[Kid Strangelove]

I've been a long time reader of the blog and forum, so I feel like I should contribute something to the discussion because I've been getting way above average results with dating sites, okcupid in particular.

Now, I'm not gonna waste your time with that "have good pictures and interesting activities" shit, we all know that, but here is the real tried and true shit that I've never heard anyone talk about which has made a massive difference in my success rate.


Height:
I am fortunate enough to be 6'2, and I noticed that there are always a lot of taller girls on the site (5'10 and above) that get messaged far less than the shorter ones. So hit them up, especially if you're a taller guy (a lot of these girls are on the site to find a dude taller than them), the response rate is way better.

Ethnicity:
I'm Russian, so I find that messaging Russian or other Eastern European girls is particularly more "high percentage", especially if you don't embody the stereotype of your nationality. On okCupid you can search by language, so you can also find a lot of cute, non-princessy girls using that method alone. Messaging girls that speak another language fluently increases my success rate. Similarly - I get a lot more looks and messages from girls that speak the same languages as me. So, if you speak another language - even barely - add it to your profile.

Message Templates:
While sending cool unique messages is definitely the best way to go, there are very few profiles that inspire me to write anything witty, some girls are dull, and some are just copies of girls you talked to before. However, if you're on these sites enough, you notice that a lot of girls have shit in common. Here are the 3 that I encounter the most:
--- they love to travel
--- they love every kind of music but country
--- they are not originally from New York (where i live).
I see this in profiles so often that I just reuse old messages I've had on the topic. They are good, carefully thought out messages and they look like i put a decent amount of time to put this message together, and that I'm totally not a copy/paster (lol).
Here is an example message, this is what I use if the girl is all about travel:
"It's really cool that you're a travel nut, I especially like the ((insert whatever she exploded about in her profile here)), but what's been your most amazing, most extreme, most unique travel memory?
Mine will hopefully happen later this year, right now I'm planning a trip to el alberto, a small town in mexico that was ravaged by immigration so they decided to do something about it - they opened a theme park. And what's the theme? Illegal border crossing simulations. That's right, for about 10 dollars, you get to train... I mean 'simulate' what it's like to cross the US/Mexico border, complete with rides on shady pickup trucks, crawling in the dark and people with flash lights chasing you. How nuts is that?
Anyway, you seem pretty cool, talk to you soon!
"

I'll keep my "new to NYC" and "i hate country music" messages to myself for now, but you get the idea. With these well thought out templates you can message more girls with quality messages far easier.


Pinging
Just tested this yesterday, and this gets a lot of traffic to your page. Whenever you upload a new picture, change anything in your profile, or answer a match question publicly and with explanation, you pop up on people's "Recent activity" feed. so be sure to do this a few times a day (it takes 20 seconds), and your profile will get a lot more views.

Diluting the pool
I have not tested this, but it seems like a completely viable strategy in smaller towns and cities (I read about this on Reddit). Make a bunch of HIGHLY attractive female profiles (model or near model looks, a bikini or at least stomach revealing picture that shows the world that they're not fat, lots on nerdy interests like star trek and star wars, etc - the super hot ultimate girl next door nerd), consistently log into them and clear their inboxes (they will fill, FAST). Now, all the other guys in that area will star messaging these 10-20 perfect girls, leaving all the rest for you. The girls who used to be bombed with male attention will quickly see it sharply decrease, and will be WAAAAY more likely to respond to your messages.



That's all i can think of for now

[MiXX]

Good info, but label me old-school, this all just seems so exhausting.

For what you get in return after all the time invested in what you described, maybe 3 bangs a year from online game, I'd rather be pounding pavement!

If you get more than 3 bangs a year from online date sites, you have a TON of time on your hands! I'm just saying. Now the exception being LatinAmericancupid, where you game girls who specifically target foreigners and wait for them to land in their home country. However, lots of these girls will play you as they have some hardcore game from doing that for many years, and know what buttons to push.

Mixx

[Kid Strangelove]

at first yeah, it might seem like a lot of work, but once you "get it", there are tons of rewards for you to reap. We are only a month into 2011 and I've already slept with 3 girls from okcupid alone. And to be honest, I'm finding that "online game" is becoming quite more desirable to me than bar or club game, even in a city like NYC.


Let me explain: on Wednesday night my friends and I hung out at this really cool local bar - the ratio was about even, but noone was hitting on the girls. Why? They were all 6-es at best.
If I go out to a more swanky bar or club I have to worry about bouncers, dress codes, ratios, competition, etc. It's just getting to a point that nightlife isnt really that much fun. And the places that aren't like i described? You can bet your sweet ass that other guys already know about them and the place is a total sausage fest.
If you look at NYC's rooftop bar scene, two of the more popular places that aren't assholes about the door and have free entry - Gansevoort Hotel and 230 5th - are basically amateur PUA hour. Yes, I have actually heard "who lies more, men or women" at these places.


And even if you're in a good mood and start talking to a girl, what is really happening? You see her, and for the beginning she is a hot piece of ass, you have no idea what she's like as a person, and you might focus a lot of time and attention on a girl who personality wise is not worth your time. Online, you can actually get a good idea of someone's personality before you meet them.

So yeah, we all know that night game is dying out, I'm trying to offer a realistic alternative. And besides, spending 20 minutes on okcupid while pretending to work is a pretty sweet deal:-)

[Roosh]

The girls you're getting online are 7's and up?

[gringoed]

I have an online profile that just sits and occasionally gets me dates with hotties. I read this thread an hour ago and decided for fun to copy and paste his travel message to the first girl I saw with "travel" as an interest (extremely common). Within an hour I got this response:

"Hi, First I wanna let's u know, I'm very surprise about ur mail (it's very long and ur profile too) but that's good. It's show a lot of details about u but I wanna know something........ What's ur name????? lol Okay... Mr. ??? You're very interested... Pls let's me know about u. I wanna know u nowwww!!!! "

Nice work Kid Strangelove!

[MiXX]

(02-04-2011 02:21 PM)Kid Strangelove Wrote:  

And besides, spending 20 minutes on okcupid while pretending to work is a pretty sweet deal:-)

Thats my point. I am shocked you are saying that your total investment is 20 minutes. Are you sure about that? It seems more like 5 hours a day on what you described to sit there and go through profiles of girls that can even make the cut! Then to have to do everything daily you mentioned above.

I'm just saying!


Mixx

[thegmanifesto]

"For what you get in return after all the time invested in what you described, maybe 3 bangs a year from online game, I'd rather be pounding pavement!"

Call me "old-school" also, but I am with Mixx on this one.

I would rather be scuffing my Gucci loafers on the streets with a Custom Suit on and a smoke in hand.

And you can call me crazy, but I enjoy real life.

Core foundational sh*t doesn't change.

[gringoed]

I agree with Mixx and G that online dating is an inefficient use of time. I'm starting a little experiment where I've given my VA access to my account and told her the types of girls I like, and wrote a template first message with a couple fill-in-the-blanks to customize. With this simple formula, we're expecting 40-50 messages sent out per hour. Back when I used to spent time on the site cold messaging girls, I got about a 30% response rate, with about a 20% rate of getting the first date of the responders.

That means that if my VA sends out 40 messages, I should expect about 12 replies which would eventually turn into about 2-3 dates. I pay my VA $5 per hour which means that I should be paying about $2/date.

Of course, I would have to send the follow up messages which is not accounted for but the template my VA is going to use is definitely expressing a desire to meet up and not be email buddies so there shouldnt be more than 3 messages sent. I'm curious to see how it goes.

[thegmanifesto]

gringoed,

Wow. I am impressed: outsourcing your dating lead generation.

Now this is something I could do.

This is really on some new technology online player sh*t.

[Tuthmosis]

My sense, from periodic experimentation in this area, is that there are a lot of "hidden costs," in terms of time and effort, when it comes to online dating. Success IS possible, but it sometimes masks the real, significant investments behind it:

1. Things take more time than they seem. Browsing, skimming profiles, customizing (however lightly) your stock messages each require a certain degree of effort--effort you subconsciously increase when the prospect seems hotter. Even if it seems short sometimes, unless you're running a chess clock, you can spend way more time than you think. It's part of the whole Internet time-suck phenomenon. Add bitches to that formula and you have a toxic time-eating problem. Plus, there's a lot of time spent on starting up your profile and tinkering with it regularly.

2. There's no established back-and-forth conventions. So that means, once you make contact, you could easily go back and forth many times before you can even set something up. These messages you CAN'T pre-script--they have to be original to the girl and take more time. Over e-mail, there are a lot more perils with saying the wrong thing and fucking things up (unlike in person, where you can backpeddle and adjust according to conditions) and girls can walk away from an interaction with even less social, public consequences--like feeling awkward or being called out for bitchiness. Knowing this, you end up editing and thinking more than you would otherwise which, necessarily, increases your effort. And, to make matters worse, at the end of the exchange, there's no guarantee that you'll get a Day One out of it. I've had this happen personally, where I got tired of the exchanges (even though they were promising) because it was way more work to get to the face-to-face than it is in other situations and I still had no 100-percent assurance that it was a real chick or NOT a masquerading fatty.

3. Guys with certain desirable, stock physical characteristics (e.g., tall white guy) DO benefit from the online environment more than others. It's like brand loyalty. If you went to a supermarket in a foreign country and couldn't read any of the labels, but then suddenly saw some Rice-a-Roni on the shelf, you're liable to buy it just because you recognize it. That's what happens online. Guys whose traits are plastered all over the media and benefit from mainstream appeal get better response rates. Guys that have more "niche appeal" have to work twice as hard. In either case, I think it takes more time than old-school methods for their group.

[speakeasy]

(02-04-2011 04:33 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  

gringoed,

Wow. I am impressed: outsourcing your dating lead generation.

Now this is something I could do.

This is really on some new technology online player sh*t.

That idea came from the 4 hour workweek.

[DanDeLaCruz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mmLUUMHgKY

Video where Tim he explains outsourcing your online dating.

[gringoed]

Yap that's where it's from. I dont think it's in the book though. Has anybody else tried this?

When I was in Argentina I bought newspaper ads which resulted in like 80 or so emails per ad. No bangs, but I like methods that think outside the box

[Brian]

I'm not a big fan of the online scene because I can tell in person who I am attracted to much better then pictures that may or may not be recent, but once you get a profile set up you can bang out a simple template and mass emal to girls you have an interest in pretty quickly. its also something you can do at a time of the day when not much is going on. if you spend 30 or 60 minutes every few weeks its not a big time investment.

[Kish]

(02-04-2011 02:21 PM)Kid Strangelove Wrote:  

Let me explain: on Wednesday night my friends and I hung out at this really cool local bar - the ratio was about even, but noone was hitting on the girls. Why? They were all 6-es at best.

So yeah, we all know that night game is dying out, I'm trying to offer a realistic alternative.

Damn! Even in NYC? What you're describing is a typical nite in DC. I thought NYC had great nightlife.

[Kid Strangelove]

(02-05-2011 07:27 PM)rakishness Wrote:  

Damn! Even in NYC? What you're describing is a typical nite in DC. I thought NYC had great nightlife.

At times it does, but you really gotta hustle sometimes to find it. Gotta know a guy that knows a guy that knows a guy.

sometimes you just wanna go to a place or two in your neighborhood, grab a beer and not be disappointed.

Funny thing about my neighborhood is that the only bar that manages to have girls in there consistently is also the single preppiest par I have ever seen, it's like some wannabe gossip girls shit. I have yet to pull a girl from that place (for the NYC heads that are interested, it's called Dorrians)

[Soma]

(02-04-2011 01:24 PM)MiXX Wrote:  

If you get more than 3 bangs a year from online date sites, you have a TON of time on your hands! I'm just saying. Now the exception being LatinAmericancupid, where you game girls who specifically target foreigners and wait for them to land in their home country. However, lots of these girls will play you as they have some hardcore game from doing that for many years, and know what buttons to push.

I've been wondering about that. I just joined LatinAmericanCupid a few days ago and have been getting a lot of attention directed my way from some very attractive latinas, but they're all located in East Bumfuck, Ecuador and whatnot whereas I'm clearly in Argentina. Do you think these girls are up for a fling/DTF or are they solely cadging for the foreign passport? Is it even worth replying to any of them? In any case, its been a nice stroke for my ego .

[maestrobaires]

@soma i'm in argentina too and online dating here is not as good as in rest of latin america. give badoo a try or sonico. i had luck there. also met a few cool girls on ICQ chat. some i shagged while some i'm friends-only with. game opportunities here in argentina are somewhat limited

[bandit90]

'Kid Strangelove Wrote:

I have not tested this, but it seems like a completely viable strategy in smaller towns and cities (I read about this on Reddit). Make a bunch of HIGHLY attractive female profiles (model or near model looks, a bikini or at least stomach revealing picture that shows the world that they're not fat, lots on nerdy interests like star trek and star wars, etc - the super hot ultimate girl next door nerd), consistently log into them and clear their inboxes (they will fill, FAST). Now, all the other guys in that area will star messaging these 10-20 perfect girls, leaving all the rest for you. The girls who used to be bombed with male attention will quickly see it sharply decrease, and will be WAAAAY more likely to respond to your messages.



That's all i can think of for now

Ever tried using those Alts to rate up your own profile? I've done this with several alts myself but never that many. Also if what you're saying is in their profile is true (local, into a lot of shit dudes like, etc) I'd say that they'd appear on your own quickmatch pretty often and vice versa. Might be an easy way to get that "hidden" hotness rating from the quickmathes up a notch so that more attractive girls will see you more often as well.

My 2 cents.

[tt120]

word i know that online dating and this type of ish is huge in new york right now. Me? like a few others said I'd rather hit the streets.

Kid Strangelove - it kind of sounds like you're hanging in the wrong places. I'm not judging or knocking your hustle at all, but when you're at some of those generic rooftop spots packed with low level banking associates and what-not, of course ur gonna get amature PUA'ish type shit and be surrounded by 6's. I'm not a nightlife connoisseur by any means but NYC is always popping off. try some places off the beaten path ...guarentee you'll be surprised and have a better time. stay away from the bottle spots, over hyped rooftops, and other places were you're just a mark . unless you have an in at one of those places and have it locked down you have a better chance winning a game of 3 card monte than doing big things there.

I LOL'ed at the part about " diluting the pool" in your post though - so genius. i wonder how much this actually happens?

And Dorrians is on some real life Gossip Girl shit that's for sure. place was notorious back in the day for letting underage girls drink there. google "the preppy killer " - the owner's son killed a young broad who was hanging out there back in the day

[Samseau]

Online game doesn't improve your actual game. It can net you dates, which is a plus, but, for the enourmous time investment Kid Strangelove seems to have invested into this (hundreds of copy/pastes... updating the profile four times a day... countless hours of experimentation) Real Game will get you more lays and quality prospects in the long run.

If, however, you know a way to run online game without having to become an internet junkie, let me know. I'm thinking about trying a few ideas of my own online but we'll see what happens.

[oldnemesis]

Online game has its advantages in following situations:

- If you're physically unavailable in the location (you're going to travel to another country, OR you're away from home);
- If you're looking for someone who's not a commodity (for example, looking for white chick in US who has no anglo-saxon ancestry);
- If you're looking to meet a girl born in a specific country (for a flag; search by language);
- If you're looking for some kinky stuff most people won't be up to (like animal roleplay).

Also online game is valuable if your job involves a computer, as for example you can do "online approaches" while waiting for a document to be printed.

[Gmac]

(03-27-2011 03:41 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

Online game doesn't improve your actual game. It can net you dates, which is a plus, but, for the enourmous time investment Kid Strangelove seems to have invested into this (hundreds of copy/pastes... updating the profile four times a day... countless hours of experimentation) Real Game will get you more lays and quality prospects in the long run.

If, however, you know a way to run online game without having to become an internet junkie, let me know. I'm thinking about trying a few ideas of my own online but we'll see what happens.

Strangelove gives some pretty good tips, some of which I've been running for some time myself. I don't do all of the updating or mass emails, so I think I probably spend a lot less time with pretty decent results.

Once your profile is up and tweaked to perfection, there is very little time invested. I typically message about 10 girls a week but mostly let them come to me (average between 5-10 first contacts per week). I spend 5 min average skimming their profiles for topics of interest and send a copy/paste message slightly tweaked for each one. I have about 3 different witty emails I'll send based on their profile interests:

*Travel (compare extensive traveling experiences around the country and abroad; talk about future trips)
*Outdoor Activities (mention my marathon running, kayaking, skydiving interests; or some random event going on in the next few months -- i.e. Obstacle Course Races, 10k, Hiking Trips, Boot Camp -- piquing her interest with extremes)
*Cooking (convey my superior skill, poke fun at something they mentioned, etc.)

Cold approaching online yields me a response about 25% of the time but only about 20% of those (5% total) turn into dates. Not the greatest odds, but then again when you have the volume it doesn't matter. I've found that once a girl has decided she's interested in you and initiated the first contact message, my date probability is close to 33% -- a BIG difference.

From girls I meet online (ages 22-29), I average about 2.5 dates a month (30/yr). That might not sound like a lot but I run it alongside my normal game and it helps me fill up my week. If I were putting more time into it or solely running online game, I'd probably see it as a waste. Since early last year, I stopped doing dinner/coffee dates and stick to [drinks only] or [fun activity + drinks] (i.e. cheap bowling, pool, karaoke). Dinner or coffee dates turned out to be a huge waste of time and/or cash. I found out very fast that the girls who rarely drink were not the type to put out on date 1 or 2; thus making it easier for me to filter out more women and save me time/money. Most of the girls I end up meeting are recent college grads or semi-successful mid 20s women -- not always the most exciting, but usually more willing to put out during their "valuable free time."

My f-close rate last year with online chicks was about 25% (or 8 notches last year), which I don't think is all that bad considering FB/LTR potential. I think the caliber of women tends to be higher since you can filter out any suspected fatties and uglies very quickly without wasting much time. I smash about 20% of first dates and 50% of second dates. As a rule I almost always cut contact off after two strikes.

My f-close percentage only continues to improve, and I don't see online dating dying out anytime soon... might as well use it as an alternative avenue for banging chicks if you're at least considering it. The key is getting them to come to you with the smallest investment possible. I push for a date by the second or third message (2-5 days) before cutting off contact.

Sign up for a few of the best "free" sites out there (i.e. okcupid, plentyoffish) and you don't need to spend more than an hour a week online to browse/respond. None of the other sites I've tried out there come anywhere close in terms of quality/quantity. The key is a profile that stands out (content/pictures). It should be short and funny, less is more.

I've been running "online game" for a few years and yes, it's taken a long time to figure out what works and what doesn't. I wouldn't expect incredible results if you are just starting out. There is a significant initial investment of time and energy -- but that learning curve is much shorter if you can learn tips and tricks from someone else. It's either your bag or it's not, you'll find out quickly.

Quote:

Also online game is valuable if your job involves a computer, as for example you can do "online approaches" while waiting for a document to be printed.

Agreed. ^

Edit: Flake percentage is about 20% -- may do a formal report on this topic.

[docsedated]

Nice Post Gmac, will wait for more Info from you..........

[Kish]

Online dating is great! You get to meet and bang women you normally wouldn't meet on the street or at night. I live in the DC area and there is a lot of hot girls who live the burbs(Germantown, Rockville, Bethesda, Alexandria,Arlington and Reston). They all have told me that it can be a hassle getting to dc on the weekends.

Many professional women are lonely and have sexual pressure building inside them. The internet gives them a low pressure channel to explore dating. It also gives them a level of control they don't possess in their lives or in the dating scene. Because they know a lot about you, they feel more connected to you before you even meet.

I also find that the women I meet online are better looking then the ones I meet at bars. I blame it on my beer goggles. LOL