Editorial:
Online Dating Wisdom From Readers
by Joe Tracy, Publisher of Online Dating Magazine
(February 2004) The world of online dating
presents many unique opportunities and challenges.
And some readers love to tackle these challenges, taking
the time to share detailed
thoughts about
online
dating
and
how to
improve
the process.
This month I want to focus on some wisdom
shared by a couple of Online Dating Magazine readers.
One deals with how many online daters don't seem serious
about finding a true mate and two are specifically
on how online dating services can improve the process
of truly
matching people. Reader Wisdom 1 - Quantity Over Quality
I was intrigued by a recent
online dating experience that one reader submitted. In it, the male reader
makes an interesting observation about how many people
don't seem to take the online dating process seriously.
Here's an excerpt:
On my first dates I am a perfect gentleman.
I drive to her area. I hold open doors, I listen to
what she has to say and I pay. I try to be a little
more creative than a coffee date, since those end up
seeming more like interviews than dates. At the very
least I opt for coffee and window shopping!
I don't bring up exes, I don't talk about everyone
else that we may have dated and I generally have
an outgoing, cheerful personality. Women love a guy
that
can make them laugh and I know I have my bases
covered in that department... I'm not looking for
one night stands or to serial date... I want to make
a connection.
Yet, despite all this, after a year of online dating
I have yet to find her.
Given the number of choices a woman has with online
dating, she seems less inclined to give a guy even
a second date unless he seems to be absolutely perfect.
Good guys slip through the cracks and eventually the
woman might even get fed up at going on so many dates
and still not meeting 'the one.'
Maybe it's not the guys, but the process!
It's not surprising that some of the best experiences
I've had have been with women who DIDN'T post a picture.
They get far fewer emails and therefore have a much
more relaxed time with the whole experience. They know
that the guys writing aren't just interested in looks
and it's probably a safe bet that none of the guys
who do contact them are just looking to get laid.
So, ladies, do yourself a favor - plan ONE date at
a time.
I paraphrased the full letter, which can be read here.
This reader makes an extremely valid point. I know
because I've been there. In my online dating experience
I always try to plan only one date at a time even though
I may
be
communicating
with several people. This allows me to put the focus
fully on the other person without distractions. On
two occasions in my online dating experiences, however,
I was put into a position where I had two dates lined
up
in one week. And in each case, I found this process
was extremely unfair to the first person I went on
a date with. While the date was great and enjoyable,
I found myself distracted with the fact that a few
days later I had a date with a completely different
person lined up. My focus was distracted
and, to be frank, I personally feel it was unfair to
the
first
person I went out with. I have since vowed to keep
my open communications limited and to never schedule
two close dates with two different people.
If your goal is to just freely date
with no worries of settling down, then that's fine.
But if you want to truly get to know the person you
are going on a date
with and give that person a chance, then it might be
smart to start putting a focus on one person at
a time.
I've
been
in four wonderful relationships the past couple of
years from my online dating experience. And each
one of the relationships were able to develop because
both
the girl and I were focused on each other. Neither
of us had future dates with others lined up and it
allowed us to get to know each other better and take
our experiences to the next level.
But not everyone feels this way. Here's what a different
reader had to say after reading this editorial (this
comment has been edited in after the original publication
of this editorial):
I totally disagree with
you and your California reader about dating multiple
people at the same time.
I won't
go into reasons why I think it's really important
to do this, but let's just say, it a not putting all
your eggs in one basket philosophy. So long as you
know there are other men out there that are interested
in you, you don't pin your hopes on every single
new
date. It's a keeping things in perspective kind of
thing.
Reader Wisdom 2 - Paying Does Matter
Last month a reader sent me a person email detailing his experience on how quality
has come from services were both men and women have to pay to communicate with
each other. He started his email by taking issue with a comment in my eHarmony
review where I said that I was annoyed that eHarmony.com forces both people
to be paid members before both can communicate with each other. His response
to that was:
As a current member of both match.com and eHarmony.com,
I found your reviews to be perfectly on target. I
would, however like to take issue with one item.
You are constantly
complaining that services should allow non-paying
members to communicate with paying members if the
latter initiate
the contact. I would rather see things go in exactly
the other direction. Non-paying members should not
be allowed to even post ads, period. They can browse,
but not participate in any way.
Here's my reasoning
and experience. I am serious about finding a long
term relationship. More importantly than that, my time
is valuable and I do not want to waste it. I would
like to only spend my time on pursuing women who are
serious about starting a relationship and not bother
with lookie-loos, or ones who were lonely one night
and decided to post and ad with no intention to do
something as crazy as actually meet someone from the
internet.
I used to belong to a very exclusive (non-internet)
dating service while living in CA. I met my wife
through it and got married 5 years ago. That service
had a
fairly steep annual fee to belong and an additional
fee to look at a detailed bio and get contact information.
An unanswered call/letter/email was unheard of. All
the women I met had spent some money to belong and
were motivated to find a mate.
After my divorce two
years ago, I joined the same service again. I now
live in
the northwest and there are very few members here.
In order to increase membership, the service is
waiving the fees for members who live in this
region. My
experience here has been that most of the women
here are not really
motivated to date. They signed up because it was
free and "what was the harm" but were
at a point in their lives where dating was not
a high priority.
As a result, my experience with that service has
been very negative. If they had left a membership
fee for
this part of the country, there would be a lot
fewer members, but I would actually get responses
to my calls
or e-mails and they would be something other than "
I am too busy to date right now".
This reader made some excellent points. And while
I still find forcing both people to be paying members
a way for online dating services to pad their pockets,
I think the reader hit the nail on the head with his
assessment
that paying
members
are
going
to
be more serious about the process than non-paying members.
He summed up his thoughts by saying the following:
Having only 20 female members locally, as long
as all of them are serious about dating, is far
better than having 40 serious females hiding among
150 total women.
Reader
Wisdom 3 - Race and A New Way to Handle Pictures
This month a gentleman emailed me to talk about a couple of frustrations he's
had with online dating services. His first frustration was that some services,
which allow you to select what races you are open to dating, leave out African
American as one of the results. They list Caucasian, Asian, Indian, Middle
Eastern, South Pacific, etc. but don't list African American. I checked
into this and found that, indeed, there are a few high profile services that
don't
list African American as an option of the type of person you want to date.
Thus
if
an
African
American
is
interested in finding a Caucasian to date, his/her ability to find a Caucasian
that wants
to date an African American is greatly inhibited because the option to select
African American isn't there.
The second point the reader made is a new idea for
handling pictures. First, here is a comment he made
in his letter:
Despite the popularity with online dating I have
reservations of placing my picture online. I would
be much more
inclined to do so if only “paying customers” are
able to view it.
Many people have
reservations, but this gentleman has offered a novel
solution:
There is a simple fix to this... Allow me to send
my picture along with my written response, as an attachment
for
example.
Most services allow you to either show a picture or
not show one. Only a handful of services, like eHarmony.com ,
allow you to decide at what point you want to show
your picture. But
for the other services, this gentleman's idea could
be
a good
addition.
Think
about
it... you
sign up for a service and you're allowed to upload
"hidden" photos. And when you communicate
with a person, the service allows you to select what
hidden photos
to reveal to the person along with your message. Nice.
It's similar to LavaLife,
which allows you to have pictures online but only show
them to people
you select to see them.
Conclusion
Many executives from online dating services regularly
read Online Dating Magazine. And by sharing wisdom
from readers, hopefully some of these services will
take good ideas and improve their service as a result.
Keep your letters coming as I look forward to sharing
more reader wisdom in the future. And hopefully this
wisdom, from you, will spark improvements and ideas
that make the experience of online daters that much
better.
Wishing you great success,
Joe Tracy
jtracy@onlinedatingmagazine.com
> Perfectmatch.com - The best approach to find the one.
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