Like it or not, online dating has emerged as a legit player in the dating market in recent years. What was once the repository for the dregs of female creation has become—for better and worse—a go-to dating option for a growing segment of (even top-shelf) girls.
The whole process is really the product of a perfect storm in the American dating market.
Reasonably attractive girls, increasingly suspicious of—and awkward around—strangers don’t go “out” as much as they used to, less amenable to the prospect of being approached by “creepy guys,” even as men approach girls less and less. Economic realities and cultural shifts have also made going out less appealing. With fewer men able, or willing, to fall for the old drink scam—voluntarily paying for drinks in exchange for face-time—girls are having to loosen their tightfisted grips on their wallets for a night on the town. When they do go out, they go out in a defensive posture that’s not conducive to meeting a guy. Then, naturally, when they don’t meet the man of their dreams, they confirm their bias against bars and clubs.
What’s more, an increasing reliance on social networking to engage the world has rendered today’s Western woman a social retard—who wouldn’t know how to talk to Prince Charming if he was standing next to her with an engagement ring in his hand—and for whom dating electronically is not a far stretch from their normal, cell-phone-addicted habits. Like Facebook, online dating sites allow them to field countless sausage offers “safely,” without the inconvenience and challenges of having to gracefully reject a prospect to his face, or the minutes-long feeling of discomfort while she watches a guy crash-and-burn his presentation. Girls, as I have written elsewhere, have hair-trigger tolerances for awkwardness and discomfort. They’ll do anything to avoid situations that cause them the faintest amount of either.
Then there’s today’s man, who is more emasculated and clueless about how to properly approach and charm a girl than even a scant generation ago. They’re buying into obsolete conventions and long-discredited myths that render them friendzoned before they even get out of the gate. A growing number of the quality guys—disillusioned by crushing male-to-female ratios, high drink costs, cockblocking, the fatty epidemic, and other night-life realities—have largely checked out of the club-and-bar scene. And, like their female counterparts, many of today’s guys use electronic crutches like Facebook to fawn over girls from the safety of their room—feeding the vicious attention-whoring-from-a-distance cycle.
After dismissing online dating, for years, as little more than a crutch for approach anxiety, a time-suck with little real yield, and dumpster diving, I slowly recognized these forces converging. Over the course of the past two years, I have spent, literally, thousands of hours pouring over online profiles, unwittingly learning more about online dating (and, frankly, the female psyche) than I thought possible in that time. These hours have yielded countless dates and, more importantly, a deep well of knowledge.
These are some immutable laws that I’ve uncovered:
1. Her Worst Picture Is What She Will Actually Look Like.
Today’s girl has her picture taken dozens of times—if nothing else, by her iPhone-wielding friends—every time she goes out. She gets constant input on Facebook, and elsewhere, about how she looks and when she looks best. Add to that, that from an even younger age, she has learned how to pose for the camera (or hold the camera herself) to maximize how flattering a picture turns out. I’m no longer surprised when I see average 13-year-olds striking competent step-and-repeat postures, undoubtedly learned from Kim Kardashian and her ilk.
When a girl chooses pictures for her online profile, she brings that deep knowledge of her physiology and, quite plainly, photography, to bear. In this respect, she’s leaps and bounds ahead of the average dude. That means that when you’re looking at a girls’ profile pictures, you’re likely seeing the best two or three shots—among thousands—sitting in her Apple-brand laptop. This almost ensures that they aren’t representative, and explains why she will more closely resemble the worst of the selection. In my experience, there was one exception, but that is statistically insignificant.
2. Learn to Smoke Out the Secret Internet Fatties
One of the plagues of the online revolution has been the Secret Internet Fatty (SIF). Cynically manipulating the aforementioned knowledge of photography, fat girls will often use subterfuge to minimize or conceal her liability. This goes beyond the infamous—and now well-understood— Myspace-Angles technique of taking pictures from an oblique angle above her head to minimize size. Fatties use a panoply of other, subtler tricks that emphasize her best traits and distract an unsuspecting, or ill-trained, online-dater from her worst. These are often simple crimes of omission. A girl with a cute face, but a dumpy body, often fills her profile with nothing but head shots, tightly and strictly cropped at the neck.
Here’s the bottom line: a girl knows when her body is nice, and will invariably show it off—often by crassly dangling it in your face. If she’s concealing it, it’s because it’s not worthwhile. Period. If a girl only looks fat in one of her pictures, but look seemingly normal in the rest, remember Commandment No. 1. She will be fat.
Some other likely giveaways of a SIF (or other bad optics):
- Includes fewer than three pictures in her profile.
- Has anything other than “thin” or “skinny” (or similar) in her body description field. “Athletic” and “average” can, and do, often correspond to a fat girl.
- Displays the tell-tale fat arms, invisible collar bone, or sausage-finger hands.
- Broadcasts clear over-emphasis of one part of the body (breasts, ass, legs), to the exclusion of the other parts.
- Pictured with ugly or fat friends only (cute girls have cute friends, always).
- Pictured with food or at a restaurant. A girl has abundant pictures with food because she’s often eating, and that’s the only social activity she knows.
3. Know the Realities of Online-Dating and Adjust Accordingly
Girls on online-dating sites are like Wall Street traders on the New York Stock Exchange floor, at closing. Total sausage chaos. They’re getting non-stop offers, and they’re doing their best to field all of the best ones. People are jumping and throwing stuff. The bell is ringing. The ticker is flying. Even if she’s not a big-time trader, all of this attention and activity is making her feel like she is one.
Know that if your girl is available, she’s going to be available for a short while, and dudes are putting in proposals non-stop. Not all of those offers are going to be good, so on-point messaging and logistical planning will help you stand out from the noise.
4. Constantly Screen for Tire Kickers, Prudes, Job-Interviewers, and Other Pests
SIFs aren’t your only problem in the online universe. There are other time- and resource-wasting landmines lurking in the shadows. You can never insulate yourself 100 percent, but learn to read profiles, messages, and “match questions” intelligently to spot signals of a problem.
Some examples:
Problem: Tire Kickers
Description: Time-wasting shoppers who are indecisive about going on actual dates, “just checking things out,” and simply folding online dating into their daily 10 hours of online activity.
Symptoms: Responds too quickly, and elaborately (there’s a balance between a thought-out message and an overly elaborate message); balks at the idea of going on a date, but keeps messaging with you; explicitly mentions inexperience or apprehension in her profile.
Problem: Prudes
Description: N/A
Symptoms: Mentions things like wanting to “be friends first then [seeing] what happens”; resolute anti-sexual stance in sex-related questions; non-drinkers; religious types.
Problem: Job-Interviewers
Description: Sport daters who go out on tons of online dates, treating each batch of dudes as an evaluative round of elimination.
Symptoms: Careerist chicks; mentions of having tried online dating before; unsolicited mentions of prior dates in discussion or profile.
5. Take Things Analog ASAP
Not only is your prospect getting offers on a daily basis, but online conversations go stale pretty quickly. There’s no magic number, but I find that if I send more than four of five messages, with the last one being an offer to meet up and a phone-number request, I’ve gone too long. You eventually get a knack for it, but better to rush setting up a date a little bit than wait too long.
Online dating is here to stay. Whatever that means about “society,” realize it’s not any better or any worse than anything else out there. Like any source for mating prospects—probably from the moment that first amphibian walked onto dry land—online dating is filled with its own set of annoyances, perils, and, more importantly, hacks.
Read More: What a Girl’s Haircut Says About Her
Goddamn – my browser stopped right at that chicks head and I nearly spit out my coffee when I scrolled for the next paragraph.
I got turned off by online dating after the third secret fatty (not as bad as the one above) showed up for drinks. Funny enough, each one changed her profile to include body shots the day after meeting me and experiencing a simple no-hug “bye”. That seemed to be particularly devastating to them after an otherwise nice interaction.
What’s your opinion on the various sites (myspace, okcupid, plentyoffish)?
Great analysis. Let me offer a quick historical look – I’ve been doing online dating off and on for 10 years (beta?) and noticed a distinct trend. Back in the early days it was pretty niche, and if a girl was on it, that meant she was serious about getting into a relationship (this is for paid sites like Match). In 2002-4, I was NEVER flaked on, after a few emails (max 3), I would ask her out and she would always accept and not cancel. And generally looked like her pics (one was actually prettier and one was a fattie…and only showed face pics like you mention above).
And now? Last time I was on was summer 2011, and the flakiness is EXTREME (same city, same site). I will exchange emails with a prospect and ask her out and…nothing. No response. Huh? So you checked out my profile and responded to my email (sometimes twice) and now you don’t even want to meet? Attention whore.
So online was gone from niche (fewer women, somewhat lower quality, serious about meeting someone) to mainstream (many women, somewhat better quality, huge flake component/attention whore syndrome)
Also, I think lying about your age is a good idea if you are older like me (38). Most mid to late 20’s girls have 27-34 as an age range so if you are 40 1) you wont come up in their searches and 2) she will instinctively reject you just because of age so you are fighting an uphill battle. And if/when she eventually finds out your real age? I wont really care because I am spinning plates and implementing Mark Minter’s 90 day Next rule. Win/win.
I find that when a women mentions sex or says “not just sex…” in an early reply, game on.
The age issue is what concerns me about online dating. While it’s not hard to get dates with under 30 girls that I meet in real life, I know that if they see that I’m 36 on my profile without knowing anything else about me, they’ll likely just click off. Online dating forces people to look at each other as a collection of stats first.
I agree and am in a similar situation as I am only two years younger than you. I observed in experiences prior “30” is the max for many girls under say 27. So last year I decided to subtract three years from my age so I would be “officially” thirty. Most never figured it out because they weren’t around for long, but the few that stuck around were slightly upset but all got over it once I had established myself in their eyes. The “official” age recently turned 31 but I was able to land another 24yo recently. I recommend shaving a few years off on the profile because, fuck those girls, although I admit this is only a temporary solution.
I got dumped in 2008, and the first thing I did was sign up for Plenty of Fish. I added or wrote to about 30 girls a night for a month straight until I built up a stable……After banging 2 or 3 of them I got my confidence back, and I havent been back on since….
Girls are online dating for only 2 reasons in my opinion:
A) Just got over a really bad breakup
B) They are crazy……..
I’ts usually choice B. My neighorhood has a bar on every block, why go online?
This is 100% what i have seen. I would say from what i noticed 80% of chicks doing the online dating scene just got dumped or are coming out of a bad breakup. Something in your personal life has to drive you to online dating and it is usually desperation. The other 10% are teachers who live in the subburbs and cant’ ever get out on the town. The remaining 10% are crazy.
The only thing you forgot are the other 10% that are lawyers. They’re everywhere.
Jeez, writing literally a thousand messages to get 2 lays? What a waste of time.
it only takes 10 seconds to send a message on average. That’s less than 3 hours of work for 2 lays. Not bad if you ask me considering an average night out lasts 6 hours with 0.01 lays.
Boilerplate
My first, and only commandment of online dating….. DON’T
Nice article Tuthmosis, your break downs are spot on. Most girls are fat or they’re crazy or they’re tire kicking interviewers. I would add blurry pictures to the list of photo fakeouts. Why are they all blurry or far away pictures? Something’s wrong with her skin or her teeth. You have to be like a CIA analyst looking at satellite photos to spot all the flaws these chicks are expert at hiding, but once you know what you’re looking for it’s easy. Stick to your gut too, there is no “maybe” with online chicks photos, if you have any doubt, there is no doubt, don’t waste your time, next profile!
I’ve also noticed that a lot of these girls lie about smoking. I couldn’t care less but they’re very brazen about it and I’ve enjoyed nuking a couple hamsters by asking what else they’re lying about. It literally stops them in their tracks and they either start qualifying or disappear.
The trick online is you have to get the girls out quick (credit El Mechanico), he is dead on with that advice but also take into account these Five Commandments so you don’t waste time. I’ve been meeting up at a few coffee places around me so that a date costs $4 for two coffees and if she’s not as advertised I’m out of there in under 20 minutes.
JohnGalt2 good observation, girls used to actually want to meet and hook up, even if they were fat and/or crazy. Now it’s just mainstream for them like facebook and twitter, a place to gather orbiters and get attention.
Problem is, besides bars, clubs and night parties, there aren’t many places to meet women in the “analog”/real world today. If you know of any, let the rest of us know. The whole social fabric has collapsed. Because of the huge time spent in front of screens and social networks, people have a close set of friends (that they met in college/work or live in the same apartment complex) and that’s it. They don’t talk to each other on the bus, at the park or at the supermarket. Today it’s either bar girls and club/night-party girls or online dating.
BTW, this is the only issue I have with ReturnOfKings and RooshV in general. RooshV has spent so much time with bar girls and club/night-party girls (for all the right reasons, sure), that he starts to project the qualities of those women to all women. Now, don’t get me wrong, every woman has a slut inside her, but not as much as RooshV thinks. I have a sister, and less than half of her friends are actual “party girls” riding the cock carousel, especially after she turned 25. And my sister used to be of the party girl variety…
I don’t believe you can meet quality girls online. Think about it: if a girl has some value she would get tons of men attention whenever she goes out, she wouldn’t need the Internet.
True but USA is anti-social society and many girls do not get approached in the daytime.
Ronin – I have met many quality girls online (not 9’s but 7’s and the occasional 8). Basically her incentive for going online is her ability to screen applicants to look for her 6′ 2″ alpha with muscles…who also happens to make $200k per year. Alpha traits are easy to see at the bar but its tough to distinguish beta-esque provider traits like money, career and education while being hit on at the bar, so going online can help her satisfy her dual mating strategy as she approaches the wall.
When you go online, you are not in control. Its like walking into a casino and hoping you will get ‘lucky” withink a month. Isn’t it better to walk into a Starbucks or Bookstore, spot your “type” and then “go for it” armed with the advice of Roosh V or whatever PUA you ascribe to? If it doesn’t work out, NEXT! Its the feeling of helplessness that really disgusted me about the online sites. She’s sitting back in her pajamas while hundreds of Betas fill her In Box with messages (ego stroked to the max), while you sit back in your room waiting…..waiting….waiting……
Frankly I don’t see the difference. Login, send email to the women of your choosing. log out and go to your Starbucks or Bookstore. If you get replies.. game on! If not… move on.
You don’t sit around waiting for women to call you once you exchange numbers, why would you wait for women to email you back from these dating sites?
Your first mistake was sitting back and waiting. You can do both.
Dudes got so much swagga, but he’s what ruins it for the rest of us
This week, I gave online dating a try, just for the laughs, inspired by a thread in the rooshvforum.
I’m an average-looking tall guy (6’6″), and tried everything (match, pof, etc…) but the sheer number of fake profiles and long time offline profiles is absurd. Maybe in my country, online dating is not so popular.
Funny enough, this week I noted more girls glancing at me (I dress better than most people, even on the subway) so I have decided to hit it hard this saturday in OFFLINE NIGHT GAME.
Great write up.
I am absolutely stunned by what a misogynistic a**hole the author is. What a total prick.
This is actually a satire. He’s not really a misogynistic a**hole. He’s making fun of cis-gendered, heteronormative dating rituals in a paternalistic, capitalistic society. In reality, everyone who writes and follows this blog is either pan-sexual or identifies as cissexual. I don’t see how that’s not obvious.
This is fucking golden HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA You have made my day man. I blew my motorcycle up today and was having such a shitty day, but this comment really cheered my ass up.
your obviously fat lol. guess what majority of guys dont like fat girls get over it! there are few chubby chasers and thatsa it its not an asshole to say ” i dont like fat girls. we want girls we want. and know what we want and those arent it.
hey fuck you cunt
Yes agree.
Truth hurts, huh?
Good descriptions of the different kinds of problem women you’ll meet on internet dating sites. The prudes, tire kickers, sifs, and job interviewers proliferate on these sites and make internet dating less useful because guys end up wasting a lot of time on them. The “job interviewers”, for example, can go on a hundred dates before they pick out a guy for a relationship. If the guys knew they had only a one in a hundred chance of being the guy, they wouldn’t even waste their time meeting the female but there’s no way to spot these women ahead of time. Three other categories of problem females I would add would be the attention junky who just likes getting emails, the girl looking for free meals, and the girl looking for guys she can friendzone and add to her beta male orbiter collection.
That’s why you escalate quickly. To minimize the time you waste on these women.
asshole!!!!!!
Snort, boy you sure told him. Freak.
hahaha dude the fatties are always trying to play the non fat game. One got lucky enough and got me drunk enough to say fuck it and fuck her. Smart fatties!!! BEWARE! hahah
LOL, I can’t believe so many men are still falling for the “online” or “dating at all game” anymore. It really helps make your life easier if you are NOT dependent on intercourse for sexual satisfaction but enjoy self-pleasuring instead.
The author may be politically incorrect, even crude, but it is the very best and real life article about online dating.
Real Life is politically incorrect and crude.
I have to say, you guys are laughing and taking this in jest, but the author is actually dead on- brutally honest- but dead on. I am an attractive woman in her 40’s that uses online dating (3 week veteran, LOL). I post all of my best shots. I’m a tire kicking, job interviewing, prude. I can afford to be. Hehe! I get tons of messages, and many dates. But guess what? Men do the exact same thing. It’s best to remember that everyone is human.
Completely missed the one thing that persists throughout all online dating: girls that “love to travel” and “needs another stamp on her passport.” Yawn.
If you’re reading their profiles at all, you’re already making a mistake. A quick once-over looking for red flags like “single mother” or “must make a certain income to get my vagina interested” is all you need to do. Who cares what they say they want, on the internet or anywhere else?
Because you can find something more likely to elict a response if you take 5 seconds to skim her profile and comment on the first thing that stand out to you in a cocky/funny or quasi-endearing manner. Easier to “hook” the girl if you skim the profile first.
dude im 30 smoking f*cking hot i date online occasionally and im just going to say this now…no man ever any where on this planet or in this life time should take your advice because you sir don’t know dick about women and i hope karma bitch slaps you for your grossly misguided view of women….just eww. reading this has made me feel physically ill, and i hope to god no woman ever gives you the time of day!
im 30 smoking f*cking hot i date online occasionally
—
None of that bullshit computes. Nor do you come across as pleasant to be around, so you probably are on POFreaks ALL THE DAMN TIME!
I am one of the people who pioneered online hook ups. I came to a lot of these conclusions before online dating sites were even around. If she don’t give you the number within the first 5-10 minutes your done, I had one exception where a girl asked me to talk to her one more time before giving me the number and moving forward, and she lived up to it, this is only once in my life of almost 20 years of online pickups. Always request full body pics, not just cleavage and head shots. Last time I was on Aol instant messenger chat, you would have one girl in a tank top with maybe a little cleavage showing, and bam, you had 3/4 of the dudes in the room all jerking off. Aol Instant messenger might has well been aol instant masterbaiter. It was that bad. In the century, wars will be fought over water, at the end of the century, wars will be fought over women and girls, and these my friends, will be the bloodiest wars of all.
Online dating is for women. Its an ego boost for them. Its heaven for women and hell for men .Many dating sites actually require men to pay for monthly sub, yet we arent getting anything off it. I did online dating for YEARS, and only gone one date. I am better looking than average. Im not going to settle down for less. Fuck the American based dating sites. Im going abroad.
Men need to boycott all American base dating sites. Its a BIG rip off for us, men. They’re making millions of us. The gov needs to do something about it.
If you look at it differently, dating sites have exposed women. We, now, know how shallow and materialistic they are. And how racists they are.
I agree with the fact here that online dating is the future, not to say that the traditional ways will not be used, they are always there in the life situations that we go through, but something like mobile dating site will be the preferred way for many single men and women to find a partner in the coming years.
Things I have noticed that are suspect on profiles:
1.) majority of pix they have their glasses on
2.) all of their pics they are with a group of females (who is the chick I’m suppose to be talking to?)
3.) they have the back of their heads showing looking out in the horizon
4.) pics of their dogs
5.) dark pics
What else? All red flags of their authenticity.
Pics of close up their face
Pics of them wearing all black
trust me I had chicks who where masters with the angles who were fatties
I feel chicks go to some underground course in learning how to take proper selfies. Saw this one chick take 40 selfies. Thought she was cute from behind when I saw how good her selfies came out, but when she put the phone down?
Ehhhhh nah so match! (Said in Borat voice)
Online is now most popular for the dating and most of the young couple like to enjoy their time with online dating.
Dating Asian Women
I’m one of those girls I’m sick of pretending I’m fat and ugly as well.
at as fuck and
With those flaky tire kickers, I usually just move on as quickly as I can to another prospect so I don’t get hung up on it. It took me a while to do this, but it helped me especially in the self-esteem department. Excellent advice on this article!
It’s like sales. A numbers and volume game.
Very informative article. I recently tried https://www.flirt.com/ for this purpose, which is a bald move for a man of mine age. It didn’t take me long to realize that it was a mistake. I heard that there are some specialized dating sites for senior people. Maybe you can advice me some of them. Thanks!