Death to OLD?
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Death to OLD?
| Mon, 01-24-2005 - 10:05am |
Is it just possible that so many serial daters have flooded the OLD systems, all of them, that the success rates of any OLD service is suffering to the point of extinction?

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I have to agee somewhat. In my experience and I've only been doing this for maybe 4 months. Guys with online profiles, have so many more options than not and even when you meet a really great one and have a good time, they still get those emailed matches, thus more options keep coming in every day/week and being naturally curious, they check it out.
So far, I have not met a guy with an online profile that actually stopped checking their profile and tried to see where things would develop. Every guy I've gone out with so far has dating me and other woman at the same time. And here it is months later and their profiles are still up and active.
I totally agree Linda. It's the old 'kid in the candy store' addage. I really think a lot of men and some women too, start OLD with the intentions of finding a potential spouse/mate. But before they know it they get caught up on the dating merry-go-round and don't know how to get off. They lose sight of their reason for joining to begin with and it becomes an ego trip.
I recently re-posted my profile and couldn't help but think that the one's I'm tired of seeing online are tired of seeing me too. But be that as it may, I still remain hopeful...just a lot more guarded than I was when I first started, some 3 years ago.
I really don't think OLD has "changed" anything in men's behavior...maybe it's made it easier for those who don't want to settle down, but it's just another venue for doing what they would have done anyway. Like the internet has made it easier for those who would cheat anyway to cheat. Those who DO want to settle down aren't going to change their behavior because they have options.
All I know is that I've had WAAAAY more dates from OLD than any other source over the last six years. It's not perfect, by ANY means, but it's a heck of a lot better than the alternatives (meeting very few single men by other, more traditional means).
Sheri
Linda -- you are a wise woman.
I think another effect is the 'jading' of the daters -- us, on this board. It's like you have to learn a whole new set of sociological behaviors, and it's a two-tiered system; those who have been doing it awhile and know the ropes, and those who are new and expect so much.
For example, I've been in touch with a man I was supposed to meet last week but will meet tomorrow instead. He called and emailed me a few times over the weekend but I found myself avoiding it -- not because I'm not interested, but because I would rather not 'waste' the time before I meet him. That is a huge difference in my own behavior.
I've been doing this for about 4 years now, and I see the same photos -- with no new anything -- that were up there when I began. Is it a critical mass -- everybody who WOULD do it, HAS done it? The lemming-like rush to anybody new who shows up cuts most of us out of the picture.
Which brings up another interseting point. We have all talked negatively about those contacts who come back after ghosting. But maybe we should cut them more slack. It truly is overwhelming sometimes at the beginning, and perhaps if more of us went back and reconsidered those we had initially screened out due to volume, we'd find some interesting dates. I'm doing that now with a couple of men I had ghosted on because I met my last BF. If they're insulted, so be it, but maybe something good could come of it.
Edited to agree with Sheri -- I do have to acknowledge that in the whole 5 yrs I've been divorced, I've met only one man in RL, and a couple dozen thru OLD. So I should not complain too much!
More thoughts?
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Edited 1/24/2005 12:28 pm ET ET by sposabella
Totally, totally agree on men and the whole BBD thing... that is why I took my profile down. Got tired of being one in a stable of women, even after several months.
But Sheri is right, too -- where else could you meet so many people to date?
Sposabella, I have always thought that there was nothing wrong with returning "ghosts." I have done it myself, several times... I also understand when a man shows back up who had disappeared for a while. You MAY miss out on something good if you're too rigid on that!
Tracy
I am also in agreement with all of you! I am really sick of guys giving me the Tuesday night slot...ha! I've met some really great guys through OLD, but nothing that's been mutually satisfying to work out for more than a couple of months.
sg63
I have read that the "general" OLD sites are headed for some downsizing and probably consolidation. (I think LG was talking about this in the other thread.) When the dust clears, there will probably only be a couple of them.
And I think that partially this is due to what you mention- there's certainly a large number of people (both men and women) who're doing OLD strictly because they're serial daters who just want to go out and get laid as much as possible.
When the dust clears, I think that there will only be a few big OLD services. Right now, just off the top of my head, there are several "general use" OLD sites:
Match
Matchmaker
American Singles
WebDate
LavaLife
SpringStreetNetworks (they run sites like "Verve" and local newspaper's branded sites)
FriendFinder
SinglesNet
Dreammates (and others in the "Relationship Exchange" family of sites)
eHarmony
Yahoo Personals
uDate (and what used to be kiss.com)
Tru
PerfectMatch
I have read, though, that presently the greatest growth in OLD sites is in "specialty" sites. Some of the big services run their own specialty sites, like American Singles has Jdate.
The thinking is that if you have something that is a really important interest, say music or hiking, you're more likely to meet someone that fits that purpose on a specialty site than on one of the general sites.
The problem with the limited-use sites is the old bugaboo of the numbers game. If you aren't in a big metro area, odds are you're not going to find nearly as many people on one of them as you will find on a general site.
I can't see OLD dying. It's one of the biggest money-makers on the web. There's still plenty of perfectly good people using it with good intentions.
What I think will happen is more and more people will clue in to the general wisdom that we see here on this board.
Meet early, be more open to meeting people but get less "into" them right from the get-go, and use the OLD sites more as an avenue to just meet large numbers of people but NOT to try and do "online relationshipping".
That alone will help keep OLD sites going.
I think the problem may be that people want OLD to be different from IRL. Really, it's just an intensifier: it increases the possibilities of meeting many people, and really, isn't that what most of us want? If any of you really, truly want to get matched up with somebody (to marry) right now, it might be better to go to an old-fashioned matchmaker, rather than trying to find one yourself. You'd know that the people you got matched up with had the same intention.
Personally, I LOVE the idea of serial dating (and lots of sex...if it's safe)except that time is sort of running out for me, just as I have started OLD. I don't think I can be serial dating into my 80's-- LOL.
Yahoo has endeavored to solve this dilemma, or maybe is just trying to compete with eharmony, by instituting Premier level, which supposedly is people who are really looking for a permanet relationship.
BTW, here's a bit of gossip about two men, D and M, whom I wrote about a few days ago (My Wacky Week posts). (Both these men are in their 50s). D had told me, before we met, that he figured he would never find the right woman and would be alone all his life, with a series of affairs. I teased him that sure, as a man, he could do that, as by the time he got into his 80s, he'd be one of the few available men left, and women would fight over him! M (who I AM friends with again) says that he's had his profile up for a several years off and on, but only finds about one woman a year that he wants to get to know. Because he is so picky, he doesn't like to pay, so doesn't usually join, but just leaves his photo and profile there. I just mention these two men because it goes to show what varied individual attitudes men may possess.
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Sposa - I'm going through something similar right now. I was supposed to have a first meeting with a guy a couple weeks ago, then I got sick and had to postpone. Then there was a snowstorm so we had to postpone again. We're supposed to get together this week, but he seems to want to talk on the phone a lot before we meet and I don't. We've had two conversations already and I'm afraid his expectations are already too high. He has very little experience with OLD so I'm trying to control expectations and not "waste" time, as you put it before meeting, because what's the point?
The subject of this thread is one I spend a lot of time thinking about. It's tough because I agree with both Sheri and Linda. I meet very few men IRL so OLD has definitely gotten me dates, but I totally believe it encourages the BBD attitude, especially in men. I like dating as opposed to not dating but I'm more pessimistic than ever that OLD will get me what I want, a LTR.
I'm sure there are men out there looking for a serious LTR.
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