A while back I had an open offer to provide suggestions to LW-ers OKC profiles. I had a lot of fun doing it, and giving some general one-on-one advice as well. The offer still stands, if more people are interested!
I’m 28 yo female. I’ve been involved in many kinds of relationships (married, divorced, mono, poly, serious, casual, and everything in-between), and am a former hired gun (aka professional flirt).
I’m willing to give whatever one-on-one advice that I can.
Hmm. I have an OKCupid profile, but I haven’t updated it in a while, since it barely averaged one view a month and I haven’t gotten messaged in over a year. Even if I had the Awesomest Profile Ever I don’t think it would help. Wherever the people I need to meet are, it doesn’t look like they’re on OKC.
(Note: I am assuming you are a straight male from your use of “girlfriend”.)
I have an OKCupid profile, but I haven’t updated it in a while, since it barely averaged one view a month
There are ways to raise your view count:
Log in once a day- You don’t have to actually do anything, but one of the search options is “Online in the last ”, if you rarely log on, then you probably aren’t showing up on most females’ searches.
When you update, answer questions with explanations, add pics, etc, it pops you into people’s front pages. (i.e. ” just uploaded a new photo” or something)
View, rate, or favorite other people who are local and have a decent match rate. Personally, if I see anyone over 80% match rate has viewed me, I’ll check them out. If they are less than 50% match rate and they favorite, rate or message me, it’s creepy. Don’t do that.
I haven’t gotten messaged in over a year
I admit it isn’t fair, but men are still expected to do most of the pursuing on these sites, and girls get to pick and choose. The fact that you’ve even gotten one message is pretty promising. It really is up to you on these sites to message a bunch of females. Sorry.
My personal experiences follow this- When I message a guy, I am almost guaranteed a response. When I message a girl it’s more like 50⁄50. From what I hear, it’s much worse for guys messaging girls. On my end, as a female I get lots of messages and such, and only respond to very few (maybe 1%).
What this means is you have to do a decent amount of work to get just one date with a girl.
Messages should be tailored to their profile, but don’t spend too much time on them, since you need to get quantity out. Even more effective in getting a female to respond is to IM her: For a message, the recipient has to make a conscious decision to reply. Whereas when an IM pops up, the recipient has to make a conscious decision not to respond.
(Dark Artsish warning) Most people feel much more guilty not responding to an IM that has just popped up, than a message sitting in their inbox. They are likely to reply just to be polite. Don’t push things, but if they are amenable to conversation, you’ve already got your foot in the door. Also, if you favorite a person, it will tell you when they are online, so you can msg them. (end Dark Arts)
If you send me your username, we can continue this conversation via PM.
Thanks, but that all pretty much falls into the category of “general advice I’ve heard many times before” or “stuff I already knew”, including the dark arts bit.
I’m not exactly sure how to link to a specific OKC profile, there doesn’t seem to be an applicable URL that I can find. In lieu of that, my username there is DarkDaydreamer. I do log in semi-regularly because of the “online in the last ” thing, but the last time I edited my proflie or did more than glance at the Quiver, was at least a year ago.
The fact that you’ve even gotten one message is pretty promising.
I didn’t know this, however (and if true, that’s a bit of a self-esteem boost). But, it supports the notion that my problem lies in finding the right people in the first place; something I have had no success doing on OKC. And I would prefer not to go through a dating site anyway, if possible.
(I’ve been on Meetup.com a lot, but all the groups in my area are either religious-only, lesbian-only, women-only, deader than HDDVD, or about something I have absolutely no interest in. There’s a really disproportionate number of those first three, too.)
If this offer is still open, I’m interested (provided I can count on you not to defect by linking my Lesswrong identity with my real identity). Private messaging is not working at the moment for me; perhaps it will for you.
A while back I had an open offer to provide suggestions to LW-ers OKC profiles. I had a lot of fun doing it, and giving some general one-on-one advice as well. The offer still stands, if more people are interested!
I’m 28 yo female. I’ve been involved in many kinds of relationships (married, divorced, mono, poly, serious, casual, and everything in-between), and am a former hired gun (aka professional flirt).
I’m willing to give whatever one-on-one advice that I can.
Hmm. I have an OKCupid profile, but I haven’t updated it in a while, since it barely averaged one view a month and I haven’t gotten messaged in over a year. Even if I had the Awesomest Profile Ever I don’t think it would help. Wherever the people I need to meet are, it doesn’t look like they’re on OKC.
(Note: I am assuming you are a straight male from your use of “girlfriend”.)
There are ways to raise your view count:
Log in once a day- You don’t have to actually do anything, but one of the search options is “Online in the last ”, if you rarely log on, then you probably aren’t showing up on most females’ searches.
When you update, answer questions with explanations, add pics, etc, it pops you into people’s front pages. (i.e. ” just uploaded a new photo” or something)
View, rate, or favorite other people who are local and have a decent match rate. Personally, if I see anyone over 80% match rate has viewed me, I’ll check them out. If they are less than 50% match rate and they favorite, rate or message me, it’s creepy. Don’t do that.
I admit it isn’t fair, but men are still expected to do most of the pursuing on these sites, and girls get to pick and choose. The fact that you’ve even gotten one message is pretty promising. It really is up to you on these sites to message a bunch of females. Sorry.
My personal experiences follow this- When I message a guy, I am almost guaranteed a response. When I message a girl it’s more like 50⁄50. From what I hear, it’s much worse for guys messaging girls. On my end, as a female I get lots of messages and such, and only respond to very few (maybe 1%).
What this means is you have to do a decent amount of work to get just one date with a girl.
Messages should be tailored to their profile, but don’t spend too much time on them, since you need to get quantity out. Even more effective in getting a female to respond is to IM her: For a message, the recipient has to make a conscious decision to reply. Whereas when an IM pops up, the recipient has to make a conscious decision not to respond.
(Dark Artsish warning) Most people feel much more guilty not responding to an IM that has just popped up, than a message sitting in their inbox. They are likely to reply just to be polite. Don’t push things, but if they are amenable to conversation, you’ve already got your foot in the door. Also, if you favorite a person, it will tell you when they are online, so you can msg them. (end Dark Arts)
If you send me your username, we can continue this conversation via PM.
Thanks, but that all pretty much falls into the category of “general advice I’ve heard many times before” or “stuff I already knew”, including the dark arts bit.
I’m not exactly sure how to link to a specific OKC profile, there doesn’t seem to be an applicable URL that I can find. In lieu of that, my username there is DarkDaydreamer. I do log in semi-regularly because of the “online in the last ” thing, but the last time I edited my proflie or did more than glance at the Quiver, was at least a year ago.
I didn’t know this, however (and if true, that’s a bit of a self-esteem boost). But, it supports the notion that my problem lies in finding the right people in the first place; something I have had no success doing on OKC. And I would prefer not to go through a dating site anyway, if possible.
(I’ve been on Meetup.com a lot, but all the groups in my area are either religious-only, lesbian-only, women-only, deader than HDDVD, or about something I have absolutely no interest in. There’s a really disproportionate number of those first three, too.)
Responded to privately. :)
I’m not sure if this is the right place, but I’d definitely appreciate it if you had a look at mine =)
If this offer is still open, I’m interested (provided I can count on you not to defect by linking my Lesswrong identity with my real identity). Private messaging is not working at the moment for me; perhaps it will for you.
PM-ing is still down, but if you do a search for “LessWrong” on there, you should find me.