The past fifteen minutes has just been spent trying to figure out how to completely delete my accounts on three dating sites. My Match subscription ran out at midnight last night and despite not having ANY activity on my profile in the past two weeks, I magically had three profile views. Is it any wonder people question Match's integrity, especially after the phantom members I've previously reported?
The site I had more hope for was Plenty of Fish, after all it's free and you can communicate free of charge whereas other sites I know about force you to pay up for the privilege. Once I found out that PoF had restricted "private images" (i.e. you have them attached to your profile though they're not for public consumption, but you can attach them to messages), I had hoped that I might get a few replies. After all, the private images thing essentially meant that the trouble on PoF of women getting cock pictures had pretty much been eradicated, so women might be less inundated with rubbish.
Sadly, that wasn't the case. I probably sent a dozen messages on Match, though there were only about three who I was really interested in (including CB). I probably sent twice that on PoF (with the same 'preference' ratio). That's roughly thirty-five to forty messages with approximately ten who I was genuinely excited about over two sites and three months of almost daily activity.
My activity on Zoosk was practically non-existent, message-wise. There was only the one girl who turned out to live in Glasgow.
Beyond actual messages, there was the wordless contact. All three sites have a Tinder-like Yes/No service (you're given a photo or photos based on your criteria and you simply check yes or no to potential contact... if you both click Yes", then you're informed and contact can start, otherwise you don't know if they've access you or not). There must have been at least another forty or so cute women that I selected "yes" to on these, in total, with absolutely nothing in return.
There are other, strange stories... the girl who added me as a 'favourite' on Plenty of Fish, but who deleted her account as soon as I messaged her, only to reappear two weeks later under a different username. Another girl who added me as a favourite on all three dating sites, but never, ever made any attempt to contact me. A girl who removed herself from my favourites (which I used for tracking purposes) on PoF for reasons unknown.
I've said it before, but it's worth re-iterating to anyone who's reading this post in isolation to the others - it's my opinion that online dating is, like real life, very much a woman's domain. Lots of "traditional" ideas are still very much apparent online such as men needing to make the first move etc. Women on these sites often outnumber the men, giving them the pick whereas men are "competing" for the attention of women.
I'm not the world's most forward person and actually going to talk to new people in the real world can prove daunting to me at times, but my success in the real world, from talking to random women in bars etc. far outweighs my success online, on sites where people have joined up looking to meet new people. I still don't understand that at all and I don't think I would ever recommend online dating for my male friends in what is a rather small catchment area.
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