Just joined a couple of days ago. I have a decent profile going, 3 pics, 25 questions (hate doing these), and 2 tests.

The first couple of days I just sent out a ton of messages: ~40 were specific to the person, but the last ~15 were generic ones.

I only got 2 responses, and 1 who opened me. I didn't respond to the first one (Wasn't really interested in the first place), the second one (HB7) and the one who opened me (HB8) bounced back a few messages, but they both ended with my message being the last - which is disappointing.

Here are excerpts, I want to know where I'm going wrong.
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Response 1:
(Note: She mentioned a love for Art History and weed in her profile)
Me: You sound interesting, who's your favorite artist? Top 3 if you can't choose one.
HB7: caravaggio
M: I'm a fan of tenebrism as well. I like Rembrandt, but Dali is probably my favorite. Did you know that weed temporarily suppresses the left hemisphere of the brain so you can appreciate art more?
HB7: i also love the 15th and 16th century netherlandish painters. i like modern stuff too though. it's hard for me to pick a favorite contemporary artist
HB7: wait, is that fact true? that's so cool.
do you study art?
Me: Yep, it's true. I don't study art, but I took a few classes here and there. I'm a man of science - biochem major.

---
Maybe "yep" wasn't the right word, and maybe biochem set the nerd alert off. Who knows...

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Opening 1:
(Note: She has "You're a dreamer" in her "message me if you're..." section of her profile)
HB8: Hey, you're cute. what's going on?
Me: So are you. Dreaming's better when it becomes reality.
HB8: thanks yes, this is true. so have you met anyone from this site yet? funny stories?
Me: Nope. I actually just created this profile a few days ago. What about you?

---
"Nope" again? Being an OKcupid virgin? What gives?


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So, what do you guys think?

EDIT: I'm also 22, and in my senior year at school. I'm afraid this is a turn-off, because most of the girls I've messaged are older than me (mid 20's and higher).

I use the site all the time and actually went on a date from someone I met on the site last night. I can tell you that the problem is the way you have worded your messages you need to elaborate a bit more to give her something to respond on, and to also change the subject or ask questions so you don't run out of things to talk about.

Let's go with your second interaction you posted.

HB8: I see that like me you're a dreamer! I don't know what it is in my makeup but I've always been that way to some degree. Do you take criticism for not being more "grounded"? Also, have you ever been in class and just completely space out for almost the entire class? Just curious, I saw your profile thought you were cute, and wanted to see what you're like.

Something like that would give her more to talk about and you are also establishing a few things. #1 is that you are like her and like to daydream which instantly builds some rapport. #2 you are asking questions to further the conversation. #3 That you find her interesting, and attractive pure interest statements. #4 Telling her flat out that you want to learn more about her. It doesn't get much more clear than this.

I think you have the right idea you just need to expand on your answers, tell stories, give her extra information about you, give her stuff to comment on, ask questions to further the conversation as well.

_________________
Been around the world twice, Talked to everyone once...

Hi zeitgeist909,

you said you had mailed the girls and then did a few messages. Over what sort of time period? And any more specific figure than a few'

I know sometimes these mails add up without realising it. I once mailed a girl and I swear if you asked me how many mails I'd sent to her I would have said 4 or 5, but on checking I'd done over 12. The reason for mentioning this is that if you're doing too many mails and not progressing things there's the danger of it falling into the cyber-penfriend thing. It's a possibility that those girls do NOT want it to remain online only and think YOU are keeping it online. Does that make sense?

If you haven't done so already I would advise you to send messages/mails to the girls that have not responded. Give it a minimum 3 day gap from your last posting date to them. You could write that you're a bit perplexed that they haven't replied and you got the impression they were on the site to meet people. I always mention about being busy and offer a chance to re-connect. Keep it short and sweet.

Interesting that you got a girl contacting you first. I've never had much success with OkCupid, though I have to say for my country Switzerland it is very limited anyway.

Out of curiousity would you know if the 2 replies you did get were from the personalised opener mail or the generic one?

I will work out how to do multiquotes properly one day!

"HB8: thanks yes, this is true. so have you met anyone from this site yet? funny stories?
Me: Nope. I actually just created this profile a few days ago. What about you?"

I think this signals that you're not desirable. If I'm correct there's no real way to find out when a profile has been created on OC, so I would have stretched the truth a teeny bit here. To avoid lying you could have deliberately misinterpreted her line mentioning funny stories and told her ANY funny story not even about dating.

I think you need to work on your opening mails/messages , about 60 with just 2 replies seems low. I think you just need to find a good opening style and stick with it. I would assume your profile is good to merit an unsolicited contact.

I for one don't know how you found so many attractive girls on OKCupid.

_________________
Slept On Rappers
http://hiphoprising.blogspot.com

Nice, thanks for the replies everyone.

Jsmooth: Expanding seems like a great idea, but I just have the habit of answering one-sentence wit with one-sentence wit. I feel that expanding too soon will make me lose my edge. But it does make sense from a specialization point of view, and girls like to feel like you're genuinely interested in them out of all of the others on OKC. Noted.

skypirate1965: I only sent girls messages through OKC, and this was over a 5-day period. I joined about 5 days ago, and you can see this on my profile. So hopefully, she was able to see that on my profile instead of thinking that I'm undesirable.

I only bounced back the number of messages I've posted here, the rest never responded. I will give it 3 days and then try again, this time showing more interest.

It is interesting that she contacted me first, she's pretty hot too so I definitely want to try to work this out. I really hope she isn't a spambot...

The replies I got were from the specialized opener. I only tried the generic one because that's what the HB8 used on me - funny how much of a contrast the effect has between genders.

_Manna_: There are some attractive girls on OKC, I was actually surprised. But they usually reply "very selectively" which means good luck!

---

Do you guys think age is an issue here. Some of the girls I message are 25+. I'm 22. I looked around at some profiles of other men, and they seem to be much older (27ish) with full-time jobs and fully cosmopolitan lifestyles. Should I keep it to the younger women? Or the fringe 23-24 age group?

Absolutely not, if you're attracted to older women then you go for older women regardless of your competition. I'am 20 years old and attracted to older women. Despite not being able to get into any bars and most "decent" clubs I still go for 21yrs+ plus gals, even on the internet. Even when they have notes that plainly say "only x age guys should message me." We all know if the right guy walks into her life its a done deal.

Do not let the "Very Selective" notes, ignore it! Most women, especially the very attractive ones get tons of emails from loser-AFCs. Usually its the typical "Hey" or "Baby lets fuck" and those emails get ignored. The less reponses these women put out the higher their OKC thingy goes i.e Often, Selective, VERY Selective...

This isn't always true though, I have come across a few women who are insanely unrealistic about what they're looking for.


I hope this helps.

Hope this helps

Holy shit. I created a recon profile a couple of hours ago with a really hot latina woman's pic, and I got 28 messages in about 5 hours. There are some serious skeeviness going on. Every message said "you're beautiful, let's hang out" or "you're REALLY pretty" and that's it. Then there were the "are you spam?" and "are you real?" ones. Wow.

I even got IM'ed by a couple of people talking to me. It was definitely hard to handle all of this at once, and I definitely felt their anxiousness as I didn't respond fast enough. It was also really hard to say "no" without them acting like "what a snotty bitch.."

I have learned more from this recon profile than ~20 yrs. of feeling this shit out as a guy. Wow is all I have to say. It must suck to be a hot girl, but be amazing at the same time. Like a celebrity. You are highly valued in society, but everyone wants a piece and they don't care about any other facet of your personality.

With that said, I know now what NOT to say. Oh and never, ever wink. Ever.

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Oh, I know it may be a stretch, but is it possible to turn this as an opener? The "i created a fake profile with a hot girl's photo, and now i know what you're going through" opener? What do you guys think?

Ok I was too lazy to nip on to OC to check. I still think you have to be very careful how that question is answered though
Reminders seem like an AFC thing to do but, you'll realise that most men do not bother to do this. It does work but don't expect everyone to reply. I wish I had kept some stat on my reminders. Expect about 1 in 10 to reply - low but at least they are game-able again.[/quote]

I may have to try more personalised mails on OC when I start to get back to online game in about a months time
As LaVitaèBreve just ignore those sort of things. Unless you're physically blocked just proceed.

--- By all means game the girls you're attracted to WHATEVER their age. However I would add be prepared for minimal responses. At your age I think the social conditioning is SO strong you'll have a hard time breaking through it.Not impossible but hard. That's one of the advantages of being older is that people are more flexible on the age of their 'partner'

Firstly, do NOT use that as an opener. In fact it's wise to make no mention of recon profiles at all. Quite a few times women have asked me in their responding mail how I knew they were getting the lame emails - foolishly I revealed too much and never heard from them again. Girls/women even online like to think it is down to fate rather than some mechanical process.

I think creating a recon profile is the first and best step you can make in online game.It's good but sneaky fun too! Sometimes the responses are so lame it's laughable.

Yes a recon profile is very enlightening. On one hand it's good to see just how lame most of the mails men are sending, however on the other hand it can be a bit demoralising...when I ran mine I had lots of mails and I was tempted just to delete them all. I could easily see girls getting overwhelmed by it and doing the same. I have heard an audio about online dating and one 'guru' said that a lot of girls join sites and they do NOT respond to mails. Some sort of psychological block or just big anxiety using online sites.

On the site I used my recon profile kept getting men trying to chat with me. I did indulge a few times just to see what sort of thing they'd write. Most don't know what to say and would be better writing an email. A few just come on too sexual too fast. The occasional 'good' ones can handle conversation ok but it's aimless and they easily mess up shit tests. Funnily I had guys keep trying to chat despite the fact that I just ended the chats with no warning. One guy got very abusive and even as a man I found it a bit sickening. One guy who mailled had a passport or prison id sort of photo and looked a bit scary. He mailled 5 times, with no response, and each time he got more scary. The last mail was in ALL CAPS. I was a bit freaked by it so I can imagine how girls would feel.

Shit, thats crazy. I've never made a recon profile, looks like theres a lot I can learn from that.

Sorry, I am an idiot, but I just created a profile there this week, and I have no idea what a recon profile is or how to create one. I would guess just a second profile you use to find stuff out? Let me know thanks.

Create a female profile with fake pics of some random chick. Learn from the lame messages AFCs send you. I'm sure there is more to it though..

Hmm. Alright, here's an update. I realized that a lot of the girls I've messaged have been visiting my profile, but I wasn't getting any responses from them. So I figured my profile was at fault. I checked through this forum's database for profile feedback, and realized that my profile was way too vague. I knew this since I first created it, but now from the hot female's perspective, if you have a torrential amount of people messaging you and vying for your attention, not only does your message have to stand out but so does your profile. I had no sticking points to my profile, no memorable quips or quotes or attitude.

I changed it, it's a lot better now. Perhaps it still needs work, but I'll change it time to time as I see fit. But right now, I just wish I could get some of those old visitors back.

As for the messages, I'd still like some advice on openers. I usually find something that their interested in, a band, a topic, a person, and tell them an interesting fact about them or a link. I passed all the "name the artist on my tattoo" shit tests and all of that stuff. But still, very minimal responses. Some responses are from girls that I am not too terribly interested in, but I still game them for practice of course.

Overall, I'm a little disenchanted with OKC. I've had it for a week, I know, but with the volume of messages I sent out it seems like it won't be a worthwhile pursuit unless I keep at it with similar levels of intensity. What do you guys think?

Edit:

Well, I just need a better idea of how often these girls respond from the members here. I think I may just have unrealistic expectations for a dating site. I'll do some more reading around here.

Edit 2:

Wow, I'm getting more and more responses. Updating my profile was a great idea! It makes perfect sense. You send whomever a nice witty message to stand out from the rest of the guys, so they naturally click on your image to see what you're all about. Then bam, complete and utter awesomeness. I can't believe it took me so long to figure this out. Thank God for this forum.

That's basically it. make the profile of the type of girl you are looking for. Obviously take a few precautions like lift details from other sites, preferably from another state or country. Always run it under a free trial basis. I wouldn't advise replying to any mails or chats you receive. I was a crazy masochist when I did that! Oh set up a free email account for this recon profile as volumes of mail can be large. Run the profile for as long as freely possible. Frankly within 1 week you'll have more than enough mails. Do not be surprised how bored you will get reading through them. You'll see why girls love a good mail

In my opener mail I typically have 1 sentence only about the girls profile and is usually something about their ambitions or dreams. I almost repeat exactly what they said, slightly rephrased. I've noticed that when I try commonalities on things like music it never seems to work - I have a feeling it comes across as 'try hard' - even if you do like the same band etc!

Always scan their profile text for their actual name - some hide it in there - and it's useful to use that.

Ok if it helps heres a few stats from a recent foray on OkCupid.

17 messages sent. 10 replies. Please note that I sent follow-up reminder mails to get that level of response.

Ok now qualities of response. 5 which appeared to be just interested in online chat or whatever - timewasters. One of them got pissed off when I said email tennis was for anti-social geeks!
1 who seemed if she was aware of the Game and she got pissed off with my sense of humour
1 who never provided a decent picture when I requested it.
1 who said shes interested in meeting but never replied to my follow up suggesting a meet
1 who I cannot decide if she's boring, shy or what - as she's replied with hardly anything - I'll give her the benfit of the doubt
and finally 1 who seems as if she would be interested in some sort of casual sexual relationship - hopefully she's for real

So for me it's only 2 halfway worthwhile girls. So in terms of stats I'll be lucky to meet 1 girl through nearly 30 mails (if you include the reminders)

I'm convinced that okCupid is mainly used by girls who just like to do online chat and all those weird tests. Real life meeting is not on their agendas. The only other site I found worse for this is Friendster but at least the name gives it away. That site was terrible for meeting anyone, I think I had 4 replies to about 100 mails. But funnily I did meet 1 of the 4 girls