Observation made about dating sites.

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Now before I begin, in no way am I trying to bash females or anything like that, I'd just like to point out something I noticed that I think may be worth discussing and hearing thoughts and opinions about. Being high functioning autistic I lack some of the social skills and what not that most "normal" people have when it comes to finding relationships. As a result I've gone towards dating sites with very little success. I've been on POF, okcupid, and DateHookup for almost 2 years now. Okcupid isn't that great as there isn't very many people in my area on it. DateHookup is slightly better but most of the girls don't respond to any messages I send. The only girl I had any luck on there with was from my last adventure I talked about here. POF has lots of people in my area, how ever last night is when I made my observation that I want to discuss.

Most of the girls on there, the headline on their profile almost always consists of the following something like "I'm not looking for a relationship or anything serious right now" or "I'm just looking for friends". Ok...well most guys that take the time to register on a dating site aren't on there in the hopes to "just make friends" I mean heck....I can do that on facebook already <_<

I've even tried to message some of these people in the hopes that maybe I could even become friends with them to see if it lead to anything, and I don't think its anything creepy, usually just something like "Just thought I'd be nice and say hi!". IF I even get a message back I can tell the person clearly isn't interested in me, after a few one word responses or just doesn't bother to respond after the next message. Then I move on to a different dating site and its usually the same 20-30 girls who are just there for friends or ignored/weren't interested in me.

And I don't dare bother to join any paid dating sites because I don't believe romance is something you should have to buy.

If they're on a dating site, odds are they're looking for a relationship. Or at least sex. But they're afraid that, if they admit to what they're really looking for, they'll be labelled as sluts.

A lot of women seem to think the only acceptable way to find a mate is to be swept off her feet by some guy when she least expects it. Anything else, like actively looking for one, and she's not filling what she sees as the expected gender role.

So they look for mates. But they do everything they can think of to make it appear that they're not looking.

This is incredibly confusing for an aspie guy.

As MDS said, women want to feel like something *just* happened, so its a good approach to use. Just plan everything out, then make her think "it just happened".

This^ It's an example of one of the ways society's (and our own internalized reinforcement of) harsh judgement of feminine expressions of sexuality (and overt expressions of sexuality on general) hurt men too. Wouldn't it be so much easier if we could all be honest with each other without being shamed?

Also. This varies depending on what site you're using. Some sites have different focuses
Using a paysite for things other than dating is something I personally think would be petty silly. I don't know if people do that because I've never used a paysite. Using one isn't about paying for love, it's paying for a search tool and a fairly useless algorithm along with access to a pool of people more likely to be serious about dating.
However, since myspace is dead and fb doesn't have the same culture of "finding new people in your area" it's doable but trying to friend people you don't already know on fb is a little looked down on. So there is a bit of a void right now for that aspect of social media.
OKCupid is legitimately used (and can actually be a pretty effective tool for) finding new friends when you move to a new area, like when going to college. (they have an option to be looking for "friends" or "penpals" if that is something you don't like take it up with the developer).
It may be a regionalism (there are a lot of engineering students around, online socializing is prioritized over big parties), but a lot of college students in my area use it for this purpose (male and female students).

Some women may feel pressured to not indicate they are looking for (potentially) sex.
Some women may actually be looking to meet new people to build a social circle.
There isn't an easy way to tell the difference (unless the profile says in a relationship, that's a decent indicator)

If the pressure influencing the first group didn't exist, we'd all be able to take the 2nd group at their word and not worry about hidden motives.
But they do so...my advice would be to take chances, send brief messages that make it clear you've read their profile, don't get too wrapped up in it. Some geographical areas/age ranges just don't have big (or good/compatible) online presences. Some people don't translate well into zeroes and ones.

Well, I know a secret devilish elixir that would increase your reply-rate (by the girls you message and interested in) by like 300%.

But... you have to sell a part of your soul to get it.

Are you ready for this sacrifice?

I've only just recently begun looking into dating sites, but I've noticed that as well. I think that a lot of women on those sites actually just go for an ego boost from all of the messages they end up getting. One thing I've noticed even more though, is that a good 75-85% of women on dating sites are divorced single mothers of "insert number here" (and that's in any age range, not just the older people).

Also if that one sentence is all that you are saying in your message then it isn't likely that you will get many responses at all. I've found it's usually best to ask a question about something in their profile to get a conversation rolling, and keep it to like 2-4 sentences.

Personally I have given up on dating-sites. I have the idea that the one thing that is important on a dating-site is your photo. We could make an experiment, to write a perfect profile text and add horrible photos to it, while having another profile with a horrible text with supermodel photos. I'm pretty sure which one will get most replies.

Then if we do look aside from the photos, and look at average people's texts, it's a nonstop stream of BS. If I'm to believe everything I was reading there I would get the impression everyone was having a perfect and wonderful -nearly celebrity like- life. Full of adventure, never a boring day, etc...

What a crap. I'm not willing to make such profile for myself either.

A good percentage of the single mothers almost tell you off before you message them as well. They're children are their most important thing, you will never integrate within the group, etc... It's easy enough to mark them as a 1 and move on to the next quick match.

See heres the ironic thing. I tried at first to leave lengthy messages, sometimes starting out with a question that could produce conversation and maybe lead to more. Out of about 20 girls I got one response, and I know the others read my message and looked at my profile via the "viewed me" feature on POF. I seemed to have a better success rate with getting messages back by sending that shorter answer, although most of the girls still ignore me because apparently I'm not attractive enough or whatever the reason is, though obviously nothing has lead me to success.



I'm assuming you musta read my story I posted, and yeah she wouldn't be the first experience I've had at that, though she was the only one that went far enough to where I actually saw the person more then once in real life and still talked to them and what not after that. The problem before that I've mentioned in other threads here and there is once you hit your 20's like me, every girl close to your age already got pregnant when they were 18, or is pregnant again with a kid already. I'm not saying all are like that, but you go around on dating sites and what not and its pretty hard finding people that don't have kids already, and if your lucky to find them, they're usually the ones I mentioned before hand that just want friends, are too judgmental to date an autistic person, don't see you as attractive or whatever.

Heck today I came home from work with an email from a girl responding to a craig's list ad I made months ago. I punched in her email on facebook and saw her profile. She was a real beautiful attractive 20 year old, didn't have kids or anything. Her email said something amongst the lines of "hi I'm interested in your ad, can I see a pic of you please?" I responded with a picture, 10 mins later I got an email back. "Sorry I don't think its gonna work out." Whats not gonna work out? All I did was send you a picture, the hell? <_< And people wonder why I'm still single with shallow people like her in this world.