The online dating thing has been increasingly playing on my mind since KfW2 first suggested it a month or so ago, amongst other methods of meeting people. From reading around and from the specific online dating thread on a forum that I frequent, success in online dating relies on first of all, good profile pictures, second of all, a good profile and sending out lots and lots of messages and hope for perhaps a one in ten response.
A one in ten response? I've had more success than that in bars when I actually make the effort to talk to women. Online dating sites are specifically out there for people to meet, so how can the response rate be so low?
The pictures bit is a bit up in the air for me - I really don't like a lot of the pictures I'm in and those that I do, the candid ones, are not brilliant for showing off who I am.
I can write profiles all day long that I believe reflect my personality and are interesting to read. A few years ago, I got my friends A and DSC lots of dates by writing their profiles.
I think it's the sending messages bit that really lets me down. I need to be excited by a profile, whether that's a picture of a cute girl or a sign in what she's written that she's someone I want to know. Without that excitement, I just can't summon up the energy to write a message to someone, so I can't blanket bomb messages to girls to get a decent amount of responses. The unwritten rules of online dating sites as stated on the forum that I frequent coupled with my own experiences tell me that the more surgical, targetted method that I employ is not suited.
The last time, on two different online dating sites, I sent out approximately fifty messages that resulted in about six replies, most were "no thanks" which is fair enough, and two of those led to conversations and one date with Date No. 1. I wanted to hear back from each and every one of those girls that I had messaged, because there was something in them that interested me. The fact that 90% didn't reply (it didn't matter if they were unwilling or unable, the fact is they didn't) really hit my confidence. Like it or not, while I didn't take it personally, it did dent my own self-confidence and that's my issue with online dating - I simply don't have the mentality for it.
I started typing this post in order to try and make some sense of why I'm still considering online dating after my confidence took an almighty bashing about three years ago. I also want to have a chat with KfW2 at some point about online dating, so getting this all sorted in my head is a good start. I was going to draw up a list of pros and cons in order to help me make a decision, but I can't really think about that now. No doubt I'll come back to that later...
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