kindergarten teacher, when your old uncle Joe fell down the stairs and how many stairs were there, what color was the first shoes you ever wore and so on. After you brave through all of the questions she will disappear for half an hour and only after your eleventh attempt to contact her will she reply that you’re great guy and someone somewhere out there might definitely like you. Just not her and not today. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either, you know.

20. There’s another class of beings that think that if one guy stood them up for a date that means all guys are pigs. And they go out there for revenge. They want blood, if only figuratively speaking. Anything you may say will be interpreted as a proof that you’re pig. If you won’t say anything they will interpret is as that you are such a big pig that you have un-learned how to talk.

21. There’s yet another class of… let’s say people… They are wives of rich guys who have abandoned them for a young secretary or better looking mistress. In pictures they look above average (meaning – hot enough for you to have a wet dream on a spot). They are in between 27 and 47, usually with one kid. They want someone to love them. Someone to appreciate them for who they are. Someone to marry and come to US and live happily ever after. But not right now, you need to get to know each other better. Just as you start uncovering one amazing thing after another you are surprised that she also likes that “find your own tree” moment, she LOVES Audrey Hepburn or some other stuff you happen to like. There’s one little problem though – the internet is expensive where she lives. It costs around $500/month and she had almost spent all her money for her child. And her shoes are old and torn on the side. And her child wants to go to the beach next month. And so on and so forth. If you look hard enough you even may find real pictures of these abandoned wives, but to much of a surprise they look nothing like the pictures they’ve sent, wear old torn sweaters, sneakers, glasses and beards, live with their parents in Eastern Europe and don’t really care about meeting you.

Tread carefully.

October 11, 2009

eHarmony Follow Up

Just recently I noticed that eHarmony is running some cheesy ads on TV. Unfortunately, YouTube only has limited number of ads and not all variations are present, so I cannot link to the one I was watching. There are, however, a few more that are so cheesy they’ve lost all the kick. But I digress.

The point that I want to reinforce is that the major eHarmony’s selling point is the increased distance between members, so that you would settle for anything as long as the pain of going over the questionnaires would stop. At least two of ads on YouTube feature people holding (literally) stacks of paper with member’s profile data. I’m not saying you should make every date a blind date, but at least don’t make it a scientific research.

On the other hand I just might be barking at the wrong tree. One of the commercials start with these exact words: “My mom mentioned eHarmony”. Right off the bat this position the eHarmony’s target audience as immature people who need hand holding when choosing life partner. So now I am thinking – maybe all those questions aren’t bad. Maybe it’s the hand-holding that those immature people need and crave in order to find someone decent, someone they could finally settle with. You know, someone just good enough.

August 31, 2009

Undercover Report – eHarmony.com – Part 3

Read Part 1, Part 2.

Last week I wrapped up the research and canceled the membership. Overall, I was extremely unsatisfied with the search process and quality of the results eHarmony offers and the main reason for it is the primary eHarmony’s feature – their matching system.

See, the idea behind the system that eHarmony offers is to match you only with people who align well with gazillion of test questions you’ve been asked. There’s whole another can of problems with test themselves, but we’ll get there in a moment. However, the whole process of answering questions, looking through supplied matches and making contact has been carefully crafted into bureaucracy beyond any wildest imagination. The solid and sound idea of scientific matching eroded into a chain of automatic canned responses similar to your average customer service phone. eHarmony have successfully diminished any kind of personal touch into choosing which canned response to use.

In all practicality the idea of putting a ladder of half a dozen steps (send your preferences, wait for her preferences, send next bunch of questions, wait for response, wait for her questions, and on and on) might work to protect you from a unnecessary attention, but any maniac would be much more determined to get to you then the person that just wants to find a relationship. For more active types this means abandoning the service, while for more passive it would probably mean settling for less. In either case people who use the service loose.

Now in regards to questions – they are neither helping nor telling anything useful about the person. From my experience, if the person writes some messed up entry on “how do you see your first date” question, it would tell me more about her than a bunch of multiple choice questions. Ever since the school we’ve been taught to pick the right answer on the test, but this isn’t a test, this is something totally different. Why even use multiple choice in such cases is beyond me.

I remember the initial idea behind an extensive questionnaire was to fend off maniacs and sleazes and keep the good guys in. Well, good guys just don’t have a load of time to sift through useless profiles without any sign of personality. Add lack of the photographs to lack of individuality and you would even be able to tell if the person behind profile is real.

Overall, the service seems to be a complete, utter and definite waste of time and money.

June 21, 2009

Undercover Report – eHarmony.com – Part 2

One thing I forgot to share about the profile without pictures was that there was about a hundred of closed communications (that is when eHarmony sends you “check out this match” and you decide to close it for whatever reason), with the sole reason of profile missing the pictures.

This is important. In fact, this is the most important thing ever. eHarmony pitches itself as a service that matches you on a zillion levels through their overly complicated and annoying questionnaire process. However, think of it this way – if you have decided to bite the bullet and pay for matchmaking service, you want to get your money’s worth. Without an excellent picture in your dating profile you are wasting your money. Was that the idea? Hardly.

No matter how many questions you answer and how carefully eHarmony’s algorithm will be picking your matches, if your potential soul mate will see a garbled picture with someone wear something flashy shot against some kind of car – you pretty much making sure they won’t be interested. Imagine the girl of your dreams passing by because you yourself didn’t make any effort to make the connection.

One good thing about eHarmony is that even after another party has decided to close the connection, you still have a “grace shot” at it, sending your kind of closing message. After I have posted pictures to my profile I went through most of closed communications and shot back with “I have uploaded the pictures”. I bet only about 10 – 20% of ladies will give it another look. Just think about the rest of them and how much you are missing by simply being a lazy ass and not posting your pictures.

Remember: before you can get to her ears you need to please her eyes. Regardless of how many questions eHarmony will have you answer, not a single one of them makes you closer with your match.

June 15, 2009

Undercover Report – eHarmony.com – Part 1

Since we have suggested a number of dating web sites on this blog, I have personally decided to bite the bullet and went undercover into some of the web sites we have listed – and some we have not. First hand report – read below.

First dating web site I went to was eHarmony – since they are the most advertised, or rather, were the most advertised when I was signing up. For full 2 months I kept my profile without any pictures – the matches were pouring in no matter what. I even started a conversation with some lady. I didn’t feel bad – 80% of matched profiles were without pictures as well. Of course it’s important to match on those hundreds of factors, but if there’s no picture – still, I’m not a game. I am, therefore, suprised that about 10% of matches did start some sort of communication. They must be either terminally naive or dead desperate. Judging by pictures of a few who had them – second reason makes incredibly more sense.

Overall, the picture scene on eHarmony puzzles me to no extent. A lot of good looking ladies have their pictures with good looking men – without any explanations whatsoever. I mean – this could be brother, uncle or gay friend – I couldn’t care less, but if you post a picture of yourself hanging off the neck of another guy – there better be an explanation of that. Sometimes there are two or even three guys who freely hug the lady. I have no objection to that in porn movies, but on a dating web site that pitches itself as a source for matching people for long term relationships… I don’t know.

Now to those party shots. I understand – you want to look sociable, friendly and nice. But if you’re the only one who’s looking 45 in the picture named “Me and my classmates from college” and your profile age is well under 40s – maybe you should reconsider the pictures you’re posting. Same goes for those pictures with bunch of drunken people in it – you’re not telling me you are sociable, you are telling me you hang out with drunks.

And last, on the topic of pictures, if you are paying money to find a match – shouldn’t you be a little more concerned with how you look in the picture? Invest an hour of your time as well, do your make up (or shave), brush your hair (if you have it), ask a friend to hold on to your point-n-shoot camera – look presentable.

As a second part of my research I have uploaded two pictures that in essence – similar to those that appear on user’s profiles. Third part, as you might imagine – uploading NORMAL pictures and measuring the difference. My prediction, based on current experience with eHarmony – it will not make any difference whatsoever. Why? Stay tuned.

May 15, 2008

Back From The Crusades

The blog is back from the long and unwanted silence. Frankly, I didn’t expect to vanish for such a long period, but finally all perils are over.

If anyone’s interested in purchasing the “9 Dating Basics” book – let me know in comments and it will be arranged.

If you have stories to tell, leave a shout in comments as well and we’ll get them published with comments from our dating advisors and guys and gals like you and me. Trust me, it will be fun.

More about dating advice – we’re all the way in the dating season, so stay tuned for more dating stories and more fun.

P.S. This blog it up next for software update, so if something isn’t working – DON’T PANIC!

February 12, 2008

How To Get On The Right Track

After you are done reading our e-book that is due February 14th, right on Valentine’s Day (yep, it’s a gift!) you may ask yourself how come you didn’t think about this earlier. True, most of this is pretty obvious. However, problem remains the same — 8 out of 10 guys will fail at least at one of this basic things. Your task now is to leap ahead of them by doing this right.

In order to maintain a positive outlook you must show that you are respecting yourself. You come in clean clothes. You come on time. You give her a nice compliment. You take her to a nice clean place. You pay for her. You call her next day.

Let me share one little secret here, in this book. The most asked question after a person reads this book is — how do I start on a right track? Can you help me fix my dating issues and improve my dating experience. Well… yes, WE CAN HELP YOU!

Here’s SHORT and CONCISE guide to IMPROVE YOUR DATING EXPERIENCE:

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Read this blog and ask questions. The response would be better if you will leave your questions with the post that is related to your issue. If there is no such post — leave your question with the last published post.
If you want to GET ON A RIGHT DATING TRACK — get yourself a brand new profile. For your convenience I have compiled a list of dating web sites where you get post your profile. The REGISTRATION IS FREE, so don’t wait.

Why get a new profile? Well, that’s simple — profiles on dating sites deteriorate. They get tainted with feeling of failure. It is very hard to start afresh if you keep looking at all the messages you have sent and never got any response. Stare at that hottie with whom you chatted for two months but she never gave you her phone number. That’s depressing.

But don’t delete your old profile yet! Use it smart — before writing to someone or responding to someone — check it if you have already talked to that person. Try a different approach, use different words, don’t fall for the same trick. Just don’t tell her you are that looser.