Why have I been so unsuccessful with OKCupid?

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Fat chance. Not only have I known are my colleagues at the university I work at for a long time but everyone there is either already married or is engaged. I'm also not going to meeting anyone new there either.

I am not sure what is the Okcupid gender ratio, but there's always much more males online than female online when I sign in.
And about half of women there are "seeing someone" or married or taken or just use Okcupid for quizzes (those make a great portion).

It's typical to not be successful there.

I think those are successful in offline dating are the ones who can be successful in online dating.

Are all statisticians such fatalists?

yeah, i agree that the first few exchanges are like dates, in a way. reading what people write about online dating, i think that sometimes the thought process might be: if only s/he would give me a chance and meet in person. i think s/he might really like me... if i had a chance to go on a real date. but it can be incredibly hard to get a person to take the leap from online to offline interaction. so the early messages can be as important as an actual date, and with extra perils - it is just too easy for the other person to click away from the page.

Jono, i think the biggest obstacle is that you simply don't have that much practice yet. you are not being fair to yourself by comparing your age to the milestone you think you should be reaching in comparison to NTs. consider that you have said elsewhere you were not even really trying to meet someone until fairly recently as you were busy with your education and so on.

NTs (or some aspies too) will often get started on trying to date the opposite sex from a very young age, and get years of experience and practice by the time they are in a serious relationship. it is not unusual to see a 13-year-old person looking to "date", and by the time they are in their later teens or twenties, they have a big database of knowledge about interactions with the opposite sex.

Jono, you are really barely out of the starting gate. if you just picked up a cello at age 31, you could not expect to play with the same easy skill and competence as a 31-year-old who has been playing since age 13.

i think it is a good idea to continue with OKCupid if you are not too discouraged. continue to tweak your profile and even set up profiles at other sites (though i think they might not have as many users in your region, it would be good practice. it is HARD to effectively "package" yourself for these dating sites).

I don't trust official dating sites much. Forums (like this for example) are better ways to meet online girls offline.

I met one special girl in person thanks to another support forum (not this one). And we weren't even seeking a date/fling initially.

I don't seem to get many views, let alone messages. Unless alot of people click the invisible option? Anyhow, could be my ugly mug scaring folks away.

My barely active fake account (with an athletic hot dude pic) is more successful .

My own experience of OKCupid is that is an absolute desert. I have dating sites that I've done reasonably well on and even landed many dates. On OK I initiated likely more than I ever have - zero replies, none.

I think if you actually join a pay site where its women actively looking you'll do better. If its free site I get the impression that its a place where everyone poses and waits for the perfect partner who's way out of their league to come along and say something witty (ie. if girls here found the same thing with guys or got nothing more than sex requests it wouldn't surprise me much).

Except that at 31, time is running out. I've got 18 years less time to find a partner than what I would of had at 13. Most of my friends, even the ones a few years younger than me, are already married. People can't say to me, as they usually say to teenagers, "you've got plenty of time". Plus I've have far less interaction with people, and therefore less opportunities to meet new people, than what I had a few years ago.

Last edited by Jono on 10 Apr 2011, 12:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.

yes, it's true that you have to learn it faster, but you have more life experience and intelligence than a 13-year-old, so it is possible that you can pack in a lot of learning into a shorter time period.

what are you going to run out of time to do? is it related to having children? you can have kids at 40, even some people adopt or conceive at an older age than that. or you could marry a woman who already has kids, so that your age is not a problem. i know you are not keen on that idea, but as you get older, it becomes more and more likely that the women in your age group already have children so you could be significantly narrowing your dating pool by excluding such women.

it is possible to broaden your social circle by attending some form of group or activity. the more social circles you become attached to, the more opportunities you can open yourself up to. for example, trying something new or interesting. i am horribly uncoordinated and have sketchy motor skills at the best of times, but i will be signing up for a dance class in the fall (adult hiphop lol). i also joined an atheist group, though i think it is not to my taste really. the point being.... if the opportunities do not exist in your current circumstances, then you need to change your circumstances to create the opportunities.

I've already noticed that more women over 30 seem to have children than not. That's part of the problem since I don't know even know if I can look after children. So it becomes more difficult to find someone as you get older because most older women are either married or have children. Also, despite the fact that I'm not sure yet if want children due to my AS, it would be nice to keep that option open but only after the details have already been worked out with a partner.

Going to some group would be nice if I had someone to go with. Right now, the only social events I go to where I get to meet new people are physics conferences. And no, I don't see how I could change my circumstances, judging by the fact that I really have anyone to go such groups with and the fact that I can't drive. I'm basically stuck with the social circle I've got.

i meant for you to go to try new things alone, where nobody knows you. it's scarier than hell, but if you make an ass of yourself it doesn't matter so much because... nobody knows you. you can just abruptly leave and never see those other people again. i've slipped away from more than one awkward social situation (or i've hid in the bathroom, which is my favourite second choice). i also don't drive. it takes me an hour to get downtown on the bus and train to work, or 1.5 hours in non-peak hours, or up to 2 hours in inclement weather.

i understand not being sure about having kids.... so... dating someone with kids is a perfect way to find out your own limitations. you would get to know the rugrats very slowly and find out if taking care of kids is something you want to do. they may grow on you. and if they don't, you have learned something important - maybe skip having kids.

we could argue each point, but really: what is the ideal situation you looking for, and how do you think you can get from your present state to that situation?

Found a bf on OkCupid, dated for three-four months and was forced to break up because his mom hated me. So yeah, OkCupid should have a subsection for the person's family. I wouldn't have gotten involved at all if I had known that his mom is so possessive over her 24 year old son. So I was successful for a little bit but it was futile. :/

When a woman opens new profile in a free popular internet dating site, they might get hundreds of messages. "Hi, how are you?" or only "Hi" or messages containing only compliments about the woman's looks are most of time left unanswered.

You could for example try 3 part structure. The first part consists of introducing themselves. Tell who you are and what kind of company you are looking for. In the second part, based on her profile, try to find some commonalities, common hobbies, world views, philosophies of life, etc. Also shows that you have read her profile with thought. In third part, try to get some conversation going on by some question.

Thanks for the information.

...I don't stand a chance...

I think the ideal situation for me would probably be if I'm in a position to meet new people. Preferably, I would like to be with a friend as well so that there's at one person there that I already know. I would also probably want to be doing something that I'm interested in rather than being in a place where I wouldn't socialize very well.

P.S. I got a reply back from that girl. It seems like she's still interested in meeting but she hasn't yet heard back from her friend who she was going to stay with when she comes to Johannesburg. It comes down to transport issues. She may end up making other plans for that long weekend, so the date could be canceled but it doesn't seem like it's my fault.