If you are going to try an online dating site, I recommend OkCupid. Not for the potential dates or the experiences, but for how OkCupid embraces the fact that it is a dating site.
For example, your profile includes a list of “stalkers” or people who have “Recently Checked You Out.” Don’t let this description bug you though. Judging others’ pages through your virtual binoculars doesn’t make you a stalker.
And when you visit your inbox, you won’t find a normal message. You receive “An intimate message.” But I guess an OkCupid message is as intimate a message you can have with someone you are stalking online.
You don’t really need words to make that online connection though. Just click the WINK button to send your blinking eye to someone’s inbox.
But why send a message when you can instantly talk? Make that first interaction sooner with an instant message, which could actually be your first introduction to OkCupid.
Don’t let it bother you if you get too many IMs when you join. You can always turn the feature off if the messages start to annoy you. It’s the online version of a guy who awkwardly introduces himself and waits for you to say something interesting.
No matter what kind of message you get, you will have fun picking out which guys just look at your pictures and not reading your profile. Or which guys send the same generic message that dozens of other girls have also received. Most guys try to market themselves the best way they can because they want to stand out from the rest of the messages you receive. Sounds like a virtual bar on 6th Street, doesn’t it?
And don’t be turned off by how society’s gender roles for dating transfer to online dating. For example, when a friend met her boyfriend on a dating site, she told him that she almost contacted him before he messaged her. Surprised, he responded that he thought it was the guy’s job to do that.
On a dating site? I had assumed that an online dating situation would level the playing field and deviate from traditional dating practices. However, guys who use OkCupid say that they hardly get any messages from girls. And while, on average, there are two boys for every one girl on okcupid, this ratio does not account for the lack of messages.
Now that I have been on OkCupid for a few months, I have made a decision about online dating. While there is nothing wrong with trying to meet someone online, if I truly wanted to meet someone to date seriously, I wouldn’t join a dating site to meet him. I prefer meeting people in person instead of online.
I know it would be a cop-out, but I always want to just send a wink at various people. I never do though, ’cause I ignore people who send winks to me. I mean, if you can’t come up with something interesting to say, why bother? But I do <3 OK Cupid. Where else can I get suggestive emails from a 40-year-old married woman from Wales who wants to know if I'm naughty?