in the SL thread about dating i posted a TR about my first date with a girl being a triple A baseball game. it's the best date i've ever had. i was worried about awkward moments too but didn't have any.

her bringing a friend is pretty ****ty though

Height matters in the same way being ugly matters. Except not really fixable. You just have to make up for it in other areas. It'd be sweet to be really physically imposing (Doug Young springs to mind as an incredible physical presence without being tall) but you basically play the hand you're dealt. Clothes help to accentuate physical presence as well.

Keep in mind height is a proxy for the physical dominance/presence/whatever. A broad shouldered shorter man will be more high value than a taller, slimmer man. Henry alludes to this idea, but to try to just make it based on an arbitrary height is silly (Obv I say this as a 5'8 man). Since the idea only includes height as a component.

Like most physical issues, being better dressed and in shape can only help. But whatever. My current high score is essentially the same height as me which equals 2-4 inches of difference when we go out. Whatev. It matters, but its a subject that is of little to no value to consider.

ive never heard of someone suggesting to bring a friend along on a first meeting.

it's hard to say what it means without knowing the context of the situation, but if a girl isnt into you, it's just way too easy for her to cut you off completely so I doubt it's that. my best bet is that she's just being overly paranoid about meeting a stranger on the internets.

i dont see the point in doing something elaborate like a baseball game for a first meeting. both sides just want to get in and potentially out asap, so why do something that will tie you to them for several hours? if she ends up being a lot fatter than you thought she'd be, will you really want to sit beside her the whole game? i'm sure she has similar reservations, unless she is herself a complete trainwreck. just meet for coffee and save the fun/interesting stuff for when you're more confident you actually like the person.

The last point sounds most plausible to me - if she's new to online dating/doesn't trust it then this makes sense.

Fair enough, as I said, I have no experience in the matter. I guess I sort of just assumed without articulating what abbadabba said, ie shes bringing a friend because he could be some creep. I dont see the problem, you are potentially getting two first dates here, bonus imo

this is so cool.

am i the shortest person in this thread??

I would have guessed that from your views on women alone...

what is your guys' success rate on sites like plentyoffish.com

i'm tempted to join one.

I'd suggest against it unless you don't care that much about physical appearance.

explain? It sort of seems that you can be as selective as you'd want to be unless I'm missing something.

I'd be much more worried about the social stigma surrounding online dating. Not that it's that negative to date online, but I'd personally see it as a bit of a white flag regarding IRL girls. If no one ever found out about it, I'd like to try it just to plug some of the midweek holes in my social schedule.

The vast majority of women dating online are going to be ugly.

but there are pictures, right (never done it, just assumed)?

I mentioned this before but after getting into a debate about this years ago we decided to do a survey and filtering by age and ethic preference we found that girls that were attractive in the single digit percent. When you factor that back then 2/3 of profiles didn't have pictures and you assume that girls with pictures are better looking on average things don't look good. Granted the social stigma has decreased and online dating popularity increased so things are likely better now but when I tried to repeat the survey I found you need an account to look at profiles on Lavalife now.

Regardless, even if you assume the good looking percentage has increased you are still working with data supplied by them. The pictures are often not going to be indicative of what actually shows up.

Because of the ratios of both guys and girls as well as hot girls and ugly girls the good looking girls get snowed under by contacts. The average girls as well get a lot of contacts making them forget they are average and start believing they are hot which gives them a unwarranted self-valuation.

A good rule is never do anything that you would be embarrassed if it became public knowledge. People who have active social lives are all connected to other people by less than 2-3 degrees.

I'm not sure you can necessarily trust the pictures as people'll always upload the most flattering. There was something on the okcupid blog about how the hotter the girl in the picture, the older the picture is. Can't link it as the site's blocked from work though.

You'll also have a lot more competition for the best looking girls than you would in real life. Perhaps the quality of the competition isn't going to be as high, but by sheer weight of numbers it'll be harder to stand out.

The pictures that people provide are almost always unrealistic in some way. If people write "average" for body type, they're almost always a minimum of 30 pounds overweight and probably more.

And I agree almost completely with what henry had to say.

Yes, the ratio is ****ed. Women (and men) are on average less attractive on those sites than you'd see in public. Men outnumber women by a factor of probably 3:1. A lot of people also bend the truth and/or lie, which makes things even more difficult for people that are honest.

Womens expectations are just delusional on those sites, and all the girls I've spoken to who've used it say the same thing. Men lie, most of them are creeps and the ones who they 'like' only want to ****, and they're completely beside themselves why they cant get one to commit. The truth is that when they choose the "best" people who approach them, they filter out the majority of the men who would want them for anything more than a quick lay.


I think that honestly the best approach is to message people who don't have pictures that have body types listed as "thin" or "athletic".

Mittens/Thremp/Henry/etc:

I can't speak to other geographies, but in the Bay Area 10 years ago when Match was the only game in town, there was a lot of stigma and people were pretty embarrassed to talk about meeting people through online dating sites. Now, I am pretty much the only person in my friend group (which is ~25-35yos) who has not used online dating, and this includes plenty of successful, attractive young women. There are also a number of emerging ones that actually use things like Facebook to connect people who are within a degree or two of each other and use mutual friends as gatekeepers/approvers/matchmakers. There's a whole ton of things ranging from sites geared towards fun/hookups to sites geared towards soulmates/marriage. Like I said, pretty much everyone I know has used some form of these sites at some point, and many people use them not just for dating but for expanding social circles. I haven't used this stuff just because I'm overly private about opening up about myself and my personality to randoms, but I know of countless success stories ranging from guys hooking up w/ tons of hot chicks via them to people finding serious longterm relationships and marriage.

I'm just wondering what your guys' normal "progression" is. If you've had a few different scenarios just list them in chronological order including relevant details like age. Thanks!

A) dating --> sex --> relationship
B) dating --> relationship --> sex
C) sex --> dating --> relationship
D) other

in my experience

EDIT: to agree with Henry below me. I think A) is really the only way to get into a relationship, the "exceptions" I was referring to were the times when you have sex without dating post-college. I can't imagine too many healthy relationships starting without a dating to sex progression, and LOL @ being in a relationship with someone you haven't had sex with (barring some really good extenuating circumstances) if you're old enough to read EDF.

Of the girls that have ended up in relationships it has been as far as I can remember all A.

B never. I can't see it happening outside of religious situations.

C I don't think any got to relationship. Some progressed to fairly casual dating but I can't think of any that actually led to an exclusive relationship.

ive had them all. A) is the most standard for grown ups, B) for school kids, C) for students, i think.

Don't really agree with this. You're usually initially drawn to a package, as others have said; height, weight, hair, clothes, etc etc. If you're in a scenario where different guys are coming up to you to hit on you in a bar or whatever, height really matters considerably less than charisma.
As far as optimal height, I'm 5'6" and think 5'11" is pretty fine. I'm dating a guy who is 5'8" right now and really really enjoy it in terms of where we "stack up" when it comes to standing and kissing/hugging. That matters most to me, though.

Sure there is, if you're short, you just have to make everything else better

I like the idea of that, what're the sites?

Sci,

These are pretty new. I don't know anyone who has used them or really know much else besides the fact they exist.

http://thread.com/
http://www.triangulatecorp.com/
http://www.skout.com/

Thread I know has done IRL mixers/happy hours for their members.

There is something in the same spirit in Vancouver. Basically it is a dating site but you access the database by going to an upscale lounge rather than from home. It allows for verification of pictures, makes actually meeting easier, etc. It addresses a lot of the problems with traditional online dating.

Ed Diablo,

I think the level of integration of tech / computers into people's lives is likely higher in California so that would account for the difference. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of the population that is attractive just in general is likely higher than most places so that would carry on into online dating.

One of us is misunderstanding the other one. I don't think height is a big deal at all until it's a dealbreaker, but I do think relative height in a crowd matters more than absolute height. The shortest guy in a group is going to be at a disadvantage regardless of his height, the tallest guy at an advantage regardless of his height, and obviously charisma and confidence are infinitely more important than all of this.

I'm not going to comment on your 5'8 boyfriend being the perfect "hugging height", but I think you're misleading the males in this thread if you're suggesting other girls are putting a lot of thought and weight into that. You may well be looking forward to a "spooning fit" when you see a guy at a bar, but I doubt others are. The fact is, a 5'8 guy likely "fits" with a 5'4 girl better than I do, but she's still going to be (ceteris paribus) more attracted to me because I have more physical presence, and she's going to be more attracted still to the guy who is 6'2.

I think we can both agree this isn't a big deal and short guys can easily overcome this by demonstrating value in other ways. I am still skeptical that guys 5'5 and shorter can hook up with hot girls, but I don't really know any guys that short so take that fwiw.