With the ongoing popularity of online dating, and studies reporting that over 40 million Americans participate in online dating, one must ask why two out of three men who join online dating sites quit, claiming to be unsuccessful, what are these men doing wrong??
After hours of research, interviews and observations, Sam Stone the author of "Online Dating Secret Revealed!" offers some potential root causes for these failures.
What are men doing wrong?
1. Not knowing what they are looking for.
Mistake men make:
The first most common mistake that men make is going online without a clear understanding of what they are looking for. The "what I'm looking for" section in a typical male profile on most dating sites includes little detail and is compiled of generic terms and characteristics. Most men don't even bother to define the height range of the woman they are looking for! Not surprisingly, they all say they are looking for someone slender or athletic.
Woman's Response:
The response such a generic profile gets is disappointing at best. In a subconscious way women interpret this type of profile as of a man who is weak and doesn't know what he's looking for. Women see this man as someone who is looking for attention from a woman, any woman. Most women rarely respond to such a profile. What woman wants to be "any woman"?
How to avoid pitfall:
Before going online to look for a date, a man must make sure that he knows what he is looking for. The best way to figure that out is to write down (actually write it, not just think about it) a list of the top qualities he is looking for in a woman. One should try to cover as many areas as possible. The next step is to narrow these qualities down to the top 15 and then to the top 5 qualities that are most important to him and list them on his profile. Doing so, the man will not only convey to a woman that he knows exactly what he wants but this also helps him to have an understanding of what is important to him in a woman which will save him time by focusing on those women who have those qualities and not just random women he meets online.
2. Not knowing what they have to offer. Aside from not knowing what they are looking for, the second most common mistake guys make is going online without knowing what they have to offer.
Mistake men make: Most men go online without putting much thought into what their attraction strategy will be and how they are going to present themselves. Many people (men and women) never stopped to take inventory of their lives. Most people live life on a day to day basis and never think of what the tapestry of their lives is made of. One must ask himself if he has ever taken the time to think about all the things he likes, all the things he is good at, all the things he has to offer to other people?
Woman's Response:
Women who actually bother to read this type of generic information catalog it as just "some guy" among many. This type of profile, without a clear attraction strategy, will not get many responses from women of quality, just like most Spam doesn't get many responses from people who receive it.
How to Avoid Pitfall:
Most people have at least some interesting things in their lives. A man interested in succeeding online must take the time to think about those things and use them to create an attraction strategy. For example, if a man is looking for very intellectual women that like to read, he must put a greater emphasis on that side of his personality in his profile. In this case, talking about wild parties might not result in attracting the type of women he is looking for.
3. How to approach a woman online?
Mistake men make:
Many guys make the mistake of using a generic feature called "wink" (also called "icebreaker", "flirt" and other names in different sites). Winks are usually free, some sites allow a quick pre-scripted text message that was created by the site owners, and can be sent to the girl the man is interested in. A generic "wink" can be compared to a pickup line that one found on the wall of a bar which may be seen and used by every individual in the bar.
Woman's Response
The woman receiving it has most likely already seen that line, heard it from a bunch of drunken guys who tried it on her earlier, and will consider the approach to be extremely pathetic. Unless it comes from a very attractive guy, or the first guy who ever approached her, there is little chance of getting the time of day from her and this approach will actually lower the value of the sender in her eyes.
In most cases attractive/intelligent/talented women get hundreds of winks a week, why would they even bother to look at a generic message?!
How to Avoid Pitfall:
How does one stand out then? The best way get a woman's attention is by using emails. If one already invested all this time going online He should probably cough up the $30 or so it costs to register to the site and send an email. It takes some more work, but this might actually get a response...
4. What to say?
Mistake men make:
Most guys don't know what to say in the first Email. The emails women get usually range from one liners saying "hey babe, what's up" to a 5 page emails describing every single thing the guy ever did in his life from birth to this moment. Both methods and what's in between them are bound to fail.
Woman's Response:
My study shows that the top three things that women are looking for are: § To have a good experience § To have fun § To meet a guy who will attract them emotionally.
Emails that include little or none of this will most likely be ignored.
How to Avoid Pitfall:
The email should convey the personality traits that women are attracted to: fun, humor, confidence, and social status. This doesn't mean that you need to tell a knock knock joke about your BMW... It's very simple actually, all a guy needs to do is be playful, and show that he is confident enough to talk to a woman.
E.g. sometimes girls will email the same first reply twice just because they clicked the send button twice by mistake. A good response to that would be to accuse them of being in love with you and to say that they will become your stalkers... if done in a funny way they will know that you are kidding and teasing them, and they will love it and write back to deny this...
5. How much is enough?
Mistake men make:
Once a guy finds a girl he likes, and she actually responds to his emails and starts an email exchange, it's very tempting to just keep the relationship online. However, it is highly discouraged to get into a lengthy email exchange.
Woman's Response
My study found that the more a guy emails the girl, the less likely he is to ever meet her. Another downside of a long email relationship is that the more the two email each other, the more of a "fantasy" about each other's personality is created in the couples' minds. These fantasies are not based on real behavior but on how the mind fills the gaps between what they know about each other through their emails and profiles and the real person. Once they meet, they will both discover that in most cases this fantasy is not real and they will both be disappointed.
How to Avoid Pitfall:
My study found that in order to successfully move on to the next step, an email exchange should be no more then 3-5 emails long before the guy asks the girl out on a date. In these emails, a guy should keep on trying to get to know her, and learn more about her while providing fun and interesting conversation to keep her coming back for more.
6. Assuming online attraction offline.
Mistake men make:
This is a trap many men fall into. A common reason for failure that came up again and again in the study was : "Our email exchange went so well, she kept complimenting me and saying how much she wants to meet me, but when we met it was as if we were strangers" This problem comes from assuming that online attraction automatically continues in the real world.
Woman's Response
When communicating online, the girl has very little to go by, so her brain (this goes for guys too) creates a fantasy guy that has all the qualities the man is displaying in the email. Of course, in many cases this "fantasy man" has nothing to do with the man she is communicating with.
When they meet, both of their fantasy worlds are shaken up and the woman feels as if she's meeting a stranger for the first time (suddenly the guy doesn't look or act anything at all like her fantasy guy). She suddenly has to deal with the transition from the safety of hiding behind a computer to actually standing face to face with a real live person.
How to Avoid Pitfall:
The way to overcome this is to re-generate attraction! How do you do that? It's simple; the guy has to recreate what he did in his emails. Tell funny stories, tease her, and demonstrate the attractive qualities we mentioned earlier. This should get her back to remembering all the good feelings she had when the guy was emailing her and will get her attraction back up again.
7. Not leading the online or offline conversation.
Mistake men make:
Many girls who date online expect their first date to be like an interview (in our study we even had a TV reporter that found it extremely hard to break from this structure...). The "Interview" style date is probably the worst way to have a first date! First of all, it's boring! A date shouldn't be a job interview; it should be fun, for both people. Second, it shows lack of confidence. Think about it, who does most of the talking when the guy "interviews" and asks the questions? She does! This "lets the guy off the hook" of being interesting, exciting and funny and doesn't really convey anything about his personality aside from being a good listener, but that's not one of the top qualities that is going to get the guy a new girlfriend. Third, an "interview" style date forces the girl to lead the conversation and most women are very uncomfortable in this situation; they don't feel comfortable leading the conversation.
Woman's Response
Many of the women that I interviewed indicated that their train of thought was: "I'm hot, I don't need to prove myself, this guy is just sitting there and nodding, probably just thinking about how I look naked" and similar comments to this.
How to Avoid Pitfall:
If the guy doesn't take control of the conversation from the start, he will most likely not get a second date. Taking control of the date means the guy must tell stories: funny ones, exciting ones, interesting or mysterious stories, he must keep the conversation going. A guy should spend the first 10 minutes or so of the date talking most of the time.
8. Falling in love before the first date.
Mistake men make:
Guys have a tendency to "fall in love" with a girl they meet online and feel that they need to "prove their love to her" even before they meet.
A guy shouldn't go overboard in doing thing for a woman at first. A guy should not show any supplicative behavior that shows that he needs to do anything besides being himself in order to get her to like him.
In some cases our study found guys who set up elaborate websites for women, or created online play lists for them with music they might like. It's very sweet, very romantic, but it's something that you do for someone that you know.
Woman's Response
Any time a guy goes out of the way to please a woman in order to get her to like him, he is lowering his value in her eyes. Would he go out of his way like this for a total stranger? No, and that's what she is right now... What the guy is communicating to the girl is "my personality alone is not worthy of your attention, so I will do things for you so that I become worthy".
How to Avoid Pitfall:
Once the couple has been dating for a while, the guy can go ahead and do nice things for her, but for now, he hasn't even met her in person yet. For all he knows, she might be a 13 year old boy messing with him online. A man needs to qualify her as to why she is worthy of his time, not qualify himself as to why he is worthy of her time!
9. Grow up!
Mistake men make:
The worst mistake a man could make in online dating (and in life as well) is not willing to act like a grown man. Many men get stuck in "Baby mode" - they aren't willing to grow up and realize that a grown man's' personality and behavior are not affected by a woman's reaction to them, or the results of the interaction with women.
A grown man will realize that not all women will be attracted to him, love him or that it takes work and time to get good at dating women. Grown men don't get offended when a woman doesn't write back to them, and as a result send her a nasty email talking about what a terrible person she is.
Woman's Response
Throughout our study I've seen emails from guys going through a whole range of negative emotions to why the girl didn't answer them while all that happened was that the girl was out of town and didn't mention it to them (in one case, the guy went from being cute to being self conscious "are you not answering me because of my looks?" and eventually he started using abusive language and ranting about her low sense of morality. Obviously, this type of behavior did not generate a positive response...
How to Avoid Pitfall:
Guys - Grow up! If a girl doesn't respond, or doesn't react like you want her to, follow up, try a different approach, and if that doesn't work, then move on... there are plenty of girls out there. (If you look at a typical large city there are about 60,000 eligible women in your age range, which means that even if you want to meet only 10% of them it will take 16.4 YEARS of going out on a first date every night to meet them all...).
10. This is the worst mistake of all!
The worst mistake a man could make in online dating and in life is not getting the help he knows he needs! Guys don't like to look weak and ask for help, but think about this: Two out of three men make enough mistakes online for them to think that "online dating doesn't work". Obviously, it does work for the other 1/3 of the people that are on it so its not "online dating" that does not work, it's something they are doing online that isn't working for them. Someone once said, "if you keep on doing the same thing, you'll always get the same results", this is why it's important to get help and try to fix some of these mistakes you are making, and not feel helpless when you are not getting any responses to your emails and profiles.
Sam Stone is the author of several books on dating and relationships including "Online Dating Secrets Revealed!", the "Confidence Manual" and of onlinedatingpro.com.
Readers can get additional free advice by registering to his mailing list at http://www.onlinedatingpro.com
Mr. Stone is also available for interviews upon request contact our publishing department at publishing@onlinedatingpro.com or samstone@onlinedatingpro.com
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