Online Dating Frustration

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Online Dating Experience 10
Frustration with Online Dating
38 year old male from Illinois

It was about three months ago that I plunged head-on into online dating, after having dabbled in it very unsuccessfully for a summer a while back.

About me: I'm 38 but look 10 years younger, am considered by others to be attractive, have a fit, toned body and have never emailed a woman with any sort of embarrassing faux pas.

The lessons I've learned are this: apparently the men-to-women ratio must be at least 25 to 1, or even 50. My response rate, for instance, at Match.com is less than 1%! For all the talk of all the jerks women attract online, a well-spoken, decent-looking guy with an obvious sense of humor still doesn't fare any better!

As the other guy mentioned, and from some of the exchanges I've had, decent-looking women are overwhelmed with responses from guys. I have no idea what their criteria is in selecting. I'm totally baffled. No matter how well-written a response you provide, it doesn't seem to affect the response rate. On the flip-side, the responses I get from women — who rarely initiate anything on these sites — have been from depressingly unattractive and older women whom I would never consider.

Match.com is the obvious master, with the most results and most new faces. LavaLife is okay but rarely seems to get a lot of new faces. Matchmaker has the coolest setup but again: never seems to have any new faces. One recurring annoying problem is lots of photos of attractive women that are still up... even though she hasn't been on the site in months (a sign she's found somebody). Stay away from DreamDates and DreamMates (different sites) — talk about no new faces!

Finally, as it turned out, I went on a date with somebody from Matchmaker whom I had emailed and then had an hour and a half phone conversation with, which went great. The sad ending was that while her pictures were attractive enough and she listed her body type as "weight and height proportionate," in person she was considerably heavier and that sank the date right there. Why people lie about that when ultimately they will be discovered is beyond me.

In the end, I'll give it another month but as an investment it has not paid off at all. I'm sure for attractive women it's an instant way to attract hundreds of suitors, but for guys it appears to be merely a way to be lost in the onslaught.

I haven't tried eHarmony.com yet. Perhaps I'll give them the last chance to redeem online dating. But for the money it's cost this has been a virtual zero return on the investment, and I'd rather take my chances the old-fashioned way rather than spend any more time writing thoughtful responses to women I know will never reply.

Sorry for the downer, but I call 'em like I see 'em.

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