In my opinion, dating sites are still extremely efficient ways of meeting people. I exclude eharmony, both from personal bias, and from the fact that they don't allow you to really search the database.

After you leave college, real life meetings become much more complicated. The bar scene is a lottery. How likely is it that you'll actually coincide in time and space with somebody who you would be happy with, and then how likely is it that you'll even get to talk to them if they are there when you're there? Grocery stores and other non-traditional meeting places, I personally avoided bothering women in, assuming there should be some neutral ground where a woman might wish to be left alone.

For me, I wanted college educated women who had opinions about politics and whose opinions I shared. I wanted women with no children, who lived within 50 miles of me and didn't smoke or do drugs, but who did drink socially, wanted children, had traveled the world some, and were not strongly religious. I wanted women who enjoyed outdoor sports such as scuba, skydiving, and rock climbing. I wanted women who didn't own small yap dogs.

Can you imagine bumping into women like this randomly? But with a dating site, it became so much easier.

I still went out on a lot of dates that were bad matches, but I definitely skewed my chances of finding somebody I could respect and have fun with by taking the random chance aspect out of the equation.

EDIT: The article doesn't actually disagree with this. It's saying that paid dating sites will lose out to unpaid. I was responding to the HN title which derides all dating sites.

So many of the single women in my social circle complain they can never meet decent guys and would kill to be talked to be a decent, intelligent guy at the grocery store.

Worst-case scenario is a 15 second disturbance of minor flattery following by each of you carrying on with your day. Really, that's the worst case scenario. Really.

Tell them to take the initiative, then. Make eye contact, smile, and make a comment to start a conversation. Most women are far better at that than men, anyway, especially in a place like a grocery story where most of the time if a guy takes the initiative he comes off desperate.

Not that I advise against approaching women, just saying.

That's not really called for! The GP is right though; you're unlikely to be, say, given a slap or yelled at! This assumes, of course, your not being leery or crude and not asking them on a date straight off. etc. (where you will likely get a slap).

But there is nothing wrong with saying hi and having casual conversation with someone in the grocery store. 99 times out of 100 it will just fizzle out after a couple of seconds - one time in a hundred you might hit on a common interest and the rest, as they say, is history. I've met a number of great girlfriends in this way.

It's also a great way to get over shyness.

Also; you should talk to random people anyway. It brightens up their day and yours in a perfectly harmless way.

There is this social convention that we all must be silent and look dead ahead when queuing, for example. Everyone I know thinks it is silly but they don't want to be the first to broach the convention - just in case....

Didn't mean it in a nasty way. And yes, actual physical attacks are unlikely as a response. Unfriendliness is rather likely, though. But if you have a hardened "shell", no problem. Or if you have become very adept at chatting.

Also, if those single girls at grocery stores are so desperate, why don't they make a move themselves?

I'd say that is highly unlikely also. At worst you'll just get ignored :) but generally anyone will talk to you if you look and speak normal/friendly.

> Also, if those single girls at grocery stores are so desperate, why don't they make a move themselves?

Social convention. Also; this is the beginnings of a strawman because it's not like that at all :) the GP is just suggesting we talk to people more - which is always a good thing!

Can't you/couldn't a woman just say "no"?

This was over a year and a half ago. We are engaged, and we close on our first house on Friday. OKCupid was great, I met my girl within the first 2 weeks, and we couldn't be happier.

I've tried numerous other sites both paid and free and didn't like the mix of those on there as much as OKCupid.

I'm not particularly gifted in the looks department, but I can get about 1 date a week. How? Testing and speed. Here are a few tips..this advice isn't really making any assumptions about you..it mostly is a result of mistakes I've made and have seen other guys make.

Testing:

-Photos: ask friends to help pick the best ones, take some new ones, use OKCupid's photo-testing service, etc.

-Profile: I probably went through 5 complete rewrites, followed by a lot of constant tweaking. I think the biggest mistake most guys make is being way too serious in their profile. You've really got to keep it light and playful. Sure, be authentic and show who you are, but wait until after a few dates before getting all deep. Just have fun.

-Messages: Play around with the type of message you sent. Try some serious, try some playful, try some ridiculous/absurd. You'll see what tends to work more. I'm assuming you're doing more than just saying "hey what's up," that will just get you ignored.

Speed:

Don't write long messages implying you think you two are soulmates. The worst thing you can do is get hung up on hoping this one person with a great profile will reply. Getting into this kind of pattern will make you think way too hard about what to write to them for your first message. Look for interesting profiles, write a quick message, move on. You've got to get a good volume of messages out there, don't spend too much time on a particular profile.

EDIT: Forgot to mention one more thing, take it offline as soon as possible. Don't let the messages drag on..if someone replies to me I usually ask to meet up for a drink in the 2nd message I send.

I have 16 conversations dating back to May in my inbox. Let me know if that's par for the course. The problem is, of these 16, 8 were girls that initiated contact with me and that I didn't find very attractive. Of the remaining 8, I had a date lined up with 1 that fell through, and a date currently lined up with another.

EDIT: Another stat. I sent out 39 messages from May until now. Of the 39 messages, 8 got replies. So that's about 1 in 5.

Since about May 20th I've initiated contact with about 40 girls. Sounds like the problem is you just aren't sending enough messages. 1 out of 8 is pretty close to what I'd expect if you have a good profile.

Do you mean that it's unattractive for a girl to initiate contact with you?

He seems to live in Toronto, so that doesn't apply though.

Edit: I actually found my current girlfriend through another dating website :) and do recommend them for introverts.

Right now, I'm using it to figure out what I want in a woman. I have a rough idea. But going on lots of dates with several women over a short period of time should give me a better idea. And hey, maybe one of them will turn out to be "the one." I have no expectations though. Just taking it day by day. (FYI--I'm 26/m and live in Los Angeles)

I can consult you on your OKCupid profile & messages. $100/hr =P

I don't want to write too much, because it's all pretty much been written.

PROFILE: be funny, but most importantly, end with a "call to action": http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/how-to-write-an-online...

FIRST MESSAGE: keep it short. It's called "the one-line hook" http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-messages/

CLOSING THE DATE: make very specific suggestions, pick a place in her neighborhood http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/how-to-get-a-date-onli...

I find this interesting. Could you please say more about it?

I'm just speaking from experience on this last observation. It would be interesting to scientifically break it down: how much sarcasm and "angled" emo-esque profile photos you see in OKCupid vs. Match.com.

Additionally, OKCupid is a free site. In my experience, people who pay for their online dating are more serious about actually going on dates.

What do you mean by that exactly? Are you saying you've been talking to one person for 6 months before the person decided to meet you for a date? Or are you saying that you've simply been on the site for 6 months before connecting with someone for a first date?

If it's the former, you're doing it wrong.

If it's the latter, you may need to do some additional work on your profile. There's a dramatic difference in the success of good profiles versus just "ok" ones.

I've been sending out a lot of messages. I get replies quite often. I had two girls setup dates with me and we had exchanged phone numbers and SMSes. But the dates never happened and I lost interest. I had one old female friend reconnect with me and we went out, but that doesn't really count. The girl I'm going on a date with tomorrow I've been talking to for less than a week. Unless G20 turns into a convenient excuse to bail on the date, it'll be my first one through OKCupid.

Girls tell me I have a good profile. It's funny and I have good photos. I had a really crappy profile at first and definitely had to revamp it. But honestly, I found that photos make the biggest difference.

I might be doing it wrong. I have pretty high standards looks wise. I know... shoot me. So often I'm doing the rejecting/ignoring of messages. I live in a big city but I also go to a gym which has a lot of really attractive girls. I would say most of the girls on OKCupid in my area are a little less physically attractive, and are no better/worse in the personality department than ones I meet through traditional offline methods.

1) dating sites are the perfect example of the benefit of pseudonymity for allowing people to choose how much to reveal about themselves while still being attractive

2) dating sites rely on geographical favorability. I live in DC so as a single guy it works EXTREMELY well. But I hear it's not as great for DC women. But DC is known for having far more highly-educated single women than any other city. But would a dating site work as well in smaller communities where people marry out of high school and generally keep their social circle their whole lives? Is NYC too much of a social cauldron for dating sites to work?

3) Facebook hook-ups seem to work mostly if you are being hooked up with a friend of a friend, so the initial relationship is being built upon referral instead of semi-blind dates.

Facebook is a terrible platform for meeting people because it impels you to reveal too much, reveal it too broadly and doesn't let you control the order in which the revelation takes place.

Dating reveals the chink in Fb's conception of the single identity. Since at least the mid 20th century, sociologists were described modern society as resting on a single-person/multiple-roles system as opposed to simpler societies resting on single-person/single-role. We've only going further in this and Internet sites eventually have to facilitate this rather than forcing a single identity on people (something that Facebook has apparently made part of it's agenda).

okcupid and plentyoffish are much much better options.

And Yahoo Personals and Match.com definitely aren't the only ones. I've heard of other paid dating sites doing the same. Of course these are only rumors which is why it never gets very far in court but it's enough for me to never want to spend my money on paid sites. The incentives to move into fraud in paid dating are very very strong.

For the record, I met my beautiful girlfriend of two years on Match, so count me as biased. :)

I'm in the Boston/Cambridge/Brookline area, though. I imagine the real:fake ratio gets worse as you get into more sparsely populated areas.

Also, some people create profiles specifically made for dating, where they post some pictures of themselves and basic facts. Of course this is a cheap maneuver -- they want to see someone's complete profile, while the other person only gets to see a "fake" one.

The real question is about free sites like okcupid.com and plentyoffish.com , sadly, they have no numbers about these sites.

I am not so sure about that. I don't really see people hooking up with friends of friends

They might as well have written an article about how TV is dead because nobody buys tube TVs anymore.

Match.com is an awful, awful user experience. It's a wonder that they're still able to fleece so much money out of people.

(As contrast, new oil is not being "made". Once it's all pumped dry, it's over.)

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/04/07/why-you-should-...

Interesting points: * "you are 12.4 times more likely to get married this year if you don't subscribe to Match.com"

* the severe male/female imbalance ("sausage fest") leads to a "desperation feedback loop" where men spam more and more women, with fewer and fewer responses.

In my opinion, with the rise in social networking platforms, dating sites are dead or dying - at least for 'mainstream' use. Even OKCupid, I think, will be pointless as people learn to leverage Facebook for dating.

Although I am curious if anybody has counter-experience on this :D

I've noticed a bunch of friends either getting married or beginning serious LTRs after meeting online, though. They usually fall into two categories.

1. A set of mutual friends of them say "Hey, you two would be perfect for each other," introduce them, and then the relationship blooms through FaceBook or old-fashioned e-mail.

2. They're both participants at a "niche" online forum or social networking site, and then end up meeting in person eventually and take it from there.

I think the latter situation is way, way underreported. We pay attention to the big social sites like FaceBook and Twitter and the big dating sites like eHarmony and Match, but there's an enormous long-tail of niche sites that toss up a website and a forum and build a community. You can find a fansite for virtually every celebrity, every TV show, every sport, many of the more popular books, and even niche professional interests like startups and programming language design. Many of these grow very close, tight-knit communities, and when those communities are of mixed gender, it's very common for some dating to occur.

Heck, if HN weren't overwhelming male, I bet we'd see some Hacker News couples. There've already been a bunch of "Founder Dating" sites spun off from it.

We met when I searched Facebook for 'Cryptonomicon', and she was the only result. (This was April 2004, so there were maybe a couple thousand people on all of Facebook.)

We moved in together a few weeks later, and got married in 2006.

The swinger-ish nerdhemian folks I know who like OkCupid seem to use OkCupid as an alternative Facebook. One where they don't have to worry so much about their parents or not-so-close coworkers.

That's the most ridiculous phrase I've seen today. It also perfectly describes me 10 years ago :-)

They are silly folks but sometimes lots of fun.

I wanted to except some category of people, but I couldn't think of how to name the group without sounding judgmental. I agree with your sentiment.

Facebook has the unique, unbeatable advantage of being more evenly (more, outright?) female. Now we just have to get over the 'creepy/weird/scary' nuances of meeting people through non-traditional channels.