понедельник, 23 сентября 2019 г.

Dating Site Reviews – READ THIS FIRST!

In the last 20 years, online dating has grown from a small niche market into big business. Dating sites like eHarmony have grown dramatically in size as more people grow comfortable with internet dating. There are many different types of sites including paid membership sites, free sites, and smaller niche group sites. The type of dating site you may be interested in will definitely depend on your circumstances and the type of experience you are looking for. People looking to find love or marriage, seek to meet other members that are serious about their internet dating experience. These people should avoid “free” sites as the members tend to not be as committed to the process.

Membership Sites – why they offer a better experience for users

There are a few membership sites that seem to dominate in terms of providing a good user experience, having a large userbase, and matchmaking. These sites would include:
1) eHarmony – this site is one of the most well known brands and does quite a bit of television and internet advertising. The site launch in 2000 and has members from countries all over the world. The site was founded by a psychologist and relationship author “Neil Warren”. He used his relationship knowledge to create a system that sought to improve the dating experience with a better matchmaking system.
The site matches members based on a lengthy questionnaire that seeks to discover “core traits” about each individual and match people who are similar in these respects. The company has developed a proprietary algorithm that analyses an individuals questionnaire and their behavior on the site, to create better matches. Studies have shown that members who are match with eHarmony’s system have almost 2 times greater chance to become married than couple match on other systems.
2) Perfect Match – This dating site also has its own matchmaking system which creates connections based on the “Duet Total Compatibility System”. It was developed by a relationship expert and doctor who sought to use a psychological questionnaire to evaluate its members and find other users who had a similar profile.
The matching system works to match people in a way that is different from how eHarmony creates their matches. It evaluates users based on a questionnaire, then uses this information to find members with complementary personality traits (NOT like personality traits).
The site was founded in 2003 and has a very positive rating by its users.

Niche Dating Sites (Religious, Ethnic, Divorced, and Single Parent Focused Sites)

Recently, a new trend in online dating is moving towards smaller “niche” sites focused around a very specific group of people or interest. These sites are centered around topics such as religion, ethnicity, and hobbies.
There are many websites that are centered on a type of religion including Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and Catholicism. These sites are made up entirely out of members of that particular religion. So, if finding a partner with a similar belief system is important to you, you should consider this. The largest religion based membership sites tend to be christian. These include:
1) Christian Mingle – this site is completely christian-centric and includes advice for christians seeking to date, as well as very large userbase. This site has an A+ Better Business Bureau rating and is part of the Sparks Network. Which is a network of faith based websites. The memberships costs $30 per month.
2) Christian Cafe – this is a cheap and completely christian focused dating sites that was created in 1998. They have a lot of positive user testimonials and also a very reasonable subscription cost at around $8 per month.
Dating sites based around Judaism are also very prominent. The top sites in this category include:
1) Jewcier – this is Jewish centered site that was launched in 2010. It has a large userbase of single jewish people in the U.S., Isreal, and World abroad. The site recieves around 70,000 visitors each month and has a slightly larger female population than male.
2) JDate – Jdate.com is one of the most popular dating sites focused around Judaism. It has a “free” and “subscription” based service. Free users can browse and flirt with other members on the site, but interaction is limited. If a user upgrades their membership, they will have access to additional features including messaging, email, and chat. One interesting feature that Jdate offers is the ability of users to signal that there is a mutual interest. This has helped to increase the level of interaction on the site which can lead to successful dates.
Other types of niche sites are dedicated specifically single parent or people that are newly divorced. Top sites in this niche include:
1) Just Single Parents – this site offers single parents the ability to interact with other single people with children. The site is very user friendly and has compatibility testing, the creating of video profiles, and a short sign up time. Another great feature about this site is that it allows video based chat and texting through the site.
2) Just Divorced Singles – this site is focused specifically on people that are divorced and are looking for people in a similar situation. The site has alot of great features including video chat, video profiles, and instant messaging. The site is subscription based and costs around $30 per month.
Ethnic based sites have grown dramatically in popularity. The largest demographic of this type of sites are made up of members of the African American community. The top sites in this group include:
1) Black Singles – This is a very large community built specifically for African American members. It was created in 2002 and receives close to 900,000 visitors per month. It allows for a free sign up and requires an upgrade in order to use more advanced features like chat and messaging. It has many positive customer testimonials and has a good rating in the BBB.
2) Black People Meet – this is another site created specifically for members of the black community. It is owned by PeopleMedia which owns a network of dating sites that have visitors in excess of 2 million per month.
3) Just Black Singles – this site is focused on the black community and offers features such as video chat and messaging. The site is free to join and has a large growing userbase.
Another popular niche in the dating industry includes physical preferences like BBW dating (big beautiful women) and men looking to date women from Russia or Eastern Europe. The top sites in this category include:
1) BBW Singles – this is a site for plus size users or single people that are looking to date plus size users. It is the first site created specifically for this demographic. It has a very large userbase and has many positive customer reviews. The site allows for a free 24 hour membership so users can decide whether or not it is for them. This temporary membership allows new users to get full access to the site in order to see if it is for them.
2) Anastasia Date – this is a site built specifically for men who would like to meet women in counties like Russia and Eastern Europe. It allows users to contact and make video dates with women they are interested in. it also allows for live chat, will provide a translator, and gives men the ability arrange face to face dates.

среда, 4 сентября 2019 г.

Bachelordom Ends in Olive Oil Tasting Room


There are many ways you know you are in a loving relationship. For instance, you both make it official on Facebook. Or you introduce your special someone to your parents.

I recently got engaged, but the totality of my commitment to the relationship did not hit me until about a week later. During a long weekend on California’s Central Coast, my fiancée Jen asked me if I wanted to go olive oil tasting. Without hesitating I said yes. Without. Hesitating. During the heart of college bowl season, no less. It was like she had asked me if I wanted to go to Winnipeg to gamble with Justin Bieber’s money.

“Why,” I’m pretty sure I responded, “are we not doing this right now?”
In my defense, tasting things is all the rage in California. Everyone tastes everything. Wine is popular. There are few activities women in California enjoy more than wine tasting. It combines their love of wine with their love of making men leave the house with their love of guessing whether or not something smells like boysenberry. Right now in California you can taste olive oil, tequilavodkabeer, honey, chocolate, cheese and anything else sold in charming containers.

Your average wine tasting goes as follows. The tasting room usually is at a winery called something like Silver Artisan Horse Vineyard, which has a logo of a silver horse carving a rocking chair. This hangs above the front gate. You walk up to a standing-only bar, pay $10, and a sommelier pours a flight of five wines, one at a time. The flight starts with a sweet wine that tastes like it was specifically engineered to turn third graders into problem drinkers. The selection grows heartier — or more “complex” — until you finish with a strong wine that could be used to strip the paint off an aircraft carrier.
During the tasting the sommelier points out flavors you can’t actually taste, like boysenberry and oak and Dentyne, but he does not call them flavors. He calls them hints or notes, because he is hinting at what the winemaker wants you to taste so that you can note the flavor and sound sophisticated. It’s all a lie, but you go along with it because you have not been sober since 11 am.
As the tasting progresses and you become inebriated, the wines taste more fabulous. While perusing the menu, and checking prices, you make the decision to order a crate of the Reserve Selection Sauvignon Blanc in order to save money, because to buy it by the bottle would just be ridiculous. You could buy one bottle, but the Golden Artisan Horse Member discount (logo: golden horse building a barn) allows you to save $2 a bottle when you order 70 bottles or more. That’s a savings of $140, and in these hard economic times you can’t afford not to save $140 on something as vital as wine.

With your woman nodding in approval, you hand over your credit card so that the winery can ship you a crate of wine you will forget you ordered the next day. The whole thing ends with you crawling around the winery’s gravel parking lot, muttering to yourself about not eating enough oyster crackers.
Olive oil tasting is similar, except you’re typically less drunk. We went to Olea Farm in Templeton, Calif., where we enjoyed a free tasting flight. We used toothpicks to dip small bread chunks in tiny cups of olive oil. This was very exciting for my fiancée, because, in general, most women cannot resist a tiny variety of anything. This explains the popularity of thimbles, dollhouses, drink umbrellas and babies.

I learned on our trip that the olive oil people have concocted no shortage of uses for their product. Our host was very nice and pointed out these uses. You can use olive oil to bake, fry, sauté, grill, make salad dressing, put on sandwiches, pour on baked potatoes and drizzle on desserts, among other things. Olea even sells an olive oil body wash, which is perfect if your main hygienic concern is that you do not smell enough like pasta salad.
Jen purchased a lemon blush olive oil. I am excited to try it this Saturday, which actually is shaping up as a pretty nice little Saturday. We’re going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I don’t know.

I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.


вторник, 3 сентября 2019 г.

Going on a Date With a Guy In a Polyamorous Relationship


Last week, I went to my first-ever play party, or orgy, and thenwrote about it here in exhaustive detail.  One big omission I made, however, was my interaction with a guy we’ll call James.  James was at the party with his longtime female partner, as well as said partner’s boyfriend.
I didn’t write about James then because I wasn’t yet sure how he fit into things.  During the party, James and I hit off.  I was attracted to him.  He was funny, and smart and a good conversationalist.
“Can I take you out sometime?” he finally asked.  “I’d love to get to know you better.”
“With your partner?” I asked.  I identify as straight.  I think the female body is beautiful, but it’s not an object of sexual desire for me.  Life is long, and were I to become attracted to a woman, I would be completely open to exploring that – but it hasn’t happened yet.
“Just us,” he replied.  “I’d like to take you on a date, if you’re interested.”
I’m not drawn to that many men.  I wish I had a broader palate, but I don’t believe in forcing that sort of thing.  So it’s rare for me to meet someone I feel a spark with, not to mention someone who I feel I could potentially trust to respect my health, my safety, and my boundaries.
James, it seemed, could potentially check all those boxes.  There was only one caveat, as far as I was concerned: I never imagined myself as someone who would be interested in polyamorous dating or relationships.  I had nothing against people who were – if you find something that makes you happy and fulfilled and can do it without causing anyone else distress, my God, go for it.  It just never sounded personally appealing for me.
Moreover, I really wanted a long-term monogamous partner and had been dating my face offtrying to find one.  But when I met James two weeks ago, no one potentially interesting had yet surfaced.  Which left me with an interesting conundrum.
“I’ve never dated someone in a long-term partnership before,” I said.  “To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about it for myself.  That said, I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you.”
He said he understood.
I thought about it for another moment.  Dating,at least in my experience, can be grim.  I missed companionship, and I missed sex.  Didn’t I owe to myself to do something enjoyable for once?  I never thought I’d enjoy an orgy either, and here I was, having a terrific time.  Maybe I would surprise myself in this venue as well.
I gave him my number.
James and I texted back and forth for a few days afterwards.  He was witty and charming.  He expressed interest in the boring minutia of my life that only people who really like you have patience for.  We discovered we had a lot in common, including a borderline obsessive love of college football – but that we rooted for rival teams, which added an extra charge to our flirtations.
I found myself going about my workday with one eye on my cell phone, waiting for his next message.  I smiled thinking about him.
And then, the morning before we were supposed to have dinner, the strangest thing happened.
I had a panic attack.
As I’vewritten here previously, I have an anxiety disorder which, thanks to great therapists and effective medication, I’ve had under control for years now.  (I can’t even remember the last time I had a panic attack before this last one.)  So when I felt the old, scary symptoms – sweating, heart palpitations, a tightening across my chest – I knew my body was reacting to more than just a physiological imbalance.
I called a friend.
“I know it has to be the date,” I explained to her.  “I’m really, really nervous about it.  And I wish I weren’t, because he seems like a great guy.”
“He probably is,” she replied.  “But you’ve told me before that you’re not interested in being polyamorous.”
The point she made was a fairly obvious one: the idea of dating a guy in a long-term relationship with someone else made me uncomfortable, so I shouldn’t do it.  I knew she was right – after all, I made such a big deal in my essay last week about honoring your boundaries.  But to my great surprise, I had difficulty taking my own advice.  I was disappointed in myself: There was this great thing in front of me, and I was getting in my own way and not letting myself have it.  What was wrong with me?  Was I insecure?  Possessive?  Brainwashed by oppressive cultural norms?
“Nothing’s wrong with you,” my friend said.  “You’re just not into it.”
My friend and I talked further.  Ultimately, I still wanted a monogamous relationship.  That meant that even if James and developed a relationship of our own, I was treating him as a glorified distraction, someone to keep me company until I found the man I was really looking for – at which point, I’d dump him.  And that wasn’t fair to either of us.
Fortified by my new clarity, I took a deep breath and texted him: Hey James, as I’ve done some thinking, I realize that it won’t work for me to date someone in a committed relationship (despite your partner’s support).  I’ve loved getting to know you, but I don’t want to waste your time doing something that will not ultimately be an authentic choice for me.  I hope you have a great day, and I wish you all the best.  
He replied that he understood, and wished me all the best too.
I felt better immediately.
I don’t regret anything that happened.  I’m deeply grateful to my friend for helping me through my momentary freakout and allowing me to learn from it – and to James, for being unfailingly respectful.  I’m glad to know now, for sure, that I couldn’t happily be in a polyamorous relationship.  I would feel jealous and insecure and unfulfilled, and there’s nothing wrong with that, just as there’s nothing wrong with someone else understanding that monogamy isn’t right for her.
If anything distresses me, it’s that despite all my posturing at consciousness-raising, I apparently still struggle to honor my own authentic sexuality.  Though I’m trying to cut myself some slack – part of the growth process, I think, is sometimes being uncomfortable and sitting with that.  At the end of the day, it’s all about gaining self-knowledge and acting on that.
And, to be fair, I really, really hate James’s football team.


R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

What is respect? It’s pretty easy to just throw the word out there as in, I want some of that. But what exactly is it?
In my humble opinion…
  1. Respect is… acknowledgement and intrinsic understanding of worth (both yourself and the other person)
  2. Respect is… knowing that your relationship is a safe place to express and listen without getting cut down or belittled
  3. Respect is… honoring a given boundary
  4. Respect is… talking about someone just like you would talk to them
  5. Respect is… building each other up instead of tearing each other down
  6. Respect is… honoring the other person’s opinion as much as your own
  7. Respect is… being able to admit when you are wrong
  8. Respect is… sacrificing something you WANT for what the other person NEEDS
  9. Respect is… treating the other person’s friends and family with consideration
  10. Respect is… giving each other the space and support to follow dreams
  11. Respect is… hearing one another out without interrupting
  12. Respect is… taking someone’s feelings into consideration
  13. Respect is… agreeing to disagree
  14. Respect is… not raising your voice or being nasty during a disagreement
  15. Respect is… keeping an open mind
  16. Respect is… loving yourself
  17. Respect is… direct, open and honest communication
  18. Respect is… not pressuring the other person
  19. Respect is… friendship
  20. Respect is… trusting the other person’s decision making ability
Additions to the R.E.S.P.E.C.T. train?

понедельник, 2 сентября 2019 г.

Commitment vs. Choice

Recently, a friend and I embarked on our annual discussion of how difficult committed dating and marriage is in today’s culture and how glad she was not to be “out there in that insanity.” Agreeing with the insanity we came to the why of it all. After circling around and around for a bit (I’m sure some of you can relate to the circular nature of certain conversations), I had a moment of clarity. We weren’t talking about the same thing. I was talking about choice and she was talking about commitment.


Now, I am all for commitment. But not just for the sake of being committed. Judging by my friend’s response, perhaps that concept is unique to our generation. (You see, my friend is in her 60′s and her generation came from the age of goodnight pecks at the front door and dance halls.) She kept bringing up staying in a marriage because you were committed. Period. And I kept going back to its not just the commitment but the desire to make that CHOICE to honor the commitment. 
It may seem like a hair splitter, but to me its two very different concepts. My friend is all about honoring her commitment and I am all about making the daily choice to honor that (for me — admittedly hypothetical) commitment. 
Frankly, what do I know? She’s talking from the experience of a life-long marriage and I am coming from the hypothetical. Not to mention that I think my road proves to be the more difficult of the two because it precludes the default mode that can come in oh so handy on the days when you wake up next to someone for whom you are decidedly NOT feeling the “I love you’s.” Those are the hard days when making that choice is vital.
When you look at the current divorce rate as well as the amount of people in their second half of life splitting from long marriages…I wonder if the commitment default mode is enough to keep a marriage together. I wonder if we don’t need to embrace the awareness that love is a choice. Commitment is a choice. Your actions are your choice.  
Perhaps the only thing that will keep commitment alive is marrying it to the choice to stay. Every day waking up and making that beautiful choice to love the other person despite and perhaps because of our mutual humanity.

Are We Glorifying A Culture Of Mean?

A recent informal TV content poll (taken by yours truly) leads me to believe that… we seem to be celebrating a culture of mean.

A while ago, my poor little bod spent more time on the couch and therefore in front of the TV than usual and flipping thru the channels brought little of the distraction that I sought (I read thru all my books and couldn’t find any new ones). I kept flipping and flipping hoping to chance upon a show that would make me laugh sans the heavy cynical commentary on our world.
I found lots of info on the History Channel…unfortunately, I knew most of it and was entirely bored by the end of “Hitler Week” (I mean really…not geared for lighthearted laughter…but plenty of “real” mean)…and then Discovery showed me all kinds of shows projecting the end of the world (I believe the date is set somewhere 4 years hence…I’d better get to living!) or the volcanic destruction of New Zealand (better visit now while its still there!) or the end of the West Coast as we know it. Interesting but not designed for even the slightest of giggles. Unless you are hoping that “new coastal property” you bought in Arizona is going to eventually pay off. 
So, my surfing continued…I found some giggles in the sarcasm of the Simpsons, a few laughs from the sitcoms but what really arrested my attention were the reality TV shows…this is where I come to the pointed edge of my blog pencil… when did we become so fascinated with mean?
I see real lifers screwing each other figuratively and not so figuratively and saying that if the other person has a problem with it too bad. Batchelorettes sparring over some guy who kisses every pair of lips he sees as each girl tries to out do the other and stab that mean knife in every chance they get. I see Trump sternly informing people that they are “FIRED” for a mistake or even just a simple…people seem to dislike you so you must be difficult…you’re fired! Simon being booed and celebrated in the same breath for just being plain ole nasty. Tyra informing wanna be models that there are no excuses…even with a fever and nasty illnesses the girls must still “bring it” and look perfect b/c there are no excuses for being human in the fashion world. To get over it when someone picks on you and get used to the backstabbing b/c that’s how the “real world” works.
Really?
Why are we so OK with that being the way the “real world works?” Its only the way the world works if you are making the decision to add to that working. Yes, there are people out there who are just plain ole mean, unfair and unethical…but does that mean we have to celebrate them and their endeavors on TV? Does that mean we have to be like them in order to succeed in life, work and relationships?
I used to work in the entertainment industry, I do know TRULY mean people…But I also witnessed the shining stars. I’ve had the boss who knew how to calmly handle disaster without throwing heavy objects or swearing at the top of his lungs or lambasting his unfortunately involved co-worker, the friend who supported me when I needed help, the colleague who referred an amazing job opportunity, the celebrity who didn’t take himself oh so seriously and seemed to naturally want to serve the people around him.
Why aren’t we celebrating the shining stars? Is “drama,” disaster and backstabbing really all that wonderful to mentally and visually feast on? What happens to the little shows that try to swim upstream? What would happen if our culture started to celebrate the Golden Rule…or at least didn’t equate success and “reality” with backstabbing, nasty words and general MEANness?
Perhaps its just my impression that our culture is starting to celebrate the mean along with TV…is art imitating reality or reality imitating art? What do you think?

четверг, 29 августа 2019 г.

How To Online Date Successfully

If I was to split my dating life awkwardly into percentages of where I’d sourced dates from, it’d be 75 percent/25 percent erring on the side of online dating. I’m not a bad-looking guy, but I also spent a great deal of my life being quite scared of people until I realized that, in fact, death is certain and, in the end, it’s totally fine to be rejected by a nice young lady, even if you find her attractive. However, online dating combines the convenience of sitting on my ass with the ability to not have to come up with something to say in person, from my face.

After a while on said networks, the most apparent problem came in the face of the damned ratio problem. Though these networks claim to have “fair” ratio splits in which women and men are equally present, that negates the fact that men on these websites are truly awful, that women are consistently bombarded with messages (Tinder skips this, but we’ll get there), and that the men on these websites are actually pretty awful in many ways.

The Annals of Online Dating is probably the most damning of the recordings, but merely scrolling through my timeline I’ll run into a few choice cuts of guys negging and just being straight-up weird with their come-ons. At my absolute kindest, which I engage once every few hours for a minute, I’d say it’s because they don’t know what they’re doing and are simply reading stupid stuff or are getting bad advice. At my most realistic, there are many, many, many, many, many, many guys on these websites looking to get laid as fast as possible who say really horrible, disgusting things to women. I don’t know what sort of fucked up perspective it takes to say to a woman online that you’ve never met—and I quote an Annals of Online Dating message—“Letmegetupondembuttcheeksgirl.”

Don’t immediately jump into sexy-talk. I know. I know you like sex almost as much as you like money, but no girl wants to hear you go straight into talking about your big ding dong and how you’re going to throw a pokéball at her pokémon or whatever it is you say.

Let’s stop a second for the one guy who is gonna say this has worked once, or takes umbrage with this statement or thinks it’s a good idea: Hey man! Has this ever worked for you? What’s your gambit here? Do you think the girl is going to say, “Oh damn, sure, this guy wants to have sex, no guy ever wants that! What a rare opportunity!” In the case of the opportunity above, do you think said girl is going to say, “Mmm, okay, you can get up on these butt cheeks”? Just think about it for a damn second. You’re embarrassing yourself.


Alright, back to the other bad guys.
They do things that, at best, annoy and, at worst, scare women. They are intimidating or desperate or maniacal or just completely dumb. They say nasty things to the girl in the hopes that somehow this will break down her walls and, er, they can have sex I suppose?

Poison like that is stuff you’ll find in The Game and other Pick-up Artistry materials (not gonna link it). And it has got to even guys I’d consider good fellows—a friend in New York extolled the benefits of one book to me about how a supposed PUA picked up some girl who was actually a Playboy model in a Walgreens and they totally did it and it was marvelous. This was a guy who hadn’t had sex in a while and was desperate. There are a lot of these guys on OKCupid and Tinder and the like.

So, if you’re a guy not knowing how to online date, well, here I am to give some advice from someone who has been on plenty of successful online dates, and met someone I fell in love with on Match.com. She’s a model, too! You wouldn’t know her! She lives in Canada!

Some Initial Tips Of Things To Do And Not Do:
1) Your profile should be honest; it should be filled out but not too filled out. (Dude, if it’s a 600+ word profile, that’s an article.) Be blunt, be you, be honest.
2) Now, that being said, don’t put stuff like, “I don’t like conceited girls who are into expensive brands.” Or, “I am a heartbroken man fresh from a terrible, abusive relationship where I was forced to clean the bathrooms eight times a day because she was a nutcase.” Or anything involving the word “bitch” or denigrating women. They don’t like that! Surprise.
3) Conversely, though this will lower your chances (
this is a good thing), do feel free to (in short) put your political, social, musical and other likes/dislikes in there as bluntly as you want. If you’re a guy that loves to go shooting, most likely you will not fit in with a girl who is scared of guns, or finds guns bad, or wants to ban guns entirely. If you’re a guy who’s into movies, you probably won’t fit with a girl who hates movies. If you’re a vegetarian, you wanna mention that because it may make a meat-eater unhappy. It may not! But this kind of honesty will save you some time. There’s nothing wrong with you being a gun-toting vegetarian movie-lover who votes conservative; you just want these facts out there so she can say no to them if she isn’t into them.
4) I know it’s time-intensive, but in all cases, read her profile. It’s easy. It’s right there. On the more long-form networks, you’ll find this is more time-consuming. This will become exhausting.
5) Don’t make a form. Just don’t do it. Don’t copy and paste. I know it’s time-consuming, bro, but get over it.
6) Don’t immediately jump into sexy-talk. I know. I know you like sex almost as much as 
you like money, but no girl wants to hear you go straight into talking about your big ding dong and how you’re going to throw a pokéball at her pokémon or whatever it is you say.
7) Your pictures should be of you, just you, or if it’s a group of people crop it to show you. If it’s a picture of you in a group of four guys, I guarantee one is better looking than you and will disappoint the lady. Note: No pictures of you with your shirt off. The only permissible one I can imagine is that you’re at the beach with your friends. Make this one not your main one. Even if you have a rockin’ bod, that’s not all you are. Don’t lead with that. Don’t even mention it. It should come through in your pictures without your shirt being off.
8) Just… Don’t send a picture of your dick to her out of nowhere. Just don’t do it. I’m sorry, guys, but don’t. I hear tales of this from women way too consistently. Why do it? What’s your goal there? Do you think your dick is some magical divining rod for sex? Do you think it’s a wizard’s wand that magically creates a sex-having situation? Or do you think someone’s having their dinner and PING there’s a penis? That’s what happens. Unless she’s very clearly saying the words “send me a pic of your dick,” in which case, do that I guess? I don’t know.

But seriously folks, here you go.

Tinder is an interesting beast in that there is an insane, addictive immediacy to it.

Tinder, Coffee Meets Bagel, Hinge and Other “Swipe Sites” – The Real Time Chat Apps
Disclosure: I worked with Coffee Meets Bagel a long, long time ago.
Let’s break the above down:
Tinder: Swipe right if you like lady. Swipe left if you don’t like lady. If they swipe right you can chat.
Coffee Meets Bagel: Each day you get a few ladies; you like them or you don’t. You get the chance to try again with ladies that said no to you, and you can also see a few extras each day. The goal is that your Facebook graph is also used to judge why someone wo
uld be better or worse as a fit for you.
Hinge: Hinge uses your Facebook graph to match you with potential ladies who are, theoretically, friends of yours or friends of friends. The result is that you apparently get better results.

I don’t want to go network by network, but Tinder is a valuable place to start as it has some particular issues. Tinder started as a place where guys and girls—according to people who I’m not sure were ever correct—could go to find a “hook up.” I’ve personally rarely heard an actual story of someone who regularly went on Tinder to get someone new to bonk regularly.

Tinder is an interesting beast in that there is an insane, addictive immediacy to it. There’s always a potential girl out there and thus there’s always hope. This is great news, but it’s also a point in which guys get a little, how you say, thirsty. This leads guys to jump straight to sex, as there’s such a feeling of immediacy and, well, hook-up culture within Tinder that they think that’s all anyone’s on there for.

Hinge and Coffee Meets Bagel stick to some of the same principles, but I’ve found people are more open to having a conversation there—the lower amount of choices means that someone is more likely to really want to talk to you versus making just a physical judgment. Someone given one or two or three choices a day is a lot more likely to actually read your profile and look at more than one picture. Perhaps they may like your personality!

I call bullshit on the close to 50/50 ratio on this site, and thus the amount of effort (large, if you want to write a good message) you’re putting in to get actual responses is brutal, and demoralizing.

How To Talk In These Crazy Real-time Apps

Slow down, try and have a real conversation with her, talk to her about her day, ask her about herself. Don’t tell her immediately, “YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL MWAH I AM TO LOVE YOU.” Don’t call her sexy. If you somehow feel the urge to say something nice, perhaps say she’s pretty—but even then, why are you saying that? Are you already flirting? Do you know what flirting in textual conversation looks like? Because if you don’t, it’s probably a bad idea (especially in the first few lines of conversation) to launch straight into the “you’re pretty” angle.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t say it. If she compliments you, compliment her back. This isn’t about women dominating men, but you need to fundamentally understand that women are beset with weird dudes on these apps, many of whom are creepy dudes. Though I’m sure you’ve watched Ryan Gosling smoothly say someone’s eyes are beautiful in some movie sometime, you’re not Ryan Gosling and conversations don’t work with that. Just talk to her, man. Ask her about her day, what she does, if she has a thing in her profile she loves that you love. Talk about that, and don’t force it. If she isn’t responsive for a few minutes, don’t send rapid-fire messages (oh, we’ll get there post-online…), and, by all means, don’t flip out if she stops talking to you entirely. That’s both her choice and, frankly, good in the long run as she probably doesn’t like you anyway, so why bother?

Importantly, don’t go for the “what’s your number” too quickly. It’s a classic error across all platforms that says, “Hey, I want to get you out from the safe, protected zone of online dating sites and onto your personal cell, which is real information about you I can, somehow, use.” I know you want to believe you’re different, and you certainly may be, but have a conversation and say, when it’s clearly going well (ie: She’s responsive. She’s having a conversation that isn’t “lol” or “ok” or you’re doing most of the talking, which might mean she doesn’t like you). Say, “Hey, wanna chat over text?” Perhaps ask her out then get her number.

And now, to the rest of ‘em.

OkCupid, Match.com, eHarmony.com, et al. – The Asynchronous Cabal
Note: I’ve never used PlentyOfFish, because it looks like a website that was built using Frontpage Express.

OkCupid is a good place to start here, as it has one key difference—it’s (mostly) free. You can do extra things if you pay money, but most don’t. The result is it’s a mess with girls constantly pilloried with guys doing exactly what they do on Tinder, but at times far worse, as the girl has put details in there that the guy can then pick apart and say are bad, or use to be creepy as hell. You’re fighting a tide of guys. I call bullshit on the close to 50/50 ratio on this site, and thus the amount of effort (large, if you want to write a good message) you’re putting in to get actual responses is brutal, and demoralizing. You’ll consistently be putting in effort to write good messages to people who will read them (yep, you can see) and get nothing back. Or something back and it’ll go nowhere.

This isn’t to say that there’s no chance in hell. It’s just that OkCupid, for whatever reason, is just that much more competitive for guys. I assume it’s because of the mass of “free” users. The good news is that it’s still a great place to try and date, another option which has in the past been fine for finding dates and potential relationships. It’s just kind of a slog – response rates are lower (I’ve found this and male friends have too – female friends complain about having way too many messages most of which are garbage)and girls that turn on the realtime chat feature generally get 40 guys saying, “HEY HI HI HI HEY.”
Match.com, where I met my current girlfriend (and… an ex or two), in my experience has a higher percentile of people actually looking to date, who want to read messages, who want to engage in a conversation. No, I’m not a shill for Match, as I also met a truly terrible ex on there that one time punched me right in the damn face and had a far stronger punch than I do. It’s costly—$42 a month (there are bulk packages that are cheaper), which I imagine is somewhat a barrier to entry for dudes who want to say, “Mwah hello sweetie I am to make love to you.” When real cold, hard cash is involved, it changes things. I don’t know.

I have never used eHarmony or Chemistry, but I have heard similar things.

How To Write A Message On These Websites

Well, it’s kinda like sending an email. To someone you’ve never met. Someone you potentially would imagine going out with to a place and maybe kissing in the future. However, you wanna get past the “I must smooch” feeling in your underoos and look at her profile. What does she like? What does she not like? Your first message should be with the intention of starting a conversation, so ask her some questions that aren’t “What’re your favorite foods?” And good lord, if she’s mentioned loving books, do not ask her who her favorite author is or if she’s reading anything or read anything good lately. Heck, say some good things you’ve read recently, and if you’re approaching a girl who reads a lot of books that had better not be one of the following (said in the voice of Mr. Plinkett): Harry PotterCatcher In The RyeAtlas ShruggedThe Game or any other PUA books, A dating book in general, The Road or basically any generic “everyone probably reads this book, especially a guy” book.

Do you cook? How do you cook? Signature dish? What’s hers—and has she ever tried sous vide or something like that?

I choose this particular example because I’ve seen it a lot. I’ve heard it a lot. “The girl didn’t like me because I said I liked Atlas Shrugged!” “I didn’t know you liked Atlas Shrugged, and now I’m disappointed in you.” “She asked if I read any female authors and I said JK Rowling and she got mad!” “Probably because that’s literally the only female author you’ve read.” “No, uh, you know, there was this one other one sometime I forget.”

And so on.

Basically, you should try and communicate with her as if you were walking up to her at a bar, except you can be blind drunk and vomiting and she’d never know unless you told her!

Don’t do that by the way.

Put together a 150 word message, something short, sweet and easily read that will say to her, “Hey, this guy’s got a brain, but he’s not writing me a letter that reads like a serial killer!” If she’s put YouTube videos in there, watch them, perhaps say something about them. If she likes a thing you like, say something that’s not surface-level (ie: She loves the Foo Fighters, you say you love Everlong; she says she loves movies, you say you love Casablanca; she says she loves food, you say your favorite food is steak). Do you cook? How do you cook? Signature dish? What’s hers—and has she ever tried sous vide or something like that?

I realize these are deeply anecdotal examples, but the point is to start a real conversation with her. Imagine you get sent a random email from a random person asking you to do something (in this case, engage in a conversation) —what would it take for you? The answer is not, I warn you, “She has boobs and I like those.” It’s probably that the person has taken interest in you and has seen things they like and understand and, in turn, wants to talk to you about them, but really wants to talk to you.

Once the conversation continues, just talk, back and forth, roughly in the cadence that she does. Does she respond one sentence at a time? Do the same. Don’t send her a paragraph in response to her one-sentence, and vice-versa. And, just like on Tinder, don’t immediately attempt to get her onto it—It’s an intimidating jump that you don’t want to force on her. Just try and have a conversation. If it goes dead, by all means send one final message just trying to strike up conversation, then move on. Sorry buddy, it ain’t happening.

You don’t want to be desperate in the sense that you don’t want to write some vast, endless novel about her immense beauty and digging into everything she’s written in her profile like an FBI agent.

In Conclusion, And Once You Move Offline…
Online dating is normal now, many years divorced from when it was considered a weird thing that losers did because they “couldn’t meet normal women.” It’s got all the tenets you have of walking up to a girl in a bar and messily trying to talk to her, except much less pressure. None of what I’ve written is to suggest that you, dear reader, are the worst man alive, but there’re so many out there with so many bad habits that I just had to mention them.

Basically, the real core of succeeding in online dating is to be yourself, sure, but also know how to create an actual conversation. You don’t want to be desperate in the sense that you don’t want to write some vast, endless novel about her immense beauty and digging into everything she’s written in her profile like an FBI agent. But you also don’t want to be a brusque, oafish dope that says one line and hopes it pulls her in. Learn to live with the fact that instead of the usual rejection you’ll find at a bar, the girl sort of smirking and walking away, or just saying no, or not giving you her number, you will oftentimes find silence or a general-purpose “No, thanks.” It’s a different kind of minefield. Have fun, I suppose.