It turns out that I met my lovely wife through match.com. I also found our dog, Toby, through petfinder.com. And our two kids we got through babies.com. Well, no, not the last one, but the other two are right. And I'm a big believer in online dating; it has its minuses as well as its pluses, but (1)
E(m) = pn
which is to say the expected number of suitable mates you'll meet (m) is equal to p (the probability that any particular candidate is suitable) times n (the number of people you meet), (2) in my experience, as we get older, more settled, and more educated, we tend to get pickier and the p thus becomes quite low, and therefore (3) one easy solution is to increase the n. And the best way I've seen of doing that is through online dating. (Yes, the equation is an oversimplified model, among other things since the p may vary depending on the source through which you meet people, but I actually didn't find the p to be much less for online dating than for other contributors to n.)
In any case, I was just talking to an acquaintance of an acquaintance, a woman in her thirties who is interested in doing online dating, and I realized that my own store of online dating advice is pretty old -- five years old, which is 35 in Internet years.
So what can our readers, especially women, who have more recent experience recommend? Are there any services that you've found especially useful or useless? Are there any tips that worked for you? Any approaches or practices to stay away from? (Not people to stay away from, approaches or practices to stay away from.)
Please post your answers below. Please limit your answers, though, to useful advice on the subject, rather than (for instance) debates about the morals or social utility of various modern dating practices. I'm trying to collect some useful tips for people, and digressions will decrease the thread's utility.
The "stigma" of on-line dating is long, long gone...
So let me offer a friendly amendment: Meeting people online has lost its stigma among those who have already done so themselves, and among those who know people who have done so and think highly of the dating-market value of those people.
I also strongly agree with David. My best friend is a very attractive, desirable woman who tried the online dating thing. She was almost overwhelmed with responses to a well-written profile. However, her best success was when she took charge and emailed men, which is how she met her significant other. Women have a very large upper hand online. They shouldn't be afraid to use it.
I have one piece of advice for women: Try to avoid using flowery poetic language in your profile. It invariably comes across as obnoxious and ditzy.
BTW, I find it a little ironic that someone posting comments on a law blog on a Friday evening would complain that online dating is uncool.
Perhaps because many people still have trouble sizing others up offline (successful con men - and women - still abound), they have even less confidence doing so online. For the kids that are being raised online now, however, the whole idea of online dating will seem totally normal and a thread like this won't even come up.
(1) You had better not be too sensitive or too reserved. Don't be too sensitive, because your date will likely decide within 15-60 minutes whether he ever wants to see you again. For the same reason, if you are generally reserved (like me), you're in trouble. I think this is a function of the medium of the internet itself--so quick and so detached--that dating derived from it tends to be the same.
(2) Don't expect much in the way of common courtesy. Maybe I'm a little old-fashioned, but even for mediocre dates I always send a quick email thanks. Don't expect one back.
(3) It's really not scary. In probably 15+ dates, I've never even had one bad enough that it made a good story!
(4) Overall, it's been fun. I've met some interesting people--one remains a good friend--have been to some interesting places, and never have to sit home on a Saturday night if I don't want to.
Prof. Volokh: thanks for sharing your happy-ending story, maybe I won't give up just yet! It also reminded me of something I've been thinking for a while now as a long-time fan of VC: it's too bad that there isn't a way to combine one's favorite blog with one's favorite dating site. Just knowing that someone is a loyal Conspiracy reader would make for a good date! :-)
For guys, a witty intro and a well-written and non-cliched profile seem to be most important. But there's no doubt it can be frustrating to guys: a woman with an attractive photo who logs in regularly might get 30 e-mails a day, and might respond to one or two.
For match.com... when I put up ads, I would be flooded with the most bizarre crazy emails imaginable, so I stopped doing that and just searched ads instead. I profess a certain amount of shallowness, so I did want to see a photo. It's not hard to look good - clean up, tend to your grooming, and find a photographer via your local college photography classes if you really want to do it up right. (Unless you want a girl who likes your unshaven mountain man looks, in which case, ignore the foregoing.)
I also wanted at least small display of basic English skills and internet savvy, since those things were on my requirements list. I wanted to read a genuine paragraph about the guy's interests and what he was looking for - no sense wasting both our time if that wasn't appealing. I agree with other commenters that keeping cliches out of the ads is also helpful for getting a woman to respond. Just being humble and approachable will go a long way.
I ended up finding my match via livejournal.com, which isn't a dating service, but certainly gives you the opportunity to get to know people with similar interests. Through LJ I found (by accident really) someone who met all of my basic criteria and at the same time, I had the chance to learn more than the basics via his journal entries (I imagine one could use the blogging community as a whole in a similar fashion if one were brave enought to become a frequent commenter and then start emailing another blogger). I flew from Virginia to Montana to meet my LJ match, and moved to Montana to continue the relationship a year later. Now we're three years into it and still getting along famously.
I have found that while the reaction I got when telling people we met via the internet was "weird!" three years ago, now it seems just as normal as using a dating service.
- Have a good photo. Don't use something old; get dolled up, go out with some friends, and have them snap a few shots of you. Don't use a photo with another person imperfectly cropped out, though; disembodied limbs will only create questions.
- Have a well-written profile. Spend some time on this; read other women's profiles to get a sense of what the competition is saying. If this woman is a Volokh peer, she's already probably smarter and more eloquent than 99% of the people online. Emphasize this. Go over your profile a few times to cull any cliches. Include things that someone who writes to you can use as a jumping-off point for an email.
- Don't feel like you have write everyone back. If you have a hot picture and a scintillating profile, you will get lots of emails. Most of these will be spam written by guys who didn't even read what you had to say. Delete these without guilt.
- Write to people. Make sure you refer to something from their profile to differentiate yourself from the spammers (although I don't think there are many female spammers).
Spring Street used to be great, but they were sold, totally changed their payment structure, and made all the good features expensive. The dating pool on there is probably still better than OK Cupid (or *shudder* Yahoo Personals), though. Match and Lavalife are in the middle. JDate I hear good things about.
Having a good picture is certainly helpful. At the time, I had a web page, dedicated soley to moi, that I'd created using the HTML programming language. Ahhh, the good ol' days when you had to do it all yourself. How things have changed!
But, I digress. I think that the most important thing to do when entering the world of online dating is to look for inconsistencies in your potential date's "story" of his life. Try to get him to tell you the basics a number of times. If he's lying, he'll probably make a few mistakes, which is obviously a huge red flag.
Also, I'd definitely chat online and via e-mail and then on the phone for a while prior to meeting in person. And, for women, make sure to meet in public for the first date, possibly with friends nearby to keep an eye on the situation.
Bottom line: use common sense and keep your head on straight;)
It is what you would think BTW (If I remember correct it was a while ago)
Chicks dig Mr. Moneybags
Dudes dig Blonds and not fatties
I don't prefer blonds so maybe I can moneyball it somehow (having no idea how moneyball works, I just hear it used alot)
The writing sample REALLY does help one to form an initial impression to work from which along with having handy conversation topic 'seeds' are among the main advantages to this approach. This mode is especially valuable for those of us who've become too old for or tired of the 'club scene' Internet dating really and truly IS the way to go...
(1) Take the time to write your profile so that it is not a cliche. I typically sort through about twenty profiles every day or so and send emails to about five of them -- and a vast majority have very generic comments such as "I like to hang out with my friends," "I work hard and I play hard" or "This is probably the hardest thing to do without sounding full of yourself." Instead, the profiles I'll send an email to share a detail that is somewhat personal: either a vivid description of something you love to do, a personality trait (show, don't tell) that puts you in a good light or a bit of your history, such as where you went to school, worked or whatever. The other bonus of doing something like that? You can tell which guys have actually read your profile because they will ask you questions about or comment on the details in it!
(2) Be polite and respond everyone who emails you, even if it's a "no thank you." Sorry, but this is common courtesy and the good kharma vibes you generate from that will pay off in the long run (that is, if the universe has any sense of kharmic justice). After all, while there are guys who will send out lots of spam emails, there are also a bunch who will take the time to write you an individualized email -- that takes time and effort, and a polite "no thank you" is appreciated. I believe match even offers robot-type reply features to show you're not interested -- so it will take you only a little effort.
(3) The other posters here are correct: send emails to the guys you come across that you think have an interesting profile. It's the twenty-first century, and it's a good thing for women to be assertive!
(4) If you send an email, ask him questions about the details he put in his profile -- it shows that you are interested in him beyond the superficial details he has in it.
(5) Finally, never, under any circumstances, and even if you mean it jokingly, list shopping as one of your favorite things in your profile -- unless all you're after is a sugar daddy. Listing shopping is almost as bad as a guy saying he'll only date "hot chicks"... it's just a bad signal for prospective matches.
Boy, I have to think internet dating has changed a lot since 1995. I've found that usually you can get a phone number by the third email, and then a meet up for coffee or drinks (sometimes even lunch or dinner) after the first phone call. Either people click or they don't, and why drag it out if it won't work?
Most useful bit of advice: run the profiles of your suitors by your therapist first.
Indeed, get a good picture, write a description of yourself that is distinctive, and don't hesitate to contact prospects who appeal to you, even if you think they're out of your reach.
My finacee contacted *me*, after I'd passed her profile over thinking that she was out of my league...
Oh, and be sure to neaten up the view from your webcam... ;)
A few possibly useful tips:
1. Match.com is by far the best site, in terms of quantity, quality, and price. The AVERAGE quality of people is perhaps higher on 1-2 other sites, but Match.com has so many more people that at any given quality level there's a larger absolute number on Match (at least if quality is defined as a combination of looks and intelligence).
2. E-Harmony is greatly overrated. They operate on the assumption that their formula is better than your judgement as to who you want. If you're a reasonably self-aware person, they're wrong.
3. J-Date is worth trying if you're Jewish (and definitely if you only want to date other Jews), but it suffers by comparison with Match because there are many fewer people.
4. Women still have the edge in the e-dating game because there's so many more men doing it than women. However, there are special pitfalls that women face including 1) harrassment by obnoxious men, 2) men who lie on their profiles (women can do this too, but my sense is that men do it more often), and 3) getting deluged with unwanted e-mails.
5. Regarding the essay, it's important to have something that makes you stand out from the field and gives the reader some idea of what kind of person you are. A lot of women (I don't read too many essays by men:)) seem to have "I like to travel/I like to laugh" themes that don't set them apart from the 95% of other people who feel the same way.
6. As David points out, women can get a lot of mileage from e-mailing men first. It's still the exception rather than the rule, but becoming more common. Out of the e-dates I have done, about half were with women who e-mailed me first.
When people asks us how we met, we tell them the truth, "over the internet". Yet, really we only chatted over the internet for about 5 minutes. We exchanged phone numbers and never again chatted on the internet.
Anyway, can't help EV. I spend most of my time making sure my daughters (came with the wife and now 14 - twins) don't find love over the internet.
However, the internet is simply a tool. We can chat on it, blog, email, and trade IM’s. I think the best way is maybe to discover someone that way, but remember that some older tools are still available. If you like someone, trade phone numbers. Then pick up the phone and chat. This allows people to get away from the computer, get comfortable, and maybe even relax a little more.
E-harmony freaks me out. Whats the deal with that guy?
Anyway, we emailed a few times, called a few times, met, dated exclusively, married 9 years next week.
It was very strange back then. Now it seems almost mundane. I kind of preferred strange.
The types of activities we do the type of job we have all partially identify what type of person we are and people we meet through these real life situations are likely to have something in common with us. For this reason I have personally found that meeting people through school/work is way more effective at finding compatible people than online dating. Of course if you don't like to date people you are in school or work yet and are asking out people you meet at the mall things are entierly different.
Also you fail to take into account the probability that two compatible people go on a date but think they are incompatible. Personally I find these much more likely to happen in online dates where you often don't have common experiences/friends to talk about. Also many online daters go into a first meeting with very low expectations which can lead to false negatives (this is rational since if you are going to date many people having a high false positive rate becomes more expensive in time/emotional effort).
Ultimately I think online dating can be a useful tool. Especially for people who cannot/don't wish to date those they work/socialize with. However, it has radically varying efficacy depending on what you are loooking for and what sort of person you are.
For instance I'm a grad student in mathematics and tend to like to date smart women with a similar rigorous/logical outlook. Given that there is often a large ratio of men to women in these fields there is little incentive for women to look online and the large pool and low investment in online dating just exagerate this issue.
Also some traits are easier to convey online than others. For instance saying you want to date someone who believes in animal rights is easy. Saying you want to date someone who is really smart is hard. Smart is frequently used as a synonym for 'someone I find attractive' and almost everyone things of themselves as smart in some sense. Going out of your way to emphasize you mean the sort of person who is smart in the test/book sense just makes one look like an ass (because in most situations people who talk about being smart/hanging out with smart people are asses).
Or in summary if you like easily communicable qualities online dating seems great. If you like things that are harder to put in writing that large n comes at the cost of a lower p.
Also, I find the idea of a VC matchmaking service hilariously funny. :)
Just last week I posted a silly vignette on Craigslist and within hours I heard from a woman. We chatted a bit and within two or three exchanges -- it wasn't very long at all -- we agreed to meet for dinner.
Well it turns out that she and I had crossed paths very slightly about 8 years ago in a professional capacity. And actually there's a lot more to this story -- my Craigslist post and why she &I hadn't lunched 8 years ago.
Anyway, Craigslist brought us back together and we had dinner again last night.
•••
I think the key to a posting is to actually say something of substance which will act as a cue ...maybe for VC readers it would be "Btw, what do you think of the Scalia's descent in ...." or it might be a funny little story (that's what I did) rather than presenting the laundry list of characteristics which you claim to be/have ("fun-loving" &"walks on beach" &"no baggage") or seek in a mate.
Any suggestions for those of us in rural areas for whom the numbers aren't really that much better online? I'm trying the online thing, but I think there's only like 40 in my area, unless I define it really broadly.
Is match.com really that much better? Does anybody in a rural area have experience with match.com?
FXLKM: good one!!
For what it's worth, I've been told that eHarmony.com is pretty good. I filled out the questionaire once, just to see what questions they asked. It was quite extensive and time consuming. I would imagine that such an extensive personality profile would reap good results.
I'd love to date a grad student in math but to look at math departments you'd hardly know that female grad students in math even existed.
Saying you want to date someone who is really smart is hard. Going out of your way to emphasize you mean the sort of person who is smart in the test/book sense just makes one look like an ass (because in most situations people who talk about being smart/hanging out with smart people are asses).
I think people use education as a proxy for brains. If you're restricting your search to graduate students in mathematics (for example) odds are you're going to get someone very smart, at least in a narrow sense of "smart."
I did find that I got a fair number of the dates I asked for, possibly because one of my pictures was in a tux. And, yes, I own it (and picked up a second one since then - for under $100). I was in Austin at the time, and I think that worked better there than it would here in Colorado, where people are much less into getting dressed up. It also helped that I had a very good job with a company they all knew about in town. (Otherwise, why would anyone go out with someone as boring as a patent attorney?)
An almost girlfriend has had extrodinarily good luck with match.com. She is probably about 50 and keeps ending up being flown around the country on 1st and 2nd dates with guys who have money to burn. But she is finding that they all ultimately have baggage - as, I suspect anyone in their 50s does.
She was looking for another woman.
Searching for a baggage free person in their 50's is basically saying you want to remain single - the person doesn't exist. You could probably say that about most people even at 40.
I probably should have clarified that my recommendations are more applicable to long distance dating, since that's my experience. I met my husband in '95 when I was 25--I lived in NY and he lived in Idaho. So, out of necessity, we spent a lot of time talking, e-mailing, etc. prior to meeting in person. And, you've got to be particularly careful when meeting someone who lives in another city/state..
I probably should have been a lot more careful than I was. But, it turned out ok, so it's all good, I suppose;)
That being said, while the dating platforms/interfaces have changed, people haven't. Any woman with an interest in continuing her life (sorry, a bit dramatic, I know;)) should ensure that she's safe.
my brother met at least two of his boyfriends on iscabbs as well, and has a wide circle of friends met through mutual online friends. i think he met his partner that way, as well.
perhaps what i find icky is the idea of deliberately going out of one's way to find a mate. my own experience (and temperament) is exactly the opposite -- i meet people in the course of life; sometimes they click, more often they don't. no biggie.
Don't be afraid to initiate a conversation, particularly online, with a man who catches your eye. He has a lot of women he might be searching through and you want to stand out from the competition. Men like it when women are at least a little bit forward. This doesn't mean you have to take the initiative all the time, but it also means you shouldn't be a wallflower and wait for Prince Charming to send you the e-mail that will change your life.
Early-stage relationships blossom when both parties have something in common. So look for things you have in common with the men, and include plenty of interesting details about yourself (things you like to do, what kind of food you like to eat, what sorts of books you read and movies you watch) so that the men will be able to find things they have in common with you. I'll echo some earlier comments that when doing this don't give bland statements like "I like to have fun" or "I like sincere people, sunsets, puppies, and long walks on the beach." If you thnk you do have to search for things to list in this regard, try and find things that a lot of guys would enjoy doing, too.
Remember that many of the men will be just as insecure about what's going on as you, and realize that it's just a way to get to know people -- agreeing to a date is not the same thing as accepting a marriage proposal. Think of it as trying men on for size; you don't develop tremendous emotional trepidation to try on clothing and see how it looks and feels; so too you shouldn't be too apprehensive about meeting at a Starbuck's somewhere for ninety minutes or so.
Learn how to say "no" gracefully but decisively if you decide you're not interested. Of course you're going to hurt the guy's feeling when you turn down his request for a (second) date. But you'll hurt his feelings more if you string him along with equivocations.
...This is making me very glad I'm married. (Met The Wife at a wedding.) The Wife suggests that you be aware of what you're looking for -- fun "get-to-know-ya" dates, a long-term relationship, casual sex even -- and figure out as soon as you can whehter the guys are looking for the same thing as you.
I'm interested in hearing from you pro internet dating types about why I should get involved in online dating services.
Since I almost exclusively visit blogs with a political bent, the people I 'meet' usually share a lot of my interests and in fact, I've become fast friends with a Kiwi woman with whom I, an American, have more in common that the dozens of acquaintances I've met in the 'real world' of central Florida.
Dating online is something I probably would have tried if I were starting out again, and visiting the VC is a great way to learn what's going on among those people with whom I would have been very happy to spend an evening on a real live date -- even those on the other side of the political spectrum.
Good luck to everyone who's looking for a mate and a lovely holiday weekend to those Christians and Jews reading this string.
Don't hold your breath. My daughter and her friends went to an adult chat area when they were 14 and pretended they were adults. A college student they ran into became one of their friends and was still one of my daughter's email friends when she went to college. He was still single and, when my daughter was a sophomore, finally exchanged pictures. Now they are engaged - the wedding will be after her graduation. He's in Oklahoma and she's in California, and she'll move to Oklahoma. They meet at Christmas and during the summer.
They had a six-year internet pals relationship before deciding they were in love.
On another note, I traveled across the Country on I-10 from North SF Bay to Tampa, FL with my disability horse, by finding very frendly, quality horse motels on horsemotel.com. Wives, husbands, pets, horse motels, the Internet is a very useful tool.
Considering the demographic of this blog, Conservative Match might be of interest to many here. While I don't have enough experience to give a quality opinion, one way or the other, I willl say that the profiles I've looked at tend more towards the conservative than the libertarian.
You shouldn't. I don't think anyone here -- certainly not I -- is trying to persuade you of anything. If you want to continue in a pathetic, lonely, sad life without meeting a truly fabulous person -- some brilliant, buff, rich, probably an ex-Rhodes Scholar and ex-Olympian and get invited to dinners at the White House with Nobel &Pritzker Prize winners -- well, hey! it's a free country. And you'd save on all the fees,(except for Craigslist where the postings are already free.)
As luck would have it we found out while chating that we worked at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Being a rather large place we probably would never have met.
My advice for online daters is simple: be yourself and be honest. It will work our best that way!
BTW, my wife had an Atari and I had Mac Plus (1 KB ram no hard drive). We connected to Compuserve with 1200 baud dial-up modems. It was slow but worked!
Well, it might not be internet "dating" in exactly the sense you mean, but Deb and I are the classic example of people meeting online through our blogs.
We both started blogging in early 2003, grew relatively popular fairly fast, and wound up in overlapping blogging circles. We'd comment-flirted a little, but in October 2003, at almost exactly the same time I started Carnival of the Capitalists and left more of an imprint on the blogosphere than I'd ever have imagined, she really got my attention and it fired up. Lots of e-mails, chats, calls, and by November we knew we'd be marrying and made plans for me to travel from MA to CA to meet her in person. Most of November and December was just "hold that thought," with things like the "warm socks" incident sprinkled in there. I flew out Christmas night and meeting in person was affirmation. We sort of did the honeymoon first, got together with some other bloggers, went to Vegas January 2nd, got married and spent one night there, and I returned home on the 6th. Then there was that strange limbo for a few weeks, until I flew back to Fresno at the end of January 2004, helped finish the packing, loaded up a trailer, and drove a southern route across the country and up to MA. Unknown to most people, that trip was made more interesting by morning sickness. Sadie was born September 29, our "wasted no time" baby. Valerie was born February 21, 2006.
We ended up blogging jointly, yet ended up lower profile than the path we'd been on. Then again, we both were heavily personal bloggers, which seems to be inherently limiting. I recommend it highly for putting yourself out there in full view, as exactly who you are, and being open to what might happen. I am sufficiently shy, and then "damaged" by my experiences, to have all but never dated. Thus being a hopelessly single prize catch at 42. I had finally accepted that I would never marry, never have children, and probably never date again due to my reticence about approaching anyone being that overwhelming. Meeting online solved all that, at least the way we did it. You figure it enabled us to know a huge amount about each other, have an "already know you" idea what type of people we were without ever meeting in person, know we were philosophically similar and intellectually compatible, and feel less scary. Even so, I still almost didn't call her that first time, between my skittishness and phone phobia, despite our having chatted in AIM for 4 1/2 hours the night before. The first call was 8 1/2 hours and the rest is history, but I don't think I've ever told her how close I came to running away before that happened, going silent, saying "naw, can't happen." For all it was easier and more certain online, I still had to let my normal reactions go.
Since then, we've seen other bloggers marry bloggers on account of blogging. A couple weeks ago we went to dinner with some friends and former colleagues of mine. The other two couples there met online with excellent results. One of the two singles there had not yet ahd that kinbd of success, though she had tried it. We've been to the wedding of a blog friend who met his excellent wife through eHarmony, which seems to be a particularly recommended online service. It's happening more and more, at least anecdotally.
Not really all that surprising. I'd guess most of the readership is concentrated in large urban areas, where Jewish people are also disproprtionately located and it's "I know someone who met their spouse..." not "I met my spouse." How many well educated people living in large cities don't know any Jewish people? And if you're a member of a very small minority and want to marry another member of that same minority, it would seem sensible to go with a specialized service where 100% of the participants are a member of your group, rather than 2%.
I would also encourage people not to spend too much time emailing and talking on the phone. There's no substitute for meeting in person for finding out if you are actually compatible. Email in particular I think can be misleading. Not because of deliberate deception but because it's really a very narrow channel -- there's so much about a person that simply cannot be conveyed in writing.
For what it's worth, I'll throw in my personal screening criteria. As a general rule, I did not respond to men who:
1. Posted a picture of themselves partially naked
2. Indicated specific physical features as what they were looking for in a mate (even if I matched those features)
3. Posted a desired age range much below my own age. That is, at the time I was 38. I never wrote to nor responded to a man who said he was looking for a woman younger than 35 or so. I figured that men ages 35-50 (my own target age range) who wanted to date women more than 5 years younger than me were simply going to find me frightening -- that is, they were looking for a woman who would be pretty relaxed about getting serious, and that wasn't me.
4. As soon as I could politely do so, I wanted to learn if the man had ever been in a long-term relationship. If a man reaches 40 without ever having lived with a woman, I felt that he and I would probably be in very different places in terms of the capacity to sustain a relationship in depth. I don't mean to say that such a person could never manage a serious relationship, but only that there are two kinds of "age" -- chronological age and emotional age. I wanted to date someone similar to myself on both counts.
Hope this helps.
When did you first notice this?
We also got to e-mail each other extensively before the first phone call (and a few days later, the first date). (So why is the marriage ending? My work forces me to move a lot and she wants to stay put.)
At the time, I sampled a lot of different services, in addition to ISP chat rooms. I would encourage others to do the same.
I find that the net is a great source of friends picked on compatible views and competencies. However, the number of theoretically compatible people is vastly greater than the number of actually attractive individuals. Making the search on-line at least reduces the geographical limitations and reduces the time required to vet each initial contact. That said, it seems to me that dating sites are inferior to other methods, as they seldom contain useful information about the other person.
I agree strongly with Slim about having a good picture. My reaction to a bad picture is "you really don't care about this, do you?" I'd note, since this thread is in response to a posting by somebody born in Russia, that Russian women virtually always have good pictures.
Something that I'd recommend that may cut down on the number of responses but not the number of responses of interest is to tell lots of concrete things about yourself. For example, I find that perhaps 5% of the female profiles that I see want a man who rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle (I'm not making this up; they even specify the brand). That's valuable information to me. I'm not going to waste my time nor the woman's time if that's what she wants: it's not what she's going to get from me. I don't think that there's anything inferior or wrong about such a woman; I just think that it's unlikely that we'll be a good match. On the other hand, a profile that says "I'm looking for good chemistry. Sweep me off my feet" and nothing more doesn't tell me enough to make a decision.
I try to do this with my own profile. As others have noted, women are less likely to contact a man anyway, but I suspect that I cut the likelihood down even further by noting that I'm not interested in travel or dancing and that I don't like dogs or cats. No point in wasting other people's time.
Russian dating sites approach this very seriously, the people seem to view this (correctly) as advertsing. I note that many of my friends use the studio photos I took of them in their personals. Those images are accurate but they also emphasize the good sides.
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If I were a Russian citizen living in Russia, I'd probably be pretty motivated to get out of there as well. I think the more general point is to approach with great suspicion any ad by someone who isn't a US citizen or doesn't already have a green card. I think a presumption of ulterior motive should apply.
Don't use a photo that:
1. Shows you standing next to some guy who might be a former boyfriend;
2. Shows you standing next to a girl who is clearly more attractive than you are ("Oh, bummer! Why couldn't it have been the other one?!");
3. Shows you holding someone else's kid (the guy will click on "Next" before he can learn that it's not yours);
4. Looks like a professional swimsuit photo (it will attract more responses than you want and some of the good guys will assume it is a fake porn ad and move on);
5. Shows you holding a beer bottle;
6. Shows you holding a small dog.
Those last two might just reflect my own personal prejudices. Oh, also, under "Last thing I read", don't put Cosmo. I've seen at least a dozen women list Cosmo or Glamour. "Next".
Nq=InDa + ST
Where Nq is "nerd quotient," InDa is "internet dating," and ST is "attending science fiction conferences or owning a memorabilia store." Nerd quotient is of course, a decimal beginning at 0 (Dick Cheney, of course) and approaching 1 (anyone with a booth at a Star Trek convention). Note that InDa and ST are both either 0 for "I'm going to kick your ass just for asking me that question" or 1 for "affirmative, I am a giant nerd." Also, note that is impossible for the Nq to exceed 1, as a score of 2 would indicate that a guy with a booth at a Star Trek convention would be able to get ANYONE to date him (even a fat girl from the internets).
In other words, to those using Match.com to find a woman, congratulations on your high scores, winners.
Here's a sample from the site:
Your basic Spock-like personality here, seeking a woman with a personality somewhere in the Deanna Troi to Subcommander T'Pol range. will consider B'Elana Torres to Kira Nerys types depending on extenuating circumstances. No tribbles, please.
31 years old | All, Maine
I find Professor Volokh's formulation pretty accurate -- the biggest plus for Match was that it had the greatest number. The other large advantage to using the computer was the search functions - if you have a deal breaker (i.e. something that you just couldn't look past, such as atheism, to use a recent example from the VC), you can screen out people based on that characteristic (or, more realistically, those characteristics). That saves loads of time compared with meeting people in person and having to ferret out information, particularly on touchy subjects like religion.
Generally, I was very pleased with the email screening process - you can find out a lot from a few emails (particularly if you suspect a person had a ghost-written profile). There were many interesting women on match, and I had a lot of good dates (personally I recommend drinks first, just in case...).
I'm probably lucky because my wife emailed me, and I emailed her back because her message was interesting, even though she didn't have a picture (I've since learned there are many reasons why a woman wouldn't post her picture other than that she's not attractive...). She put a bunch of criteria in to the computer, and I was one of 10 profiles that showed up. I guess that means I second (or third, or fourth) the notion that women should email guys whose profiles interest them.
That being said, it does seem like the most fruitful way to do things would be to seek out online/affinity groups rather than broad-brush "internet dating" sites, thus raising p. (I agree with logicnazi!)
There's a wealth of them out there, beyond even jdate and the star trek site. Consider, for example, meetup.com, livejournal.com (with its "communities"), and yes, the blogosphere.
Amusingly, I took eharmony's test once for a lark, and it told me that I'm in the bottom 20% of people, i.e. that fifth of the population that it isn't even interested in having as members. Badge of honor man, badge of honor.
No, wait, I've been doing that for nearly five years. That's not working.
Perhaps I should check out the online dating services, then.
I should have made it clearer that these are pictures of women who seem to be (in one case I actually met one of them) here in the US. A better choice than "Russian women" would have been "women living here who have emigrated from Russia".
Alfalfa Male: Shows you holding a small dog.
That's an example of the sort of thing that I was talking about when I mentioned things that will eliminate responses, but maybe only the responses that you want. A photograph of a woman with a dog, cat, or horse (or, even more, just the photography of the animal, with no woman) is reason enough for me not to make contact. But maybe that's good. We'd probably both be wasting our time if I contacted a woman whose pet is such an important part of her life. Best that she be contacted only by men who want that sort of woman.
Works every time.
Don't claim to enjoy everything, and don't claim as an interest things you only think you might be interested in but have never done. If I've based a first date strategy on our common interest in cycling only to find out that your interest in cycling peaked at age 9, it will be awkward. Don't claim to like golf if you don't play. I guess I'm saying honesty is the better policy.