I do like that we used almost the same words to describe ourselves. I think my biggest problem is that I'm married to a low paying, high hour, high stress job. It's ok though, I recently started seeing someone in the short-term as I'm going to uproot myself several times in the next couple years.

Yeah it seems like the various dating sites vary wildly by city. I wonder how that happens? But basically it seems like CL is only useful in big cities. I think it's been going downhill though for dating because the junk (spammers mostly, but also scammers, prostitutes, and weirdos) is expanding faster than the content.

I met a fantastic girl I wanted to share the rest of my life with on CL a few years ago with maybe a month of trying, but after that ended (a 2 year relationship, it ended kind of tragically ) I went back to CL (among other things of course) and got roughly nowhere for about a year.

I hear you on that. I have a couple older women friends and they all say things like that. All I have to do is wait a few more years it seems... Most of the attractive early to mid 20something girls just seem like they're having too much of a good time with their friends and parents to care about anything serious with guys--well unless they're gorgeous and very charming (read: players) anyways.

Craig's list seemed to be full of people wanting casual sex. I didn't feel comfortable responding to any of the ads on there. I'm told that a lot of the people are on there are married and sneaking around, but I don't know for sure.

I couldn't get most people on Match.com to respond to me. If you don't post a picture no one will respond to you (except creepy people). I don't want to post a picture for the entire world to see...
I've recognized neighbors, former colleagues, etc... on there. I would die if a potential employer saw me on there!..

So you wouldn't get hired because you are looking for a companion? That's sound weird

It could happen...at the very least you could be mocked.

I like my private life to separate from my professional one.

Once your photo (and profile) is out there, you're there for the world to see.

If you have any sort of public presence; teacher, police officer,
etc... I'd think twice about putting my mugshot on there.

I don't have my photo on there, and few people bother to read the profiles if there is no picture.

That's because it's all about ATTRACTION

I'm not attracted to people that have traits that I consider undesirable. No matter how good looking they may be in a photo, once I find out that they've been married 5x, have 6 kids, smoke,
are "Meat and potatoes" people, like country music etc...I am really not interested. I know what I like in a person initially--looks come later (for me at least).

If I were looking for an instant physical thing, I'd look on Craig's List under "casual encounters..."... hehe..I could get that anywhere, but would rather find someone that I am compatible with first.


Oh, and people post pictures are like 20 years old! I met 2 different people from there who I swear were using high school era (and slightly beyond) pictures (and the people were supposedly 44 and 49).

Have you tried it?

Yes, we had a nice first date and our 2nd date is this week

Good for you! Maybe we will see you on one the commercials that air the success stories. I know 3 couples who met on Math.com. 2 are married now and the other is engaged.

I never met anyone on there that I hit if off with. A few nice people, and a lot of socially inept folks. I hear that there are more women on there than men, so the pickins' for women aren't that great.

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Stor...3A162703E50%7D

It's 60% men on match.com but only 40% men on EHarmony. Your posts, in my mind, exemplify exactly why that is. Girls are more interested in being discrete (only your matches can view your profile) and in "personality tests" to pull out things like spiritual beliefs. Just like on CL, weird ads scare women away, while men are more likely to say "oh you just have to ignore the weirdos", so EHarmony does a lot of filtering to pick that stuff out. It's a wise business move.

I found that before match.com approved my photo, everyone was responding to my messages. Every single one asked for a photo. As soon as my photo was posted, almost nobody responded to me. Almost 90% of my new messages went unresponded and all the people I was messaging never responded again. Things are the same way with Craig's List.

Moral of the story: If you want to feel hideous, do online dating.

This I have seen A LOT even with girls in their mid to late 20s. Even 5 years seems to make a huge difference with some women for one simple reason--they gain weight. Some girls seem pretty upfront about it. I mean, they seem healthy or fit in college and then you look at more of their photos and they're just getting older and more overweight... Others, you meet them and think "Hey, you've grown!"

The filters at Match.com really stink.
I'm an atheist, don't want kids, etc.. and I keep getting matches who are Christians, 50 years old and who want kids. Despite checking all of the boxes of interests that I want/don't want they still come through.