Online Dating Mistakes Men Make That Put Women Off

Online Dating Mistakes Men Make That Put Women Off

In general, there are more men dating online than there are women. So if you are a man trying to find love online, you will want to make sure you’re going about things the right way.
Although there are no failsafe written rules for online dating, there are certain unwritten etiquette rules that are advisable to follow if you want to get the best result out of your online dating experience.
Below is a list of ten things that are likely put women off dating you online.

No picture

Women (and men, for that matter) like to know who they are talking to. Having no picture makes women think you have something to hide. This could be anything from bad looks to already being married. Don’t worry about your looks, different people have different tastes. However, having no picture up would make women imagine the worst, even if, in reality, they would actually find you attractive. A clear headshot of you smiling says you are genuine, friendly and serious about finding someone.

Naked pictures

It’s hard to believe that this needs saying at all, but some men choose to upload nude pictures of themselves to websites rather than headshots. This is acceptable behaviour on adult-themed dating sites where people are generally only after sex, but on all other sites this causes annoyance, if not distress. Even people who specify they are interested in casual relationships are not likely to respond favourably to naked pictures. Unless you are certain this kind of behaviour is acceptable on the site, don’t do it.

Accusing tone

People who have had bad dating experience occasionally try and protect themselves from being hurt by writing a profile warning off “undesirables”. Obviously, no one likes having their time wasted by the wrong kind of people, but filling large parts of your profile with references to the sort of people you don’t want to meet can make you sound unapproachable, unfriendly or even paranoid. Saying things like “no time wasters” are unnecessary -- no sane woman would sit in front of the computer and think “I feel like wasting someone’s time today”. The only thing a statement like that would do is make you sound impatient and demanding. Phrases like “no fat chicks”, “no old hags” etc. would make you sound rude and offensive and make most women stay away, regardless of their age and shape. Instead, concentrate on positive aspects of who you would like to meet.

List of demands

Be careful of turning your profile into a long list of demands. While it’s good to include information about your ideal woman, don’t let it turn into a ransom note. Always include information about yourself in your profile and if you have high expectations from your potential mate, it’s good to complement them with details about your own qualities so that you don’t come across as arrogant and fussy. For example, a phrase like “I go to the gym 4-5 times a week and take care of my body, so I want to meet women who take care of theirs” sounds much better than “I want to meet fit women”.

Going on about your ex

Your online dating profile is not the place to go on about your past dating failures. It’s a place to show your optimistic, hopeful side that is ready to move on. Don’t fill it up with details about how bad your break-up was, how nasty your ex was and how you think all women are out to get you. You won’t be doing yourself any favours.

Boasting

There is a fine line between describing your finer details and showing off. Going over the top with describing how great you are will only make women think you are arrogant and full of yourself. Be particularly careful of anything sexual, including describing body parts or how good you are in bed. Most women wouldn’t believe it anyway and would be immediately put off.

Asking for sex

Unless you are on an adult-themed site, you are unlikely to get anywhere by messaging women and asking for sex straight away. Obviously, there are some exceptions, such as when a woman has specified on her profile that she is looking for sex as well. Otherwise, it’s best to be more polite. Depending on the site you are using, it may be acceptable to say in your profile that you are looking for sex, though different sites will have different levels of tolerance to such requests. On mainstream sites, it’s best to keep such information to a minimum, without going into any graphic descriptions.

Empty profiles

Women will probably not bother contacting you if your profile contains no information about yourself. Put the effort in and make sure you say enough to make them interested. It’s worth spending the time to do this properly as the amount of responses you will get will significantly rise.

Jealousy and possessiveness

When starting to communicate with women online, don’t act like you’re married straight away. Demanding to know where your new friend is every time she is not speaking to you is not likely to make her want to stick around. Let things develop at their natural pace without being too pushy.

Acting Desperate

It’s somehow hard to gauge the different between acting cool and acting distant and the difference between being affectionate and being overly-eager. Still, sometimes it’s best to err on the side of caution and not flood your new match with over the top romantic behaviour. Turning up to a casual first date with a giant bouquet of flowers is an example of over-eagerness. If you like someone, do let her know, but again, don’t expect her to commit to marrying you after a single phone call or date.

BONUS : Online Dating – My First Time

Okay. I’ll take a look, but I’m not saying that I’m going to participate in online dating just yet. I’ve heard the success stories and the horror stories about online dating, but I do not have any first hand experience to share with you on the topic.

What I plan to do in this article is take you with me while I explore the different online dating services available on the web. Brace yourself and buckle your seatbelt, I’m going to try something I saw in a cartoon.

Just kidding. That’s something I like to say to the passengers in my car just before I start to drive. Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m having dating problems in the first place.

Okay, the first website I discovered says it’s a “free” online dating service. Online, red flags always go up for me when someone says that magic word, “free”. But, let’s take a closer look.

Well, it sounds good. It says it is, “an internet dating service that provides a comfortable and intimate environment where you can safely and conveniently search and find your perfect soul mate, while having lots of fun. Thousands of dating ads of singles that are looking for dating romance, intimacy and friendship is available for you to browse through. Your ideal companion might be among them. (site name deleted) brings dating to new frontiers, making impossible, possible!”

I’m having a little trouble with the comfortable and intimate environment thing. They haven’t seen the room my computer sits in. Safe and convenient sounds nice though. But if the website is just a lot of personal ads, can’t I just get something like that at my local news stand or in my local newspaper?

I think I’ll move on and take a look to see if there are online dating services that provide more than dating advice and personal ads.

Hmm, now I find myself on an online dating website that claims to be the biggest online dating service on the web. It has a big picture of Dr. Phil on the front. Almost scared me away, but I’ll tough it out and stay to see what they offer.

Here is what they say, “Looking for more in a relationship and a dating site? With over 10 years of experience in online dating and relationships, (site name deleted) is the worldwide leader in online dating and relationships. Where else can you find millions of singles looking for love, just like you? We don't offer just online personals, we are personal in our offerings - to help you find a date, a relationship, a marriage.

Whoa! Marriage? I said I might try online dating. I never said anything about marriage! And now I have the mental image of “millions of singles looking for love”. Wow! Millions. Okay, so they sound big, but what do they actually offer?

Well, first off, they don’t really tell you much about the services they provide. Just a lot of information about the millions who have gotten married through their online dating service. So I bit the bullet and went to the sign up form to learn more.

Now comes the money question. $29.95 for a month or I can get discounts for longer memberships. Then there is the Dr. Phil MindFindBind program that costs more. Now I’m laughing because since I am checking the online dating service out while typing this article, I evidently have waited too long to make my decision because a popup just came up to offer me assistance with making up my mind.

They do have some free services, but those are basically, create a profile, look at profiles, etc. That’s just like the free services on the first online dating website. You have to pay for the ability to actually respond to any emails sent to you by other members or block members or to see which members have taken a peek at your profile. That all sounds okay, but if you go for the whole Dr. Phil package you get an online dating tutorial, a video about online dating, online dating workshops, and online dating advice. Wow!

Well, as I said, I haven’t decided just yet, so we are going to check out one more online dating website together. Okay, this one is free. They have a patent pending on their matchmaking idea. They calculate your matchability in percentages.

The online dating method they use goes like this, “When you answer a question in our improve matches area we learn: (1) your answer, (2) how you'd like someone else to answer, and (3) how important the question is to you. We collect these three values for all users.

Your match percentage with a given person on (site name deleted), let's call him b, is based on the values of (1), (2),and (3) for questions you've both answered. We'll call that set S later in this explanation:” Wow! I thought that just regular dating was complicated.

I think I’m going to keep checking out more online dating websites until I find the one that is right for me. So far, the ones we just toured have been too much like personal ads, too expensive, too Dr. Phillish for my tastes, or too complicated. I’m sure though, just like finding the right date, there is an online dating website out there for me and one for you too!

I encourage you to at least try online dating. But don’t stop at the first online dating service you find, just like hopefully you wouldn’t stop at the first singles bar you saw. Check out as many as you need to in order to find the online dating service that is right for you.