I'll try to keep this to the point: OK Cupid tactics, date tactics, and a lack of IOI's

I had previously given up and closed my account, but I got on OK Cupid again to experiment with my profile. I had come to the conclusion that I was either trying too hard in the text of the profile or my photos didn't give off the right vibe. I'm not an Adonis by any means, nor am I vein enough to have a super hip style about me, so with the photos I decided to focus on capturing my serious, "sexy" side and my "having a great time" side, but nothing in between. Most contained interesting backgrounds and myself wearing a variety of flattering clothes, but more importantly the focus was on my face, kind of like a press photo for a solo singer or something. I also made sure that all the photos were of good quality and color corrected, my idea being that it makes me look more legit than the guys who throw up a bunch of random facebook photos. With the profile I went short, simple, and concise. I cut out lots of fat and let my interests do the talking. Removed all but one or two subtle jokes, got rid of statements that put me into too closed of a box (goofiness, geekiness, heartfelt shit, opinions, etc.), and added a "bonus points if <insert general qualities of a fun girl here>" comment in the concluding section in the hopes of forcing people to qualify themselves. What this all ultimately accomplished was ridding my first impression of anything that might help a girl justify ignoring me, and it worked right out of the gate.

Here's how I played it...

An important detail here is that I purchased an A-list subscription mainly because it allows me to visit profiles without people knowing it. At first I didn't see why anyone would want to do that, but then I realized how it came in handy. I found a "match" that was cute and I visited her profile. I allowed A-list to tell her that I visited, and since she was a strong match, I got an email a few minutes later telling me that she was checking out my profile. I looked for something to poke fun at in hers and found that her income was listed as a million a year. I immediately messaged her and told her something to the effect of "You're checking me out right now AND you make a million dollars a year?? You should take me to dinner. But not somewhere crappy like Chili's, we're going some place fancy like Red Lobster. Let me know what night this is happening". She messaged me back almost immediately saying that was the best message she's ever gotten on okc, and conversation went back and forth 2 more emails each, which is when she stopped leaving openings for a reply. Her profile said she was just there to meet friends, so I sent her a message saying "so are you seriously just on okc to meet friends or can I take you out for drinks this week?" and she gave me her number.

Very light joke and date-setup texting over the course of a few days and I had bumped our future "drinks" to "dinner and drinks". Here's where A-list came in handy. She knew I was going to stay in touch, but I didn't want her to know that I checked her profile out a couple times to get inside info about her musical taste, diet, if she's a sexual person, important details, etc. A-list kept my research hidden, so I got some conversation pieces without turning her off in the mean time. I picked a casual restaurant that I thought she'd like and had her meet me. It turned out to be her favorite restaurant and right up the street from her house (apparently I'm that good), so I got to throw in some stalker jokes. I also chose it because it is in an area of town near some bars for later. She turned out to be kind of shy, so I just played the questions game all night to keep her talking.

After dinner we went to a dive bar and this is where it gets weird. She said yes to keeping the date going, and she said yes initially, so I figured I was already in, but she was giving no physical IOI's whatsoever, and wasn't responding to mine. This seemed weird because according to her profile she's kind of the kinky, always horny type, so I expected a lot of physical contact by this point. I was thinking maybe she wanted to "start off slow" or something, so I just proceeded EXTREMELY slowly to work in with the touching while opening up the sex talk, neither of which really went anywhere. I was thinking I might be out, when all of a sudden she gets the kissy face and we dive into making out. By now it had gotten to be almost midnight. After the first kiss she says to me "man, you're slow", to which my dumb ass responded "well I just couldn't tell!". No harm done. I laughed my ass off, closed out out my tab, and we went to her place. F-close was a smooth progression until a little LMR, which I blew through by paying attention to the neck, and I stayed the night and got more in the morning.

Two interesting things worth mentioning:

At one point she said I am "cuter in person" than in my photos, then preceded to tell me about two ugly guys she had met up with that had posted overly flattering photos of themselves. Guys do this just as often as girls do apparently. This got me thinking that maybe good looking guys could dumb their photos down and surprise the shit out of some ladies!

At another point I asked why her profile said she was just on okc to meet friends. She said it had to do with a crazy ex. I told her I had a theory that women do that to filter out guys and dick pics. She said that it had no effect. Despite this, I plan on watching for women who "just want to make new friends" because it offers up a great opportunity to make my intentions clear when I ask them out.

So what I think I learned is keep it simple and realistic on the OKC profile. Wit and humor does get though online. Text game applies directly to email. Research and planning when it comes to the date can seem scarily overzealous if used incorrectly, but done right can lead to an awesome, laid-back night. Shy girls may just want us to go for it with or without the everyday IOI's. And last but not least, OKC can get you laid without having to resort to douche-baggery or dick pics.

Thanks for reading! I'll be on OKC!