All of this makes me reluctant to have a go at internet dating! Is it really such a minefield?
When you have a good date, TDC, it's worth it. Put it this way, last year I probably dated about 15 guys, and about 5 of them were nice, I liked them and dated them for a few weeks. You just have to sift through the dirt a bit and I believe you straight men have it just as hard as us ladies. And not take the bad experiences to heart either, just wash them off. But don't do it until you're ready. There is fun to be had, but I guess just see who you speak to and try and befriend them more than anything. Get a good sense of what you want and what you don't want and see what happens or what you find
Why do they bother? It's so infuriating! I bet a really nice guy last week and we had pencilled in another date for this week, but he cancelled as he had met someone else. Just my luck!!:(
Whilst where at it, I'm also fed up of guys who totally ignore my age/location criteria and think it's acceptable to message me?! Why in gods name do they waste their time?!
Paragraph 1 - the old guys with bad taste striking again. Grrrr!
Paragraph 2 - I get that too. Hey, they can't resist younger hot stuff and the chance to try their luck, silly mofos! Ha!
When you have a good date, TDC, it's worth it. Put it this way, last year I probably dated about 15 guys, and about 5 of them were nice, I liked them and dated them for a few weeks. You just have to sift through the dirt a bit and I believe you straight men have it just as hard as us ladies. And not take the bad experiences to heart either, just wash them off. But don't do it until you're ready. There is fun to be had, but I guess just see who you speak to and try and befriend them more than anything. Get a good sense of what you want and what you don't want and see what happens or what you find
You do end up training yourself on what's good, what isn't, what to look out for both in good & bad ways.
Meetup is probably the healthier way if you have the moolah to go into town and meet like-minded people. When I get my new job I'm gonna give that a go, regardless of how things go at the moment.
You do end up training yourself on what's good, what isn't, what to look out for both in good & bad ways.
Meetup is probably the healthier way if you have the moolah to go into town and meet like-minded people. When I get my new job I'm gonna give that a go, regardless of how things go at the moment.
I'm not too sure about meetup, I don't really like being thrust into a group of people. I'm better with people one to one.
I was glad to hear that your dating seems to have had a good result
Feels like a while since I stuck my head in here...what'd I miss?
Anyway I rejoined the online dating trail in the last few months. I'm actually trying Match Affinity, which is the Match.com equivalent of eHarmony in that it's all "massive questionnaire to get some complicated algorithm to tell you a slightly made up percentage of how likely you are to get on".
Cynical? Me? Yes. It's also absolutely fearsomely expensive though, even compared to just regular Match, for no good reason I can see.
Having said that I've had a reasonable amount of success from being on it, have been chatting to quite a few folk - seems a bit like people are more inclined to reply to an initial email if there's a little percentage score that tells them they maybe ought to! - and have a few dates in the calendar including a meet-up tomorrow.
I did also see a great line in a profile from a girl a couple of days ago: "I've been told I look much younger than my years - so I've taken some off here (ask me later)" i.e. she's lied about her age on the profile. Not quite sure why you'd lie about it but tell everyone that, that's a new one on me...?
I've carried on using the dating sites since I last posted on this thread. Met this really nice girl in November and went out a couple of times, there wasn't too much of a spark there but I'm quite tentative with new people and I could tell she was quite similar in that regard too.
I've dated some other girls since but I kept in contact with her although we didn't speak much in December as she said she was going through some tough times with her family and didn't feel like a relationship anymore and just wanted us to be friends.
Finally got around to seeing her again today, had a good time with her as we have quite similar interests. She asked for us to meet up again before I even had a chance to which was a good sign, and mentioned in passing that her last relationship started as a friendship too.
I'm not getting ahead of myself though as I like her as a friend and may have some dates lined up with other girls soon. It just still feels to a large extent that we're still figuring each other out, if it does lead to anything more though I'll be happy.
READ my post. I did NOT ask you to kill yourself, I suggested that I be killed if I came out with a comment. Do NOT twist my words and make me out to be a troll.
This thread is for positive, constructive advice. Suggesting that someone is desperate because I haven't found good chemistry with someone, and trotting out lines like "it just makes it glaringly obvious why they are long term single" is not welcome here, neither is it particularly helpful to anyone, unless you just like winding people up for fights.
Go off to General Discussion, there's plenty folk who'll entertain you there. Moving on.....
I gave you advice, you took offence, end of story.
Nobody likes to receive what is percieved to be uncalled for criticism, but I still stand by what I said.
I wouldn't suggest you are a troll by any means as you are a well established poster, however you are obviously articulate with quite a strong personality which can sometimes come across on these boards as a bit overpowering.
I wasn't winding you up, I suggested you take the whole dating thing a bit less seriously, often people will meet someone when they are not actively 'looking'.
You may have thought I was being offensive, but if you look back at what you wrote to me you was VERY offensive to me, so I wouldn't act like the injured party if I were you. Please don't tell me what boards to post on, I will post when and where I want.
You are "currently married", be happy 'till the next time.
Does your husband know he is "current"?
Oh dear pulling me up on semantics, yes I could have worded it better.
How about "we are welded together with a ball and chain, and our marriage certificate has been dipped in gold so it will last for eternity"....is that better for you? :D
Oh dear pulling me up on semantics, yes I could have worded it better.
How about "we are welded together with a ball and chain, and our marriage certificate has been dipped in gold so it will last for eternity"....is that better for you? :D
Aiming for ever would be good, before you go out preaching.
I rang up eHarmony to get a refund on my sixth month membership. I used to get lots of results inside my settings but, for the last couple of months, was only getting profiles that were "just outside my settings".
I rang up and they cancelled the six month contract. I voiced my concerns that I didn't want six months of daily results that weren't compatible and, if they could no longer provide compatible results after many, many months of doing this on a daily basis, there wasn't much point me continuing.
The lady managed to convince me that a couple of my settings (my preference on "faith") were the reason I was getting lousy results. Apparently my settings for this were "contradicting themselves" and hampering results.
I found this dubious, but agreed to a 3 month membership for about £30 (the second and third month being free).
7 days in and I'm still getting results "just outside my settings" to the point where I'm not even bothering logging in to check. I'm baffled as to why they can no longer provide me compatible results when they used to be able to provide about 10 a day, and my settings haven't changed at all.
I don't know how wide your settings are, but maybe if you have been on the same website for a few years, then it's unlikely that 10 new people will be joining every week that fulfill your criteria?
Here's an idea, call it market research if you will, but if you regular t'internet daters could try this I'd be interested to see the results.
If you're actively using a dating website, over the course of 7 days, log the number of:
number of people who message you
those you respond to & why
those you reject & why
number of profiles you intentionally look at
no of those you message and why
no of those you ignore and why
No big detailed reasons required, even "I just get bad vibes and don't know why" is a perfectly acceptable reason. Try and quote what site you're using too.
Hey, why else are we here?! I'm interested to know at least and **** it? It's the end of January!
I don't know how wide your settings are, but maybe if you have been on the same website for a few years, then it's unlikely that 10 new people will be joining every week that fulfill your criteria?
My settings are pretty wide with the only real specifics being non-smoker, no kids and a fairly wide age bracket.
I'd be in complete agreement that I can't expect 10 new people to join every week that match my criteria...but none at all, when there used to be enough for 10 matches every day? And the profiles back then tended to be current profiles - ie. not people who'd been in the system for yonks and weren't actively using the site. My settings haven't changed at all.
I don't know, maybe they're "saving them up" and I'll get inundated in a few weeks? But there was a constant, steady flow and then, about two months ago, it completely stopped and I get a couple of people outside my settings and NONE inside my settings.
I tend to average about 1 message/set of question/wink a day, but logging in and seeing that this person is way outside my location settings is a bit disheartening.
I am so pissed off with female kind at the minute.
The last girl I saw from online we went on three dates, each better than the last. Then she was very busy with Uni work so haven't seen her in a few months, but we kept in touch. After she finished I asked did she want to meet again but she kept putting it off and waiting to see what her friends were doing first - eventually I just got bored and didn't contact her again, told her if she was interested to get in contact, otherwise I'd leave her alone. Didn't hear anything for ages and then a few messages. Asked her did she want to meet now - got a yes, she'd let me know after Monday. Monday comes and goes and nothing from her. Sent her a message - a very polite one - saying sorry I didn't hear from her and that if she wanted to meet some other time to let me know.
Why can't women be straight and just say they either want to meet or they don't?
I am so pissed off with female kind at the minute.
The last girl I saw from online we went on three dates, each better than the last. Then she was very busy with Uni work so haven't seen her in a few months, but we kept in touch. After she finished I asked did she want to meet again but she kept putting it off and waiting to see what her friends were doing first - eventually I just got bored and didn't contact her again, told her if she was interested to get in contact, otherwise I'd leave her alone. Didn't hear anything for ages and then a few messages. Asked her did she want to meet now - got a yes, she'd let me know after Monday. Monday comes and goes and nothing from her. Sent her a message - a very polite one - saying sorry I didn't hear from her and that if she wanted to meet some other time to let me know.
Why can't women be straight and just say they either want to meet or they don't?
Awww sorry Ags, believe me some of us get the same from some men too (in my case quite a lot). People would really rather waste time than be direct, bravery is in scarce supply, whereas cowardice is very plentiful. I blame cowardice of the opposite sex for 80% of my dating disasters!
My settings are pretty wide with the only real specifics being non-smoker, no kids and a fairly wide age bracket.
I'd be in complete agreement that I can't expect 10 new people to join every week that match my criteria...but none at all, when there used to be enough for 10 matches every day? And the profiles back then tended to be current profiles - ie. not people who'd been in the system for yonks and weren't actively using the site. My settings haven't changed at all.
I don't know, maybe they're "saving them up" and I'll get inundated in a few weeks? But there was a constant, steady flow and then, about two months ago, it completely stopped and I get a couple of people outside my settings and NONE inside my settings.
I tend to average about 1 message/set of question/wink a day, but logging in and seeing that this person is way outside my location settings is a bit disheartening.
Not really sure. Maybe they've changed the algorithm by which they select and send matches? If you don't trust their matches, the only alternative really is to search yourself. Is there an option to sort by most recent join date, or only show profiles you haven't viewed before when you do your search?
Not really sure. Maybe they've changed the algorithm by which they select and send matches?
I think that might be it. As an experiment, I changed my settings on two areas from "Quite Important" to "I don't mind at all" yesterday and , while I had more profiles delivered this morning, they were still not inside my settings.
If you don't trust their matches, the only alternative really is to search yourself. Is there an option to sort by most recent join date, or only show profiles you haven't viewed before when you do your search?
Unfortunately not. eHarmony does't work like that. You can only see what they want to show you. You can do an adhoc search and get a few more profiles to look at, but I think all that does is pre-empts the email you'd get from them the following morning.
The USP of eHarmony is it does the leg work for you and is supposed to come up with compatible matches based on settings and the initial personality test, delivering potential matches to you every day rather than letting you search their databases yourself. That has worked a little better than MSF and Match for me in the past, but now it's generating people who aren't in my settings and I don't find attractive anyway!
I guess I'm very picky (just on the fact that I get a decent amount of interest and have ignored all of them so far this year) but I'm a little wary of the fact that I went on very few dates last year (or the year before) and they were all provided by eHarmony. Not feeling too hopeful for 2014 now!
I tried eharmony very briefly in 2012 (I think I posted about it on the first page of this very long thread!) but never paid up. I hated that you couldn't look yourself. It seemed so convoluted before you even got to the matching stage, and then you're totally at the whim of their algorithm!
I do get why it appeals to some though as doing your own searches means one is reliant on the "algorithm" in one's biased head anyway.
Ive finally agreed to meet someone next Saturday, not really sure what to think. Shes a DJ from my facebook page, lives near me sort of and has recently split with her fella and has been flirting with me for a bit. I did vow not to bother with meeting women online, but having spoke to her she said it'd be good to meet up as she wants to meet new people and even if we are just mates its better than nothing.
Im a bit cautious but she seems like a laugh has similar sense of humor as me and we like same sort of music. This all came about through the shutdown of an internet radio station we DJ on. She used to be on before me and we got talking, since the station went to the wall and people went one way and others went a different way we have built up a good friendship.
Good luck Funk, the only tip we can give you is to just be you, she'll either like you for who you are (sounds like she does already) or not, the truth always outs, but hopefully in a good way.
Well I'm properly single again, I got to know the new chap well enough for me to decide he wasn't boyfriend material so gave him his P45
Got chatting to another chap this week, who was declaring tons of admiration & interest in me for 2 day then *pooft* nothing! Another one of the AWOL lads. This sh*t's getting tedious, TBH. Again I'm backing off and maintaining a distance from all of this, I'm bloody bored!
Job hunt is going the same way, lots of agencies all over me one day and nothing the next, although I'm messaging a lot more potentials in that area :cool:
Call me impatient, but in the words of Paul Weller, "some people might say my life is in a rut......" >:(
Comments
When you have a good date, TDC, it's worth it. Put it this way, last year I probably dated about 15 guys, and about 5 of them were nice, I liked them and dated them for a few weeks. You just have to sift through the dirt a bit and I believe you straight men have it just as hard as us ladies. And not take the bad experiences to heart either, just wash them off. But don't do it until you're ready. There is fun to be had, but I guess just see who you speak to and try and befriend them more than anything. Get a good sense of what you want and what you don't want and see what happens or what you find
Paragraph 1 - the old guys with bad taste striking again. Grrrr!
Paragraph 2 - I get that too. Hey, they can't resist younger hot stuff and the chance to try their luck, silly mofos! Ha!
Lol, perhaps one day then. Not yet though.
You do end up training yourself on what's good, what isn't, what to look out for both in good & bad ways.
Meetup is probably the healthier way if you have the moolah to go into town and meet like-minded people. When I get my new job I'm gonna give that a go, regardless of how things go at the moment.
I'm not too sure about meetup, I don't really like being thrust into a group of people. I'm better with people one to one.
I was glad to hear that your dating seems to have had a good result
Thanks, good to know I'm not the only one that feels like this!!
Anyway I rejoined the online dating trail in the last few months. I'm actually trying Match Affinity, which is the Match.com equivalent of eHarmony in that it's all "massive questionnaire to get some complicated algorithm to tell you a slightly made up percentage of how likely you are to get on".
Cynical? Me? Yes. It's also absolutely fearsomely expensive though, even compared to just regular Match, for no good reason I can see.
Having said that I've had a reasonable amount of success from being on it, have been chatting to quite a few folk - seems a bit like people are more inclined to reply to an initial email if there's a little percentage score that tells them they maybe ought to! - and have a few dates in the calendar including a meet-up tomorrow.
I did also see a great line in a profile from a girl a couple of days ago: "I've been told I look much younger than my years - so I've taken some off here (ask me later)" i.e. she's lied about her age on the profile. Not quite sure why you'd lie about it but tell everyone that, that's a new one on me...?
I've dated some other girls since but I kept in contact with her although we didn't speak much in December as she said she was going through some tough times with her family and didn't feel like a relationship anymore and just wanted us to be friends.
Finally got around to seeing her again today, had a good time with her as we have quite similar interests. She asked for us to meet up again before I even had a chance to which was a good sign, and mentioned in passing that her last relationship started as a friendship too.
I'm not getting ahead of myself though as I like her as a friend and may have some dates lined up with other girls soon. It just still feels to a large extent that we're still figuring each other out, if it does lead to anything more though I'll be happy.
I gave you advice, you took offence, end of story.
Nobody likes to receive what is percieved to be uncalled for criticism, but I still stand by what I said.
I wouldn't suggest you are a troll by any means as you are a well established poster, however you are obviously articulate with quite a strong personality which can sometimes come across on these boards as a bit overpowering.
I wasn't winding you up, I suggested you take the whole dating thing a bit less seriously, often people will meet someone when they are not actively 'looking'.
You may have thought I was being offensive, but if you look back at what you wrote to me you was VERY offensive to me, so I wouldn't act like the injured party if I were you. Please don't tell me what boards to post on, I will post when and where I want.
Oh dear pulling me up on semantics, yes I could have worded it better.
How about "we are welded together with a ball and chain, and our marriage certificate has been dipped in gold so it will last for eternity"....is that better for you?
I rang up and they cancelled the six month contract. I voiced my concerns that I didn't want six months of daily results that weren't compatible and, if they could no longer provide compatible results after many, many months of doing this on a daily basis, there wasn't much point me continuing.
The lady managed to convince me that a couple of my settings (my preference on "faith") were the reason I was getting lousy results. Apparently my settings for this were "contradicting themselves" and hampering results.
I found this dubious, but agreed to a 3 month membership for about £30 (the second and third month being free).
7 days in and I'm still getting results "just outside my settings" to the point where I'm not even bothering logging in to check. I'm baffled as to why they can no longer provide me compatible results when they used to be able to provide about 10 a day, and my settings haven't changed at all.
I've seen adverts for Oasis. Anyone tried it?
Did you not read my message properly? I worded it wrong, I realised that and I laughed it off, but here you are trying to have a go at me.
As for preaching, if only people who had a perfect life were allowed to give advice on the advice thread, this place would be pretty empty.
I've tried internet dating in the past and it's a hard slog, so I admire anyone who gives it a go and is successful
I wish everyone on here good luck and hope you meet the man/woman of your dreams
I'd settle for "not a nightmare / bunny boiler"
If you're actively using a dating website, over the course of 7 days, log the number of:
number of people who message you
those you respond to & why
those you reject & why
number of profiles you intentionally look at
no of those you message and why
no of those you ignore and why
No big detailed reasons required, even "I just get bad vibes and don't know why" is a perfectly acceptable reason. Try and quote what site you're using too.
Hey, why else are we here?! I'm interested to know at least and **** it? It's the end of January!
My settings are pretty wide with the only real specifics being non-smoker, no kids and a fairly wide age bracket.
I'd be in complete agreement that I can't expect 10 new people to join every week that match my criteria...but none at all, when there used to be enough for 10 matches every day? And the profiles back then tended to be current profiles - ie. not people who'd been in the system for yonks and weren't actively using the site. My settings haven't changed at all.
I don't know, maybe they're "saving them up" and I'll get inundated in a few weeks? But there was a constant, steady flow and then, about two months ago, it completely stopped and I get a couple of people outside my settings and NONE inside my settings.
I tend to average about 1 message/set of question/wink a day, but logging in and seeing that this person is way outside my location settings is a bit disheartening.
The last girl I saw from online we went on three dates, each better than the last. Then she was very busy with Uni work so haven't seen her in a few months, but we kept in touch. After she finished I asked did she want to meet again but she kept putting it off and waiting to see what her friends were doing first - eventually I just got bored and didn't contact her again, told her if she was interested to get in contact, otherwise I'd leave her alone. Didn't hear anything for ages and then a few messages. Asked her did she want to meet now - got a yes, she'd let me know after Monday. Monday comes and goes and nothing from her. Sent her a message - a very polite one - saying sorry I didn't hear from her and that if she wanted to meet some other time to let me know.
Why can't women be straight and just say they either want to meet or they don't?
Awww sorry Ags, believe me some of us get the same from some men too (in my case quite a lot). People would really rather waste time than be direct, bravery is in scarce supply, whereas cowardice is very plentiful. I blame cowardice of the opposite sex for 80% of my dating disasters!
Not really sure. Maybe they've changed the algorithm by which they select and send matches? If you don't trust their matches, the only alternative really is to search yourself. Is there an option to sort by most recent join date, or only show profiles you haven't viewed before when you do your search?
I think that might be it. As an experiment, I changed my settings on two areas from "Quite Important" to "I don't mind at all" yesterday and , while I had more profiles delivered this morning, they were still not inside my settings.
Unfortunately not. eHarmony does't work like that. You can only see what they want to show you. You can do an adhoc search and get a few more profiles to look at, but I think all that does is pre-empts the email you'd get from them the following morning.
The USP of eHarmony is it does the leg work for you and is supposed to come up with compatible matches based on settings and the initial personality test, delivering potential matches to you every day rather than letting you search their databases yourself. That has worked a little better than MSF and Match for me in the past, but now it's generating people who aren't in my settings and I don't find attractive anyway!
I guess I'm very picky (just on the fact that I get a decent amount of interest and have ignored all of them so far this year) but I'm a little wary of the fact that I went on very few dates last year (or the year before) and they were all provided by eHarmony. Not feeling too hopeful for 2014 now!
I do get why it appeals to some though as doing your own searches means one is reliant on the "algorithm" in one's biased head anyway.
Im a bit cautious but she seems like a laugh has similar sense of humor as me and we like same sort of music. This all came about through the shutdown of an internet radio station we DJ on. She used to be on before me and we got talking, since the station went to the wall and people went one way and others went a different way we have built up a good friendship.
Any tips? meeting her on 1st.
Well I'm properly single again, I got to know the new chap well enough for me to decide he wasn't boyfriend material so gave him his P45
Got chatting to another chap this week, who was declaring tons of admiration & interest in me for 2 day then *pooft* nothing! Another one of the AWOL lads. This sh*t's getting tedious, TBH. Again I'm backing off and maintaining a distance from all of this, I'm bloody bored!
Job hunt is going the same way, lots of agencies all over me one day and nothing the next, although I'm messaging a lot more potentials in that area :cool:
Call me impatient, but in the words of Paul Weller, "some people might say my life is in a rut......" >:(