okcupid getting me depressed.

that triggers my gag reflex

So people just send you weird jokes?

Hmm... I wonder if that works... :-)

I would recommend not sending the kitty litter joke to women who have cats . I list the # of my cats on OKC, and OKC has pets question in the profile. So, check before you send the missive.

In response to the op, i would just go with your instincts - i don't really buy the whole busy thing. Most people have internet on their phones now it takes 2 minutes to respond to a message - how busy do you have to be? There are of course genuine reasons why people don't reply but if they were serious about the whole process, they should at least try and get back to you about why they can't be in touch at the moment. I'm not really sure dating sites work to be honest, the expectations are often too high and you can come across as desperate without this even being the case. Do you think maybe you're more interested in the idea of a romance? People can become obsessed with experiencing something they've never had before. If you can, spend more time going out into the real world and try to meet people through activities that YOU enjoy. Maybe then you'll get a better idea if it's something you really want in reality. Just my thoughts. Good luck.

Exactly, it was distasteful, considering my profile mentions having a cat.

I disabled the whole thing, for now. It wasn't off to any better start than those other sites.

And for what?! To have some random stranger, in his first message to me, say hey beautiful? Hmmm...wonder what he's going for.

There's better ways to meet people, at least for me there is. Thought I would check it out, for the sake of saying, yep, I looked into it. And though it's free to join, to me, it's another money grabbing scheme, if you want to upgrade, etc. I scrolled down, who had checked me out, checked out cities, profiles. Again, not my cup of tea.

Even if takes 2 minutes to respond to a message, the number of messages is too high. Most people have more than 50 emails a day at work and, I am sure, filter out OK cupid messages. I do not see them in the inbox - I auto-archive them. I get over 50-100 emails at work a day and 10-15 personal emails a day - that is more than enough. I am not even in a people managing position and those folks get more email and more interference. OKC emails, just as Facebook alerts all sort of other stuff that is overflowing there, are a type of interference/interrupt, and people intentionally auto-archive such emails because they are trying to focus (on work, life, whatever), and it is a known fact that in order to focus, you want to avoid interruption. Work email, IM at work, personal email are interrupting enough. So people auto-archive OKC, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Groups, and all the rest of that. The basic truth is that OKC messages are one type of information, and we live in the world of too much information, so there is competition for the attention of a person who is in the sea of information, and that is tough. Basically, OP is competing not just with other guys on OKC, but with the girls' facebook friends, etc.

It might not be so pronounced in OP's age bracket, but once you get to past college years, that is basically what it is - trying to compete with a lot of other priorities in somebody's life.

I meant just going onto the website and responding to any messages that way using either your phone/pc - is that not an option with OKC? If you can't go onto the website/inbox at work what about on your phone in your break? People have the evenings to do that sort of stuff too - i guess the point i was trying to make is that there is little excuse time wise for not responding to messages unless there is a pretty good reason for being out of the loop. But i feel this digresses from the point of this thread so that's as far as i'm taking it. I continue to wish the OP all the best.

I am sure a lot of people sign up while being unsure of what they want to do. Just in case and to see what comes out of it. Of course, for people who do know what they want, it is disappointing to see people who do not know what they want on the other end of messaging.

I think that's the likeliest reason.

yeah I dunno, all this speculating on why she never replied is starting to stress me out. It's funny, on one of my Okcupid photos I have a picture of me playing in my band, which just so happens our singer is one of this girls friends. She just noticed that right away and told me. So I'd figure wow, there's an in! She knows that her friend likes me as a friend so therefore I must be a good guy right? There's that connection there! oh well... guess it didn't mean much. I gave her my number, now it's up to her, but as for me. I've moving on. I'm trying to get with this cute 26 year old. But that's the thing, I feel like the age difference is a bit much. but then again, I have ALWAYS wanted to get with an older girl, so why not now?? She seems to like me and we text every day. I'll be honest though, I'm just nervous about meeting her in person. Never met someone like this before, through a dating site. I just hope it's not an awkward date and that she doesn't feel like she's hanging out with a kid... I really want to at least meet her before I go back to college. It's funny though, when I started ok cupid I wasn't necessarily looking for a serious relationship either, just a cute girl to talk to. If anything, what I'm looking for is just a cool girl to text on those lonely college friday nights where I'm home alone, not at a party, and just wanting to cuddle with someone. If I have no plans to go out, I would be more than happy just getting under the covers and texting her. Meeting her in person and actually knowing her though would make those texts a bit more meaningful though.

I think for OKCupid to work you need to be really patient. Not just in waiting for replies but in waiting for the right person to notice your profile and message.

I've used it recently but always get worried and take my profile down after a few days. That said I had 3 dates with someone a few weeks back and although it didn't go anywhere it was really good to get to know someone new even if it was only briefly.

It was strange actually - I'd sent loads of messages and got little or no response and then out of the blue, she messaged me and was OK with meeting up fairly soon. We decided in the end that we didn't have much in common (plus she was a few years younger than me and into clubbing and things which I'm not).

I'll probably use it again in the future but my self esteem is really fragile at the moment and I'm not putting myself through it right now. Online dating is mainly about rejection and waiting in my experience.

Here is a recommendation for you. I have not invented it, but I have seen people try to use it on me, and I think those people have a point.

Give your email or IM address to her. Give her a way to communicate with you off the Ok Cupid site.

I do not know if a girl your age would react the way I do because I am older, but to me, a person's willingness to become less anonymous (even if it is not an email address with a full last name) shows more interest, more confidence, and more seriousness.

I might be wrong, but at least it won't hurt. Just not on this girl - I am suggesting it as something you can try on new girls you contact.

What about if you met someone on OKC, have been on 5 dates, and communication goes cold randomly? She showed lots of signs of attraction / affection during ALL the dates, cuddling, kissing, hand holding in public, but now seems to have disappeared. What gives?

Sounds like she lost interest. Why? No idea. But it seems that her feelings have changed. When someone loses interest after a few messages-- or a few dates-- they don't really owe the other person an explanation. It just happens. It's a part of dating.

yeah most likely she lost interest. I'm happy though cause I think I have a date now! The one girl who has continuously been ignoring me seems like history now, but the 26 year old texted me the other day asking how I was. So after a bit of texting I asked if she wanted to hang out next week and she said yes!

Congratulations!

Enjoy yourself and take it easy and please do not have your hopes high because high hopes have a tendency to hurt a lot when they get crushed by reality.

Dating websites are like other forms of social interaction on the net in that there are not as many of the niceties that you get in normal public life. So rejection can be pretty abrupt there, but you get used it.

I'm on OKC and some women there have loooooooooooong profiles and they seem too into themselves. I could barely be bothered writing a paragraph, and in the end I just wrote some sarcastic answers. I listed one of my hobbies as 'eating turtles' for example.

I also think I answered a few questions about liking smart women because all my matches seem a lot more intelligent than I am, going by the cleverness of their written introductions.

I am well familiar with the problem of having too much to read because I graded a lot of papers, and so did my mother when I was little, and I knew her tricks. So I will give them to you.

If you are reading something that you do not want to read, but have to make an impression that you have read it, read just enough to be able to grasp at least one important detail, and message the woman writing about and building up on the associations that this detail evoked in you.

It creates an impression of thorough in-depth reading. As if you had read the whole profile whereas you did not.

The method is not foolproof.

One guy wrote to me giving me his gmail address, and I wrote to him via gmail. This is because his gmail address matched a google profile in which he had a picture of him with his lovely grandchildren (I get messages from guys 18-70 just to expand my horizons ), his musings on the legalization of marijuana and other political stuff, etc., and since I, as I said above, appreciate when people become non-anonymous, I chose him to write back to.

So he wrote to me... a lot.

And I responded to one of his many questions. I thought I would get away with it.

He called me on it:

"Thanks for that clarification.

Is that all you have to respond?

I think you are very attractive.

What do you like to do for exercise?"

***

but normally, guys do not call me on this tactic.

It could be that ALL the women will call you on this tactic, and/or not return your messages.

So I do not know if this would work with women... just offering as a workaround, because, of course, I understand how boring it is to read profiles, rolled eyes!

Well, if you like smart women, then why wouldn't you like a longer profile?

Now what constitutes being 'too into themselves'? Does that involve being self-assured enough to list information about themselves? Or do they really come across as self-absorbed and not interested in others? Is there a difference?

Maybe, that was my issue with these dating sites. I can write several paragraphs without batting an eyelash, yet, the responses lacked depth.

There is a very good reason that the responses lack depth. Basically guys get responses from about 5% of the women they write messages to. And that is if they actually take the time to write out a lengthy detailed response. It ends up not being worth the effort.

And that's why, I don't bother with these dating sites. It was at the suggestion of my therapist, that I gave it a try.

This reinforces, why I left.

I took the trouble to write a profile, that defines who I am. And if a man, isn't willing to take that effort based upon the information, in front of them. Then, I don't need that type of man, in my life, do I?

I feel so weird right now. I am just so torn as to whether I should go on a date with this girl. The age difference is sort of bothering me. I'm 20 and she is 26. I don't get why I am feeling this way. I have ALWAYS wanted to get with an older girl, if even just to be friends, and I really want to meet her.. it's just that the age gap is sort of intimidating for me. I mean I'm still in college and she already has a masters degree. She knows my age, and still seems to be interested in me, so I guess age doesn't matter for her if she's still texting me. Should this be bothering me? Am I doing something wrong? I just don't know what we would do on a date, or if hanging out. I'd feel like a little kid, like she were a baby sitter or something. Like how much could we relate with each other? Like I just feel it might make her feel like she is chaperoning me or something like that. ughh... Part of me wants to meet her very much, and the other part just wants to run away as fast as I can, delete her contact, and just forget everything and hide. One thing I know for certain though. If I chicken out and run away, I know for a FACT 100% GUARANTEED I will regret. Absolutely NO doubt in my mind about that. When I look back on this summer, once already back at college, I would think. wow. why did I ever let that opportunity go... I messed up big time... I want to look back on this summer and think wow. I met an amazing girl this summer. And just smile. Even if we just remain friends I want to meet her. And with the whole age gap thing, I don't get it. I have ALWAYS wanted to get with/be friends with an older girl. Why is it just that I am 20 that makes this weird? For ANY age of mine it would be the same. Older girl implies age gap. Why can't I just be comfortable about this...

You need to picture yourself being 60 and her being 66. At that age, your age difference will disappear.

Age gaps are relative to absolute age.

Say, when I was a teenage girls, several boys were in love with me who were about 5 years younger than me. I realized that they were in love with me, but did nothing other than being nice to them because it was not actionable (one of them is currently a friend of mine via infrequent correspondence, and another is a VERY close friend of mine via frequent correspondence).

Now, if I meet a guy 5 years younger than me and we somehow click, I would act on it because at my current age a 5-year-age-gap is not a showstopper. But between a teenage girl and a boy 5 years younger than her, the 5-year-age-gap was a showstopper.

What gives you cold feet now, btw, is not "age gap" but "status gap" - she has a Master's degree and you are still in college.

Just making sure you understand what is going on.

hmm maybe it is the status thing. I really want a masters degree, so I guess that might just be making me feel inferior. It also kind of takes a shot at my ego. I mean, I'm not athletic, not extroverted, not smooth, so really intellect is really what I have to go off of, and just still being in college compared to her is making me feel inferior. I feel like she shouldn't even be wasting her time with me, even though I KNOW I am intelligent and that if she got to know me she would really like me. Like that I know, I'm pretty likeable. So I'm just hoping she doesn't see me as inferior.