The Online Dating Thread 3..**READ 1ST POST Oct 2012**

HellFireClub

Maguined wrote: »

Yes you know your reasons on your end. You don't know the reasons and justifications about the people that like to see a Facebook first so maybe give them the benefit of the doubt and don't make the assumption they are paranoid and time wasters then? As they could easily view your position as being a lack of trust.

But sure there are plenty of people on POF who are more than happy to take me at face value & accept that I am who & what I say I am, in respect of being single, my age, height, general description, etc. Sure I'm meeting one later, I wouldn't feel right going on a date where there was some sort of a general problem with starting out from that very basic & simple starting assumption.

JennyBurke101

HellFireClub wrote: »

But sure there are plenty of people on POF who are more than happy to take me at face value & accept that I am who & what I say I am, in respect of being single, my age, height, general description, etc. Sure I'm meeting one later, I wouldn't feel right going on a date where there was some sort of a general problem with starting out from that very basic & simple starting assumption.

My apologies you are not aggressive....you are just stubborn....

Hardonraging

tatumkelly wrote: »

He said he thought we'd been getting on so well, that it wouldn't matter when he told me. :rolleyes:

Other interesting mails lately 'Wanna ride' or a guy who keeps mailing me asking why I won't reply, and then mailing again saying it's clearly because he's so hideous and sad....:eek:

Now that's confidence .. altho it does go to show, if you'd added him on facebook, you'd prob know he was lying right

miec

I have to say that I agree with HellFireClub on the issue of Facebook and I don't think he is being aggressive at all, he is making a stance on the increasing invasive aspects of some people on dating sites.

I use Facebook specifically to keep in touch with friends and those close to me as well as social and community work that I do, some of which involves working with teenagers. By adding a total stranger from a dating site who I may or may not find attractive until we meet access to my stuff as well as my friends pictures / family details etc is an invasion of their privacy. Adding someone to my Facebook is akin to telling a stranger where I live, who my friends are, who my family are, etc. I keep my work stuff out of Facebook, that is how guarded I am about it.

I have used online dating since 2000 and since that time it has progressively got worse and more invasive. I liked what someone said earlier about the health and safety aspect, some people are way too demanding of wanting details before meeting when in reality it should be confined to a coffee / tea in a public anonymous place to get a vibe from each other but most people want to rule people out before they meet and using Facebook as another filtering system is making OD even more difficult and challenging. There was a time when people just messaged each, as in proper messages and e-mails. I used to have great exchanges with men. Then it was the winks and like buttons and the instant chat, then it was the must have a picture, now it is one must have a series of pictures and finally allowing people into your Facebook is the new requirement. I would rather be single for the rest of life than hand over all of my life to a stranger. There has to be a point where enough is enough.

Maguined

HellFireClub wrote: »

But sure there are plenty of people on POF who are more than happy to take me at face value & accept that I am who & what I say I am, in respect of being single, my age, height, general description, etc. Sure I'm meeting one later, I wouldn't feel right going on a date where there was some sort of a general problem with starting out from that very basic & simple starting assumption.

I am not saying your choice over Facebook is wrong, I am saying labelling people as paranoid and time wasters for having a different opinion and choice than yours is unfair and an over reactions in my opinion.

I don't smoke. I do not want to date a smoker as we have differing lifestyle choices however I do not label smokers as being repugnant and idiotic because of their choice.

hollypink

tatumkelly wrote: »

He said he thought we'd been getting on so well, that it wouldn't matter when he told me. :rolleyes:

God, the self-delusion, you had a lucky escape I think!

tatumkelly wrote: »

Other interesting mails lately 'Wanna ride' or a guy who keeps mailing me asking why I won't reply, and then mailing again saying it's clearly because he's so hideous and sad....:eek:

I got one yesterday that rather formally (although politely) said he "had not yet had a response from me to his message". I didn't remember him and I dont have any other messages from him in my inbox so don't know what that was about.

On the facebook aspect, maybe it's my age but I regard my facebook as private, for friends and family only. I wouldn't even have work colleagues as facebook friends. It's not that there is confidential info on my profile like bank details (or address or dob); I just regard it as private and wouldn't like a stranger browsing through it. I do think you can work out a surprising amount from a facebook profile though, like roughly where someone lives and works, what their routine is and so on although that obviously depends on whether they post comments frequently and what the content is and of course how the security settings are configured. I can see the logic of wanting to see facebook photos; some people have awful pics on their online dating profile, like a single webcam photo where they aren't even smiling and the lighting is bad. A range of photos gives a better idea of whether you might find them attractive. I haven't ever had anyone from online dating wanting to friend me on facebook in any case.

TheGimp

Can't you not just say that you are not on Facebook?

Hardonraging

TheGimp wrote: »

Can't you not just say that you are not on Facebook?

Never start with a lie, you only have to keep it up forever then ..

seachto7

JennyBurke101 wrote: »

My apologies you are not aggressive....you are just stubborn....

How's the online dating going for you then? :rolleyes::rolleyes:

HellFireClub

JennyBurke101 wrote: »

My apologies you are not aggressive....you are just stubborn....

I've well thought out views that I'm well able to communicate. If I say something, it's because I believe it and can defend why I believe it to be so.

JennyBurke101

seachto7 wrote: »

How's the online dating going for you then? :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Pretty well actually have a date tomorrow

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

kiddums

So I had my first date from OD at the weekend.

I hate so sound cruel but I'm not sure if there is any attraction on my part.
She's an awesome person tho, one who actually gets my humour.

Not sure if I should keep my OD options open still, small as they are.

seachto7

I think Linkedin in profile are different to Facebook. Linkedin profiles are public, and I think people have no problem with that. I feel uneasy looking through photos of people I don't know on Facebook, almost as if I am in their house going through their photo albums....
Any info I have on Linkedin, I want people to see. Everything else I have on Facebook is private and for friends only. No way I'm letting some nutcase rummage through my photos to make assumptions of me.........

andreac

kiddums wrote: »

So I had my first date from OD at the weekend.

I hate so sound cruel but I'm not sure if there is any attraction on my part.
She's an awesome person tho, one who actually gets my humour.

Not sure if I should keep my OD options open still, small as they are.

Nothing cruel about not finding a person attractive. You could get on with them really well but there has to be physical attraction, chemistry and a spark, otherwise its just a friendship really.

I went on two dates with a guy recently, lovely fella, got on really well but just didnt feel that physical chemistry and spark which is a pity as we got on great, but you cant force it to be there.

TheGimp

Hardonraging wrote: »

Never start with a lie, you only have to keep it up forever then ..

It is a stupid social networking site, if people take it that seriously (and are demanding access to more of your private life than you care to share) they probably aren't worth your time. It's not like you are lying about something that actually matters in the grand scheme of life. Once you get to know someone and feel comfortable with them you could explain that you do use the site but weren't comfortable sharing all your private info. with someone who is essentially a stranger (to begin with).

There is a reason why facebook has privacy settings, and why sites like POF exist separately. Otherwise facebook should just introduce a dating feature and let people get on with it.

Daveysil15

andreac wrote: »

I went on two dates with a guy recently, lovely fella, got on really well but just didnt feel that physical chemistry and spark.

This nearly always seems to be the case. Almost every person I've asked about OD has said the same thing, "Nice person, but no spark." It seems to be the main pitfall with online dating.

seachto7

well, you're kind of starting a real life conversation from cold.....

riveratom

Daveysil15 wrote: »

This nearly always seems to be the case. Almost every person I've asked about OD has said the same thing, "Nice person, but no spark." It seems to be the main pitfall with online dating.

I find this to be a huge flaw in it alright - as I said earlier in the thread, a big part of how people hit it off is just happening to meet each other wherever and some sparks fly - and it goes from there.

With OD, you're almost trying to do the reverse - meeting someone who is a complete stranger, and seeing if there is something there. And I would say a lot of time there is a weight of expectation there as well...something else which isn't there and which is really nice when meeting someone the traditional way.

smallgarden

love the awkward moment when you come across someone you know or kind of know!

HellFireClub

riveratom wrote: »

I find this to be a huge flaw in it alright - as I said earlier in the thread, a big part of how people hit it off is just happening to meet each other wherever and some sparks fly - and it goes from there.

With OD, you're almost trying to do the reverse - meeting someone who is a complete stranger, and seeing if there is something there. And I would say a lot of time there is a weight of expectation there as well...something else which isn't there and which is really nice when meeting someone the traditional way.

Very well put, this is exactly it, and it's why I think OD carries a fatal flaw such as the one you have identified, even though it is working very well for me at the moment, but having said that, I go on very few dates by choice, maybe one every month or every two months...

A woman in her early 40's messaged me last night and we got into a chat about the OD world, and she reckoned that there are like four times as many single women as there are single men in Ireland, that are generally in or around their late 20's, 30's and 40's, so on that basis, she reckoned that the odds are stacked hugely in favour of men when it comes to having a choice of women, than the odds are for women seeking men, if you were to apply a "supply and demand" type rationality to the discussion we were having.

A bit of me is inclined to see it that way, maybe based on the mails I get, I'm wondering if it is like that, then how it panned out to be so...

seachto7

I dunno, being out and about in Limerick, it's nearly always more men than women. I have a bad habit of asking myself, "hmmm, a nice woman in her 30s. Why is she single?" Same thing a woman could ask about a guy too....

YumCha

Just had a message from a guy saying nothing but "should be fun having sex with you " - since one of the criteria to mail me on Pof is having a minimum of 50 characters in your message, he just repeated it 5 times in a row :rolleyes:

Going back to the Facebook thing I don't mind so much. Have been asked by a couple of guys to be added (after chatting for a good bit first) and it's been helpful because you can usually see a few more pics of them and also find out a bit more about what they're like.

I've run into so many profiles with fake pics/lies about height/lies about relationship status etc. so I appreciate anything that helps me weed out time wasters, and I usually feel a little bit better going to meet them with some kind of verification that they are who they say they are. I wouldn't write off people just on not wanting to share Facebook though - it would be a more 'how cagey are they across the board?' thing.

And going back a bit further on whether girls should reply to every message - just keep in mind this is basically impossible when you first join as I think everyone jumps on newbies - i know someone posted earlier in the thread saying she got over 600 messages in 24 hours... (ok that was for a fake slutty profile, but I estimate I had around 300 between Pof and OKc when I first joined, mostly just saying hi and nothing else...:rolleyes:).

mood

I don't believe there are a significantly larger number of men in Ireland than women. There was a thread about this recently and someone quoted stats for the census office which proved their point. I can't remember where the thread is!



Found some stats. See below.


Population 2006:
Male - 2,121,171
Female - 2,118,677

http://www.cso.ie/Quicktables/GetQuickTables.aspx?FileName=CNA13.asp&TableName=Population+1901+-+2006&StatisticalProduct=DB_CN

riveratom

HellFireClub wrote: »

Very well put, this is exactly it, and it's why I think OD carries a fatal flaw such as the one you have identified, even though it is working very well for me at the moment, but having said that, I go on very few dates by choice, maybe one every month or every two months...

A woman in her early 40's messaged me last night and we got into a chat about the OD world, and she reckoned that there are like four times as many single women as there are single men in Ireland, that are generally in or around their late 20's, 30's and 40's, so on that basis, she reckoned that the odds are stacked hugely in favour of men when it comes to having a choice of women, than the odds are for women seeking men, if you were to apply a "supply and demand" type rationality to the discussion we were having.

A bit of me is inclined to see it that way, maybe based on the mails I get, I'm wondering if it is like that, then how it panned out to be so...

Yeah. I'm not sure if four times as many is even mathematically possible, that would be like 40k single women for 10k single men in Dublin let's say, but I would say women probably do outnumber men.

The main reason I would say is that from the late 20s/early 30s onwards, women maybe need to be more selective about who they get with - most will be thinking of settling down, thinking of someone more from the point of view of getting married, etc. Whereas with men, it's more free and easy to an extent I suppose.

Either way, I'm starting to get a bid jaded with the old OD myself. Endless emailing, not getting replies, even when I take the time to write 2-3 friendly paragraphs referencing stuff from their profile, while tonnes of other blokes just write 'fancy a shag', getting mails from girls I have no interest in (and where most are just 'you're cute / hot etc'), trying to figure out if I do fancy someone based on their photos, wondering if they'll look the same in real life etc.

The other thing is that I think OD gives women the 'illusion of choice' - when you're being mailed by dozens of single guys, why would you bother mailing only the ones you really fancy? Which is basically going to be maybe 1 in every 40 guys.

I'm the only single one out of all my friends, would be nice to meet someone, even just for some fun, but I don't know if I can be bothered to be honest!

JackCharlton

I joined POF a few months ago And have met a few nice people . I decided to have a zany profile that would make people laugh Abd uploaded a few recent pics of myself
Could I ask any boardsie wimmins to pm me where I will give you a link to me And see is it a bit too off the wall

mood

riveratom wrote: »

...why would you bother mailing only the ones you really fancy? Which is basically going to be maybe 1 in every 40 guys.

Because there is not point wasting you time and leading someone on. It a dating site not Facebook!

HellFireClub

riveratom wrote: »

Yeah. I'm not sure if four times as many is even mathematically possible, that would be like 40k single women for 10k single men in Dublin let's say, but I would say women probably do outnumber men.

The main reason I would say is that from the late 20s/early 30s onwards, women maybe need to be more selective about who they get with - most will be thinking of settling down, thinking of someone more from the point of view of getting married, etc. Whereas with men, it's more free and easy to an extent I suppose.

Either way, I'm starting to get a bid jaded with the old OD myself. Endless emailing, not getting replies, even when I take the time to write 2-3 friendly paragraphs referencing stuff from their profile, while tonnes of other blokes just write 'fancy a shag', getting mails from girls I have no interest in (and where most are just 'you're cute / hot etc'), trying to figure out if I do fancy someone based on their photos, wondering if they'll look the same in real life etc.

The other thing is that I think OD gives women the 'illusion of choice' - when you're being mailed by dozens of single guys, why would you bother mailing only the ones you really fancy? Which is basically going to be maybe 1 in every 40 guys.

I'm the only single one out of all my friends, would be nice to meet someone, even just for some fun, but I don't know if I can be bothered to be honest!

Meet your bro... :cool:

smallgarden

on ratio of men to women od, i think its alot more socially avceptable for women to be od than men.id suspect there are still alot of men who would be embarassed to admit to their friends they were online dating or thinking of it whereas there isnt as much stigma among women.itd be interesting to see numbers of female/males on pof or okc. ive heard singles nights and speed dating normally struggle more to fill male places.i think guys prefer traditional route of go for few drinks for dutch courage and take it from there

riveratom

mood wrote: »

Because there is not point wasting you time and leading someone on. It a dating site not Facebook!

Well...yes.

I'm talking in the context of everything I've said in the post above. I've been on OD sites and have been going to dating events here and there, on and off for the past eight years. And I've had one relationship in that entire time.

Now here's the clincher:

it was with someone I met on a night out with friends!

So, eight years of all this dating / singles lark, could be a shade hit and miss, no?!!

I'm single but I have loooads to be grateful for, great friends, lots going on, maybe I don't really need a woman at all. I've certainly been single for long enough now to be well used to it!