I replied to every email I received until I got an abusive message back saying that i was the bottom of the barrel anyway.

I don’t reply negatively anymore. Just delete if I’m not interested. It’s a shame but I don’t fancy getting rebuked for trying to ‘do unto others’.

I understand that you men believe we women just sit back waiting for the emails to pour in so we can get our jollies from all that attention that we then ignore. That’s not always (and very rarely) true. So a couple of you made up women’s profiles, but I noticed you didn’t share what you actually said in them statistically (income, age, height, weight etc. – most importantly a decent photograph!) If I can’t at least see your face, I’m thinking there might be an incredible hulk waiting on the other side!

I think POF should post the EXIF data from photos that get uploaded here so we can see when they were ACTUALLY taken. Of course, that won’t stop some people (scammers and those with little or no self-esteem) from posting photos that are scanned from a high school photo or where the face is not who is behind the profile. I know there are many women who do the same things as men do, write crappy profiles that say nothing interesting, or even give you a peek at the character and personality of the (wo)man behind them.

I figure, I’ve made some friends here over the years, one of them lives with me now. The Good Lord gave you a lot of opportunities to experience different people, and if you took advantage of them, then you’ve widened your perceptions of the world. Unfortunately, too many people just skim the surface of others and never look beyond the flesh to the ‘heart’ of the matter.

Emails are a means to communicate, and I must say, when I get an email that says “Hi. I think we are compatible. I want to talk to you.” I read it, check out the profile and decide if what was written would make a decent conversation and give me clues what to say in response. If there’s nothing there but “Looking for a good hearted woman”, without at least an idea of what the guy thinks that embodies, I’m left with only two options: Ask what a ‘good-hearted’ woman is, or respond that I don’t see why he thinks that from the information he’s given to me!

I suppose I could ‘guess’ that he must’ve seen something in what I wrote that made him think we are compatible, or maybe he just liked my looks, or enjoys one or two things that I also like. How would you men respond to that? I gotta tell you, 8 out of ten times that I respond to these messages I eventually find that they’ve been without sex for a few weeks and they’re looking for a hook-up. I’m not, never have been, and never will be a “hook-up”. I have some self-respect and I didn’t live this long being stupid.

I also have to say, the last time I saw or read this much kevetching, it was at a Jewish Women’s round table. Online dating is difficult, and if you’re in a big hurry, forget finding what you’re looking for, it isn’t here. Once you’ve done it for a while you learn (some do) that if you catch the attention of a potential partner, you did it by showing her you’re worthy of her time by writing her a conversational letter. Yes, conversational, not just canned words (spelled correctly gives points!) that say nothing she can respond to!

If you genuinely want to meet someone you see here, follow a few easy rules:
1. Clean up your spelling or write your message in a word program (make sure you re-read it for grammatical errors) check your spelling then copy+paste it into this message box!
2. While writing your message, think about what she might want to know about you, other than what you wrote (or didn’t write) in your profile.
3. Try to show your humor, make her laugh – not at you, but at life.
4. Don’t begin by telling her all your problems – she’ll run faster than that buck you were aiming at last weekend.
5. Be interested in what she has to offer too! I can’t tell you how often a man will email me and when I reply they are at a loss for words to reply. (Could that be because I’m Not…all those nasty things you all said above?).
6. Don’t tell her everything about your life immediately, and definitely stay away from divorce stories – believe it or not she may have one to match yours or worse. (Not all of us take it all, some of us loose it all too!)
7. Be REAL… Pretending to be who and what you are Not is the best way to loose her interest – and that of the other women she knows, and those they know…. get it? When you get a bad reputation on a dating site, it carries its message a lot farther than you think!

So there are your “Lucky Seven” hints when it comes to contacting women on a dating site. Always remember – if it seems too good to be true – it most likely IS. But, don’t forget – there are Exceptions to everything!

I refuse to take offense to your nasty remarks about women, because I just don’t fit into that mold. I’m sorry you guys get abused in this way, but try to believe that we women get abused the same way too. I’ve written to men who ignored me, and I just figure maybe there’s something I missed in their profile that was going to be a ‘deal-breaker’ for them. So-be-it! When it’s the right one, we’ll know. In the meantime, I’ve met some pretty awesome people and made some friends.

Would any of you like some cheese with your whine?

Mike

I am curious as to how they can claim such an outrageous statistic on POF. I normally receive 1 reply for every 30+ messages that I send. (note: I very carefully write and spell check each email. I never use hi, hello, ur hot, … etc for the subject line. I try to be creative with the subject lines but I’ll admit sometimes its hard to come up with a good one.)

Make 2 profiles: One as an uneducated, overweight woman with 4 kids. The other as a man who is a pharmacist with no children. Guess who will have more responses? The female profile.

Women have it easy in this world.

Ladies, we are only doing this to show that you have it easier, which you do.

I’m not a “fake” woman, nor am I a >>“ shallow little ego/attention whores, or broken ex-sluts with three kids who want a sugar-daddy, or out-and-out gold-diggers, or lying sacks of fat with SEVERE issues…<>picky, snotty, arbitrary, and judgmental because they have a slew of men’s profiles to select, and many are simply attention mongers that rarely meet men in person.<< I have a right to be picky, after all it is my life and I have the option of deciding whether someone is going to be a "match" or not. That does not mean I am snotty, arbitrary or judgmental because there are a 'slew' of men's profiles to select from, and I have met many of those I've talked to here.

Also, I am one of those women who was "awarded" a special sticker on my profile…. as a gift I was told for being a member here for so long, for having been decent to everyone who wrote to me (as in responding in kind). I fully expected it to be removed once the "pay for it" function was turned on, but it wasn't. Am I a paying member? No, I have all the elements I need from a dating site… with the exception of finding that special person I've been looking for.

As for 'lame' messages…. yes, I've had a few, but a simple "no thanks, I don't think we are a match" responses have solved the conundrum. At least I responded to them before I deleted them.

I don't mind when people put me on their 'favorites' list, but it does bother me when I don't hear from them within a reasonable amount of time. Why put me on your favorites if you aren't going to contact me?

I've had many men who never bothered to answer me, I can only assume they were overwhelmed by other women who may have been more 'compatible' in their minds. I've also had men disrespect me openly and publicly that I'd never even looked at their profile page. What's up with that? It certainly got my attention, but not the way the rascal may have hoped.

Dating sites are designed to give people the chance to meet someone outside their normal circles, and hopefully to find someone to fulfill their needs and desires. If all you can do is complain about the site, then maybe you need to go pay for your search.

But, as Matt said, there are so many lame profiles, and poor opening emails, paying for no results doesn't seem to be the ideal situation for finding the right woman. His advice was well-meant, and it would do many of you a lot of good to pay attention. I see just as many "lame" profiles on the paid sites… so what does that say about the caliber of men all of us women have to choose from? And after reading the comments here, I see that my choices have been severely limited again by attitudes held by most of you.

If you don't love yourself, you can't love anyone else. That's a good place for you to start…

Look at craigslist. And ebay. And youtube, and many other dotcom sites that boom. It happens.

fyi: i dont believe there are that many fakes on POF as you are saying. ive had no problem at all talking to dozens of cute girls and then chatting on the phone and IM and on webcam. while i was skeptical at first too, I am now entirely sure there are some fakes but i would say at least 80% are real, this is just based on personal experience. girls dont delete my emails – they read them- and respond back.

“The majority of the women on this site are either shallow little ego/attention whores, or broken ex-sluts with three kids who want a sugar-daddy, or out-and-out gold-diggers, or lying sacks of fat with SEVERE issues…

My conclusion: PoF is a cesspit of garbage, who get their little ego-boosts by treating men like same.

Yes, I’m bitter…But also, much wiser now.”

Yes! Here, here. Although, you forgot to mention that some ‘women’ are actually MEN pretending to be women, having a look at what it’s like to be a woman on PoF.

I tried writing interesting messages. Received 2 brief replies out of 15-20, then deleted my account. I can take a brief reply (rejection). What I can’t stand is the non-replies. It made me very angry and bitter. And then there are women who delete your message and delete themselves from your favourites. How very dare they!

I know I shouldn’t get upset about non-replies, but I can’t help it. I also find it very funny to see how rude women can be. Some of these have profiles suggesting that they’ve nearly given up on ever finding a decent guy. Ironically, they probably get even more messages than most. Yet they will pay no attention to any of them. The vast majority of attractive women on PoF are not there to meet men. They are only there to receive attention because they are not getting enough from their boyfriends.

I’ve had a few women message me first. They weren’t ideal but I always replied, trying to be careful not to lead them on or hurt their feelings. It’s a tightrope. You don’t want to say you are not interested because then you have to say why, and also you are assuming that they are very interested. Maybe the non-replying women can’t do the tightrope walking, and just find it less hurtful if they ignore us uglies.

Yeah, PoF sucks. I was led to it by a friend who claims to have had some success with it. I’m skeptical. Women don’t want to meet men online. That’s not the fairytale, is it? But you can never receive too much attention, can you?

*bonus points if she messages you back all pissed off, you know you got her good.