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[vangace]

My friend met his fiancee online and so i was just curious about how many of us in here have had success with online dating. Me zero success rate

 

[KingV]

I've met a few girls on the internet. My current girlfriend is an internet girl, but it's definitely been a mixed bag. You get a little bit of a leg up because you at least kind of know what the person is like, but sometimes they are not at all who they say they are once you meet them in person.

 

[Mercury Fred]

I haven't done any online dating per se, but I have met some cool people on Friendster. It's nice becasue it's not strictly a dating site and you can have a peek at peoples' tastes, friends and what their friends have to say about them. In fact, I have a Friendster coffee date tomorrow. Eep. Wish me luck.

 

[The Shadow]

I wouldn't even know how to begin. How do you even "date" online anyway? It probably hurts that I don't IRC or IM at all too.

 

[vangace]

I haven't done any online dating per se, but I have met some cool people on Friendster. It's nice becasue it's not strictly a dating site and you can have a peek at peoples' tastes, friends and what their friends have to say about them. In fact, I have a Friendster coffee date tomorrow. Eep. Wish me luck.

Friendster is pretty neat

 

[Boogie]

I wouldn't even know how to begin. How do you even "date" online anyway? It probably hurts that I don't IRC or IM at all too.

What he said. I'm probably only a few years removed from being desperate enough to try dating services....I pray it doesn't come to that though :-/

 

[demon]

I haven't done much in the way of "dating" in general throughout my life, but I don't know how hot on the idea of online dating I would be. I like the idea of meeting a girl 'for real' and seeing if there's a "spark" or "chemistry" between, something you can't tell after days of IM chatting and emails.

If I were to meet someone online, I'd want to get past the online part as soon as possible and get straight to meeting her in real life, of course after making sure she's not a complete weirdo. Maybe talk to her over the phone for a bit first. I think the more you build up an online persona that may not match your real-life persona, the more possibility there is for the other person to be disappointed or shocked or appalled when you meet.

 

[vangace]

What he said. I'm probably only a few years removed from being desperate enough to try dating services....I pray it doesn't come to that though :-/

For me its hard to me girls because of school and work. Don't get me wrong my college is full of hot chicks but since i don't live on campus(i actually live quite far from it). If i am not in school i am at work even during weekends so i have little or no time to do anything well except for some Online Project Gotham racing at midnight.

 

[DarienA]

My friend met his fiancee online and so i was just curious about how many of us in here have had success with online dating. Me zero success rate

Current fiance.

BTW anyone who thinks online dating is just for desperate people is:

1. Clueless;
2. Must work less than 40hrs per week.

In the hustle and bustle of a professional career who has time to meet people... and where? Clubs? Right like you're guaranteed to me a high quality "other half" in a club. That leaves you with random encounters... online dating simply increases the odds of finding someone who shares some commond interests with you(and IMO having at least SOME common interests is definitely key to any real attempt at a long term relationship)... you chat, talking about common interests and go from there. The online portion doesn't have to take weeks, months, etc. before you meet... you'll know after a few IM's if you two have enough interests that make it worth getting together with. Does that mean those you get together with will all lead to matches? Nope but it's still better odds than bumping in to someone in the grocery store.

 

[FortNinety]

Current fiance.

BTW anyone who thinks online dating is just for desperate people is:

1. Clueless;
2. Must work less than 40hrs per week.

In the hustle and bustle of a professional career who has time to meet people... and where? Clubs? Right like you're guaranteed to me a high quality "other half" in a club. That leaves you with random encounters... online dating simply increases the odds of finding someone who shares some commond interests with you(and IMO having at least SOME common interests is definitely key to any real attempt at a long term relationship)... you chat, talking about common interests and go from there. The online portion doesn't have to take weeks, months, etc. before you meet... you'll know after a few IM's if you two have enough interests that make it worth getting together with. Does that mean those you get together with will all lead to matches? Nope but it's still better odds than bumping in to someone in the grocery store.

Very true. Also, at least here in NYC, the negative stigma (and funny looks) associated with online dating is pretty much gone.

 

[Semjaza Azazel]

I dated a girl I met online, although it was an odd experience due to the distance. We met up at least, and things went very well. Although we obviously were interested in eachother, nothing really was proposed until we actually got to hang out. It's nice to be able to skip all the small talk and everything. We already knew eachother well enough that things went smoothly. We were together around 7 months, but the distance got to be too much.

I don't know that I'd recommend it above traditional ways to get dates, but it's definitely not a bad thing.

I was good friends with a girl who met some guy through Yahoo personals. They've been together a few years now and she couldn't be happier.

 

[border]

I gave the weblink for a free month of Yahoo Personals to a poker buddy that was looking to get into it. He said he posted up a picture/profile and wrote bunch of girls some cordial letters, but none of them ever even responded. Which seems really weird. He's a regular looking guy -- at least more regular looking than me I guess.

I think most of those services are pretty much stacked in favor of the women, and they just pick and chose the "hot guys". In some sense it probably is just an extension of the club/bar scene...

 

[Mama Smurf]

I think I'd try speed dating before online. You can get more of a feel for people that way, no matter how quick.

Plus you don't have the whole "are you actually a 50 year old man?" issue.

 

[BoboBrazil]

Met a lady on yahoo personals and fucked her that night. Now we are boyfriend and girlfriend.

 

[Dyne]

I just met a bunch of girls my age this month through Date.ca (we didn't want to pay and snuck our emails past the admins notice.)

Never pay for online dating; that's the bottom line.

Yeah, they want to rip off my clothes now but I'm holding them back. It's fun.

 

[MrPing1000]

despite my lack of a a sex life, online dating doesn't appeal to me.

 

[DarthMungKei]

I met my wife on IRC. She came and visited me at least once a month when i moved into my own place. We continued to chat over ICQ and then MSN for over a year. She moved in with me after about year and a half of chatting online. We got married almost a year later. We will be celebrating our first anniversary in November. I think it was a good experience for me

 

[Pimpwerx]

A friend of mine is doing the myspace.com thing and just posted his pic and had a bunch of girls respond. He also wrote some of them too, so I don't know if he told me the full story. But he did hang out with one recently and ended up making out with her and catching HIV... I mean strep throat. :lol: I also had a bad 2nd hand experience with internet dating. A friend told me he met these two chicks online who wanted to hang out. We went to go pick them up in my POS Hyundai and they were fucking pigs. I mean fat AND ugly. Double-whammy. My suspension was wailing all the way to the movies, and I called up a couple other friends and sat with them to watch the movie. Not cool man.

That said, it's supposed to be a decent proposition these days. I don't like it, but I have an unreasonable fear of online relationship things. I've only met one person online, Panajev, and he was cool. But I always worry it's gonna be someone crazy or something. That and I like the club scene, even if my game is mad inconsistent. Some nights, I'm like a lion, other nights, I'm fucking sheep. And it's always a casual affair, I'm not even looking for a relationship right now. Too expensive, too much of a hassle. I'm too selfish too, I like my time. I think it's a lot easier to meet women at work, but I need to work at a bigger school. I can charm the pants off 'em until they find out how much of a dick I can be about my personal time. PEACE.

 

[KingV]

I gave the weblink for a free month of Yahoo Personals to a poker buddy that was looking to get into it. He said he posted up a picture/profile and wrote bunch of girls some cordial letters, but none of them ever even responded. Which seems really weird. He's a regular looking guy -- at least more regular looking than me I guess.

I think most of those services are pretty much stacked in favor of the women, and they just pick and chose the "hot guys". In some sense it probably is just an extension of the club/bar scene...

I've done quite a bit of online dating, well, had a few flings and hook ups, two serious girlfriends, multiple failed meetings with girls I've met online. Here's what works for me.

-Don't sit around and wait for women to write you. I've had a few write me out of the blue, but that tends to be abnormal. I think there tends to be enough guys out there just looking for girls that the girls don't HAVE to pursue guys very often.

-Make sure to write some of the girls that have no, or poor quality pictures. Firstly, the really fine girls, with great bodies and beautiful faces and tons of pictures... Well, they get more messages than everyone else. Not sure how many more, but it's definitely more. You'll be lucky if you even get the time of day from her, as she probably has much more on her plate than the girls who have no picture, or pictures where you can't tell too well what they look like. Of course you run the risk of being disappointed with an ugly hildebeast woman, but if you talk to her enough you'll probably get a pretty good feeling for whether or not she looks like the Toxic Avenger. The pictureless profiles are much more likely to be real people as well. This is especially true on adult-encounter-oriented matching sites, which by the way, I've had much, much less success with than "dating" oriented sites. Mostly I just received multitudinous porn ads.

-Spend a lot of time on your profile, not on first messages. Say what you want to say in your profile, it saves a lot of time to be funny, witty, etc in your profile than every single time you write a girl for the first time. When you do write someone, if something witty comes to mind write it, otherwise just write something quick and neat, it's ok to use the same message over and over to different girls. I say this because you likely won't get a response from every girl you write. I'm normally good for about 1 in 7-10 or so. It's not worth wasting too much time going after one person who may be out of town, currently seeing someone, just not interested, doesn't have time, etc.

good luck!

edit: Oh, yeah, I recommend www.okcupid.com It's free. It used to be called sparkmatch.com, which went defunct a couple of years ago. I hooked up over that thing like mad in college. Now most of the girls on it are too young for me

 

[Kiriku]

I've been online dating for 10+ years. It's like a bad habit. No wait, maybe that's a good habit? I'd say I'm pretty skilled at picking up girls on the net now. I can say that with confidence.

And I believe most myths around dating people from the net are just bogus. You can usually tell pretty fast if the cute girl actually is a guy who's just faking. If you can't, you're pretty naive. I'm about 95 % accurate after talking for 15-20 mins so, and well...I'm always 100 % accurate before meeting the girl.

And another myth I've heard is...there are only ugly girls on the net. For people who really believe in this, I'd say you're missing out. Big time. The net is just like real life, a mixture of ugly and good-looking girls. And everything in-between.

I actually prefer meeting girls online in a way, 'cause it's so much easier to talk with a girl you never met before that way. And you can talk about almost anything without really hesitating, and well...I'm sure some people can probably do that in real life without problems, good for you, but I'm a bit too shy for it.

And well...there are also the girls you end up talking about sex with, which is a nice too! :lol

 

[djtiesto]

Met my current g/f online, we've been together about 8 months or so...

Darien brings up some excellent points to all the naysayers... I recently graduated college (then again, I didn't have much luck with girls in college... I was a CS major ), and was working full time. And I don't like your standard meatmarket club/bar. So how else was I gonna meet a girl?

I was just browsing around at random on AmericanSingles.com, saw a profile with a cute looking girl from my area, who mentioned she liked RPGs (my favorite genre of games) and she seemed reasonably intelligent... (a lot of profiles are like HI! I LIKE GOIN CLUBIN AND DRINKING! MY FRIENDS THINK I'M A REAL PARTY GURL!) She had an AIM name listed, so I IMed her, we spent like all weekend talking to each other online, then met up the following week at a public place. And it worked out pretty well... she still wanted to hang out with me after hanging out more than once

I've had some good experiences (my current g/f, I also met some girls online who I never was interested in dating, but they've since become close friends of mine), and some bad experiences (I met some fat, ugly Goth chick, who smoked like a fiend... that was awful) (I've also met a few girls, who I went on dates with, everything seemed to go well, but they'd never want to talk to me again after that...). But the good outweighs the bad I think

When people ask how I met my g/f, I get some people who are a bit taken back when I met her online, but nobody has ever really given me shit about it...

 

[Cerebral Palsy]

I've always been afraid of online dating. I don't want to show up and get raped in the back of van by a fat man.

 

[Vormund]

Been hit and miss for me.

First one I met (who incidently was my first gf ever) we got along great, but another one I met later on was obsessed and started stalking me.

so yeah. >_>

 

[DCX]

I married my wife online, then again i'm going to file for divorce as soon as i can afford it

DCX

 

[LakeEarth]

Two good success stories for me. One, I just ran into her on a chatroom and discovered we were both from the same city. We got each other's ICQ numbers, chatted for a few months, met, and had a relationship that almost lasted two years. I've lost touch with her now.

Another, I met from a dating website, talked to her, went to her house and... well.. no relationship occured but some good times were had.

 

[Alucard]

My "online dating" excursions have only led to phone sex. Haha.

 

[Makura]

I've gotten responses., but not from the people I was interested in.

 

[border]

You can usually tell pretty fast if the cute girl actually is a guy who's just faking. If you can't, you're pretty naive. I'm about 95 % accurate after talking for 15-20 mins so, and well...I'm always 100 % accurate before meeting the girl.

Hehehe....what are the giveaways? How can you tell?

Is there any reason that guys bother to pretend to be girls? Seems kind of pointless, since the person you meet will probably want to talk on the phone sooner or later.

 

[LakeEarth]

Hehehe....what are the giveaways? How can you tell?

Is there any reason that guys bother to pretend to be girls? Seems kind of pointless, since the person you meet will probably want to talk on the phone sooner or later.

If a girl doesn't have a pic on the computer by this day in age, or a mic or something, she's obviously either ugly or a guy.

 

[Crispy]

Hehehe....what are the giveaways? How can you tell?

Is there any reason that guys bother to pretend to be girls? Seems kind of pointless, since the person you meet will probably want to talk on the phone sooner or later.

I pretended to be a girl once to hack someone's computer.

I was young then and wanted to have some fun, so I went to this chatroom, named myself something like 'hornygirl17' and just sat there. Before I knew it I was in three private conversations. One guy wanted me to send some pictures, so I sent him a .exe file which ofcourse contained a trojan. Then the fun started as I opened his CD-rom drives and told him exactly what was on his harddrive

 

[Mama Smurf]

Speaking of online dating, does anyone know the name of that site with the dating test on? That's not very specific, but there was a topic linking to it on the old forum. It was really detailed and asked you to identify lots of things like personality and bodyshape, it flashed up lots of pictures and you had to click on those you fancy etc.

Anyone remember? It called the vast majority of us really picky too.

 

[robochimp]

I think thats eharmony.com

 

[Triumph]

Define "success"?

I met up with a girl for drinks and we ended up having sex that night. But the sex wasn't that good and she was obviously insane(had told me about refilling her prozac prescription within 10 minutes of meeting her, and other quality little gems) so I never returned her calls. So I don't know if that's success or not, but I got some subpar sex from a dating site!

 

[Kiriku]

Hehehe....what are the giveaways? How can you tell?

For example, a good start would be to ask for a picture, ICQ number, MSN username, or if she's part of some big online community and similar. If she has neither, I'll become doubtful. Even more so if she can't even tell me her e-mail. Also, I usually chat on IRC, so you can get user info that way too.

It's also revealing in the way they talk, being very pushy in the conversation, and using the smiley a lot. Also, they do not tend to talk about their everyday life, and the small things in life. They tend to focus the conversation on a few subjects they've decided upon themselves. Also, if she does send you a picture after a rather long wait, and she looks really, really good on it...well...that makes me sceptical too.

 

[MoxManiac]

I met up with a girl for drinks and we ended up having sex that night. But the sex wasn't that good and she was obviously insane(had told me about refilling her prozac prescription within 10 minutes of meeting her, and other quality little gems) so I never returned her calls. So I don't know if that's success or not, but I got some subpar sex from a dating site!

Are anti-depressants really this much of a dealbreaker for people? I thought the so called stigma was going away.

Anyways, I think I would be hesitant about online dating, but you guys make it sound less weird and more, uh normal?