Divorce, Single Parenting, Dating, Sex, & Self-Recovery

Posts tagged “getting to hello

Mis-Match in Online Dating: A 10-point Overview of Match.com

girl in paris

OFF-matchdotcom

I say it all the time, I’m not much into dating. I’d rather have a relationship. The idea of a new woman *is* exciting, however the steps to uncover and develop a relationship are much longer and (I won’t say laborious) tedious. Last week I was on a Match.com date and I was wondering how I ended up at the table with this woman. She was no match. And if I had looked a bit deeper into her photographs instead of wishing into them I would’ve avoided an hour of … uncomfortable conversation.

So I’m going to examine what Match.com has got going for it, and what parts of the process and site are unproductive, for me. Again, please note my current bias away from dating. And even with that bias, dating is the only way back to a relationship, if that’s what I ultimately want. So here we go.

I don’t check-in to Match.com on a regular basis. I’m in a self-seeking phase at the moment. I do still have the app on my phone and when someone signals that they are interested in me I get a little red dot on my phone and a message on the lock screen. “Someone sent you a wink.” My immediate reaction is always a sarcastic, “Oh boy!”

Let’s open up Match and look around for a minute.

match-mainscreen

I have periods of high activity on my end. I jump on, search for attractive and left leaning women and send them a “hello.” My ratio at this moment is 51 sent vs. 9 received. But that’s okay. We aspire, we connect based on very shallow preferences, and we see what happens. My profile seems to be getting plenty of views. 4 new views since the last time I checked in. And I’ve had some emails and conversations going between myself and several women. All good “activity.”

But the activity doesn’t necessarily mean matches. And my actual success ratio with actual dates via Match.com is about 51 dates to 1 relationship. Now, to be fair, that relationship is the first one post-divorce that changed my entire approach and perspective on what I was looking for, but… the numbers are not in our favor. That’s what you should understand early on. Dating is a numbers game. View a lot of profiles, put some interesting enticements in the water, and if you get a bite or two try and take it to the next step, the “hello” date. But there’s a lot of unproductive dates and wasted time spent trying to sift through the BS and uncover the winners. And if she is too much of a winner, she won’t have the time of day for you as a man. A recent date said she gets between 10 and 15 propositions a day. I get 1 or 2 a week. The ritual still falls along traditional lines: men pursue, women accept or reject our offers.

So let’s get some information about the women who “viewed me.”

match-viewedme

And while one out of seven isn’t bad, as I looked into this woman, before arranging the date, I realized I was forcing the “yes” a bit. She was attractive, but there were a number of things that didn’t jive for me. So I called it off. But this is the general window-shopping mode of match. You have one main image, their “seeking men” age range, and a brief headline. The green highlights are a paid feature you can add, but I’m not sure it does anything to dress up a marginal profile.

And maybe that’s issue number one with online dating in general. There are a lot of people just playing around. I have had an ongoing pursuit of a very attractive woman on Match who has accepted two dates and backed out both times within an hour of meeting. She let me know she’s not really ready for a relationship or even dating, but that trolling around on the site gives her some pleasure. She’s just playing. She doesn’t really want a date. Odd.

And there are certainly the profiles that begin, “My girlfriend made me put this up,” or “I’d never imagined I’d be on an online dating site, but…” that are clear indications that they are just playing around. Checking to see if Ryan Gosling shows up and professes a crush on them. Or something… I guess fielding 1o messages a night might be entertaining, if you’re bored and in need of a superficial ego boost. (That’s not a man’s experience, or this man’s experience. I don’t know, maybe Ryan is here and is having a hard time keeping his inbox from exploding.)

So let’s go deeper and open up one of the more appealing women who have viewed me. Now I guess, already I’m swimming against the current, because she didn’t leave any indication that she was interested. No like, wink, or message. But still, she thought my initial photo and profile blurb was attractive enough to check me out. Let’s see if we see any mutual connections.

match-seemore

 

And it seems the hardest part is finding a mutual interest, but that’s the same challenge with dating in general. The hope being, that somewhere in the 860 women who “match” my criteria there is a woman who is actually interested in a relationship and then interested in meeting me, in particular.

match-search

It’s a hard and long hunt, but what are the alternatives? Bars? Nah.

Match has one other special feature, but I’ve found it to be rather useless. Their expert algorithm calculates 7 matches a day. I’ve stopped even opening them. They are so far off that I find them more annoying than helpful.

So to sum up Match.com in my experience.

  1. Men are expected to reach out to the women and make the introductions
  2. Women tend to get a high volume of “hellos” from real suitors and creeps, while men tend to get very few
  3. A lot of people on Match.com are just messing around, socializing, playing with the idea of dating
  4. You have to weed through a lot of mis-matches before finding people who are in my zone
  5. The Weekly Matches feature is more of a distraction
  6. Finding my way through the 860 matches is a challenge and often feels hopeless
  7. A deep examination of the person’s photographs often says more than their words (looking for the one real photo, that captures the essence)
  8. Once a “hello” date is established there are still plenty of opportunities for the other person to back out (I just backed out of ms. checkmark)
  9. Finally, if you meet and BOTH feel some chemistry, there is a chance to “begin”
  10. If it’s a numbers game, we have to keep playing

Match is currently my favorite site. It seems the “pay” aspect weeds out a few more of the “playing around” people than OKCupid or Plenty of Fish. And while I prefer the questions on OKCupid, the profiles do a bit of the work, provided the woman answered honestly and with some depth.

It’s all a crap shoot. Photos lie. Profiles tell half-truths. And some of us, interested in actually establishing a relationship, spend time in the backwaters of the game sorting through “more like her” to find alternative sorting methods for the overwhelming number of non-matches it takes dig through to find a possible match.

Keep going, there are more people joining every day.

Sincerely,

The Off Parent
@theoffparent

*this post was originally written in 2014

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Love at the Speed of Text or Tinder or … f a s t

OFF-dontworry

Okay, texting is not a great method for finding love, but it’s what we’ve got. And at least, if you’re got their phone number you’re a step closer to contacting them for real, maybe “in-person” even. So when you send the

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and you don’t get an immediate response, just chill. However, when you don’t get the message until a second message is sent, you’ve probably already been deleted from “potential” contacts.

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And that’s it… It’s that simple to “know” you’re done. Whatever the chemistry was on your end, it was not reciprocated or appreciated. When there is a YES on both ends the delays are short and sweet. So that Match date while exciting is a NO. Oh well…

And then we move on to the speed of Tinder or it’s imitators. (Hinge or LinkedUp) And while I just got my account activated yesterday, I’m aware that this ultra-superficial process is a hot topic. My friend who has had some success with Tinder is a big fan. In fact, one of the interesting trends with these apps is travel. Imagine hitting a new city and opening up your Tinder app to see who in the NEW area might be up for a drink… or who knows…

I’m guessing she’s had better offers from younger and cuter guys. Probably a lot of them.

If we are moving into an era where women’s sexuality is going to be as liberated as men’s then why wouldn’t a woman hit us up on Tinder for a drink and then invite us to their room. It’s happening all around us. I don’t think it’s my bag, and it’s a bit exhausting to be flicking photos to the left for NOPE and right for YES. And as a newbie I have yet to see the JOIN signal on any of the apps. But it’s 100% image driven. And while that’s interesting, the context provided on dating sites is valuable.

I don’t want to waste an evening on a Tinder date any more than I do on a mismatched Match date. Time is currency and loser dates are like throwing $45 and an evening into the trashcan. I don’t mean to be harsh, but something about these “hookup-driven” apps are a turn off for me. Even when the woman says, “No looking for a hookup date, if that’s what your after just PASS,” I’m not so sure that there’s much else possible.

Sure you get a few pictures. And a tiny snippet of content from their Facebook profile. But that’s it. And again, there is a lot you can glean from a texting conversation, but this might be a younger person’s game. But who knows, I’ve not gotten a sweet hit yet.

Slow dating is where my head is at, at the moment. No hurry to meet unless there’s some real magic.

And finally there’s the new girl on Match. Soooo cute and seemingly available.

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Who says “Let’s go” to every one of my emails. BUT… she’s new and she’s about to get flooded with dudes with offers as good or better than mine. Maybe closer to her age, 43, and type. She passed her phone number on to me very quickly and suggested a walk around the lake with her dog, Frank. I didn’t even know her name when we started texting, but I knew her dog’s name.

She sure came back strong and funny. But nothing after the initial flood of conversation and “let’s go” emails.

Needless to say she’s gone quiet. We even exchanged a few texts and she did give me her name. And she kept up the “let’s go” attitude, but I can’t get a “hello” date set no matter how casual and easy I am making it.

In my experience striking for the NEW TO MATCH folks is a good idea. They say all of the good ones are taken, and perhaps the really good ones are snapped up quickly. But for sure, the good and cute and new ones on Match are overwhelmed rather quickly if they are female. We have been trained, as men, to be the aggressor, the initiator. And that doesn’t seem to have changed on the dating sites at this point. Or perhaps I’m not in the target range of any women that are attractive to me. There are certainly a few older women who introduce themselves. And maybe that’s how I appear to this lovely and new 43 year-old.

She sure came back strong and funny. But nothing after the initial flood of conversation and “let’s go” emails. I’m guessing she’s had better offers from younger and cuter guys. Probably a lot of them. I’ll be surprised if I can get a response out of her at all now that she’s gotten the lay of the land.

And this made me smile today.

tinder-yes

Except it was a false positive. No matches yet. Onward through the fog and fury of online dating and the new quick apps.

Sincerely,

The Off Parent
@theoffparent

back to On Dating Again

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image: giant-tinder-polypore, emilian robert vicole, creative commons image

just for fun, don’t forget to practice safe sex (joke):

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