Online Dating, Additional Advice For Men

Online Dating, Additional Advice For Men

Last year I described my online dating system (link below). I still dabble with online dating but mix that up with being social out there in the real world. I’ve been talking to – and corresponding with – a variety of dating coaches and people doing online dating themselves. Based on the additional wisdom I’ve acquired, I have some additional advice for men over 40 who are attempting online dating. Note: My advice is based on a large metropolitan area.

1. Women surf photos just as much as guys do. If she can’t get past your profile photos, you’re done. Don’t take it personally and move on.

2. Make the effort. Online dating is time-consuming. If you’re sending out just one message, you will fail. Unless you’re really good-looking, your response will rarely be over 10%. Deal with it. So, reserve some time in front of the computer to find at least

3. Send multiple messages. Each message should be different. I covered this previously (link below)

4. Be organized, use a spreadsheet. Here’s a recommendation for columns: User Name, When Message Sent, Message Read Status, If Message Read, When?, If Responded, When?, Notes. Add additional columns as you feel necessary. Plenty of Fish and OKCupid won’t give you the message read status for free. Pay for that feature, it’s worth it.

5. Grow your skin thicker and be realistic. Online dating can be brutal on the psyche. Women look for reasons to reject a guy and that’s a feature, not a bug. As well, women have enormous egos and their abilities to rationalize are nuclear powered. Fortunately, the professional dating coaches are working to correct this (link below).

6. Don’t expect immediate responses. Women over a certain age will fill every single waking moment with something and usually not logging into their computers to actually be serious about online dating. Most consider online dating as a tertiary priority, right after cleaning the litter box.

7. Don’t send immediate responses. You’re a busy guy, give that message by delaying responses. Men should play games like this and it sucks.

8. Because most women don’t take online dating seriously, don’t expect pithy profiles. If you weed out the sparsely written profiles, you’re going to be eliminating too many dames before you even start sending out messages.

9. Don’t rely solely on online dating. If you’re not being social in real life – even if not to meet women – your social skills will get rusty and your real dates will suffer accordingly.

10. Try to keep as local as possible. If your city has sufficient population density, you can keep your search to under 10 miles. Too much distance is a time killer (except if the date is near your job) and a poor return on investment if you are looking for more than just sex.

11. Follow directions. If the woman’s profile states an age range and you don’t fall into it, don’t message her. The same goes for everything else – distance, baldness, height, etc. As we say about women, the same applies to men. In cyberspace, we’re not special snowflakes. (HT, Moxie, link below)

12. Always remember that men are the gatekeepers to commitment.

Online Dating, A Short Primer

The Best Dating Advice Women Will Ever Get