Bizarre Internet Dating #3 - The New Batch

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

I'm madly in love with my girl and she is madly in love with me.

YES MAN. NICE ONE

Not many really, and it's even more difficult on Bumble when the woman has to reply first. Actually, I don't think I've had any matches on Tinder recently.

Well keep at it pal, it's all worth it. Maybe try a different profile pic? It's easy-ish to make yourself stand out even if you're not particularly a looker (not saying you aren't it's just that by keeping this wide it can bring hope even to hideous freaks)
Here is what I do on my profile that averages 1-2 matches per desparate swiping-till-the-free-version-limit-gets-reached:

1. Take off my glasses
2. Sexy eyebrows (just normal eyebrows I think)
3. I wear a red jumper

Hope that helps :)

[Gwen Taylor on ITV]

Jump on the news bandwagon and put a picture of Brucie as your profile.  Have some 'banter'.  Share some 'banter'.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

Sorry, dunno why I'm putting this in bizarre internet dating, but I guess there's no 'conventional internet dating' thread

[Ambient Sheep]

It's all pointless.

[WesterlyWinds]

Yeah - WE ALL DIE ALONE

[Birdie]

Bump.

Was walking back with an older colleague who was widowed 6 years ago and remarried 3 years ago. She met him through a dating site. Suggested I give it ago. On Friday night I registered - no photo, no profile, literally the only thing there is my age, location and orientation. Been messaged three times already. Why would people do that?

Other questions- why don't some guys smile in their photo? Why do people choose weird names?

I'm on the free version at the moment of course though - maybe things are less odd when you upgrade to 'gold'.

[Twed]

Other questions- why don't some guys smile in their photo?

Why should they? Smiling in a photograph isn't a natural thing to do for absolutely everybody. For some people it's weird and fake and troubling.

Why do people choose weird names?

I don't know, Birdie.

[Birdie]

Why should they? Smiling in a photograph isn't a natural thing to do for absolutely everybody. For some people it's weird and fake and troubling.

Well, not actively frowning rather than smiling. 

[Icehaven]

For years I only saw you frown,
I thought it just your style.
I won't forget
the day I met
the horror of your smile.

Or are they concentration frowns? Like you do at work when your boss walks past because you think it makes you look busy, like you must be doing or at least thinking about something serious and productive. Maybe they want you to think they're serious and productive, or they want you to be their boss, or at least make you think they want you to be their boss, or that they want you to think that they want to impress you as if you were their boss. Or they're just frowns of confusion. I'm sorry I haven't slept much. Maybe this will be more use;
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/mid-life-ex-wife

Good luck.

[Z]

Why do people choose weird names?

In the case of okcupid at least, this is heavily down to a limited range of characters being allowed and an absolute fuckton of old disabled profiles.
Regardless of where it is, don't pay too much attention to the names unless it's something repellent without any ambiguity.

As for frowning. Not great but nbd, I could smile in a selfie and totally misrepresent myself, you should be looking for social photos instead 

Also also, the kind of men who message photoless profiles are presumably a kind of low self esteem bottom feeder trying to catch new people before they realise they have options. Would you message someone with no photo?

[Paul Calf]

It's called 'smeyesing' or 'smizing' apparently, and is a selfie trend embraced by the vacuous and the vain. An evolution of the Trout Pout.

https://fashionista.com/2010/11/if-tyra-only-knew-what-smize-really-means

Probably best avoided.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Been messaged three times already. Why would people do that?

Hoping you'll reply and go on a date

Yes, you have no photo and no profile but some people just hammer through every live account until they get a reply, like it's telesales.

[bgmnts]

I gave up on online dating last week, after about 5 years of exclusively online dating, bar one odd affair.

If you're an ugly man it's a very toxic experience. I wouldn't advise it. I was considering going for the match.com thing as I reckon most people are timewasters, don't think I will though.

[Ferris]

I don't want to be a miserable cunt but I'm really glad it worked out for everyone (when it did), but I'd be fucking shit at all this.

[Repeater]

Thanks, it's going amazingly for us.

Why don't you think it'd work for you?

[BlodwynPig]

It's called 'smeyesing' or 'smizing' apparently, and is a selfie trend embraced by the vacuous and the vain. An evolution of the Trout Pout.

https://fashionista.com/2010/11/if-tyra-only-knew-what-smize-really-means

Probably best avoided.

Just popped in to say why does that article repeat the first paragraph in the second paragraph like an American TV show "here's a recap of what you've just seen"

[Ferris]

Thanks, it's going amazingly for us.

Why don't you think it'd work for you?

I've been with my partner since 2010 (before the rise of the machines) so never learned the knack. Maybe I'd be good at it?

[Paul Calf]

Just popped in to say why does that article repeat the first paragraph in the second paragraph like an American TV show "here's a recap of what you've just seen"

I think it's an overlong pull-out. Probably auto-generated.

[Ferris]

Just popped in to say why does that article repeat the first paragraph in the second paragraph like an American TV show "here's a recap of what you've just seen"

An unacceptable oversight by some two-bit subeditor. I expect the highest levels of proofreading in my fashion articles about obscene definitions.

[Z]

Got an email there saying okcupid are changing their messaging system
You now will only receive messages into your inbox of people you either matched with or have already messaged. All other messages stay on the person's profile until either you view their profile or match with them.



Beyond confusing to me so I can't imagine what it's like for people who don't spend way too much time trying to figure out the motives behind UX designs.

[imitationleather]

Got an email there saying okcupid are changing their messaging system
You now will only receive messages into your inbox of people you either matched with or have already messaged. All other messages stay on the person's profile until either you view their profile or match with them.



Beyond confusing to me so I can't imagine what it's like for people who don't spend way too much time trying to figure out the motives behind UX designs.

Weird. Is that to curb the people who just spam every woman on the site with the same "RAT OUT PICS PLZ ;-)" message?

[Z]

I'd imagine so, but wouldn't an easier way of doing that be something like only letting you message X number of new people every 24 hours or something?

It's just a bizarrely ran site. The one thing they had going for them following the emergence of tinder and the like was that they offered a more longform approach to the whole thing. Instead of focusing on that, they doubled down on their own tinder type feature, as if fixated by the fact they had it first.

[Isnt Anything]

its simply match.com doing their own version of microsofts 'embrace extend extinguish' policy ever since match bought okc some years ago its been slowly fucked up ever since

[DArtagnan]

i was taking to that girl on tinder again for an hour or so last night. i should ask her on a date or something but i'm too much of a pussy and she's too pretty anyway it'd never work oh christ

Jesus H. Christ, where did it all go so wrong?
I used to walk through the door of "The Red Cow" in Pages Walk, Bermondsey, SE London around 9.15 p.m. any Friday, by 9.45 I had usually scored, by 11.30 p.m. we'd be in Southsides, Tower Bridge Road having a late one, then after that it would be her place or mine, or maybe it would go tits up, and I'd just get her number.
Saturday, rinse and repeat, all you needed was what any Bermondsey boy had in the eighties and nineties, bags of confidence, more front than Brighton, and a few quid he didn't mind spending.
Just noticed that I'm quoting a 2016 post, hope he overcame his diffidence.

[Dex Sawash]

quoting a 2016 post, hope he overcame his diffidence.

It would be our loss if he had

[chocky909]

Are you one of those people that can't understand that other people are DIFFERENT to them? So you found it easy to pick up women and this guy doesn't but what's your solution? Just describing what you do and then saying "DO THAT!" isn't fucking helpful.

Also, I'm sure there were plenty of shy guys like 'kittens' in the 80s and 90s before Tinder existed and probably loads of them in Bermondsey too. I doubt you noticed them. Too busy 'avin' it large I expect.

[DArtagnan]

Are you one of those people that can't understand that other people are DIFFERENT to them? So you found it easy to pick up women and this guy doesn't but what's your solution? Just describing what you do and then saying "DO THAT!" isn't fucking helpful.

Also, I'm sure there were plenty of shy guys like 'kittens' in the 80s and 90s before Tinder existed and probably loads of them in Bermondsey too. I doubt you noticed them. Too busy 'avin' it large I expect.

On the not unreasonable assumption that this is aimed in my direction, because I find it hard to understand how anyone thinks it is difficult, or is uneasy at establishing a rapport with someone that they may be attracted to in a pub, bar, party, whatever, how am I the villain of the piece because it was second nature to me as a younger man?
How is it not helpful?
I'm saying this is how easy it is, give it a whirl.
My hand to God, I have absolutely no idea of what a 'kitten' is, or was, in Bermondsey or anywhere else in the 80s or 90s, my best guess, and here I should maybe apologise, is that a 'kitten' is like a 'twink', some kind of young gay man?
Maybe a 'kitten' is a description of someone non assertive, I honestly don't know, I've never heard the term before.
You're probably right in assuming that I didn't notice them, I had no idea that they existed, but I wasn't busy having it large, I was just spending my weekends like most blue collar Bermondsey guys, dockers, stevedores, printers, Black Cab drivers, like myself, I was out on the town, opening with innocuous lines, staying just outside a young woman's comfort zone, and eventually, hopefully, segueing into a non threatening conversation with them, that led who knows where.
So perhaps you're right, I was, and still am one of those people who didn't realise that there were guys who find it difficult to talk to, and establish a rapport with women, it's hardly rocket science.

[Danger Man]

is that a 'kitten' is like a 'twink', some kind of young gay man?

Exactly.

[steve98]

Kittens/SimperSids/Geri-gerbils/Bum-fluffers... all the same thing.

[Isnt Anything]

Hello bridge my old friend I've come to look underneath you again.

no it doesnt scan but fuck it


or may be this is just a genuine bizarre culture clash