Made ya click.

We’ve been talking lately about things that are the death of a geek guy’s dating profile. Things like being Captain Obvious or accidentally sending the message that you don’t want a girlfriend. But what if you swing the pendulum too far the other way? What if you get… cocky?

We delve into more men’s match.com profiles. Remember, these are quotes from the profiles of guys who are looking for a geek girl like me – a late 20s/early 30s, educated, professional woman.

Obnoxious Horn-Tooting

There is a fine line between touting your strengths and tooting your own horn so loud that we want to smack you into next Tuesday.

Tooting about self worth related to the type of women on match.com:

• “When it comes to women appearance is important…”

Are you so hot that you can dictate exactly what your girl should look like?

• “Okay, let me start this off with a little something to save us both time…if your profile says anything along the lines of “princess” or “excuisite” then go ahead and move on to the next profile.”

Now, I agree with that statement wholeheartedly. However, this is something you shouldn’t state directly in your profile. It’s just rude. The time to weed out the princesses is when (and if!) they email you.

• “Normal Guy looking to Meet a Nice Girl , can’t believe I am on here”

What does this say? “I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here. This is my last resort.” Wow, I feel so good about emailing you now.

Tooting about self directly:

• “I am a very athletic, intelligent and very handsome professional.”

“Athletic” – tell us what kind of athlete. I mean, they play Scrabble on ESPN these days.

“Intelligent” – We will be able to gauge intelligence by how you write, what you read, or the type of job you do.

“Very Handsome” – Gag me. If you have a picture (and this one did) do you NEED to tell me that you’re very handsome? Is that just in case I don’t notice?

• “To know me is to LOVE ME!”

ORLY? Let us decide that after we meet you. For now that makes you seem either cocky or desperate for attention.

• “ME: Tall, Dark & still Handsome! Good sense of HUMOR (Love to Laugh and make YOU laugh as well), Spiritually, easy-going, spontaneous, kind hearted, Romantic (not using this word lightly, but only the lucky one will find out MY definition of Romance (?what’s yours?), patient, a good dancer, a giver, honest & last but not least, spiritually contented.Charities.”

Not only is this so poorly written that it’s barely readable, it has a laundry list of adjectives. Oh, and a noun at the end that implies he donates to good causes.

• Headline: I have a very large….
• Body of profile: I have a very large heart! What a dirty mind you have!

Two no-nos there, one  being an extremely obvious innuendo and two, really? Let’s not bring any references to your… rooster into your profile. You know what the average geek girl does with a profile full of innuendo? We laugh at you and then move on to someone who can make smarter jokes.

• I am very funny and there is no way that my date will be bored of my presence.

I am so relieved! Please sir, entertain me with your amazing sense of humor. (The rest of his profile – not at all funny.)

• I’m well read, well traveled, well educated, and well mannered. I’m not overly arrogant…

Is any arrogance a good thing?

• Most people say I’m witty and a lot of them don’t get my sarcasm… Perhaps I’m just too…clever!

Perhaps nobody laughs because you’re not funny. Again, the rest of his profile… not at all funny.

• I get my spa manicures and spa pedicures.

This is generally not something you want to advertise. If it comes up later, once we know you, that’s fine. But it’s a tad odd to imagine you soaking your feet at the Pretty Nails Spa…

How Do I Fix My Dating Profile?

Again, the cockiness is something that can be found and rewritten in a way that is less cocky.  You can brag about your awesome job, but do it in a way that is interesting and fun, rather than making it seem that you’re a god among men. You can talk about your level of fitness, but in a way that shows how you enjoy your active lifestyle, rather than listing off the weights you can pick up and put down. There are even ways to allude to the fact that you’re stinkin’ rich without having to say it directly. It just takes a few minutes of time and a few edits to make your profile shine for the right reasons.

Confused on how to make all of these things work for you? I will be glad to help you sort out your profile so it gets the right kind of attention. Check out some of our services here.

Happy Dating, Geek Friends!

This post was originally published on 16 March 2008. It’s been extensively edited and updated, just for you. Enjoy!

Do you want a girlfriend, or someone to sit on the couch while you play video games all weekend?

Last week, we looked into how being Captain Obvious was making your dating profile ho-hum and boring (and ultimately, making you seem not worthy of attention or emails).

Today, we delve into more men’s match.com profiles to show a totally different epidemic: guys who are on dating sites but have profiles that make it seem like they really don’t care if they get a girlfriend.

Remember, these are quotes from the profiles of guys who are looking for a geek girl like me – a late 20s/early 30s, educated, professional woman.

“I like the idea of a girlfriend, but not the work involved in getting (or keeping) one.”

• “tell u later” <– for just about every question
• “just checking this site out…see what kind of women are in here..”
• “I am not sure who I want to meet here.”
• “I’ll have to update this later…” <– he signed up 3 months ago, when is “later?”

“That guy” likes the idea of raking in the women, but not enough to put in the work to fill out his profile or articulate what he wants. To the ladies, this says, “I’m hoping my picture is hot enough that I won’t need to say much.”

“I can’t communicate well…”

• “Well it is really hard to describe myself..”
• “Let’s see what I can say about myself…”
• “It says I have to write 200 characters, so…”
• “I was lazy and didn’t write much, but luv to hear from ya”
• “I am running out of things to say about myself”

Lines like these are kryptonite to women, especially those of us who have been in a relationship with a guy who didn’t express his thoughts and feelings until it was too late.

You may think that you’re being shy or that people will forgive you for not being able to write a profile, but you’re wrong. Unless you’re White Court Vampire hot or John Marcone rich, you’ll get skipped over. Your emails will get ignored and deleted.

What’s A Guy To Do?

Fill out your profile!

Now, the myth here is that you need to fill out every single text area of your profile with a paragraph. Actually, you don’t. Guys can get away with a profile of as few as 250 words, as long as they’re the right words. Be clear about who you are, what you value, what your passions are, and the type of person you’d like to meet. Delete anything that looks remotely like the sentences I listed above.  Then you’ll be on the right track for sending the message: “I’m here and I’m ready for you!”

Happy dating, geek friends.

This post was originally published on 15 March 2008. It’s been extensively edited and updated, just for you. Enjoy!

The unfortunate thing about most people is that they don’t bother to check out what the profiles of other people like them say. Let’s make a trip to match.com and look at some men’s profiles. No guys, this won’t make you gay. In fact, if you hide your profile and then search, nobody will know but you.

I’m looking for things that guys write again and again in their profiles. Things that make girls (especially geek girls) roll their eyes and move on to another guy.

For purposes of this article, I have done a Reverse Search on match.com. This type of search allows me to see the profiles of men who are interested in girls like me – late20s/early30s, educated, professional women.

Enter Captain Obvious

• “I’m down-to-earth and laid back”

If I had a nickel for every profile with a variation on that sentence, I would be a rich geek girl. This is a case of “show, don’t tell.” If you are down-to-earth, describe a situation in which you were the calm in the center of a storm. If you are laid back, describe the stress of your job and how it just rolls off you like a duck in a rain shower.

• “I’m kind of tired of the bar scene”

Yes, and we’re tired of hearing you say it. What will you NEVER tire of, ever? Could you watch your DVDs of Firefly until they spontaneously combust in your DVD player? Do you love your nightly walk around the lake? These kinds of details are what will excite us and make us want to contact you. If you’re tired of it, why do we need to know?

• “Looking to meet a good looking woman with a great personality to have a great time.”

…as opposed to looking for a woman who fell out of the Ugly Tree, has anger management problems, and will beat the life out of you? Again, Captain Obvious strikes. If you want better results than him, you need to be more specific.

• “Enjoy traveling and spending time with family and good friends.”

Where do you travel? Why do you like it there? What do you do with your family? Any cool family traditions or legendary tales of escapades with your friends?

• “I want to find someone who can enjoy themselves doing pretty much anything and is a kind good person.”

Vague, vague, vague. Here’s a good place where you can be specific. “I want a girl who can make waiting in line for a rollercoaster more entertaining than the ride. She’s the girl who plays the claw machine just so she can give the toy she wins to the nearest kid.” These are anecdotes that don’t pinpoint a specific PERSON, but help define the character traits you value.

Go From Captain Obvious to Captain Awesome

The move from Captain Obvious to Captain Awesome is all in the details. I’ve given you some examples above. Go through your profile and pinpoint the things in it that scream “Durrr.” Then ask yourself, “What’s a concrete example of this?” or “What’s a story about my life I can tell that shows this quality?” Delete the old stuff and write in the newer, more concrete, more awesomely YOU stuff. Then watch the emails roll in.

Happy dating, geek friends.

This post was originally published on 14 March 2008. It’s been extensively edited and updated, just for you. Enjoy!

Don’t worry, I haven’t gone all sleazy pick-up artist on you. (You know how my lovely assistant J and I feel about those people.) But I am going to tell you a quick and easy way to make your inbox a little more full (or less empty, depending on how your experience has been).

It all started with an email someone left in the Anon-O-Box. This particular guy noticed a trend and decided he’d email me to see if this was just anecdotal evidence or a real deal statistic in play.

Yeppers, my geek brethren are smart cookies. Y’all want data and well… I’m happy to dig a little deeper and get it for you. I emailed Colin Burns, the Social Media Manager at Match.com and posed the question to him. He ducked into the magical data mine at Match.com and came up with an answer.

You’d better get a pen and paper and write this on a sticky note. Attach it to your monitor.

OMG, STATISTIC!

If you send a first contact email to someone who has already scoped out your profile,
the response rate is 44% higher
than if you email someone who has not yet seen your profile.

Those people are sending a signal – they noticed you. They noticed you enough to click on your profile and read it.

Why didn’t they email you, then?

1. They were too busy and planned to email you later.
2. They were too shy. (Some people don’t send ANY first contact emails. Ever.)
3. They thought, “He/she’d never go for someone like me.“
4. They were confused by a part of your profile and decided not to chance it.
5. They weren’t 100% sure about you.
6. etc, etc.

Bottom line: They noticed you. On some level, your profile was intriguing to them. This is why you’ll have a 44% higher response rate rather than cold-emailing someone who has never seen your profile.

Do I mention I noticed they saw me?

That’s up to you.  If you can bring it up in a way that’s not creepy (“Yo babe, saw you lookin’ at me. Now I’m lookin’ at YOU!”) or pathetic (“Um, so, I saw you looking at my profile but you didn’t email so maybe you’re just shy or maybe you got totally turned off by my profile. I hope it’s the former.”), then go for it.

But really, you don’t have to mention it. Just write your regular first contact email (click here for tips!) and send it off, knowing you have a 44% higher chance of getting a response. Pretty awesome, right?

Need A Deal?

If you’re looking for a deal on a Match.com subscription, the link below will give you 7 days free. It’s an affiliate link, which means should you purchase a subscription, a small percentage will come back to Geek’s Dream Girl, which little by little, helps defer the costs of maintaining our site and keeps us in the business of coaxing valuable tidbits like this article out of dating site employees. But we love supporting your dating life even if you don’t support us. We’re cool like that.

Want more articles like this? Check out our Geek’s Guide to Online Dating Success.

Want us to help you write a stunning profile that gets you noticed? Click here for our services.

Want to join our geek matchmaking list and dating advice newsletter? Check it out here.

Here are the top 10 articles of 2010 by traffic:

1. Needles of Knitting +5: Using The Craft Skill To Its Best Advantage

2. GenCon 2010 Update: Castle Ravenloft Board Game

3. Coping With Being Single: Ur Doin’ It Wrong

4. Brainless Act Leads to Smart Decision

5. LiveBlogging: Dungeons & Dragons Experience 2010 (DDXP)

6. Top 5 Anime Speech Patterns that Drive Us Nuts

7. 5 Gosh-Honest Reasons Why Your Dating Life Sucks

8. Doctor Who: In Defense of Amy Pond

9. A Laugh and a Lesson: “My Girlfriend Gave Me Harpies”

10. If You’re Anything Like E, You Will Hate Dragon*Con

Top 10 Oldie-But-Goodie articles by traffic:

1. Choosing a Good Online Dating Username is Like Writing a Hit Song (2008)

2. Geeks Can Cook: Apple Pie Breakfast (#fit4gencon) (2009)

3. Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Date a Geek Girl (2008)

4. D&D At The Library: The Adventure of Little Rogue (2009)

5. Match.com Mysteries: How To Tell If Someone Is A Paying Member (2009)

6. Dinner and a Movie? Yawn. First Date Ideas That Are Different! (2008)

7. The Return of Red Dwarf: Still Flying High (2009)

8. e’s Soapbox: Why OkCupid Is NOT Ok (2008, and I’ve changed my mind since then!)

9. Acting Like A Gay Guy Helps You Get The Girl (2008/2010)

10. It Was Trash From First Hello: Fix Your Dating Email Subject Lines (2009)

How about you?

What was your favorite Geek’s Dream Girl article of 2010?

What other blog did you discover in 2010 that has rocked your socks?

(Ironically enough, if you’re a girl and you kiss your girlfriends at the bar, you’ll attract guys. Funny how that all works, isn’t it?)

There’s a great Best of Craigslist posting entitled How to Meet Women — Advice from a Gay Man. In it, the author points out that the reason most straight men are horrible at approaching women is the reason why so many gay guys have tons of female friends.

Gay men don’t have the hang-ups about approaching women that straight men do. “We gay boys were simply relating to girls as equals — sharing stories, plotting fan clubs, and making scrapbooks.” Gay men approach a woman as an interesting person; straight men approach women as a possible mate and with all the hang-ups and insecurities related to her possible reaction to them. “The point is that your early relationships with girls rested on expectations that you had no right to form in the first place.”

Amen, gay boi. Amen.

I had an acquaintance in college who was never without a girlfriend. Ethan was one of those “Flavor of the Month” type guys – every time you saw him, a new girl was on his arm. He wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous and to be frank, he had the common sense of a block of concrete. Why did he always have a girl? His guy friends finally figured it out one day. A “normal” single guy only pursues a girl or two every month. Ethan, however, asked out just about every girl he met. It’s a numbers game.

As far as online dating, I know many guys who will look at a girl’s profile and say, “Oh, she’s too pretty, she wouldn’t like me.”   They’ll dismiss a girl who seems perfect for them because they are letting their insecurities dictate their actions. “She probably has tons of guys better looking than me emailing her.”

How do you know? She might not receive much email at all. She might have a thing for a guy with a fur sweater for a chest. She might think bald is sexy. (Mmmm.. Jean-Luc Picard.) You can’t assume her likes or dislikes based on her profile picture. (Now if she gets specific in the words in her profile, that’s another story!)

From the Craigslist post: My point is this — fear breeds inhibition in relationships, even the simplest conversation among people meeting for the first time. Overcome your fear and you will free your inhibitions. You might try thinking like we do — when we approach gorgeous women, we don’t expect sex, a kiss, or even conversation. We simply see a vibrant person who might be fun to talk to. Try anticipating nothing, expecting nothing, and then being surprised if something does happen. Trust me — it will work. It’s worked for all of my straight friends so far, in fact.

The best approach to online dating is to cast your net wide. Send a personalized first contact email to all women who pique your interest. Worst case scenario – you hear nothing back or get a polite “No Thanks” email. What have you lost? Nothing. What have you gained? Out of the 20 women that you email, there may be one or two who are interested in you and will write you back.

Is your approach to dating not working for you? You’re not alone. I troubleshoot a lot of common dating problems in my ebook: You Geek, They Grok: A Geek’s Guide to Leveling Up Your Online Dating Game. Click here to check it out.

This post was originally published on February 28, 2008 and has been modified and updated.

While chatting with a new client who was lamenting his lack of dates, he told me that he emailed about one woman per day and “winked at many more.”

*facepalm*

He clarified later and said that while he did wink at lots of women, he usually went back and emailed them later. How much later? Oh, a few days, maybe a week. Whenever he got time to write out an email.

Cue a second facepalm.

You may be thinking, “What is he doing wrong? I mean, he’s emailing these girls, so what’s the harm in sending the wink first?”

Remember, the wink is the lazy man’s method of contacting women. Unless you are an Adonis making $150k+ a year,  you aren’t going to get replies from winks.  A wink tells a woman that you’d like her to do the work of emailing you first, or at least, you’d like her to wink back before you “waste time” emailing her.  She’s also wondering how many women you’ve winked at – is it every blonde in the ZIP code or just her?

But here’s what this guy was doing by winking first and coming back to email later – he was telling women that they were on his back burner.

Picture a lovely lady sitting by her computer. She loads up Match.com and sees that she has a wink from you.  Click. She’ll check out your profile, read a bit about you, look at your pictures.  If you’re the man of her dreams and she’s confident enough, she’ll wink or write back. If you’re definitely NOT the man for her, she’ll delete you, send a No Thanks, or (at worst) block you.

But what if she’s either not confident enough to send you anything back or she’s a little interested, but doesn’t know what to write or has emails in her inbox? Oh, yep, that’s right. You’ll get nothing back from that wink.

A few days later, you go through your sent winks and think, “Hmmm, I’ll write her an email today.”  You write a nice email to her, which she reads.

“Wow,” she thinks. “What a nice email. He must really be interested in me.  But why didn’t he write me right away? Was he just too busy? Was he waiting for me to write him first? Was he communicating with or dating other women and just winking at some others so he’d have a backup list in case it didn’t work out?”

As women, we want to feel special. We want to feel secure and without worry about your motivations or intentions. We don’t want to have questions or gaps, because we’ll fill them in (sometimes with crazy untruths, amount of crazy depending on the girl).

Be the guy who lays it all out on the table right away.  Write her a thoughtful, personalized email first, and then wink right after you hit send.

Happy dating, geek friends.

Presenting, in no particular order, the 10 reasons why your online dating website is like a gym.

1. There’s a free trial, but you gotta give up your personal information, even if it’s just to peek in the windows. With the exception of the free sites, most sites require you to sign up for a free membership even if it’s just to poke around. Once they have your email address, expect to get emails with special membership discounts and deals to try to get you to sign up.

2. There’s always a sales pitch or gimmick to get you to sign up for a membership right away. Most paid sites will also allow you to set up a profile and even receive emails from other members. The only snag is that you can’t actually READ those emails until you pay. Wondering if that email in your box is from your future spouse? Pony up the cash.  (Only to realize the email is from Swamp Thing. Oh well.)

3. There are a ton more people there between January and March. People put the gym in their New Year’s Resolution, but they don’t actively resolve to find love. However, after the holiday season, most single folks hit the low point between Just Spent Holidays Alone and About to Spend Valentine’s Day Alone. Hence, you’ll find the most new people on your site earlier in the year.

4. There’s always that person who looks way too slutty. You know that girl at the gym, the one in the painted-on spandex, full makeup, and perfectly coiffed hair?  She looks like she’s waiting for her john to show up rather than getting fit.  You’ll find these girls on your dating site, too.  Cleavage shots galore.

5. There’s always that person who looks way too dumpy or smells horrible. Nicholas from DungeonMastering tweeted a horror story about a guy at his gym. You’ll find plenty of undesirables on your dating site. In fact, some of them will email you. Be kind, let them down gently, and move on.  Despite the fact that you don’t like them, they have every right to use the service.

6. You’ll find plenty of girls who are there just to look pretty. This is the girl at the gym in the perfectly matched workout outfit, down to the sneakers that look brand new. She’s got the leg curl machine on the lowest weight possible and is lazily doing reps while chatting on her cell and examining her manicure.  She’s not here to work out – she’s here to see and be seen.

Wonder why all the prettiest girls on your dating site don’t write you back?  Here’s the secret – they don’t write anyone back.  Or very, very few people.  They’re on the site to see how many guys email them.  Many of them have sky-high criteria, so will possibly email back 1 out of every 25 guys who email them. Want proof? Check out all the girls with the red dot on OkCupid – responds very selectively.  You’ll find they’re the “hot” girls. The average girls tend to fall into the orange or green categories; they respond more often to emails.

7. There are hardcore people who you’ll see every time you’re there. If you’re on more than one dating site, you’ll probably notice some overlap among the members. There were times I’d be in a relationship for a few months, or a year or so and not be on match.com. Then I’d come back and I’d see the same guys who were there before. So I’d wonder, were they single the whole time… or like me, did they pop on and off between relationships?

8. If you don’t come with all your supplies, you won’t be able to do much. Forget your sneakers and you won’t be using the cardio machines. Forget your deodorant and you’ll be stinking up the joint.  Online dating’s not much different – if you don’t have quality photos, you won’t catch anyone’s attention.  If you slack on writing a profile, you won’t draw those people in and convince them to write you back.

9. If you don’t make it a habit, you won’t get results. Being a card-carrying member of a gym doesn’t mean you’ll lose weight or build muscle and having a profile up on a dating site doesn’t mean you’ll magically manifest your true love. Both require showing up on a regular basis and making a commitment to using their tools and services to meet your goal.

10. If you don’t put forth effort, you won’t get results. I recently had a client write me demanding that I re-write his profile because the only women who wrote him were overweight homebodies with baggage. When I emailed him back to troubleshoot the issue, I asked him how many emails he was sending per month.  The answer? Very, very few. He was expecting women to flood his inbox with emails just based on his profile while he sat back and chose from all the hotties.  The reality? That doesn’t happen for 95% of straight men.  You need to send first contact emails – try to email at least 5 women a week and you’ll start to see the results you want.

NO PAIN, NO GAIN!

Work hard and you’ll be a success story!

Happy dating, geek friends!

Edit: For a funny (and accurate) portrayal of the characters you’ll find at your gym, check out this article at Obesity Panacea.

You probably have resolutions about your health (maybe even joining #fit4gencon!), your career, your habits, or even your hobbies.

But do you have a resolution about your dating life?

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to ring in 2011 with someone special or at least look back on 2010 and be able to say you had an active and fun romantic life and met some great people?

For my personal resolutions this year, I’m going with Chris Brogan’s Three Words method.  Here’s how you do it (snipped from the post, in case you’re too busy to head there right now):

Determine 3 guiding words for my efforts in 2010.

List 1-3 paths to accomplishing those goals (aka strategies).

List distractions that might possibly scuttle my efforts.

List the steps for each path (these are the projects that map to the goals).

List what the “finish line” looks like.

List what comes next, should I actually accomplish something major along those paths.

Using this method, here are two words you can (and should!) steal and apply to your love life in 2010. Go ahead, shamelessly copy and paste these into your own 2010 Resolutions document!

Goal Word: Dedication

Path 1 to dedication: Log into my dating site at least 3 days per week.

Path 2 to dedication: Write at least 5 first contact emails per week.

Path 3 to dedication: Attend at least one social event per month.

Distractions: Making excuses, getting “too busy” to do it, letting other things take priority when they shouldn’t

Steps to the path: Bookmark dating site and schedule time to log in and write emails, keep notes in Notepad in case I don’t have time to write an email right away on someone I find interesting, join meetup.com and find groups with events I can attend

The finish line: 20+ first contact emails sent per month, chatting with new people, meeting new people, having fun on dates and activities, meeting someone special

What’s next: Hopefully being in a relationship and canceling my dating site membership!

Goal: Open-Minded

Path 1 to open-minded: Expand my “about my date” requirements.

Path 2 to open-minded: Don’t write people off for little things.

Path 3 to open-minded: Don’t see first dates as a be-all, end-all. It’s just a meeting between two people. Nothing more, nothing less.

Distractions: Being stubborn, refusing to change, getting stuck in “I like what I like” mode, not giving people a chance because of little things

Steps to the path: Before rejecting someone, being honest with myself about exactly why I’m rejecting them. Ask myself hard questions – “Would I be angry if someone rejected me for this same reason?” “Is there a chance that their pictures don’t do them justice?” “If I hadn’t seen a picture of this person, would I be interested in them, even just as a friend?”

Have friends pick out matches for me based on people they think would be compatible with me. Email these people, even if I’m not 100% sure I’m interested. (Trust your friends, especially your oldest bestest friends!)

Stretch out my “about my date” qualifications on my profile so more people feel welcome to email me.

Go on at least one date a month with someone who I’m not really sure about.

See first dates as meetings rather than romantic rendezvous. There’s nothing wrong with coming out of a first date with a new friend or a greater understanding about myself and my taste in a partner.

The finish line: receiving more emails, chatting with new people, meeting new people, having fun on dates, meeting someone special

What’s next: Hopefully being in a relationship and canceling my dating site membership!

What About You?

Got another goal word that you’d like to apply to your love life in 2010?

(Not that kind of fantasy.  Seriously.)

(No, not the kind of fantasy with elves and dragons either.)

Let’s imagine what online dating would be like if writing a “Thanks, but no thanks” email were a requirement, rather than an option.

But first, let’s examine the current system and why it can really suck.

Reality:  No Thanks is Optional, Ignoring Frequent

On the majority of online dating websites, you owe a person absolutely nothing if they send you an email.  You don’t have to write back.  (It’s nice to write back, but not required.)  You can totally ignore them, hit the delete key, and be on with your life.

With some paid dating services that allow non-subscribers to post profiles, the person won’t even know that you received the email.  (That is, unless they pay the extra few dollars a month to get the Email Read feature.)

Reality: Some Sites Are Nudging Members To Do The Right Thing

Here’s where I give props to OkCupid.  Yeah, I’ve had issues with them in the past, but after talking to their co-founder and watching how their site has grown and evolved, I’m changing my tune about this quasi-free site.

OkCupid publicizes whether or not you reply to first contact emails.  Right under your profile on the search results page there is a line that tells everyone how polite you are:

Green: replies often

Orange: replies selectively

Red: replies very selectively

Now, before emailing someone, you can pretty much know what your chances are of getting a reply.  Perhaps it’s not wise to waste lots of time writing red people?

Reality:  Matchmaking Type Sites Require Closing Matches

On some of the matchmaking style sites, you have to “close” matches that you aren’t interested in.  Usually when closing, you need to select a reason.  Whether that reason is BS or not depends on you.

Fantasy: What If You HAD To Reply?

We’re adults here, but let’s be honest, a lot of people act like children online.  But let’s just entertain for a moment that all online dating sites required you to reply to every email.

You could select from stock responses or craft your own, but there wouldn’t be an “Other” or similar cop-out answer.  If you got to 5 emails with no replies, your account would be frozen and your profile hidden until you took care of your inbox properly.

How might this change the face of online dating as we know it?

Positive

• Fewer people would sign up “just for fun” (or at least, their profiles wouldn’t last very long).
• Everyone would get closure for every email they send.
• The 2:00 a.m. fit of desperation in which you send the same cut-n-paste email to everything with your preferred genitalia in the tri-state region just in hopes of getting one reply would be a thing of the past.
• You could wait to hear back from one set of emails before mailing out the next, removing the anxiety about having too many potential dates (seriously, it happens!).
• There could be an option to forward the email to customer service rather than replying if the email was spam and/or pornographic in nature, thus speeding up the process of getting the bad guys removed.
• As a dater, you would have constant feedback about your profile and pictures.  You can learn a lot from rejection and change your profile, pictures, or email style to achieve better results.

Negative

• Fewer people would sign up for online dating, citing fear of having to reject other people.  (Even though the current system of never knowing can be pretty cruel.)
• You would have to take the time to reply to everyone.  (But seriously, if it’s as easy as pulling down a drop-down menu and selecting a canned response?)
• As a dater, you would have constant feedback.  Some people can’t take constant feedback.  Some people would rather hear nothing than be told “I’m sorry, you’re too young/fat/Republican/edumacated/blond/geeky for me.“

What do you think?

Is the online dating system okay as-is or would you like to see more sites requiring responses to emails or publicizing response rates on profiles?

Update: Check out this response by Moxie, another dating blogger.