I have concluded that Internet Dating does not work


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Fayt916 is offline Fayt916 Post #1  May 9,2008, 1:17pm
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Before I get into why I have made this declaration let me congratulate eharmony for taking a step in the right direction. While I think eharmony has improved the process there is still work to be done.



Now, these are the three basic reasons why Internet Dating does not work:

Pictures
Women
Accountability


Pictures -

First off, there is too much reliance on pictures in the internet dating process. Yes people say looks aren't that important, the actual evidence say otherwise as far as internet dating is concerned. On most dating sites, you have a page with a set of pictures and a profile you write that 95% of people don't read unless you pass their threshold of attractiveness based off your pictures, and that threshold is a lot higher in real life since there is so much to choose from. Both men AND women have this artifically high threshold for attractiveness. This means on most sites that your success with internet dating is for the most part directly proportional to how attractive you based on a standard much higher than real life. It doesn't end their either. Since most dating sites male to female ratio is about 5:1 (or even has high as 10:1), what happens from a pure supply/demand standpoint is that male attractiveness goes down while female attractiveness goes up. This is one thing that makes eharmony way more successful in that regard since the artificial deflation/inflation doesnt happen here due to a more balanced male/femaleratio. I have empirically experienced the effect this has since I get ignored a lot less on EH with the exact same set of pictures/profile that I have had on other sites.

Women -

I am not a woman so I don't completely understand the phenomenon here, but I suspect that women are a lot more picky about looks (despite what they claim) or more picky in general and suffer more than men the "grass is always greener" complex from the abundance of profiles on dating sites. Or it could be that a lot more women than men sign up for dating sites without a real intention of using the site to actually meet people. There is deffinently a discrepency there that is worth discussing.

You can try a few experiments to confirm there is something to be explored here:

1. Go to a free dating site such as plentyoffish and create both a male and female profie with the basic information in there with no picture. Check both account a week later, you will find that the male profile has zero emails in his box with the female having about 10-20.

2. Do the same thing, except add a picture of a average looking guy and a average looking girl. Check back in a week and the male profile will have 0 emails and the female profile will have her inbox maxed out (100+).

3. With the same profiles, this time, send out about 20 first-time emails. Check back in a week. You will find male has about 3 replies and the female has 15-20 replies.

Or heres a experiment you can do without much effort. Just create a male and female profile with no picture and leave it up for a month or two. It is nearly guaranteed that the male will have 0 emails while the females box will be maxed out.

From a pure statistical standpoint this shouldn't happen unless the male/female ratio is 50:1 or something absurd. There is an issue to be looked at here. Maybe it's like I said, more women sign up for online dating just to look at profiles out of curiosity rather than to actually use the site to meet people. Who knows.

Accountability -

I think this a huge factor on why there is very little success or willingless by both men and women to get to know someone. Tons of relationships develop all the time in the real world due to someone not being into someone at first both after they get to know them they discover they are a great guy (or girl). In my experiences with dating I have been both on the giving and recieving end of this. Why does this happen? Because when to talk to/get to know someone in real life rather than email/online there is a lot more accountability in your actions and people are way less likely to drop off the face of the earth because they found a profile where someones picture looks better (which happens all too often online). The sad truth is that for most being online create a complete lack of respect and accountability that is there in the real world, and this allows a lot of great opprotunities to be pasted up for the "grass is greener" complex that takes hold from the abunance of profiles. How many of you have talked to someone on a dating site (not nessecarilty EH, any site) to all of a sudden have them drop off the face of the earth? I'm sure all of you had. How often has this happened when meeting someone in real life? At least for me, hardly ever. Online? 95% of the time.


Like I said earlier, I think EH does address a lot of these problems with ther system although no where near perfect.
Well that is my analysis of how online dating is as of today. I'm ready to have my analysis ripped apart.
Discuss.
 
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TheGreatOne is offline TheGreatOne Post #2  May 9,2008, 1:28pm
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That's pretty close.





It is best used as a place to hook up. Most of the girls just want some attention and others are starving for relationships so they will beleive whatever they want to to think they have a chance,



No matter what people say; looks count more than anything else. Don't beleive it when all of these wanna be feminists act like it is inside that counts. It is usually only fat girls and ugly ones that will say something like that.



But I must say, as you exit the bar years of your life, the internet is a great place to fill that void as usually when you go to a bar, you can pretty much only hook up with 1 girl a nite yet on the internet you can talk to dozens if you like.



I keep a running sticky note so i don't forget some and then just schedule them in from there. Makes you look better too because you don't seem as needy as for always seeing them and all of that.

Gotta admit this forum cracks me a up a little. Horrible format for it though. and I can never find other threadsin which I left a response. of course, some ugly girl on here gor "offended" which is a sign of weakness anyway and "reported me". hahaha. Man, I could go on and on in a place like this.
 
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SierraMountainAir is offline SierraMountainAir Post #3  May 9,2008, 1:48pm
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TheGreatOne,103857 wrote :

Most of the girls just want some attention and others are starving for relationships so they will beleive whatever they want to to think they have a chance,



No matter what people say; looks count more than anything else. Don't beleive it when all of these wanna be feminists act like it is inside that counts. It is usually only fat girls and ugly ones that will say something like that.

I keep a running sticky note so i don't forget some and then just schedule them in from there. Makes you look better too because you don't seem as needy as for always seeing them and all of that.

Gotta admit this forum cracks me a up a little. Horrible format for it though. and I can never find other threadsin which I left a response. of course, some ugly girl on here gor "offended" which is a sign of weakness anyway and "reported me". hahaha. Man, I could go on and on in a place like this.
LOL
 
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RC_Cinci is offline RC_Cinci Post #4  May 9,2008, 2:04pm
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Fayt916, wrote :

Before I get into why I have made this declaration let me congratulate eharmony for taking a step in the right direction. While I think eharmony has improved the process there is still work to be done.



Now, these are the three basic reasons why Internet Dating does not work:

Pictures
Women
Accountability


Pictures -

First off, there is too much reliance on pictures in the internet dating process. Yes people say looks aren't that important, the actual evidence say otherwise as far as internet dating is concerned. On most dating sites, you have a page with a set of pictures and a profile you write that 95% of people don't read unless you pass their threshold of attractiveness based off your pictures, and that threshold is a lot higher in real life since there is so much to choose from. Both men AND women have this artifically high threshold for attractiveness. This means on most sites that your success with internet dating is for the most part directly proportional to how attractive you based on a standard much higher than real life. It doesn't end their either. Since most dating sites male to female ratio is about 5:1 (or even has high as 10:1), what happens from a pure supply/demand standpoint is that male attractiveness goes down while female attractiveness goes up.
In other words, if you are an attractive person, most of these negatives do not apply. So.. internet dating is just like real life, except there's a CLOSE button for people that really annoy you. Hmm... not seeing the downside here.
 
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NWLady is offline NWLady Post #5  May 9,2008, 2:22pm
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Fayt916, wrote :

You can try a few experiments to confirm there is something to be explored here:

1. Go to a free dating site such as plentyoffish and create both a male and female profie with the basic information in there with no picture. Check both account a week later, you will find that the male profile has zero emails in his box with the female having about 10-20.

2. Do the same thing, except add a picture of a average looking guy and a average looking girl. Check back in a week and the male profile will have 0 emails and the female profile will have her inbox maxed out (100+).

3. With the same profiles, this time, send out about 20 first-time emails. Check back in a week. You will find male has about 3 replies and the female has 15-20 replies.

Or heres a experiment you can do without much effort. Just create a male and female profile with no picture and leave it up for a month or two. It is nearly guaranteed that the male will have 0 emails while the females box will be maxed out.

From a pure statistical standpoint this shouldn't happen unless the male/female ratio is 50:1 or something absurd. There is an issue to be looked at here. Maybe it's like I said, more women sign up for online dating just to look at profiles out of curiosity rather than to actually use the site to meet people. Who knows.

Discuss.
Fascinating experiement. I take it you actually did this...hence the stats?! I wish I had those odds[img]library/editor/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-tongue-out.gif[/img]



Seriously, what criteria of "average" were you using for these photos? Also...could you find out the real ratio? Cuz, what I'm seeing at least by way of the message boards at EH and a few other sites...it's primarily the ladies on the hunt. Perhaps it depends on the site itself?
 
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Fayt916 is offline Fayt916 Post #6  May 9,2008, 2:31pm
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RC_Cinci,103878 wrote :
In other words, if you are an attractive person, most of these negatives do not apply. So.. internet dating is just like real life, except there's a CLOSE button for people that really annoy you. Hmm... not seeing the downside here.
No you completely missed I wrote and where I was getting at. I was trying to make was it is nothing like real life. In real life (if you have charm) averagepeople can court the opposite sex very easily because charm and conversation actually enter the picture unlike viewing online profiles. Plus both sexes are a lot more picky who they communicate with online since they have way more options than a real life in a social situation such as a bar.
 
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Fayt916 is offline Fayt916 Post #7  May 9,2008, 2:35pm
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NWLady,103889 wrote :
Fascinating experiement. I take it you actually did this...hence the stats?! I wish I had those odds[img]library/editor/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-tongue-out.gif[/img]



Seriously, what criteria of "average" were you using for these photos? Also...could you find out the real ratio? Cuz, what I'm seeing at least by way of the message boards at EH and a few other sites...it's primarily the ladies on the hunt. Perhaps it depends on the site itself?
Yes I have both done this and have read stories of others doing this. When I say average, I just meant non-model looking I guess, Im not sure how to describe average.

And what I have posted are real ratios. EH is one of the few sites that actually have a balanced ratio (I don't buy the 3 women to every 2 men ratio that it claims, I suspect closer to 50%), so yes it does depend on the site.
 
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vegaschick is offline vegaschick Post #8  May 9,2008, 2:48pm
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I'm just wondering how you came up with your plentyoffish stats? LOL Being female and relatively attracted, maybe I'm giving myself too much credit on the attractive bit? Yet to even receive 10 emails on that site let alone responses to any I sent out (and it's been more than a month too). Methinks you are skewing the statistics for your own use!
 
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RC_Cinci is offline RC_Cinci Post #9  May 9,2008, 3:07pm
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Fayt916,103895 wrote :
No you completely missed I wrote and where I was getting at. I was trying to make was it is nothing like real life. In real life (if you have charm) averagepeople can court the opposite sex very easily because charm and conversation actually enter the picture unlike viewing online profiles. Plus both sexes are a lot more picky who they communicate with online since they have way more options than a real life in a social situation such as a bar.
I didn't miss it, it just didn't strike me as accurate. I also didn't comment onboys sending moremessages than girls, but that doesn't mean Imissed it (I attribute that to men being more aggressive than women in general, along with various social norms).

Commenting more on this reply: I'm not seeing what you are saying. A hot guy in a bar is going to get "the brush-off" a lot less than an average looking guy, so he's going to have better luck. An average looking guy STILL has to work to get a woman to give him a chance to use his charm in a bar in real life, and that can be HARD. The same situation applies with online dating. The guy with sexy picture has a better chance with a woman than a guy with an average picture.

There is a reason people are called "players" in real life - because they know the rules of the dating/pickup game, and they use them to their best advantage. The rules online are different, but there are still "players" and there are still rules.

You want a lady to read your profile more carefully and give you a chance? Sadly, you'll probably have to use a better profile picture. Just like in real life where most people get "dressed up" before they go to a bar, your outfit should be sharp. Try wearing nice clothing in your profile picture, have a good look, make sure the picture is from your good side. If you're still not that attractive, go with the black-and-white odd-angle artistic shot - it will make you look sexy and profound (a skilled photographer can make anyone look sexy in a picture).

That charm you were talking about in real life? Online, itequates to how well you write up your profile andreply to messages. The wit you would normally get to show off in a conversation, you get to use when describing "What I am Passionate About"and other such things. Average people online can attract other people if they have charm -the mechanism is just different here.

And, before I get a bad reputation for being a virtual playa, let me say this: I used to use one of THE WORST pictures I could find of myself as my eH profile pick because I *DIDN'T* want to play the game (had my glasses on rather than my contacts, my face was red from windburn, etc..). My pic is still pretty bad (someone requested a different one, so I put up one in a t-shirt against a plainbeige wall sans glasses.LOL!), but I think it is the best one for finding the type of person I want to meet. If I ever get to the point where I need more open communication, though, I know EXACTLY what to change and how to change it. Both real life and internet datingare flawed, and - in the end - not that different.
 
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NWLady is offline NWLady Post #10  May 9,2008, 3:39pm
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Yes, the photo is worth a thousand words in many respects. However - - -



If the guy has a nice smile and is clean (looks like he's taken a recent bath) that's a real plus. I get a lot of guys whose pic makes me think he really has no fun in life. Or how about those pics where his computer, truck (or motorbike) takes center stage?!?!?!



Gotta smile guys! It truly is a head turner.
 
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