It’s been a couple of weeks since I taught you how to make that first introduction count, and it’s time to take a look at how you’re doing. As I’ve said before, online dating is very much a buyer’s market for women; their mere presence on a dating site is going to trigger an avalanche of winks, “added to favorites” and clutzy, fumbling emails. So assuming you’ve been taking my advice to heart, you should be enjoying some profound success in the online dating scene and having more dates than you can handle.
But hey: what if you’re not? What if it feels as though all of your emails are being sent out into the great uncaring void? Or worse, if you have a great connection that suddenly cuts off with no warning?
Well, dating’s always going to be a crapshoot, right? Email can be flakey and really, who knows what girls really want anyway, right? Bitches be crazy, right man?
There’s no denying that there are no sure things in dating world; even the greatest profile in the world, with Annie Leibowitz taking the profile photo and Bruno Mars writing the emails for you will get nothing but dead air from time to time. But if you are consistently not getting any responses or you’re finding them dwindling away into nothing, perhaps the problem isn’t exactly with them. I hate to say it, but you’re the only common denominator.
It’s time to take a step back and look at your game. You need to ask yourself if you’re the problem here.
So let’s fine tune things. Let’s make sure you’re not making these surprisingly common online dating mistakes.
#5: U Tlk Lik3 thz.
I can’t emphasize this enough: use complete sentences, correct spelling and proper fucking grammar!! Tattoo this backwards on your forehead. Shave your head if you need the room. Online dating is all about text-based communication; you have to seduce a women with your words. Using TxtSpk, 1337sp33k or any other cutesy non-standard style of writing just makes you look like a goddamn idiot with a speech impediment to boot. Texting shorthand came about because of the inherent character limits in cellphone text-messaging services. Unless you’re trying to pick girls up via Twitter (don’t) you have all the time and space that you need to compose your reply. Typos are one thing; being completely illegible is another entirely.
And don’t think just because she writes her e-mails or profile like this, you have an excuse to do the same. In fact, if she does write like that, you probably should be asking yourself some very serious questions as to whether you actually want to a go on a date with someone who never got past the 10th grade socially.
#4: You Didn’t Actually Read Her Profile
Remember when I said you had to make it clear that you actually read her profile when you contacted her? I didn’t mean just skim the damned thing and look for something you could plug into your introduction e-mail. Y’see, one valuable part of online dating is that it lets you pre-screen your potential dates. You can look for matching goals in life, you can look for similar interests or even just filtering by the fact that you like Amazonian red-heads.
Thing is, it also lets you screen for potential deal-breakers. And many women will helpfully tell you in advance what those deal breakers are.
“But women shouldn’t pre-judge me based on an arbitrary standard!” I hear you cry. “I’m a special little snowflake! Surely I’m awesome enough that she can overlook whatever strange objections she might normally have in me!” And then I start laughing and reaching for my bottle of Jefferson’s Reserve.
Yes, some of them are arbitrary. If you aren’t her desired height, income level, educational level or are slightly older than her stated preferences, you may want to throw your hat in the ring anyway. There are times when you might be so damn charming that you can actually overcome the little pet-peeves she has that would otherwise keep her from being interested in dating you. But sometimes she lists those deal-breakers for a good damn reason. She doesn’t like dogs because she’s allergic. She has health issues which means she has to stick to a specific diet and exposure to other types of food might kill her. She doesn’t like smokers because she has a history of lung-cancer in her family. You talk about loving Ayn Rand.
Some deal-breakers simply can’t and shouldn’t be ignored; all you’ve ended up doing is wasting her time and yours when you could have been moving on to someone more receptive.
#3: You Took Too Long To Make The Date
Online dating isn’t a sprint. You don’t want to propose meeting up in the first or second e-mail; after all you don’t want to look too pushy or needy. But if you’ve traded e-mails back and forth five or six times, I’m fairly certain you can safely move things to off-line. This is a surprisingly common problem among nerds. The anxiety of “Does she like me? I don’t know… I can’t risk rejection, so I should just keep treading water until she makes the first move” is almost an axiomatic part of being a nerd and it can follow you even into the world of online dating.
Out in “the real world”, taking too long to make a move is going to kill your chances. The same applies to online dating. Going back and forth via the dating site’s e-mail system can feel “safe”; after all, you can usually tell when she’s logged on and it’s a safe bet that she at least read your email instead of having it get caught in the spam filter. But if you don’t move things to a more intimate level, she’s going to get bored of waiting for you to take the initiative and move on. Moving from e-mail to instant messaging or texting is at least progress, but if she likes you well enough to give you her number, you really should already be asking her out on a real goddamn date.
#2: You Coped An Attitude
Women like “bad boys” because they’re confident and aggressive. Women love confident men. Confidence is sexy. You want to at least appear confident.
But there is a very fine line between confidence and arrogance and between aggressiveness and an attitude of entitlement. It is entirely too easy, especially in a text-medium to cross the line between confidence and acting like you’re owed a response/a date/ nonstop head right then and there. This shows up in any number of profoundly unattractive ways. Some guys push for the date way too hard and way too fast, sometimes within the first e-mail. Even better, if the site has an instant message function, they’ll start haranguing the girl for not going out with them immediately.
The passive-aggressive version of this is what I like to call the “WHY DON’T YOU LIKE ME!!?” e-mail. When some guys are either met by silence or the girl seemingly has dropped off the face of the Earth, they’ll send another e-mail full of cranky bluster and spite-filled demands for an apology, explanation or some sort of response. This is the online dating version of drunk-dialing the girl you have a crush on and complaining that she keeps ignoring you when you’re trying to work up the guts to ask her out. Yeah, it kind of sucks that some women don’t give a polite “Thanks but no thanks” form letter, but it’s life. Life’s a full-contact sport, shit happens, wear a hat. And really, there’s nothing sadder than impotent nerd-rage.
#1: You Lied.
Oscar Wilde once famously said: “Telling the truth means never having to remember what you said the night before.” This applies to online dating just as much as it does offline. Women already know that men tend to… let’s be kind and say “exaggerate” in their profiles. Most guys lie about their height, rounding up by an inch or two. They also lie about income levels, what they do for a living, how many sex partners they’ve had and, critically, they lie in their profile photos. The camera may add five pounds, but Photoshop takes off twenty.
I should know. I’ve been paid rather well to do some… shall we say, touch-up of photos that were destined to be on dating site profiles.
But just like many politicians and public figures, liars get caught out. The more you lie, the harder it is to keep all your stories straight. Having those lies recorded online, where much about you can be independently verified through Google and Facebook… well that’s not just a bad idea, it’s goddamn stupid. Quit doing it.