[Chumbaniya]

(Original post by Adhsur)
How is 20 messages in 10 seconds even possible?

This is horrendous!

Whoa! No wonder it's hard to get replies.

There needs to be a dating site that has an entrance exam. Not filtering based on questions, but an exam you need to pass in order to use the site. And it should be really hard.

[Adhsur]

(Original post by Chumbaniya)
Whoa! No wonder it's hard to get replies.

There needs to be a dating site that has an entrance exam. Not filtering based on questions, but an exam you need to pass in order to use the site. And it should be really hard.

Agreed.

And here's the really scummy part: I tried to delete my account just now and it says I'm not allowed to for 24 hours.

Lol, well that was fun anyway!

[Staceycake]

Imo it's a great way for people to meet somebody when they don't have the time to go socialise and you have the chance of meeting somebody 'special' that you would not meet in your everyday life because of them living futher away.

My experiances have never been so succesful so far and I have been on there for 2-3 years.
I have had a few dates which have never led to anything more than a first or 2nd date.
I met a guy I was with for about 4-5 months (don't even remember aha), he was a pretty screwed up guy and I eventually got rid .
Last guy had just broke up from his ex, kept changing his mind whether he was ready or not and now we are not talking..

Guess the guy for me just isn't on that dating site yet .

[Adhsur]

For those who want to know what POF did to me, check this image of my inbox out

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/137/63778187.jpg/

[Spontogical]

(Original post by Chumbaniya)
Whoa! No wonder it's hard to get replies.

There needs to be a dating site that has an entrance exam. Not filtering based on questions, but an exam you need to pass in order to use the site. And it should be really hard.

Thanks for giving me a fantastic business idea.

[Chumbaniya]

(Original post by Staceycake)
Imo it's a great way for people to meet somebody when they don't have the time to go socialise and you have the chance of meeting somebody 'special' that you would not meet in your everyday life because of them living futher away.

My experiances have never been so succesful so far and I have been on there for 2-3 years.
I have had a few dates which have never led to anything more than a first or 2nd date.
I met a guy I was with for about 4-5 months (don't even remember aha), he was a pretty screwed up guy and I eventually got rid .
Last guy had just broke up from his ex, kept changing his mind whether he was ready or not and now we are not talking..

Guess the guy for me just isn't on that dating site yet .

You didn't mention what site that was. Interesting that you've been using one for a long time despite the bad experiences though - the impression I've got from some profiles is that many women use dating sites, have a bad experience, then avoid them for a while before going back.

(Original post by Adhsur)
For those who want to know what POF did to me, check this image of my inbox out

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/137/63778187.jpg/

Brutal.

[Chumbaniya]

(Original post by Spontogical)
Thanks for giving me a fantastic business idea.

It sounds good, but it's not usually a good idea to deliberately cut out around 80% of your market (that's the minimum amount of people I'd want to exclude - 90% would probably be more reasonable).

[DancinBallerina]

(Original post by Adhsur)
How is 20 messages in 10 seconds even possible?

This is horrendous!

See, told you!

I bet my bottom dollar you'll have a message from a bloke asking something sickening . .I did on my first day, and that was within 30mins of me joining the site earlier in the year lol.

It's like when a new person joins the site, they all jump on the woman like a pack of wolves :/

[Spontogical]

I've always gotten responses on OKCupid. The people are far more decent there. The only difficulty with online dating is shifting through the timewasters and my god, there are many timewasters. You can't have good rapport amongst OKC's chat system. Which is why I always move over to facebook or text. but the idea in general is good. Been doing some tests in the past too. Well written profiles seem to do really well; but my weakness is that i put far too much effort into it and made it really long. Got an average of 6 views per week; but none would message first so i assume they're not interested. not bad though.

~im so tired, such an incoherent post. night lol

[Spontogical]

(Original post by Chumbaniya)
It sounds good, but it's not usually a good idea to deliberately cut out around 80% of your market (that's the minimum amount of people I'd want to exclude - 90% would probably be more reasonable).

yup, niche is always best anyways ~ there are far too many trolls and dirtbags online in general.

[Staceycake]

(Original post by Chumbaniya)
You didn't mention what site that was. Interesting that you've been using one for a long time despite the bad experiences though - the impression I've got from some profiles is that many women use dating sites, have a bad experience, then avoid them for a while before going back.

It was on Pof . I have been on OkCupid too.
The bad experiances are what have made me who I am today tbh. The biggest thing that made me who I am now and why I am like I am is due to a break up with a guy of 2 years. I am thankful for it though tbh.
Well I don't really browse so much no more, I sign in to check messages and that's about it. I had said I wasn't going to get involved with no boys this year and just concentrate on myself for once.. that didn't work out..

[Chumbaniya]

(Original post by Spontogical)
Got an average of 6 views per week

17 in 2 days. Get dunked.

The other thing with OkCupid - an extremely high number of people that are good matches for me are bisexual and/or vegetarian. I am neither. This interests me.

[Lucia.]

If you've tried online dating, what made you decide to do so? What sites did you join and why?

I'm on OkCupid. I joined because I'm cheap-skate and too poor to pay. Due to your good looks, I anticipate a lot of success for you online.

Have you had good or bad experiences meeting people online?

Well so far I get people messaging me for nudes, pictures of my feet, and questions related to how sexually deviant I can potentially be. I've got in contact with some good guys but it's petered out unfortunately. There are a few people who have come across as a bit desperate for my liking. But I'm not a really picky person. I'm not on it for the attention and I'm not full of myself.

How have you felt judgements you made about people based on profiles and chatting correlated to what they were like in real life?

I don't know because I haven't met anyone from the site yet.

When you're looking for someone online, what is it that appeals to you about a person? Is it the same sort of thing that you'll notice first about a person in real life, or do you assess people a little differently?

I assess people a bit differently but I try to bear in mind that what someone says can come across differently to the intended meaning. I go for intelligent guys who might study science, and who appreciate similar music, read books and who have similar values, are driven and have roughly similar political views to me (but it's not a dealbreaker). I do have a physical type I prefer but I'm flexible on that.

What are your habits when looking for someone? Do you like to send brief, non-specific messages to a lot of people, or find people with common interests which you can talk about in more detail? Do you like to wait to see who has shown an interest in you, or browse for yourself?

I go through profiles which appeal and I hide the ones which don't. I don't pay much attention to the match percentages used on OkCupid. I send messages to people who really appeal to me but not so much those that I'm lukewarm about. I don't send non-specifics. I ask specific questions and start off light-hearted so it doesn't take much to reply if they are interested. I prefer to be sent messages but I send them myself too.

[JessicaUk]

(Original post by Staceycake)
Imo it's a great way for people to meet somebody when they don't have the time to go socialise and you have the chance of meeting somebody 'special' that you would not meet in your everyday life because of them living futher away.

My experiances have never been so succesful so far and I have been on there for 2-3 years.
I have had a few dates which have never led to anything more than a first or 2nd date.
I met a guy I was with for about 4-5 months (don't even remember aha), he was a pretty screwed up guy and I eventually got rid .
Last guy had just broke up from his ex, kept changing his mind whether he was ready or not and now we are not talking..

Guess the guy for me just isn't on that dating site yet .

Or girl?! :-) xxx

[Staceycake]

(Original post by JessicaUk)
Or girl?! :-) xxx

Aha I'm 100% not into chicks.

[JessicaUk]

(Original post by Staceycake)
Aha I'm 100% not into chicks.

Yeah I know..... :-( Oh well! xxx

[Spontogical]

(Original post by Chumbaniya)
17 in 2 days. Get dunked.

The other thing with OkCupid - an extremely high number of people that are good matches for me are bisexual and/or vegetarian. I am neither. This interests me.

Damn you ~ were these cold visits, or did you visit their profiles first yourself?

Same here; I actually had a 96% match at one point, was good times. Too bad she wasn't interested.

[DoctorSatan]

(Original post by Unicron)

I've tried POF but their site is really badly designed, hard to navigate around, and the users all seem chavs.

I've never tried online dating, but a friend of mine created a PoF profile and tried to persuade me to get one. Out of curiosity I had a look and was put off for good. A fair percentage of the girls on the site were either single mums, overweight or appeared neurotic (I think one chubby girl stated on her profile (WHY IS IT SOOOO HARD TO MAKE FRIENDS!, almost as if she wasn't looking for a relationship in the first place). I think a lot of the girls on that site believe that one day that some ripped, extremely rich man will come along one day and give them a better life. It's a shame though given that, from what I've noticed, obese girls look a lot better (and so get more male attention) if they lose a stone or two and put a bit more effort into their appearance.

TL;DR summary: online dating is no substitute for the real world.

[Anonymous]

about 2 years ago I signed up to OkCupid and PoF, I went on about 5 dates (3 OkCupid, 2 PoF)

First one - Everything was going really well, he did leave out quite a huge detail which was that he had a son, but told me before we actually went on a date. Everything went really well, and then he just didn't text me and that was it, never heard of spoke to him again.

Second one - Met up, went out for a day together but it just wasn't there, he was a really lovely but there was just nothing between us.

Third guy - Seemed a really nice guy, more forward than the others and I liked that as I'm quite shy, we met up a few times and then it just became really obvious he was trying to get me into bed and when it wasn't working he stood me up, I did confront him about a week later and he just said "well what did you expect from a dating site?".

Fourth Guy - He was closer to my age than the other guys were and we had more common interests, but when we met up there was just nothing at all between us.

On the train home from that date I decided I wasn't going to do this anymore, but then I got a text. I forgot completely I'd given my number to this guy, but he didn't seem all that interested and I didn't think anything of it and assumed after the short text conversation we had that that was going to be it, but then he text me and asked me to go out with him.

So Number Five - He was almost 6 years older than I was, older than I'd ever thought I'd date, but we had a fantastic date and I didn't want it to end and neither did he, so we met up then next day and had another great day, and then the day after I ended up staying the night at his and we spent the day after together too and then that was it, my friends love him, my parents love him and I love him. we were a couple. Two years later we're engaged and trying to decided where we're going to buy our house.

I know there aren't many like stories more like that but it did work out for me, I didn't have much hope but it did go well and I'm really happy that I met him and I know we wouldn't actually have met without it.

Even though I met my partner on PoF, I prefered OkCupid as a site, PoF is awkward to use and I think there are quite a lot of people on there that just look at pictures rather than read profiles or anything and I did find a got quite a lot of messages which can really overwhelming.

[Chumbaniya]

I absolutely agree with the comments about PoF's bad design. It's just a worse site overall, but I suppose it has a very large number of users to offset that. I'd say the PoF so far has made me like humanity in general less, whereas OkCupid has made me like humanity more.

(Original post by Anonymous)
we met up a few times and then it just became really obvious he was trying to get me into bed

This isn't really online dating specific, but I find this quite odd. Maybe you're younger/more reserved/have some religious beliefs about sex, but personally if I didn't have an interest in sleeping with someone after a few dates that would be a very clear indication that there wasn't any hope for us as a couple. I suppose this is why OkCupid tells me I'm 'More Sex-Driven'.

I think there are quite a lot of people on there that just look at pictures rather than read profiles or anything and I did find a got quite a lot of messages which can really overwhelming.

I think the way PoF is set up makes this almost a necessity - there's almost no way when doing a quick browse to get an idea of what someone is like, while OkCupid's matching system, while obviously very much a simplification as it just gives you percentages, can at least tell you at a glance whether you're likely to share interests and attitudes with someone. I think it also does a better job of pulling interesting bits of info from the profile to display when you look at people in a list view.

(Original post by Spontogical)
Damn you ~ were these cold visits, or did you visit their profiles first yourself?

I think it's 3 that I'd visited (2 that I'd messaged) and the rest them visiting first, out of 19 now.