You clearly didn't read my posts thoroughly. I repeatedly harp on how I think guys are being too narrow minded when they think that all women are seeking huge income levels and material possessions. I do it again in the very post you're responding to. My posts are right there for people to read. I specifically state that I'm looking for a woman who would appreciate and respect that I didn't just settle into something for the money and instead am taking risks and pursuing my passions and dreams fervently. There's absolutely no way you could have missed this.

Obvious troll is obvious or you just don't understand what you read.

Really, this has run it's course. You're desperately trying to drag this into something it's not and I've already told you that your attempts to do so will go unsuccessful. You could only have one motivation in doing so and quite frankly, the fact that you're doing this and ED (ironic) is just trolling in the middle of the morning is most certainly not the kind of activity women find attractive. I looked back at a few of ED's posts and almost all of them center around personal reviews of food and beer he's tasted while watching March Madness. I'm sure you see my point.

Hey buddy, people here are just offering advice and opinions - if you refuse to acknowledge people's views and opinions in an emotionally intelligent way, I think that reflects more on you than the people offering advice. I'll refrain from offering any further help, GL.

Ridiculous lol. As said previously, I'll certainly take your advice under consideration. You and ED have a nice week.

You need to think about your target audience on match. It’s different than other sites. I had little success on match the two times I tried it. I don’t think it’s a format most are successful with. I have one friend who had some success with it and met his wife there but I’ve never talked to other who have succeeded with it especially in a big city where myself used okcupid, my friends have successfully and unsuccessfully used bumble, tinder and other sites. Find out in nyc which dating apps are the best in general and for what you’re looking for. My friends have had success with okcupid there and coffeemeetsbagel but the latter are Chinese guys. When I had success, before I got married, I would focus on Sundays as my day to message. I seemed to have the best success then. Additionally I by far my most success near the end of the year and into the new year. Maybe this is the wrong time. 4 days is nothing and again you don’t know If the girls you’re messaging are real, paid accounts on that site. Even if they like your photos, they can do that without paying.

Huge,

What kind of writing have you published and where?

Didn't really read all of the last couple of pages of exchanges, but I've always thought Match was awful and a waste of time and money. When I was on it, it was full of bugs, I didn't get that many responses, the chat function didn't work properly, the overall volume was poor, and it seemed like there were a ton of fake profiles.

Just never understood why it was any better than OKC or even POF and it's a mystery to me why people still use it. Maybe it's changed though as that was 2013 ?

I also saw a few comments about how summer is coming and that should make the responses go up. IME the opposite is true, I'm fully expecting less activity on the sites in the following weeks/months as I've found that as soon as it gets a bit warmer (In London anyway) women, I suspect, largely just decide they want to spend time with their friends and not worry too much about finding someone romantically.

This past weekend I did more swiping on Bumble than ever and definitely noticed less matches compared to what I was used to at certain points in the winter. I've just never had as much success in the summer as the winter which is annoying as it's definitely my favourite time to date, clearly girls don't agree.

Stacks,

You write a lot of words. If your profile and/or initial messages are the same, you should be aware that's not ideal. The online part of online dating is about convincing someone you'd be ok to hang out with for at least an hour. That depends less on explaining your jobs or anything else you feel needs to be explained and more about your personality. Lots of words in a profile suggests you're going to dominate a conversation, whether true or not. Lots of words in an initial message can be overwhelming to respond to. I would encourage you to cut out anything that doesn't show you'd be a fun guy to hang out with and limit your initial messages to 3 sentences and 1 question max.

You should also be aware that peak dating season began about 6 months ago and just recently ended. You should be getting more replies than zero but matching whatever you were getting 6 months ago isn't going to happen.

In regards to your employment, if sales is your steady source of income you should call that your job. Acting is either a hobby or at best a part time gig until it can provide a steady, comfortable source of income for you on its own. Same with writing. El D is correct about what women are looking for from a guy in his 30's. It doesn't need to be 6 figures, and as someone else mentioned you don't even need to disclose your income, but if you don't give the impression of having a steady, secure source of income you're going to be auto-rejected by nearly all quality women. It should be noted that whether you actually have a steady, secure source of income is irrelevant, because there's no way to explain that without a lot of words (refer back to paragraph #1). The time to explain how your various endeavors come together is on the date, where you can provide the full explanation that it requires in order to be seen in a positive light.

Finally, there are two ways to approach online dating. The correct way as mentioned is to present yourself as a person who would be fun to go on a first date with. A less optimal way is to insist on highlighting anything that may come across as a red flag under the belief that honesty is the best way to avoid wasting time with people who aren't a good match anyway. Any filtering done before you've even had a conversation with someone is going to be extremely superficial. You don't need to lie about anything, but don't needlessly limit your options before it's practical. I suggest the former method, but if you do choose the latter don't complain about a lack of responses.

Yeah Stacks is way too wordy and sounds insufferable. That might have something to do with the dating stuff.

Huge,

your posts make it pretty clear why you're having no luck.

So this girl (who's also mentioned in the middle paragraph in the post below, I just realized) and I did end up breaking things off the day after this post was made. She was pretty cool in a lot of ways so I was a bit bummed out about it, especially as I felt I hadn't presented the best version of myself due to being quite down and struggling mentally in the ~6 weeks we had known each other.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I went on a tinder date which, going into, I thought had more potential than with any other online lady I've met so far. Mostly because she was very much my type physically, seemed to be just the type of girl I tend to like in terms of personality, and she also seemed quite keen on me because (partly) she thought we would be very compatible sexually (long story short, she had seen me and become interested in me previously, on a Swedish online community focusing on bdsm. Pretty random!) So on paper it seemed like a quite interesting girl and I was quite keen to meet her. The date went reasonably poorly though, and I mostly felt it was my fault, again because I didn't present a particularly fun version of myself. For this reason, I was feeling super down with myself yesterday evening as I tried to analyze what I had done wrong and what I need to change in order to become more fun to hang out with and seem more attractive to high quality ladies.

From feeling really down, things changed rather rapidly though. I went back on tinder and swiped a bit out of boredom/anxiety, and matched with a very cute asian musician, who I talked to for an hour and who seemed pretty cool, and we set up a date for tomorrow evening. Helped raise my spirits slightly. Then today, I met up with the classmate mentioned in the post below for an extremely awkward, out of the blue, "talk" about us that she wanted to have. It ended up being quite amusing though, as we sat and laughed about the situation being really weird and how strange it was of her to write and suggesting to meet (nothing has happened between us since that night mentioned below, apart from some very light flirting on messenger). It ended well though, with some kissing and deciding to "see where things go", and she's coming over to have dinner and watch a movie at my place in a few hours. Also helped raise my spirits.

In addition, finally, the girl from the afternoon date yesterday wrote to me during this strange talk with the classmate, thanking me for a lovely time yesterday. Very surprising, as I wasn't expecting to hear from her ever again (and wasn't planning on writing to her more). Also helped raise my spirits!

What a difference 24 hours makes! I had already decided today would be the day this horrible spring took a turn for the better, with new classes starting etc etc, so I'm putting all of this down as a good first step in that direction.

Hope you're enjoying my lady troubles blog Since I'm updating, I should also mention that I've met the "Wednesday girl" from below once after breaking up for some netflix and chill type situation, and we've tentatively agreed to do that again after easter break when she's back in town. Not sure that will end up happening if things are going on with other girls though.

Fabian,

When it rains, it pours! Hope this little flurry of positive results continues for you with both the ladies and life in general.

My Bumble matches are way down as compared to a month or two ago, but my OKC matches/cold opens from women/Message to date ratios are still pretty good.

My profile is a little lengthy, but I get a fair amount of cold opens with some form of "wow, great profile, you seem awesome!" that almost always leads to an actual date. Then again, despite having qualities to a degree of niceness (helping senior citizens, doing comedy, public speaking), I'm not attracting like-minded people, but rather people that make me feel like they want to date a nice person but are kind of a jerk themselves. The last few I went out with presented well pre-date, but on the date, would go on and on about how stupid their co-workers are, and how they're typically attracted to cocky *******s but wanted to "try a nicer guy"

I agree with that, and I'm west coast in the states.

Sandra,

Pretty standard. When it’s nice out, people are outside a lot more doing stuff instead of sitting home glued to the computer or phone. And when it starts getting cold, people often want someone to be around for the holidays and holiday parties.

I found profiles were more successful with less "I am this, I am that, I make X money" and more humor.

My Tinder profile was purposefully made to break 'the rules'. Shirtless (outdoor) main pic, and the text was obviously pure smartass bull****.

Did pretty well with the matches.

Tl;dr fully agree with the last few posts re: Huge. I suspect he's getting more eyerolls than anything.

That said, I have a friend in the Hudson Valley north of him, who chatted with someone a year or two ago, who matches up with his description very closely (OKC). If in fact that was Huge, he is a good looking dude, no question. She's in her mid 40s so maybe outside his range, but very attractive.

HugeStacks should probably pay attention to the fact El D has his own sub-forum here on 2p2.....

Forgive him slightly as he's a 2p2 newb.

I have to agree with the past couple of posters in that the way you come across here suggests that your messages are not good. You could post some here if you want to get better at it, and I’m sure you’d get some good advice.

But would he take the advice? Because you know when he was 26 he was killing it...

Used to be a somewhat reg in here but it’s been a long while

Just recently broke up with year long girlfriend I met on Tinder. Pretty bad breakup so took me two months to get back in the game. I’ve done the whole online thing for quite a while but I’m on my hottest streak so far. Last week I had dates Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and Saturday all with different girls. Week before that I met a girl I actually liked and saw long term potential but she had an out of country trip planned with her ex bfs family. They of course reconnected.

Tuesday - nothing of note. She was really hard to hold a conversation with. Still chatting, hookup potential but nothing more than that.

Wednesday - went over to her place for drinks and Netflix. Got pretty drunk. She was real out there, talking about drugs and how they expand the mind. She wound up passing out so I dipped out.

Thursday- dinner and drinks. Went out to bars after and drank too much. Ended up at my house and hooked up. She was cool and could keep a conversation. During the deed she kept slapping me in the face. This has happened to me before but this girl went all out. As hard as she could. Finally had to tell her to cut it out. Overall good experience and could see myself dating her possibly.

Saturday- a big mess. Went out to this bar on a date. Tuesday and Wednesday wound up there. Was kind of awkward but I think I handled it okay as they’re all still taking to me but I was worried there for a bit. Wound up at an after party and ex shows up. Immediately starts making a big scene and crying. I wind up back at her apartment and I guess I ditched my date, once I get there I realize what I’m doing and it’s a huge mistake so I call up Thursday and get a ride home. No slapping this time.

Moving forward I think I’ll limit myself to 2 dates a week max. Way too exhausting trying to juggle it all.

Bwaa-haa-ha-ha!

Also, I think you need to expand the bars you frequent for dates...

yeah where do you live (is there only 1 good bar)? can't imagine running into so many people i know on a date.

City I live in is 55k pop but metro area is 180k. My friend owns this bar so I almost always go there. Free and super cheap drinks.

I’d also like to say this isn’t the same place I took any of the other ones lol.

This made me laugh very hard. Good job, glad you had a good time!


Fabian,

Your post makes me want to ask inappropriately personal questions Lol, I'm pleased things are improving for you.

Rexx,

That's ok! lapka wants to know more about my school life, you and MLYLT want to know more about my sex life Maybe I should start a blog for the women of OOT specifically?

I'm not sure things are improving with the ladies in general, but at least yesterday was a better day than the day before! We'll see how things progress. Dinner + tv-show with the classmate yesterday was nice at least, but she's gone back to her home country for a week for easter break now so we'll see what (if anything) happens after that. Date with cute asian tonight, though I'm inclined to cancel because I'm tired and unmotivated to meet new people after that bad tinder date on Sunday. We'll see.

Always remember to drain the lizard before a first date, because this can happen