Dating Online Survey Results:
The following summary from a study of 100 urbanites details some insights gained as to how people seek out dates and potential life partners. Online Dating Services may not result in you finding the love of your life, but it may be a needed break from all those phony sounding eHarmony.com and Match.com TV ad spots that try to convince you about how lonely you are during cable movie channel films.
Resulting Insights about Dating:
1) It is not uncommon for members of the online dating community to be members on various sites at the same time. The attitude is that the more exposure you give yourself to other people, the more likely it is that you will find a match. Sort of like buying several lottery tickets instead of just one. These same people are likely to be dating several different people concurrently hoping to find the one who clicks. Playing the field is a defense mechanism in the online arena. Because of the anonymity of the sites, you cannot tap into you normal social networks to find out about the people you are talking to online, or dating in real life. There is a much higher chance of being taken in by a smooth talker. It is also easy to give your heart away to a loser. Keeping several people “in process” at the same time helps you from “settling” on any one of them prematurely. In conventional dating situations, other than blind dates, you have some concept of how a person interacts with others because you usually have a chance to observe them in action from afar. It is one of the reasons why blind dates get such a bad rap, because you do not know what to expect, nor can you prepare yourself. Online dating does allow some interaction, but meeting in person for the first time has more of the hallmarks of a blind date than it does in conventional dating.
2) Online Dating is a visual media at best. If you do not post pictures or videos of yourself, especially in situations where you are having fun with others, you can expect little or no action. And you ladies need not worry, as long as you have a reasonably flattering shot of yourself having fun someplace, you will likely get responses from lots of men. For both men and women, this is a marketing exercise – the key here is not to take a crappy looking big-nosed picture of yourself staring into your web-cam’s fish eye lens – everyone already knows that you stare at your computer a lot because you are on an online dating site in the first place. There is no need to supply a picture of you in such an unflattering pose. The key is to portray an image of you as a person who has fun interacting with other people, animals, children, sports events, etc. For women, since men do not read much, you have to be reasonably brief in what you say, but it also needs to be fun and engaging if you hope to have him read. Watch the movie “Must Love Dogs” for ideas in how to market yourself on an internet dating site. For men, you must read the words!! Women are strong communicators and they will say what they are looking for, and they will also say what they are definitely not looking for. Be honest about who or what you are, and do not annoy a women with attention of any sort if you are definitely on her “must not be” list. In any event, for both sexes, keep the profile words short, sweet and to the point. If you are lucky, you will find a person with a really funny and offbeat sense of humor that meshes with your own sense of silliness. The anonymous chat and email services are there for your benefit and safety. Use them extensively before agreeing to meet in person for the first time. Do not try to give your life story in the profile. Your profile is a 15 second ad spot, not an biography of your life.
3) Men without jobs have little or no traction on dating sites that are focused on long-term relationships. Women do not want to hang their hats on perceived losers. On the other hand, if you can connect with a woman physically, they will often overlook the fact that you are pick up trash for a living, as long as you are able to show her that you have solid future prospects. Keep your personal financial status out of the conversation if at all possible. If the person keeps insisting on focusing on that particular statistic, they just might be a gold digger
4) Larger ladies are not as unattractive to most men as many of these women think that they are. If a women is slightly overweight, or is of a set of proportions that the weight that they carry is evenly distributed, most men are okay with it. If you are not wider than you are tall, then likely you have a pretty good chance of finding someone. Since most women will often post a younger, or more flattering photo of themselves, they will often attract men online. Coupled with shaving a few years off of their ages is also done with great regularity. Men, although quite likely to lie about their income, are, almost to a man, truthful about their age. Men are almost always athletic or average, and almost none admit to being overweight or obese.
5) There cannot be love in the online world, only attraction. To have love, you must have contact with the person. You either click, or you do not. It is the many little interactions between two people that add up to someone falling in love. The average time between meeting on a dating site and meeting in person is about two to four weeks. You must be cautious on a dating site, but you cannot be overly cautious or you will fail. If you are attracted to someone, so are other people, and you have to compete for their attention. Putting off a face to face meet for too long will doom you to failure.
6) There is a bit of stigma associated with dating sites. The reputation is that people who use such sites don't have a real life. They are social outcasts, ugly people, and deviants. Nothing is further from the truth. Even so, people using such services are reluctant to be associated with “losers”, or, they may be careless with their safety. The reality is that many millions of people have successfully used online dating sites. Because of the anonymous nature of dating sites, you are more likely to be targeted by deviants on facebook, where everyone can see your real name, than on a dating site, where nobody knows your real name or where you live. Most people who meet and fall in love online do not broadcast how they met to the world at large, so all you hear about is the people who were not successful on dating sites. This leaves a bad negative impression of the online dating industry in the public eye. People will admit that they met in line getting an unemployment check, but they will not admit to meeting online for some reason.
7) Online dating is amazing in it’s ability to connect people who would likely never have met in real life. Since everyone is there for the same reason, and since it is possible to simultaneously be interacting with several people at once, you really do have a much better chance of finding someone that you are truly compatible with for the long term. Online dating is actually the best forum for people to meet when they are just too busy, too tied up, or just not inclined to be wandering around bar hopping or social clubs trying to meet people. Online dating is one of the most modern types of tools for people to use on the internet. It is where the cool guys hang out these days. People like you who are not afraid to try something fairly new, or not quite in the mainstream. The road to future happyness will still have a few nails, so you will likely still get your share of flat tires. No matter though, just keep on trucking.
If you are interested in online dating sites, then you might want to check out this resource page:
Online Dating
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