3541

Got my first actual reply to an OKC message today. Essentially, I asked whether should couldn’t just infer something once the Central Limit Theorem was in play, rather than requiring an infinite number of iterations. Then I asked her about whether she played any Euro games other than Settlers of Catan, since she mentioned Settlers.

So I guess the trick is to keep it topical? That’s what I heard from some other people. Ask a couple leading questions that show you read the profile and have mutual interests or something.

3542

El Guapo, where do you meet all these women? Do you just talk to random women during the normal course of your day or do you dedicate specific time to it?

3543

I think this approach is most likely to work. Its chances are still minimal, as that’s exactly the sort of message I sent a good 30 women before I gave up. Number of responses (not even conversations or dates, just responses), zero.

3544

Yeah your odds on internet dating (at least OKCupid) are simply awful, no matter what.

I’m really coming around to the opinion that the only redeeming value it has is the fact that you can do it while you’re supposed to be working. In terms of time investment/dates scored it’s probably worse than, say, going to a dance class or something.

3545

Word, thanks for posting transcripts beecubed. I did Ok my first week with something similar to what Aaron noted (asking about a few profile details, and noting mutual interest). That scored me 8 replies out of 17 contacts total, 3 of which actually turned into dates.

Since then, I’ve been regressing towards the mean with zero success. I think I need to try something new. Or, just start aiming for quantity over quality.

3546

This has almost certainly been posted before, but in light of the photo advice being thrown around recently it’s probably worth revisiting:

3547

I would hope the main message this girl gets is “YR DOIN IT WRONG.”

3548

Yep. It’s one of my main hobbies right now.

Seriously though, I’d say every time I go to a bar with friends, or out somewhere, or to some social event, I meet someone. Then the modern wonderment that is text messaging makes it conventient to talk and flirt simultaneously with different women and if some drop off the radar, or don’t reply back, no big deal. Also, as aptly named in the thread, there is the Internet.

3549

Until you start mixing up the conversations. Been there, done that, although I always did a good job of remembering what I had discussed with whom.

3550

This is why you keep a modern phone that threads text messages.

It is just ridiculous what women will say over text messages. I’ve gotten entire sexual histories and a robust list of sexual likes and dislikes before we’ve even met again post-number exchange. And not because I’m particularly clever or anything, just throwing out a double entendre or two and the next thing you know you’re on the text message train to explicitville.

Also this is mandatory in any dating discussion when text messaging comes up.

3551

That was awesome, but it failed on one account. You don’t text message break-up.

3552

All other upcoming dates put on hold. No new dates will be made. No new phone numbers will be gotten.

I just met a wonderful girl form OKCupid. Now I know what you guys were talking about, how it feels like you are meeting an old friend, someone you’ve known for years. How you can just relax, and be yourself totally. The cynical part of me says there must be something wrong, to pull back, but the part of me that thinks it’s fantastic thinks she’s fantastic, to not worry about it and go forward. In fact, the cynical part of me wonders “how can this smart, sex, gorgeous, funny girl actually be interested in me?”

I guess, after all, it’s just a numbers game. The difference being that tonight, I just met someone I can totally see myself falling for, in fact part of me already has.

Wow! Good luck out there everyone!

3553

Yeah I’m pretty good with that, in fact when I met my dat tonight I mentioned about how she was from city and it turns out she was from somewhere completely different. I recovered though, and very glad I did.

3554

While not as cool as ElGuapo, I did just have a great chat session with a woman from Brooklyn, who is coming to town next week, and is looking to move out to Seattle. Odder things have happened. She’s a recent culinary school grad who found me based on my OK Cupid journal post I did about my spectacular cooking failure. Great first impressions!

So a tentative date later this week.

3555

I think we need to shove Tyler Dur… I mean Tom aside and let Mark run things for awhile.

3556

The sex columnist came over last night. She had some coding to do, I had a synopsis to work on. Aaaaaaand I now know that not only does my place have paper thin walls, but paper thin floors. All of my housemates heard us. Dropped her off back at her place, and I come back to find my housemates congratulating and giving me shit. Oh yeah, I also broke two pieces of furniture, one of which broke from sex-related acts. I now have an ottoman-chair and a futon that can’t be folded down.

Other than that, went on two dates this week. The first one was not very fun at all. We went out to karaoke, only to find out that she doesn’t do karaoke bars. Great. Sung two songs, headed to a diner in the area, and that was it. The other date was a definitely better, but not exactly fantastic.

Happy Hour is definitely the best time for a first date. Cheap beer, cheap appetizers and a time limit that most people abide by. If you aren’t sure about your date, schedule it an hour before happy hour ends. If things suck, happy hour is over and you say your goodbyes. If things turn out well, you can opt to stick around or schedule a second date.

I’ve also found that First Date Smoochin’ is too awkward/unsmooth when you’re over a foot taller than your date. I need to find dates around my height, but they’re hard to come by.

3557

I think he might secretly just be God Forbid.

Trying not to jinx anything, something non-internet related may be in development. Hopefully further information forthcoming.

3558

Go ahead Warren, just thought it was amusing.

That post was like walking into a weight watchers meeting, downing a box of Krispy Kreme and loudly exclaiming, “Man, no matter what I eat I just can’t seem to gain weight! Oh, are you guys fat? Sorry, I just thought it was amusing. Well, I’m going to go pound back some beers to wash this down, see ya!”

3559

I met my girlfriend on POF, but I don’t really like to mention that fact because I hate the site so much. It’s sad how many people are suffering with their god-awful interface and terrible picture mashing compared to OKC, which is exactly what a dating site should be.

And I think you’re just lucky with the local matches. One of the things I hated most about it was that any time I did anything other than local matches like looking at their compatibility score or checking out their “other people you might like” recommendations, it would be at least 75% from off the island. My choices were basically either bring up a list of people I might like and then sort through them for the ones who actually live here, or bring up a list of people who live here and sort through them for ones I might like. Hate hate hate! But it worked.

Also, only two shirtless pics out of all those guys. I thought there would be more.

If you look at beecube’s examples, you can sort of see the pattern. It’s not enough to just be topical, you also need to be fun and interesting and give her something to reply to. The one where he talked about how she’s a better match for him than he is for himself needed a specific reference to her profile and a question or some sort of hook to get her to respond.

A lot of it will depend on your profile though, especially for getting dates. If you ask her questions and are witty, you can get a larger number of replies but in my experience, those are killing-time conversations. You only get dates when you both like each other’s profile. I got into a lot of conversations where either neither of us mentioned actually meeting, or I would ask her out and she would just ignore that part of the message. I guess what I’m saying is, if it’s not right you can’t make it right with a better opening message, but your opening message needs to be good enough that you don’t miss out on the right person.

As a counterpoint, I only ever went out with two different women in the same week once, and felt kind of weird even doing that. However, my gf has since said that the fact I went out with someone else after our third date made her a little jealous, and was a contributing factor in our relationship accelerating from the fourth date onwards.

Hooray, another success for internet dating and this thread!

The cynical part of me says there must be something wrong, to pull back, but the part of me that thinks it’s fantastic thinks she’s fantastic, to not worry about it and go forward. In fact, the cynical part of me wonders “how can this smart, sex, gorgeous, funny girl actually be interested in me?”

Heh, yeah, I went through that near the beginning. At one point I was actually a little worried she was a con artist, because she was just too perfect, and I tried to remember what I’d said or what she could’ve googled up to see whether she was just feeding my own opinions back to me. We’re now two months in and I’m getting more used to it, but it still feels a little too good to be true.

I guess, after all, it’s just a numbers game.

To an extent, but I think you overdid it a little. I think if you know yourself and can read between the lines, you can effectively filter out a lot of women without meeting them. Out of the women I dated, my gf is the only one I was really excited about meeting. The rest ranged from “there might be more to her than comes across in her profile” to “this will be good practice for later, when I go out with someone better.”

3560

Well, last night was an interesting date. First thing that happens is, I greet her, we lock eyes, and she takes a half-step back and freezes. A couple seconds later, she breaks eye contact and, blushing slightly, tells me that my eyes are ridiculously deep and burningly intense.

For the rest of the date, she keeps claiming I’m trolling her just by looking at her eyes.

This has potential!

Due to lack of opportunity (It was late and neither of us has any privacy without planning ahead of time), a full investigation of the potential of my apparent eye-lasers will have to wait.

I’ve gotten a few contacts based on a certain comment in my profile that suggests exactly how few things I consider private (leaving aside privileged information or other peoples’ secrets). I have since added a comment along the lines of “And if you ask a question, I’ll answer it, so don’t ask unless you want the answer.”

This promoted more contacts. Providing the answer providing hilarity, amusement, and lots of trolling. And the date! Which was good times.

There have also been a couple women that when I message them, let me know that I am very cute, that I should not cut my hair, and that I would drive them crazy.

I’ve also found that using the instant-messenger built into OkC has a much higher success rate than actually messaging people.

There’s a young woman in D.C. that I might be going to a bar with to play Scrabble or Stratego, and a Baltimoran that I’ve promised to show a cafe where we can have good talking times.

So I suppose for now, OkC is going well! :)