Question for you gents out there, and looking for some feedback...

When I first started gaming, it was right before Tinder about 5 years ago. A newly single female friend suggested I sign up on OkCupid and just go on a bunch of dates. This ended up actually being good advice, but not in the way she thought it would.

At first, I was getting dates here and there with random 5s and 6s. Started to get some decent bangs. At least a few a month. Kyle Trouble's book on Cracking OkCupid was very helpful about how to spam out funny messages, only have two pictures, and create a profile that's just "every girl." (You want to go camping but also be fancy, you like eating out, but you like staying in, you love to travel blah blah blah). I completely missed the Tinder boat, but OkC was sufficient for adding a couple new ones into the mix here and there, so I didn't see the need.

As time goes on, I get "player burnout." I'd started to get fat from eating out too much, drinking too much, and skipping the gym to meet some girl who'd bore me on my dime. Sounds great.

At this point, my rolodex is pretty full, I prefer creeping in person, and my social circle game is on point. Gradually, I completely dumped meeting girls online, because I can just as easily approach them in a taco joint. Plus, given that I'm short, I found that online dating doesn't play to my strengths. The hotter girls have to see me "doing my thing" in person.

Nevertheless, this month I was bored, so I decided to fire up OkCupid. There are like 10 girls on there - there used to be way more. None of them return my messages, which is odd, because my profile hasn't changed much in years.

So I call a buddy of mine, a poon hound for the ages, who says it's al about Tinder now. Pulls all kids of tail from there apparently. Seems easy enough, swipe on chicks who are decent looking and hope for matches.

Nothing.

So, here are my questions...

1. Is OkCupid dead? Or is online all just Tinder now? I just like OKC. It's easy, it's corny, and I find that the interface works well. I hate stuff that is app based, because I'm getting calls and text messages literally all day, all of which interrupt the app (and no, I'm not turning off my phone for Tinder).

2. I've never had an online dry spell like this. I've literally gotten zero replies on either OKC or Tinder. I'm wondering if gaming is harder over the holidays, because women hang in their with Mr. Beta Bux Beau so they have someone to spend the holidays with. I've had a relatively steady girlfriend over each holiday, then usually it ends in February. It's either that, or my online game needs to adapt, a prospect I don't feel like investing much time into.

I'm doing fine with my regular array, but I'd like to bring more into the mix... plus my regular array keeps getting older.

Yeah in my area OKC is completely dead. The best options are as follows:

Match: There are some real solid chicks in the 25+ range. This is the best of the paid sites. Geared more towards relationships, but plenty of chicks ok with flings. This site is easier for me to pull than Tinder.

Tinder: Lots of good looking women, but the best looking guys are feasting on them. You need a very well put together profile to get noticed, much more effort than Match. Great pics will do wonders.

Bumble: Similar to tinder, but the women are older, fatter, more wrinkled, and more stretched out. You may get an occasional catch, but better quality on both Tinder and Match. Plenty of single moms here. The only redeeming quality is if your ok with banging 5s it's like fish in a barrel.

Pof: Great for skanky girls with tattoos. If you have a bad boy vibe you will do great. If not, and you aren't into artsy or kinda hood girls, avoid.

Okc: Wack
Eharmony: Super wack
Happen: May be good if you live in a big city, I don't, so couldn't tell you.

Also, around the holidays is actually when shit is super easy, especially Tinder in the 18-2+ age. Young girls are looking for flings while away from school. You probably need to redo your profile and take better pics. There are a couple great datasheets on this already.

I've used various platforms throughout the years. I started with match, and also used POF. I graduated to tinder two years ago.

Since i've had the opportunity to use these services for awhile, i've also seen the user base change. I pretty much gave up on match last year due to shit results. My sister bought me a subscription, because she wanted me to "get serious" with my dating life. Worst. Gift. Ever.

The long and short of it is, most of the hot girls have jumped to tinder, leaving most standard dating sites as a pussy wasteland. I'm considered to be in the top 20 percent of looks according to photofeeler, and i'm also 6'4". Despite those stats, match, ok cupid, and POF all bring shit results. There's just not enough volume of attractive women using those sites to make it worth your time. For pipelining purposes, tinder cannot be beat. If you must plan a time to get back on the apps, I find that from new years to spring is the best time of the year to profit from desperate female new years resolutions.

I would say focus your efforts on tinder. Before you put a profile up, test a large array of your photos on http://www.photofeeler.com

Go with your three highest ranked photos for your profile. Before I got shadow banned from unmatching too many skanks, I was raking in 10 matches a day. And this isn't the prime season yet.
Hope you find this useful and I saved you from wasting time on archaic dating sites.

Quote: (11-29-2017 09:25 PM)Repo Wrote:  

Bumble: Similar to tinder, but the women are older, fatter, more wrinkled, and more stretched out. You may get an occasional catch, but better quality on both Tinder and Match. Plenty of single moms here. The only redeeming quality is if your ok with banging 5s it's like fish in a barrel.

I've noticed more talent on bumble than most other apps, actually.


OP, if you haven't tried bumble, give it a try. A lot of guys complain about it but for me personally the 'only girls can message you first' feature acts as a self screening mechanism. On Tinder girls are getting mega-blasted literally and figuratively by hundreds of dudes sending them messages and whatever low percentage of that banging them, accordingly.

The irony, of course is that all the complaints you've ever heard about guys opening messages on any other dating platform and how lame they are, pale in comparison to the openers the girls are forced to use since only they can message first. They are also incredibly cheesy and short sighted with their choice of pictures, bios, and how they want to be perceived by people in general.

So in my view, bumble puts the ridiculousness and easyness of chicks on full display, which can only work to your benefit.

Quote: (11-29-2017 09:25 PM)Repo Wrote:  

Yeah in my area OKC is completely dead. The best options are as follows:

Match: There are some real solid chicks in the 25+ range. This is the best of the paid sites. Geared more towards relationships, but plenty of chicks ok with flings. This site is easier for me to pull than Tinder.

Tinder: Lots of good looking women, but the best looking guys are feasting on them. You need a very well put together profile to get noticed, much more effort than Match. Great pics will do wonders.

Bumble: Similar to tinder, but the women are older, fatter, more wrinkled, and more stretched out. You may get an occasional catch, but better quality on both Tinder and Match. Plenty of single moms here. The only redeeming quality is if your ok with banging 5s it's like fish in a barrel.

Pof: Great for skanky girls with tattoos. If you have a bad boy vibe you will do great. If not, and you aren't into artsy or kinda good girls, avoid.

Okc: Wack
Eharmony: Super wack
Happen: May be good if you live in a big city, I don't, so couldn't tell you.

Also, around the holidays is actually when shit is super easy, especially Tinder in the 18-2+ age. Young girls are looking for flings while away from school. You probably need to redo your profile and take better pics. There are a couple great datasheets on this already.

Thank you. This is very helpful.

I couldn't figure out PoF's interface so I ditched it. I found OkC's desktop interface to work, plus I hate anything on an app platform... but I also liked MySpace back in college. I figured most girls were on all the sites anyway.

Sounds like match would work for me.

Related, my buddy the poon slayer mentioned that he got almost no matches on Tinder with a picture in a suit and tie. He changed it up to a picture with his tattoos out and his dog, and said the results were much better.

What sucks is that online dating just doesn't play to any of my strengths, plus I have to watch the image I put out in public due to career reasons.

Back when I used to just outright "own it", the local SJWs tried to actively sabotage my law practice.

@Rhyme

Yeah I'm sure it also varies by region. Living in the Philly area, this has been my experience.

@Hank

Yeah your buddies experience sounds about right. On Tinder if your in good shape a shirtless pic will help, try to be tactful about it though unless your completely jacked or shredded, in which case it doesn't really matter.

Quote: (11-29-2017 09:38 PM)Rhyme or Reason Wrote:  

Quote: (11-29-2017 09:25 PM)Repo Wrote:  

Bumble: Similar to tinder, but the women are older, fatter, more wrinkled, and more stretched out. You may get an occasional catch, but better quality on both Tinder and Match. Plenty of single moms here. The only redeeming quality is if your ok with banging 5s it's like fish in a barrel.

I've noticed more talent on bumble than most other apps, actually.

OP, if you haven't tried bumble, give it a try. A lot of guys complain about it but for me personally the 'only girls can message you first' feature acts as a self screening mechanism. On Tinder girls are getting mega-blasted literally and figuratively by hundreds of dudes sending them messages and whatever low percentage of that banging them, accordingly.

I agree, it might be where I live but Bumble is the only online venue left that's producing at all for me. I got on OKC a few months ago and it was tumbleweeds and alternative chicks in open relationships. Actually, I've been seeing a lot of that on Tinder lately, so I think OKC might soon be just tumbleweeds. I get the feeling like Tinder had a brief time when it was seen as more than a hookup app, but Bumble took that away and Tinder is back to just a hookup app for the absolute best profiles.

Doesn't mean you can't hook up off Bumble. A few weeks ago I met a chick on there, had drinks, and made out in her car. I opted to let her wait until the weekend, we went out had a great date, took the uber back to her place and I banged the shit out of her for a couple hours. Good times.

There is probably a bit of regional variance with these sites. Here in TN, the standard dating sites are dead. POF is where you find the trailer trash. Bumble is similar. Match had 2 attractive women for the whole tri cities area.

Tinder is racked with hotties. Ironically, the suit and tie pictures work great for me, but I mix them up with some pics of me and my dog hanging out in a park.

I guess it couldnt hurt to do a free trial with match to scope out if there are enough women to work with in your area. If so, you can buy the subscription. My sister left me no choice when she got my match subscription, I went ahead and used it and found it to be junk in my area.

Quote: (11-29-2017 09:25 PM)HedoRick Wrote:  

I'm considered to be in the top 20 percent of looks according to photofeeler, and i'm also 6'4".

Is top 20% good on photofeeler? I consistently get top 1 or 2% for the attractiveness ranking and I just thought it was because everyone is really nice on the site.

Anyways - I get the most SNL's on tinder. Bumble definitely has some hotties but they mostly seem LTR focused. What really bums me out about the demise of okc is that on that platform you can get a very accurate sense of your chances of getting laid just by reading through the sex questions they answered. In general the quality has dropped dramatically on there though.

No, they actually have really strict policies on ratings. Alot of people on there regularly dish out low ratings. If you are in the top 1-2 percent, then it must be very easy for you on tinder. How many matches do you average per day, and what part of the country are you swiping in?

Do you guys get your pictures professionally done? Random selfies? Make your friends take them?

Also, how do you guys feel about Kyle Trouble's proposition to only use one or two photos? His theory is all it takes is one bad photo for a girl to go 'meh'.

As I'm going through my photos, I can understand why hot chicks are swiping left. Additionally, I never smile in photos for some reason.

I'm also a big fan of letting women know I'm short way up front. Some women are just not physically attracted to short men, period, and I'd rather not spend a night hearing it. Plus, 5'5 is my max height for girls. Taller ones make me feel weird in bed.

https://www.photofeeler.com/faq#attractive

I got most of my photos professionally done. Have a low key non pro photo of me and my dog in the park as well, so I don't come across as try hard. As far as smiling goes, the experts so to have eye contact with the camera and smile. I am not much of a smiler though.

And yes, less is more. I use three pictures. Girls are dying for a chance to dismiss you based on one less than stellar photo. Don't give them that opportunity.

The height issue could be a problem for you. I wouldnt mention it in your profile. Don't give them an opportunity to dismiss you for any reason. Get them off the app and work your game on them.

Good luck to you sir. May you slay some strange on tinder soon.

My theory is that the top 1-2% of guys on tinder, who are in the right age range, 6' or above, well built, w/great pics, have a pussy buffet unlike anything mankind has ever seen before, while everyone else is pretty much fucked.

I've been in several large cities over the past ~year, and OkCupid seems to be totally devoid of mainstream women and full of various countercultural-leftist profiles, academic girls with no girl game, etc. I think OkC has been squeezed out of the middle - too cumbersome to compete with the swipe apps, but not as serious as match and eharmony.

I already deleted Bumble and am about to delete Tinder after I get a couple of newer matches' numbers. I get next to nothing on Tinder and Bumble so I'm kind of heartened to hear I'm not the only one. A friend of mine and I are having the same experience and suspect we were shadow-banned on the swipes for whatever reason (possibly over-liking and age) because we both went from decent results to almost zero matches in the space of a week or two.

I'm tall and, I'm told, kind of alluring in look, but I just take poor pictures, and pictures are part of one's game these days. Been thinking about asking a friend who's an amateur photographer to take some better ones of me. The guys I know IRL who have had good results on the swipe apps have photo sets of them at the beach, playing beer pong, at party bars, etc. It's hard to express my kind of life-energy (which is pretty effective on a certain type of gal in person) in photographs.

Online dating gets harder and harder with more competition. You really have to stand out to get noticed. Pretty much the top 10% of guys are hogging top 60% of girls and rotating them.

Just work on your pics, your bio, and every little detail that you can to paint the best image of yourself.

As far as OKC, most guys nowadays are mass messaging all the hot girls, its the same thing and the girls just get overwhelmed. Tinder is the most time efficient for me, and bumble is okay. I don't think bumble takes out inactive profiles whereas Tinder does as far as I've gathered.

Holidays can be the worst and best times on online dating. Girls can be lonely without family or stuck with their family for a full week or 2.

Quote: (11-29-2017 10:55 PM)HankMoody Wrote:  

I'm also a big fan of letting women know I'm short way up front.

Sex has an ergonomic component that is hard to deny. I like to kiss during sex and if she's not close enough to my own height then her head winds up where my chest is and I have to turn into a hunchback or pull out and shift down to kiss her.

I am 6'1" and 5'3" is my cutoff and I prefer much taller than that.

The reason I say this is that I purposefully exclude lots of otherwise viable women on height alone. If I'm not the only one doing this (and I really don't know the answer to that) then it means short guys face less competition going after short women.

I've noticed that the few female geeks out there who pass my boner test who would have a lot of things in common with me tend to be super short. I've also noticed that shorter women also tend to have more feminine, youthful features. Once women get around 5'10" and above they have manjaws and narrower waists. So sometimes I wish I were shorter so I could pursue some of these women who are hovering around 5' tall.

Women may not be conscious of these ergonomic challenges and might just get off on tall guys regardless of how much they tower over them but there's probably a way to translate the above into a sales-pitch they'd understand.

It has become the ultimate numbers game.

I dont have experience with it in the US and dont use it locally but do use it when i travel somewhere new.

For my last trip to Ukraine, i changed my location like a month before. I must have superliked maybe a 100 girls. Got maybe 2 matches out of all them. Which felt absolutely brutal

Had a decent number of normal matches but most didnt survive the additional scrutiny.
BUT, ended up with 6 solid prospects. 3 of which panned out and other 3 didnt have time for. Basically banged the 3 the first 3 days there. Which felt pretty good for Ukraine.

So while the overall return as far as numbers was pathetic, it was still a decent result. And since online (or at least tinder) isnt time consuming at all, it all evens out.


I would not worry about small sample sizes or short time periods.

Quote: (11-29-2017 10:55 PM)HankMoody Wrote:  

I'm also a big fan of letting women know I'm short way up front. Some women are just not physically attracted to short men, period, and I'd rather not spend a night hearing it. Plus, 5'5 is my max height for girls. Taller ones make me feel weird in bed.

How tall are you, Hank?

I really think women nowadays have gone along with the Tinder-hive mind-think on only men 6 foot + are attractive. Sure, there may be some primal urge on her part that she wants a mate with the best possible DNA, but ultimately she wants a man. Do you think women would turn down Conor McGregor due to his height? Obviously he's an extreme example, but my point stands. This topic has been beat on ad nauseam, so I won't get into it. And I'm sure I'm not telling you something you don't already know. (Side note: I asked my mother who is 60+ years old, if she naturally found tall men attractive. She said she did not and actually found taller men over 6'2+ repulsive. My dad was 5'10 and she is 5'4. Of course this is purely anecdotal, but food for thought from another generation).

I'm 5'9 so I'm not giant myself, but anytime a girl brings up height I either ignore it, or I ask why there is a double standard on the fact that women can make height requirements online, but yet men can't make weight requirements without begin labeled an asshole. It may come off a bit butthurt, but it's a logical question in which they can't answer. And maybe you can get her weight hamster start to spin.

Anyway to answer your original question, I actually have found this time of year is better for online fishing. YMMV depending on your location, but for me in the Midwest I would say:

1. Bumble- Seems to have the best quality of girls. Responds rate is moderate.

2. OKC- Quality is way lower, but response rate is way higher (duh).

3. Tinder- Quality is high, but a lot of bots. Response rate is low. However, if you're just looking for a hook up with less work involved, this is probably the best route.

Quote: (11-30-2017 11:29 AM)questor70 Wrote:  

If I'm not the only one doing this (and I really don't know the answer to that) then it means short guys face less competition going after short women.

This is purely anecdotal, but at 5'6" the VAST majority of my ~ two dozen bangs have been with girls +/- two inches of my height. I've never banged a really short girl (like < 5'2") but have slept with multiple women several inches taller than me.

I've also noticed that the shortest girls (at least here in America) often end up with the tallest guys. This observation combined with my experience above lead me to an evo-psych theory where a short girl's subconscious knows that if she mates with an equally short guy, the kids would more likely than not turn out VERY short, so perhaps it compels her to be attracted to overly tall man, such that their genes would average out to produce normal height children.

Don't want to derail the thread, but I'd be interested in hearing whether other short guys here tend to have more luck with even shorter girls or those right around their height.

Quote: (11-30-2017 11:29 AM)questor70 Wrote:  

Once women get around 5'10" and above they have manjaws and narrower waists.

The dreaded "Coulter" affect.

I will try to avoid complicating matters by focusing on seasonal and regional blips.

The trend is that the former desktop dating sites are in terminal decline. Tinder and the smartphone has changed everything. The match isn't a means to an end any more but the end in itself. From 100 matches, only a fraction will lead to conversation. I think Tinder itself has been in decline since it was monetised Q1 2016 and since then it has been adding pay-for-gimmicks to cash in before the end. I hate to say it that SA awaits many here.

Turning on the regional adjustment again, here is the worst to best from my perspective

Happn
EH
OKCupid
Match
POF
Bumble
Tinder
SA

Alot of you guys forgot about a few factors:

-College is out or about to be out for winter break, hoes are going back home and/or back to their boyfriends.
-Cuffing season is in full effect, don't ever forget that, it's the holiday season.
-Hoes are in and out of town, seeing family, going on vacation, etc.
-The winter time is always a slow time for dating and banging (excluding NYE).

It's just that time of year is all, nothing to fret about.

Also, the whole shadow rating thing I think is bogus, sure there are algorithms, but I haven't seen any exposed

The only one that is constant is the 80/20 rule, which is enforced on the street, club, bars, social circle, and online.


So are the rules of good looks, pics, bios, and openers. (As players have mentioned)

The shadow rating may just be another term for a bug in the tinder app. I went from having 10 matches a day to zero matches a day, no matter how much I swiped.

Something will go wrong with tinder if you don't know how to game the elo score. I learned the hard way, unfortunately.

Quote: (11-30-2017 12:10 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

Quote: (11-30-2017 11:29 AM)questor70 Wrote:  

If I'm not the only one doing this (and I really don't know the answer to that) then it means short guys face less competition going after short women.

This is purely anecdotal, but at 5'6" the VAST majority of my ~ two dozen bangs have been with girls +/- two inches of my height. I've never banged a really short girl (like < 5'2") but have slept with multiple women several inches taller than me.

I've also noticed that the shortest girls (at least here in America) often end up with the tallest guys. This observation combined with my experience above lead me to an evo-psych theory where a short girl's subconscious knows that if she mates with an equally short guy, the kids would more likely than not turn out VERY short, so perhaps it compels her to be attracted to overly tall man, such that their genes would average out to produce normal height children.

Don't want to derail the thread, but I'd be interested in hearing whether other short guys here tend to have more luck with even shorter girls or those right around their height.

I'm 5'8" and have yet to make a meaningful game-related post on the forum so I figured I'd jump in on this. I've generally slept with and had LTR's with women who are between 5'0" - 5'3", with a few taller exceptions here or there for the sake of variety (hookups). My current girlfriend of 2.5 years is 5'1", and my ex before her was 5'0" and the one before her was 5'2". What can I say....I like the shorties.

I found your post interesting because in my 20's I often heard the same thing from the extremely short ladies about "wanting a tall guy" for "balancing things out" or for "protection" or some other bullshit reason. I knew this would probably be the case for online and dating apps as well so after some bad dates, ghosting, wasted time, etc. my approach was to just go ahead and state my height right off the bat, even on apps that didn't specifically ask for it. I started doing this because I figured it would accomplish two things -

- It would screen out the girls on there who only give the time of day to guys who are 6' tall or more.

- It would eliminate wasting time and money meeting women for dates who clearly only wanted tall guys (but never said so in their profiles or during any online communication) thus saving myself a lot of aggravation.

I know Tinder and Bumble don't have a specific place for listing height, but I think HankMoody and others who are under 6' (or 5'10" or whatever the threshold is) should just be up front about how tall they are because not disclosing it could lead to frustrating dates where the girl will be instantly disappointed about it which usually doesn't lead to the date going anywhere and is just a huge waste of time.

I realize there's always a chance to "charm" a girl like that over and make her fall for once you meet in person, but then she could just get a match or a message from a 6'3" guy the next day and forget you ever existed. It's even somewhat similar to average/overweight women (a.k.a. secret internet fatties) using MySpace-angled photos to hide their chubbiness to lure a guy to meet them with the hopes of "winning him over" too. I've been a victim of those "attempts", and it really, really sucks.

Is this defeatist? Perhaps, but I wasted so much time on failed online dates that once I started my own business when I turned 30 I just cut to the chase about being somewhat shorter than average than most American men on those apps (by listing my height) and it eventually paid off a lot more efficiently. I used to get pissed off when women would put things like, "if you're under 6 feet tall don't bother contacting me", but afterwhile I became grateful for them being up front about that so I wouldn't waste my time even swiping right for them.

EDIT - spelling & grammar