Internet dating is a mixed bag. I've been doing it for a while and I've been doing fairly well lately. But there are lots of pitfalls. Here are tips and observations:
Quality is all over the place. Use your judgement. Most of the girls are going to be head-cases, flakers and oinkers. But there are some gems in there. Some quality women turn to the Internet because they don't meet good men at work or in bars. And they're also sick of the AFC crap they get from most online responses they get. Just with the DJ advice from this board you'll be ahead of most of the loser guys online.
Then again, I really haven't found what I've wanted online either. But it keeps me busy.
You absolutely have to get your shyt together for writing and posting your personal profile. I've discovered some crazy secrets about writing profiles that get responses. To avoid telling a dumb story, let's just say I once wrote a profile that I intended to never be seen and never get any responses, but to just get additional access to a site I was already registered to. That profile got multiple unsolicited responses per day and I got dates while I had to work for the attention that my legit profile on the same site got. I'll say I changed my plan pronto after that episode.
You have to keep your profile short and funny. Answer only a few of the questions, blow off the rest, and keep some of the answers C/F. It seems to be about mystery. They want the puzzle to figure out. If you dump out your guts about how wonderful you are, then there's nothing else to find out about you and no interest.
You really should have a good photo. The crappy, indoor, too-damn-dark photos will kill your chances. You need a friend to take your picture with a digital camera outside. Use a sunny day a couple hours before sunset for the sweet light. Get yourself near your car if it's nice. If there's a big, friendly dog around, use it! Do something candid with props that doesn't look posed, like getting into the car, hugging your dog, looking sideways toward the camera like a smartass, etc. This is seriously going to be the hardest part if you're not naturally photogenic. I'm not, but after a lot of effort I got something that works.
Burn though like a hundred photos and then pick the best two or three. Use photo editing software to crop them so they show your shoulders and face. Bump up the image gamma to about 1.7, change the image size to about 480x640 pixels, and save as a JPEG.
OK, now it's up to you to put in the time and effort to read all the profiles and send responses. The experimentation here never stops, but that's the fun part!
Send lots of responses, but keep them short, like two sentences or less. If you're getting replies to 10% of your letters, you need to change your technique. If you're getting 30-40%, that's great! More than 50-75% reply rate might be nearly phenomenal!
After a couple emails tell her you want to call her and talk on the phone. She'll send you digits if she's interested. If not, NEXT!
