Week Two of Online Dating

Sunday 5/7/201 to Saturday 513/17 my second week of online dating.

Okay, so the goal is send out 10-15 messages a day, I was really good and did 15 on Sunday and 10 on Monday.. then my numbers fell off a bit, Like I didn't even log on.  This is harder than I thought! It's mostly taking the time to sit and scroll through profiles.

Speaking of profiles, I found this great -and short- article about what makes a great profile. Check out the link here . They say the #2 thing to do is Avoid Negativity. Amen.

Did you know, there's lots of good looking guys out there! I've been chatting/messaging back and forth with a bunch. It was slow at first, but now it's picking up. I've been going with the thought that I'll say Yes or message them if I can stand to talk to them for 30 min.

Check out the message from this guy. I took a screen shot for proof, that Yes, I'm officially a cougar!!! hahaha!!  

This guy is 23. Thanks, but no thanks..

And occasionally someone has a great sense of humor in their pictures like this cowboy. I Love it! 

I laughed so hard!!  And of course I sent him a message --after I stopped laughing! That's a conversation starter picture if there ever was one. 

Speaking of cowboys... I found this on my cousin's Facebook page. 

And then the next day I saw this. Good Grief! It's true!! 

Towards the end of the week  I did better and did my 10 messages a day. I've messaged back and forth with a bunch of guys. I gave me phone number out to 2 guys  but that went nowhere. 

A 67 yr old asked me to go hot tubbing with him on a first date. Well, that's more of a hook up, not a date. I gotta give him props for being bold asking me out though. 

I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to run into scammers. Or else I'm on high alert to them? For instance, this person sent me a message. I took a screen shot cause it's so obviously fake. The profile says they're a 51 yr old male looking for women. Clearly lifted and copy and pasted from someone else's profile. 

Another No Thank you. (Is it wrong that I messaged them back a couple times just to entertain myself? I wonder why they didn't message me back? heehee)

But these are just the weirdos.n  

Sometimes trudging through all this gets ya down. 

Then on Friday after work I stopped at the store to pick up some things. And got chatted up by the store assistant manager, Jeff. How fun! He was good looking and very flirty. Now that's the way to do customer service! lol. I'll be going back to that store for sure. 

In person flirting is still the best :)

Here's to next week being even better! 

Online Dating 101, and What I've Learned Week 1

Hi friends! Here's what I've been up to this week. I've talked to lots of friends and coworkers and have gotten lots of advice. I'm planning on sharing it all with you. Here's some of it put into action, and what I've done so far and why:

Signed up on 3 different dating websites. 
I signed up on Match, Plenty of Fish, and LDSPlanet. I picked three for a variety of people and to better my odds.

A coworker (who is serious with a man she met on Plenty of Fish) told me this week, she sees the same people over and over again on all the sites. I've noticed that too with a handful of people. But I think there's enough of a selection to make signing up on different sites worthwhile.  

I've heard people who are serious about dating and finding a relationship - not just a hookup - will pay the membership fee. As my friend Polly and How to Find a Husband teacher said, "If they can afford to pay the $14 a month fee, they can afford to take you to dinner." Valid point.

So a little about each site and why I picked it.

Match.com has men who are serious about finding a relationship. They can afford the monthly fee. One opinion is it's mostly doctors and lawyers/professionals. I've had good experiences in the past with two men I dated from this site. One owned his own travel company, the other was a biochemical engineer. Okay. I can see how the doctor/lawyer vibe can be justified.

LDSPlanet.com is one the of the sites that caters to LDS/Mormons. My opinion of this site, it's okay, but not great. I joined since I'm looking for someone that's LDS like myself. I might look around for another LDS dating site when my membership expires.
I've been on this site for a while. (Yeah. I don't know why either. Eternal hope or something) It seems to me that on this site the men are a bit passive. They look at your profile but don't ever send messages or winks. This time around I'm going to take a more active role. I'll keep you posted.

PlentyofFish.com (or POF for short). This is a free site, with an option to pay for the upgrade. The coworker suggests the upgrade, that it's worth it to get more information on who your talking to; to see if they read your messages, etc. Per my sister who's been on this site, it's more regular men, more blue collar. So far, that's spot on. I've seen lots of motorcycles, construction jobs, hunters. etc, if that tells you anything.
I've been on another free site in the past, OkCupid. I recently deactivated my profile on that site. As my sister  and coworker said, and I see it's true, OkCupid is more of the hookup site. Going from bottom of the barrel up, it's Craigslist, then OkCupid, with Match and EHarmony at the top. I thought for the longest Plenty of Fish was the hookup site. I'm seeing I was wrong about that. Of course we all know Tinder is down there on the bottom somewhere. I'm not looking for a one night stand, so that site isn't even a contender.

Uploaded current pictures on all 3 sites.  
I did a photo shoot with a kid from church who's trying to start a photography business, and I had my sister take my pictures. And of course took some selfies.

Here's one of my Glamour shots. Not a good profile pic cause you can't see my face, but I don't care lol 

One school of thought is there's only three pictures needed, a head shot, full body shot, and a interest picture.  And by interest picture I mean a picture showing something you interested in doing, be it hiking, skydiving, pottery, whatever.  Per this OkCupid article, a picture showing you 'Doing something interesting" gets a 40% more change of  a message leading into an actual conversation verses a random picture. So okay, I need more interesting pictures. Something that will spark a conversation, besides a "you're hot." That doesn't lead to a conversation.

And further reading in this same article, those cheesy weird angle selfies garners the most contacts. Who knew?

You know, the selfies taken from high above so everything looks good? Apparently it's the way to go. I'm okay with this angle. I think everyone looks better at this angle. (Note to self, date someone tall). Cause who likes shots from the ground up? Not to mention there's no need to advertise that double chin. Or make it bigger when it's not even there. No one likes looking up your nose. (Guys, this means you. Please stop with the up the nose pics)

I just randonly found and watched this Youtube video about posing/modeling for the camera. Here's the Link . It's long but well worth your time. I learned more from her in one hour than all the Pinterest post I've searched. lol  Maybe it's the British accent, but I'll for sure use these tips for my next pictures. Note: Faux waist is the way to go.

Updated my profile on all 3 sites.  
I updated my profile, said a little bit about myself and what I'm interested in, and what I'm looking for.  I have notes about this from my How to meet a Husband class (I'll get to this, promise) I need to look at, and then go back and tweek my profile description. Right now it's good enough.

Whew! jut those three things is a lot, right!? Lots to learn and know about.

Now for the fun part! 

Send out tons of messages. 
According to an OkCupid data mined article, (check out link here ) it's to my advantage to send out messages.  OkCupid might allegedly be a hookup site, but they have a million users, and they mine their data and publish the results. All of it very interesting.

I talked to a girl who has a dating coach. She shared with me some of the "assignments" she's gotten. 1. Contact/message 10-15 men a day. It's all about the numbers game.
2. You only get one "Ew No Way" per day. As in saying No to someone who contacts me. (I'm not sure about this one. If someone looks like serial killer/creeper, they probably are. I might need more than one per day)
3. If you can stand to talk to them for 30 minutes, say Yes.
4. Don't judge by profile or picture. Some people look fantastic in real life and horrible in pictures. Give everyone a chance.
I'm sure there's more, but that's a great start for now.

Following this advice, I've sent out 10 messages a day. I've divided it up between the 3 sites.
So far, POF has been  the only site blowing up my email. Match and LDSPlanet have been strangely quiet. They sure where emailing me every day before I signed up though....   I've had 20 emails just today from POF with notices of messages.

Well,  that's been my first week. To recap, I'm doing the online thing on three separate sites, and going to as many church singles activities as I can. For instance, there's a cool singles warehouse party tonight. Should be tons of fun!

I'm off to get ready. Have a great weekend everyone and wish me luck!
Hugs to you all!
Caroline