Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Are you serious about this?

So it's been over a week since I paid for my subscription. I've had three people contact me after seeing my profile. For two of them, I expressed no interest. I had issues with height and looks. Another guy mentioned in his description that he has children.

It's frustrating because you'd think that the best chances of meeting someone come when you first log into the system. I know it's just after the holidays, but this weekend would have been the time for people to catch up on their e-mails and stuff, right? I'm trying not to let this lower my self-esteem.

Admittedly, my picture is not shown to all people. I have chosen a setting where I can decide who gets to see my photo. If I feel comfortable with their profile and photos, I'll usually share mine. Eight guys can view my photos. If a guy asks me to share mine, it seems to fair to give them as long as I get to see him. I even put in a comment to that effect. Guys who have no photo posted, however, I'm not comfortable giving mine out. Chi's philosophy when she was online was to see who would take the first step site unseen. She felt it was a way of being sure they were serious about dating and not weighing too much into looks. I tend to agree with the idea. How much am I limiting myself?

I can't help wonder how many of these guys are fishing. You know, they signed up to look but haven't actually subscribed, so they can't do anything. I wish there was a way to know if these people are truly active. It sucks that I could be hoping to communicate with people who aren't really there.

In another week, I'll have to ask myself if I want to make first contact. Honestly, I've just never had luck in the past. It always felt like if I made the first move, they weren't that interested in me. I don't want that. Then again, I've been told by a couple people that I should consider meeting these people as practice dating. Perhaps I could contact some of these guys with that idea in mind though that feels dishonest.

Sigh... thank goodness for business trips, class, and football playoffs. That should keep my mind off this tortuous process.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

the couple of times i've tried online dating, i found it took about a month before i actually went on a date with someone. that's after a few weeks of duds, guys who don't respond to my messages, and email "relationships" that die out.

and i didn't even limit my profile as much as you're doing. i set "cupid preferences" - age range, height range, geography - but that still let in a lot of people.

it's hard to be patient with these things, and i agree a week feels like a long time.

zerodoll said...

when i did online dating, i got barely any responses until i put up a photo. and honestly, i wouldn't even read a guy's profile who didn't have one. yes, you don't want to put too much into looks (and same for the guys courting you), but let's face it, looks/attraction do matter.

Pandax said...

I'm definitely familiar with how e-mail relationships die out. E-mail has become too overwhelming sometimes. I have to remind myself that it's also not as reliable as we think.

My profile is open for everyone to read, just my picture is limited. I have basic preferences - no smoking, Asian, age 31 to 42, within 50 miles of me. There are some other parameters - has kids, want to have kids, drinking, religion, height, etc. - where I indicated some prefence, but this consultant doesn't always weigh those very strongly when matching me with men. There seems to be some fuzzy logic to the matching algorithm. It's probably a good thing because it teaches me to reconsider traits if something else good compensates for a minor dislike.

I have been matched with 50+ people thus far. I have not communicated at all with 25 of them (my choice or theirs). However, that means there's almost 30 of them who haven't been interested enough to contact me or disinterested enough to take me off their list. I guess I just dislike limbo.

Anonymous said...

One of the things I notice about your thinking is that you are very willing to conclude that someone isn't interested enough in you. There are lots of reasons in online dating not to contact someone, even if she looks interesting. A common one, for me, is that I'm having another email conversation, or maybe two, with someone else interesting, who contacted me before. Some people write to everyone all the time, but I don't know many people like that. For me, I can really only process one thing at a time. Someone else, no matter how compelling, won't get my attention if it's diverted elsewhere.

So reaching out yourself isn't a bad strategy -- it might help divert someone's attention your way. I also agree a picture is useful. Some services let people screen only for people who have pictures visible. I don't think it's fair to conclude that someone who screens that way is shallow or bad.

I agree that limbo sucks. But don't be so quick to conclude that limbo means that people are reviewing you, carefully with full attention, and rejecting you. I doubt that's the case. People put up lots of screens and filters in order to do online dating, and they're very rough and error-prone.

Pandax said...

Sure enough, this morning I find one guy who let me know that he's "pursuing another relationship," which is fine since he was that fireman I wasn't sure about.

I'm definitely aware that some of these guys aren't paying attention. In fact, I thought I mentioned somewhere how frustrating it is not to know if these people are actually paid subscribers. That could very well be why I have't heard from them.

In regards to the photo, with my consultant, you're given people's profiles to review regardless of whether there's a photo shown. The person can click out the minute they see no picture available, but they still have to click on the profile to learn that. Almost ten guys can see my photo, but it hasn't made any difference. Could it just be my bad luck that all the ones who see my photo are already busy or not active?

I know there's still plenty of time to see if anything happens. It's just me overanalyzing everything. ;)

jayfish said...

from a guys perspective...

first off, i think it's great that you're using internet dating. as a shy person, i found it to be a wonderful way too see & learn about potential dates long before you meet them.

second, i think by not showing your picture to everyone, you're limiting yourself greatly. physical appearance is the first spark of attraction and really, wouldn't you want to date a guy that thinks you're hot? if you go to a bar/club/volunteer event, what's the first thing you notice about someone? how they look. why are you hiding?

when i was using internet dating sites, if a girl didn't have a photo i didn't even waste my time. it didn't matter how close we matched at all. there are *so* many dating sites that you can easily spend all your time looking at only the profiles with photos.

another view; by not making your photo available to everyone means that when a guy has to ask for your photo, you're putting pressure on him to find you attractive and you're making the dating process that much more difficult for both of you.

btw, i was actively looking at profiles even though i wasn't totally ready to ask anyone out long before i ever subscribed so don't blow off the fishermen. sometimes we just need a little bit of time to gather our courage.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the not sharing photo thing probably being a limiting factor for you. Even though the program seems to make a guy click on your profile before finding out whether or not you are sharing your picture, there not being one after the click may just make the guy go to the next match on his list.

Also, if a guy asks you to share your photo, you in turn knows that he's viewed your profile. Even when I find someone attractive, I probably don't want them to know that I've viewed their profile until I actually contact them ... so I think for me, if a guy's profile requires me to ask before sharing a photo, I will likely pass.

Anonymous said...

My comment's not really about showing your photo...it's about guys who sort of force you to make first contact. I think what turned me off of online dating was that, yes, some of the guys were really shy and weren't the sorts who had the confidence to approach you in real life, but I also found that this lack of confidence translated online, as well, where I felt they should have been opening themselves up a bit more.

I'm sorry, but I think if a man doesn't have the confidence to take the chance to contact me first, then I have no interest in getting to know him.