Re: The Same OLD Stories: Dating Profile/Message Advice

[CP96]

I have quick question for anyone more experienced with OLD.

A while back a girl visited my profile on OkCupid and liked me, so I sent here a message, and we've been messaging back and forth for a little while since. The thing is, her responses are always incredibly short and non-specfic ( except for the fact that she just moved here from Virginia), for instance when I asked what music she liked she just said she liked and little Rock and Folk, not mentioning any specific band. Should I take these short messages as a sign that she's uninterested?

Ask her out and find out.

[BasedBuzzed]

Well after a lot of consternation I dedcided I would try my hand at this 'online dating' thing
I really don't know what to expect... but here is my profile

http://www.okcupid.com/profile/tavjas

Additional spell/grammar check is needed, I'd also specify what your work and music tastes are in a bit more detail. For what you do on Friday nights, simply list an exciting thing that you did each weekend(frequent editing will also keep your profile at the top of the feed). For profile pics, I'd go for one full-body pic somewhere in there and a face-close up that has you smiling.

[Perlandra]

Nolorn, I generally liked your profile, though I agree with BasedBuzzed that you need to proofread it.  The attack helicopter thing reminded me of http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2502  In "you are not apathetic and care about something," you should probably cut it to "if you care about something."  The "not apathetic" part comes across as a bit rude/judgemental.

Dannyboy, go ahead and ask her out! I'd suggest something low-key like coffee, or something you'd like to do/see anyway, so you'll have fun even if the chemistry doesn't work out.

[Dannyboy]

Thanks for the advice Perlandra and CP96.

Anyway, I tried your advice and asked her if she wanted to meet for coffee, she said:

"Possibly, I'm doing something with family this weekend, but maybe soon?"

I responded:

"Gotcha, maybe next weekend then? I'll have find a nice coffee place ."

Did I come on too strong there?

[reboot]

Thanks for the advice Perlandra and CP96.

Anyway, I tried your advice and asked her if she wanted to meet for coffee, she said:

"Possibly, I'm doing something with family this weekend, but maybe soon?"

I responded:

"Gotcha, maybe next weekend then? I'll have find a nice coffee place ."

Did I come on too strong there?

No. The purpose of OLD is to go on dates. People expect to be asked on dates.

[reboot]

Well after a lot of consternation I dedcided I would try my hand at this 'online dating' thing
I really don't know what to expect... but here is my profile

http://www.okcupid.com/profile/tavjas

I really like your profile. I snort laughed at the attack helicopter comments and that is a good thing.

On your Friday night section you might want to add something you like to do outside your home. The purpose of this section is to get an idea of what a date with you might be. Follow what you have with, "On the Fridays when neither dough nor documentaries appeal, I can usually be found doing X, Y or Z"

The biggest weakness is your pictures. Your main one has weird lighting and you are not looking at the camera in any of them. Take a bunch more, some full body, some outdoor and run them through the OKC photo picker thingy.

[Dannyboy]

Okays guys, I'm kind of freaking out right now. So I've been messaging this girl who lives about two hours away from me, and despite my best effort I could only get a couple of sentences out of her for each message. So, naturally, I thought she probably wasn't into me and kind of wrote off anything happening with her. Then, out of the blue one night she messages me and says she thinks I'm really cute. So, we flirted a bit over the past few days and I asked her if she was planning on staying in my state after she finished college (she's a junior, right now), and she said that she planning on going back to her home state. I responded teasingly and off-handly mentioned that I was hoping I'd have a chance to meet her sometime.

She replied "We could make that happen ".

So now I'm all anxiety ridden and I have no idea what to do. Shes too far away for us to just have a low stakes coffee date together, and I think that she expects me to ask her out on a date now. What if she doesn't think I look like my profile picture. What if I go out on a date and my lack of social skills puts her off, or we can't find anything to talk about (all we've discussed so far is a mutual appreciation of Disney movies). Dammit, I thought I was okay with the prospect of failing a date, but now that I might actually get one, I go insane. I mean, this is the first time a girl without some obligation to be polite to me told me that I'm cute.

I don't know, should I ask her out? I guess could meet her Denver for something, but with the commute time for both of us it'd be pretty high stakes. Do you think I should ask her if she'd like to go to a museum with me, or see a movie? God, I'm so clueless about this.

[nearly_takuan]

She's already planning to move away soon; doesn't that make it low stakes?

Movie would be a last resort sort of thing since it limits the in-person interaction time you have with each other (already at a premium given the commute time). If you haven't discussed much yet, that just means there would be more fresh subjects to touch on when you meet. Museum is probably a decent choice if that interests you; lots of opportunity for walk-and-talk, and if you run out of topics at some point you can just look at stuff until something inspires you.

[Enail]

Yeah, I think museum sounds like a good idea. As well as what NT says, it gives you some built-in topics. You might also want to come up with a few topics beforehand as well, so that you've got something to get things going with again if your brain stalls.  Try it, see if you both have fun, and if it doesn't go well, you've got a little more practice for next time.

[Perlandra]

Danny, is there anything else besides the date you'd want to do in Denver? One way to make it a bit less high-stakes/high-pressure is to combine it with other things you want to do there anyway. I agree a museum has lots of built-in conversational fodder and things to do. Movies can work on a first date, but I prefer other kinds of dates so we can talk more.

[Dannyboy]

Thanks for the advice guys!

Well, I got a museum date planned for this Sunday, provided it works out with her work schedule. There's a mythical creature exhibit so hopefully it'll be fun. I'll definitely try to come up with a few topics besides that to talk about though.

Wow, my first date. It's probably going to be a huge disaster, lol, but at least I'll be able to say I got a date.

[jcorozza]

Hey, if it's a disaster, it will be a funny story you can tell on future dates! Sounds weird, but one of the things I've found it fun to talk about with people I meet through OKC is terrible dates/OKC interactions (when they're so bad they're funny).

[nearly_takuan]

Had a conversation tonight—first in many months, now that I look. ...Anyone here up for a post-mortem over PM?

(I don't think it went well.)

[Perlandra]

NT I'm on for a bit if you want to PM me.

Dannyboy, I hope your museum date is fun! Best of luck to you.

[Gentleman Johnny]

Restarted my questions, put up some more photos. Going to brush up the profile proper later today but I wanted some feedback on the photos.
Link

[reboot]

I'm a bit wary of this, but here we go.  I get a good deal of people who see my message, look at my profile, and then don't respond.  I've had friends look at my profile for critiques but they can't think of anything to change to make it better.

http://www.okcupid.com/profile/TS42

EDIT: Sorry, the merge did not work :/ Maybe another mod can bring the original over?

[Gentleman Johnny]

OK, so step 1, pictures. Dude, you're a winner! I want a picture as cool as that fancy suit one. Amazing lighting. You've got one doing work for manly man points, dancing, surrounded by friends and a cute one with a dog. Without even reading your profile I've got a decent read on you and what you like to do. You've got about 200 questions answered, which is around optimum, although WHICH questions those 200 should be depends on who you're looking for. Your basic profile reads fine even if its just being skimmed because the re's plenty of keywords to follow. Everything gives a good sense of who you are. If you were a woman nearby, I'd message you and I'm seriously considering studying your format a bit more closely for my own profile redraft. You might want to use that A/B picture comparison thing (Marty knows what it is) to see if the dark suit picture works better thna your current profile pic.

The one thing I would suggest is to optimize your questions. Pull up a couple of people who are good personality matches (doesn't matter if you'd message them or what they look like) and loo at what questions are important to THEM. Keep these open in a new tab. Now zero out all your questions. Go through those profiles and answer the questions that are important to them and that you're likely to agree on. Answer them honestly, rate them high and don't answer anything else yet! Now pull up your matches by percentage and repeat. Do that until you've got about 200 answered so that your answers concentrate on showing off the things that are important to the kind of people you want to meet.

[BasedBuzzed]

@Johnny

Teeth-showing smile looks a tad stiff for some reason, so I'd switch the second pic with the flute one or the oil pump one(that one has an extremely open expression, imho).

[Perlandra]

Shajenko, a couple of people have suggested using the "friday night" section to discuss what you like doing for dates, or what you did last friday/last weekend so that you're updating it every week and bringing it back to the top.

I really liked your profile, aside from that! Great pics, interesting but not overly intellectual self-summary, etc.

Johnny, your link didn't work for me, even when I manually typed the profile name in to replace Shajenko's link.

[Gentleman Johnny]

Weird. I promise its there.
profile/zophiel

[nearly_takuan]

Johnny:
Dawg you have some damn spiffy photos too. Active lifestyle definitely comes through in them, as does your confidence/posture in a variety of different costume styles and settings.

And I mean John Barrowman? By all that's unholy you've got frigging John Barrowman touching your shoulder. I would (...not actually) get that tattooed on my chest, if you'll pardon the out-of-context reference.

I don't right now remember exactly what audience you are trying to target, but the only problem I could imagine with that set of photos is that there aren't any of you just chilling in some indoor context, and it seems like your life is just this constant barrage of exciting events and activities. I also wouldn't guess from descriptions alone that there's much stability in your life; I think a lot of people assume that programmers can just always work remotely and acting troupes are constantly "on tour".

I know you're still working on the write-up but I could swear I read "programmer by day...creative by night!" multiple times through the profile. Maybe it's good to repeat yourself for the "skim for common themes and pump the shotgun" crowd, but you still might want to change up the phrasing a bit so you don't come across as...uncreative, in terms of word choice.

I get the sense that you're bored with your day job (contrasting it against your more "creative" after-hours hobbies), don't want to talk about it much ("looking for more than just the usual jobs, [etc]"), and probably give that impression intentionally. If that sense is wrong, ...well, I'm soooo not your target audience, but what I mean to say is it's potentially polarizing and therefore it's worth checking to make sure you've calibrated that polarity appropriately.

[Gentleman Johnny]

Thanks on the pics! I paid good money to get John Barrowman to stand there so (although not just so) I'd have a clear but stylish geek identifier photo.

I'll say that's a problem with my profile that I'm aware of. I originally went too far in the "got my shit together" direction and wanted to spice it back up. So now its too zany. My job isn't. . .boring, its just not important to me. I have a slot labeled "job here" where I put 40 hours a week of my time so I can do all the fun stuff without sweating how I'm going to pay rent.

The "more than the usual" is to screen out the large clump of people who have their job, the gym, one of hiking, motorcycle riding or rock climbing and Netflix. Vegas is a town where people come to make money, so there's a large number of people for whom that's just all that's important to them. The long form is yes, you should have those things. I have those things. You should also have A Thing that matters to you for itself, not for what it does for your body/image/bank account. Again, better turn of phrase needed for sure.

So I messaged someone today that's a great example. She's an upright bass player and had in her "message me if" a disclaimer that she was really involved with her music and that it would always come first. That probably scares off a lot of guys but my reaction was "fuck yeah! Here's someone who understands!"

Edit: Gave everything a quick redraft.

[readertorider]

Weird. I promise its there.
profile/zophiel

OKC is telling me that I need to be a member to view your profile, so that could be an issue.

I'm a bit wary of this, but here we go.  I get a good deal of people who see my message, look at my profile, and then don't respond.  I've had friends look at my profile for critiques but they can't think of anything to change to make it better.

http://www.okcupid.com/profile/TS42

Your pictures look excellent to me. Some nitpicky comments:

-your self-summary and favorites section are both rather large, but the other sections especially the last two are rather brief. I agree with Perlanda that expanding your Friday night section is a good idea & second her suggestions.

-I didn't really like the "I'm looking for ..." paragraph in your self summary. I think you could stick most of what you want in a "message me if" type section and "she have a life outside of me. She would have to want to both go on adventures and spend a quiet evening at home." feels like I'm reading a job description.

-To me you ping as a college kid--cool hobbies, focus on learning/education, uncertain about whether you want kids, talk a lot about adventure/fun, hazy about the future, favorites are almost exclusively things I recognize --the only 'adult' thing I noticed is you working to maintain your house. You are also have your age range set to 10 years younger but only 2 years older. I think this combination might make women who are ultimately looking for someone to settle down with wary and why some of the people who visit might not message you back.

[Gentleman Johnny]

Found the privacy settings. Fixed that.

[Wondering]

I'm a bit wary of this, but here we go.  I get a good deal of people who see my message, look at my profile, and then don't respond.  I've had friends look at my profile for critiques but they can't think of anything to change to make it better.

http://www.okcupid.com/profile/TS42

So...can I ask why your age limit goes down 10 years but only up 2? I'm not in your age range, but if I were, I wouldn't message you because of that listed age range. Maybe some other women who've come across your profile feel the same?

Edit: D'oh. I missed the page of posts and see readertorider already brought this up. So, what she said!

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