Dating Online Site Review » dating profile tips

HOW TO INTRODUCE YOURSELF IN ONLINE DATING SITES

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:46:09 +0000

So you’ve got your online profile all set up and you’re ready to go, right? Ok, so what’s next?

Well that depends. It is a well-known fact that online dating sites are disproportionately used by men. Some sites cap their male users to maintain a more even distribution of males to females, but that isn’t usually the case. What it means is: ladies, you’re probably going to get lots of mail. Men, not so much. But that’s ok, we’re going to talk through the process of maximizing your chances. Let’s start with the gents because they have lots more work to do in this process.

There is going to be one continuous theme throughout this article, and it’s important for guys especially to understand it: pretend it’s real life. Even though we’re in the cyber realm, the process still proceeds like it would in real-life, with some minor alterations.

Firstly: guys, on the whole, you’re going to initiate proceedings. Stop complaining, it’s life. Plus, it’s much easier to say hello over the internet than it is in reality-land. So what do you do? Well, you search. Think about what you’re after, and do some searches. How far would you like your ladies to be from you? What age group? Most importantly: are they after long-term relationships? something casual? So you do your search and you get your results. Click through people’s profiles and find someone you fancy. Keep the following things in mind: women are frequently uncomfortable admitting to wanting ’sexual encounters’. Other women have no problem admitting it, but if they do so online, they’ll be constantly hounded by loads of guys (who make up more of the online community than women). If you’re not looking for anything serious, don’t hesitate to expand your search to include ’short-term dating’, ‘new friends’ and ‘activity partners’. Maybe you’ll meet someone who’s new in town and is looking for new friends – and you can meet a whole new circle just from that. Further, ’short-term dating’ can sometimes mean ‘casual encounter’. The same works for people looking for more serious relationships. Don’t worry too much about it at this stage, you never know what’s going to happen when you meet someone. It really is a waste of time to stress out too much at these early phases. If you find someone that fascinates you, and you like what they’ve written about in their profile, then say hello. You can work out your aims and objectives in due course if you think you might want to meet them.

Now you’ve found someone you like, great. READ THEIR PROFILE. Seriously, read it, read it twice, read it three times if you have to. Get a taste of what they’re into. What they like to do, what they’re saying about themselves. Use it diagnostically to get to ‘know’ this person. Especially important: find something you have in common, or something that interests you. You will use this when you initiate contact with them, it opens up a conversation. For example, you see that someone has similar music tastes to you on their profile. This can be a preliminary topic of conversation. You’re subject line might be: I can’t believe you also like the Kinks!! Notice that subject line has nothing to do with a relationship. It has nothing to do with sex. It’s simply a conversation starter – same as in real life. In a bar, party, or other social occasion, you do not walk up to a member of the opposite sex and say: Would you consider me more a ’short-term dating’ prospect, or just an ‘activity partner’? In real life you start with ‘hello’. With chit chat about commonalities. Well it’s the same in cyber-land. It is a non-invasive, friendly way to start a communication thread with someone. And the best way to be effective at getting someone’s attention is to READ THEIR PROFILE carefully.

Another tip for guys: do not proposition ladies: Hey I think you’re hot, wanna have sex with me? does not work. We mean it, it really doesn’t. It doesn’t work in the bar, it didn’t work at school, and it doesn’t work on the internet. Replacing ‘beautiful’ for ‘hot’ doesn’t change things. The internet is a great way to meet people quickly, it’s a great way to cut out many of the steps in a traditional courtship type of situation, but it does not throw away all rules of etiquette and propriety. There is a real-life person sitting on the other side of that computer screen, and they’re getting about 25 emails a day (if they have an attractive profile-picture up much much more) and a great majority of them are propositions for sex. Be different. You need to be the person she actually responds to. There are two steps involved in this, first, they’re going to check your profile. Your profile should be an honest and positive reflection of who you are, see our tips HERE(Hyperlink) if you need help. Next, they’ll read your email. They may or may not respond. Do not (NOT NOT NOT NOT) keep emailing the same person. Do not sit around thinking maybe they haven’t read it, or maybe they deleted it by accident. Restrain yourselves, and keep your paranoia in check. Also, do not take it personally. Just spend more time doing searches, reading profiles and saying hello to different people.

If you find you’re not getting any responses at all, then make alterations. Perhaps your profile isn’t very enticing. Perhaps the emails you’re sending are dull or boring. We suggest actually writing something more than ‘Hey, I noticed you like the Kinks, I do too’. Write a few paragraphs, either about yourself, or better yet, with regards to this thing you have in common. Always end with an open-ended question so the person on the other side has something concrete to respond to. For example, ‘I like the Kinks, but I really really am crazy about the Monkeys, I’m curious to know how you feel about them?’ This makes it very easy for someone to respond to you.

Ok, so you’ve identified some people you like. You’ve read their profiles thoroughly and gotten to know a little bit about them. You’ve taken the time to write them a quirky/funny/personalized email. A bunch of people have outright ignored you. No problem, that’s life. But you keep at it, and guess what? Someone responds! It really is a great moment when it happens. Someone, somewhere in the world has read your email, and looked at your profile and bothered to write back. What next?

Well, they probably answered your open-ended question. They’ve given you more information to work with, now you can write them again. Maybe they mentioned some completely new topic of conversation, you can follow that lead if you like. There is still no requirement whatsoever to discuss a relationship. Or a meeting. It is just like real life, you’re just talking, getting a feel for one another. There is no need to remind people why you are online, it is implicit in the interaction. If you are on a dating site, speaking to someone who is also on a dating site, there is an implied understanding of why you are having that conversation. So just enjoy getting to know people for now. We’ll take it to the next level in our next article.

Ladies, you may be thinking how you fit into this right? Well it’s easy: make you profile great. Make it fun and provide lots of details. Movies you like, music you’re into are great as conversation starters. Include places you have travelled to (or would like to go to), activities you enjoy. Remember to always be honest, because you will attract people who are into the same sorts of things as you, and that’s great! Remember that men are as visual as you are and select a couple of profile pictures. Log into the dating sites regularly this will keep you at the top of lists when people search as they are often in the order of who was last-online. Finally, do not be too shy to say hello yourself. Remember, there are actually lots and lots of people online and it could be he hasn’t seen your profile. Many women prefer not to say hello but just to send a rose/wink and let the man then introduce themselves. That’s fine too, but the same rule applies: do not give in to temptations to constantly email the same person. Just once is enough. If after a few months you haven’t heard anything, you might want to try again, but don’t make a habit of it!

Next time, we’ll talk about the next step, what happens after you’ve emailed a few times about random topics of interest: how do you get passed the email phase? Stay tuned!!

So you’ve got your Online Dating Profile all set up and you’re ready to go, right? Ok, so what’s next? Here are our top dating tips on how to introduce yourself in Online Dating Sites.

So what exactly is next – well that depends… It is a well-known fact that online dating sites are disproportionately used by men. Some sites cap their male users to maintain a more even distribution of males to females, but that isn’t usually the case.

What it means is this:

Ladies, you’re probably going to get lots of mail.

Men, not so much.

But that’s ok, we’re going to talk through the process of maximizing your chances. Let’s start with the gents because they have lots more work to do in this process.

There is going to be one continuous theme throughout this article, and it’s important for guys especially to understand it: pretend it’s real life.

(1) Firstly: guys, on the whole, you’re going to initiate proceedings.

Stop complaining, it’s life. Plus, it’s much easier to say hello over the internet than it is in reality-land. So what do you do? Well, you search. Think about what you’re after, and do some searches. How far would you like your ladies to be from you? What age group? Most importantly: are they after long-term relationships? something casual? So you do your search and you get your results.

Click through people’s profiles and find someone you fancy. Keep the following things in mind when introducing yourself to people online:

women are frequently uncomfortable admitting to wanting ’sexual encounters’
Other women have no problem admitting it, but if they do so online, they’ll be constantly hounded by loads of guys (who make up more of the online community than women)

If you’re not looking for anything serious, don’t hesitate to expand your search to include ‘short-term dating‘, ‘new friends‘ and ‘activity partners‘. Maybe you’ll meet someone who’s new in town and is looking for new friends – and you can meet a whole new circle just from that.

__________________________________________________________________________

(2) Further, ’short-term dating’ can sometimes mean ‘casual encounter’.

The same works for people looking for more serious relationships. Don’t worry too much about it at this stage, you never know what’s going to happen when you meet someone. It really is a waste of time to stress out too much at these early phases. If you find someone that fascinates you, and you like what they’ve written about in their profile, then say hello. You can work out your aims and objectives in due course if you think you might want to meet them.

__________________________________________________________________________

(3) Now you’ve found someone you like, great. READ THEIR PROFILE.

Seriously read your potential mates online dating profile, read it, read it twice, read it three times if you have to. Get a taste of what they’re into. What they like to do, what they’re saying about themselves. Use it diagnostically to get to ‘know’ this person.

Especially important: find something you have in common, or something that interests you. You will use this when you initiate contact with them, it opens up a conversation.

Especially important: find something you have in common, or something that interests you. You will use this when you initiate contact with them, it opens up a conversation. For example:

You see that someone has similar music tastes to you on their profile. This can be a preliminary topic of conversation. You’re subject line might be: I can’t believe you also like the Kinks!! Notice that subject line has nothing to do with a relationship. It has nothing to do with sex. It’s simply a conversation starter – same as in real life.

In a bar, party, or other social occasion, you do not walk up to a member of the opposite sex and say: Would you consider me more a ’short-term dating’ prospect, or just an ‘activity partner’? In real life you start with ‘hello’. With chit chat about commonalities. Well it’s the same in cyber-land. It is a non-invasive, friendly way to start a communication thread with someone. And the best way to be effective at getting someone’s attention is to READ THEIR PROFILE carefully.

__________________________________________________________________________

(4) Another tip for guys: do not proposition ladies: Hey I think you’re hot, wanna have sex with me? does not work. We mean it, it really doesn’t.

It doesn’t work in the bar, it didn’t work at school, and it doesn’t work on the internet. Replacing ‘beautiful’ for ‘hot’ doesn’t change things.

The internet is a great way to meet people quickly, it’s a great way to cut out many of the steps in a traditional courtship type of situation, but it does not throw away all rules of etiquette and propriety.

The internet is a great way to meet people quickly, it’s a great way to cut out many of the steps in a traditional courtship type of situation, but it does not throw away all rules of etiquette and propriety.

There is a real-life person sitting on the other side of that computer screen, and they’re getting about 25 emails a day (if they have an attractive profile-picture up much much more) and a great majority of them are propositions for sex. Be different. You need to be the person she actually responds to.

There are two steps involved in this element of introducing yourself to people online:

First, they’re going to check your profile. Your profile should be an honest and positive reflection of who you are, see our online dating profile tips HERE if you need help…
Next, they’ll read your email. They may or may not respond. Do not (NOT NOT NOT NOT) keep emailing the same person

Do not sit around thinking maybe they haven’t read it, or maybe they deleted it by accident. Restrain yourselves, and keep your paranoia in check. Also, do not take it personally. Just spend more time doing searches, reading profiles and saying hello to different people.

Always end with an open-ended question so the person on the other side has something concrete to respond to. For example, ‘I like the Kinks, but I really really am crazy about the Monkeys, I’m curious to know how you feel about them?’ This makes it very easy for someone to respond to you.

__________________________________________________________________________

(5) Ok, so you’ve identified some people you like. Whats next…?

You’ve read their profiles thoroughly and gotten to know a little bit about them. You’ve taken the time to write them a quirky/funny/personalized email. A bunch of people have outright ignored you. No problem, that’s life. But you keep at it, and guess what? Someone responds! It really is a great moment when it happens. Someone, somewhere in the world has read your email, and looked at your profile and bothered to write back. What next?

There is still no requirement whatsoever to discuss a relationship. Or a meeting. It is just like real life, you’re just talking, getting a feel for one another.

There is still no requirement whatsoever to discuss a relationship. Or a meeting. It is just like real life, you’re just talking, getting a feel for one another. There is no need to remind people why you are online, it is implicit in the interaction.

If you are on an online dating site, speaking to someone who is also on a dating site, there is an implied understanding of why you are having that conversation. So just enjoy getting to know people for now. We’ll take it to the next level in our next article.

__________________________________________________________________________

BONUS: Hey Ladies!

Ladies, you may be thinking how you fit into this online dating chat, right?

Well it’s easy: make your online dating profile great. Make it fun and provide lots of details. Movies you like, music you’re into are great as conversation starters. Include places you have travelled to (or would like to go to), activities you enjoy.

Remember to always be honest, because you will attract people who are into the same sorts of things as you, and that’s great!

Remember that men are as visual as you are and select a couple of profile pictures.
Log into the dating sites regularly this will keep you at the top of lists when people search as they are often in the order of who was last-online.
Finally, do not be too shy to say hello yourself.
Remember, there are actually lots and lots of people online and it could be he hasn’t seen your profile.

Many women prefer not to say hello but just to send a rose/wink and let the man then introduce themselves. That’s fine too, but the same rule applies: do not give in to temptations to constantly email the same person. Just once is enough. If after a few months you haven’t heard anything, you might want to try again, but don’t make a habit of it!

__________________________________________________________________________

Next time, we’ll talk about the next step, what happens after you’ve emailed a few times about random topics of interest:

how do you get past the email phase? Stay tuned!!

__________________________________________________________________________

2009 Top Internet Dating Sites Reviewed

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:13:34 +0000

The top internet dating sites are the who’s who of where singles are going online. We will showcase the Top 5 in this post and in future editions, drill down into some of the other big dating sites and smaller “niche” sites that are out there.

Note: The results shown here are US related and do not take into account other large online dating markets like the UK (in which PlentyofFish rules the land), Germany, or France, etc. Included in each review will be a general write-up of the site including the following:

Ease of use
Avg cost of membership / monthly spend
Site numbers (ie how many potential mates you can peruse)
Pros and cons of each site
Other reviews online
How to join (note: we do use affiliate links on the sites we like)

Lets get started. The Top Internet Dating Sites thus far for 2009 are as follows:

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THE #1 BEST ONLINE DATING SITE GOES TO:

Match.com – Official Online Site

WHY DO WE LOVE MATCH.COM? They tout themselves as the worlds leading Onling Dating and Personals Ads service, and we agree. Why do we love Match.com? Huge set of features and great usability for starters. Or how about their more than 15 million registered users. Compete.com shows Match’s overall site visitors rising at the moment in the 6-10 million visitor range… Our research showed that almost a quarter of a million people met someone special at Match.com last year. What else caught our attention? how about this: The “Make Love Happen” Gurantee. If you purchase a 6 month membership at Match.com and you don’t meet anyone special, Match.com will add an additional 6 months to your membership at no additional costs!

WHAT THEY SAY: Since its inception in 1995, match.com has pioneered this hi-tech way of meeting people, attracting singles across the country of all ages and income levels. For do-it-yourself dating, you won’t find a better site. Match.com have introduced a new Total Attraction Matching™ system, which incorporates a powerful personality-profiling tool and the first and only physical attraction test. This combination of personality and physical attraction will help members see other member’s profiles beyond just a basic profile and digital pictures. The two newly added dimensions helps in determining mutual compatibility and attraction level with a potential mate.

WHY DO WE LOVE MATCH.COM? They tout themselves as the worlds leading Onling Dating and Personals Ads service, and we agree. Why do we love Match.com? Huge set of features and great usability for starters. Or how about their more than 15 million registered users. Compete.com shows Match’s overall site visitors rising at the moment in the 6-10 million visitor range… Our research showed that almost a quarter of a million people met someone special at Match.com last year. What else caught our attention? how about this: The “Make Love Happen” Gurantee. If you purchase a 6 month membership at Match.com and you don’t meet anyone special, Match.com will add an additional 6 months to your membership at no additional costs!

MEMBERSHIP INFO and COSTS: Match.com has a subscription rate of $24.95 a month This is consistent with most other popular online dating services. Also, once you subscribe, you have unlimited means to connect with their millions of singles.

Free 72 Hour Trial with Match.com

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THE #2 BEST ONLINE DATING SITE GOES TO:

eHarmony.com – Official Online Site

WHY DO WE LOVE eHARMONY? The site is easy on the eyes, and very easy to use. Or how about their more than 19 million registered users. Or the average of 200+ people a day get married as a result of eHarmony. Compete.com shows eHarmoney’s overall site visitors actually declining atm, although their monthly traffic is still in the 3-5 million range…

WHAT THEY SAY: “In 2000, backed by over 35 years of clinical and empirical research, Dr. Neil Clarke Warren transformed the way singles are introduced online when he launched eHarmony – the first relationship service on the Web to use a scientific approach to match highly compatible singles.” eHarmony’s patented Compatibility Matching System narrows the field down from millions to a highly select group of singles with whom you share deep levels of compatibility, such as character, intellect, sense of humor, spirituality, values, beliefs, passion, and other key dimensions. There is no searching through endless profiles because eHarmony brings the compatible matches to you! Experts in the fields of psychology and human relationships are on staff. Comprehensive Relationship Questionnaire with 29 Dimensions of Compatibility scientifically proven to predict happier, healthier long-term relationships.

CONS: There are only a few with eHarmony, because for such a large site its very well run. Their unique approach takes a bit of getting used to. Also some “Christian” focused daters have quipped about the lack of an all-Christian based site which eHarmony had originally billed itself as.

MEMBERSHIP INFO and COSTS: At eHarmony.com you dont simpley register for the service, upload your photo and then search other members for a match. What happens instead is eHarmony does all of the matching for you. This is done using their own compatibility system, its based on scientific studies about love, relationships and compatibility. eHarmony’s membership fees run among the highest of all the major dating sites we’ve reviewed. But, if the site works, which for aloooot of people it does, then its worth it (hey we didnt put them at #2 for nothing!) eHarmony Membership costs go like this: One month is $59.95 USD. At the 3, 6 and 12 month marks the prices lower dramatically. The least expensive plan requires a year-long sign up at a cost of $251.40 USD, or $20.95 USD a month (this is payable in one lump sum).

BONUS SIGN-UP TIP: Sign up to eHarmoney, and then wait a while, you’ll eventually get an email with a discount coupon! Note: this tactic is not for the impatient!

*Estimated eHarmony Monthly Spend = $50

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THE #3 BEST ONLINE DATING SITE GOES TO:

Chemistry.com – Official Online Site

WHY DO WE LOVE CHEMISTRY? Chemistry.com is a sister site of our #1 rated Online Dating Site Match.com, so of course its going to be good! The difference between the two sites, is Chemistry.com is designed especially for people who are seeking meaningful, long-term relationships. And to go after cyber-matchmaking niche where eHarmony the leader. Why do we love Match.com? The site offers guided communication online (perfect for newbies), and also tools for meeting offline. Compete.com shows Chemistry’s overall site visitors rising at the moment in the 1-1.25 million visitor range…

Match.com offers nice three ways to communicate with other members:

You can “wink” to express interest (an automated function often used to gauge interest)
Write an email through the site’s double blind email system.Match.com is one of the only sites to allow you to read your email in your personal email account, a copy and is stored in your match.com mailbox.
Instant message another member online.

WHAT THEY SAY: “What makes Chemistry different? Everything. From our Personality Profile to our chemistry-inspired matching system, we exist to get you the kind of relationship you want. That’s what we mean when we say ‘come as you are.”

CONS: Detailed profile setup can take upwards of 30mins. You are only allowed to view member profiles that are matched to you by the Match.com matching system

MEMBERSHIP INFO and COSTS: 3 Subscriptions available as of this posting (check Chemistry for most current pricing) 1 Month at $49.95 per month. 3 Months at $33.32 per month. 6 Months at $26.65 per month. Save 47% with this plan. Accepts most major credit cards. Can cancel subscription or turn off renewals at anytime.

14 Days Free at Chemistry.com!

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THE #4 BEST ONLINE DATING SITE GOES TO:

Coming Soon…

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THE #5 BEST ONLINE DATING SITE GOES TO: