Dating sites. Are they worth it?

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That makes perfect sense to me. Plus I feel pressure to not be "shallow" or "picky" so if someone says something interesting then I want to give them a chance. I guess I feel like it's only fair, since I have a lot of issues to deal with too and I feel that if it gets to the point where you really like someone then you can try to overlook those things.

One of the biggest challenges I have on dating sites is just knowing what to say in an initial email. First off, I'm as guilty as just about any guy in that I always look at a woman's pictures before I read her profile. Truth be told, most women HATE it when guys have nothing to say but how a woman is OMG TEH HAWT!! in her profile pics (which by chance could be outdated). Instead, they want to see that you read their profile and have meaningful feedback on it. The problem is I always seem to come across insipid profiles that say nothing more than "I like to dance, I like to cook, I like to hang out, etc.". Kind of boring and difficult to comment on.

My biggest issue with online dating is that at the beginning its extremely awkward:

-I mean you have to approach someone in a somewhat friendly manner but you have to make sure that you show interest in them and you have to be able to provoke a reply yet the main advice I got was send short messages that dont make you look desperate.
How does one break the tension of approaching someone at a dating site/present themselves as a suitable match/show interest on just a few lines?.

Eventually I was able to get somewhat good at finding quirky girls that rarely got messages and most of the times we exchanged quite a few messages but the thing is that they all lived in Portugal/the other part of Spain and eventually we stopped messaging before I even considered trying to arrange some sort of visit to wherever they were(there isnt that many hispanic people on okcupid).

I recently signed up a spanish dating site to see how things go but its mostly gathering dust because they keep sending me new matches from the other side of the world that make it almost impossible to keep track of someone that lives near. I'll try to give it another chance on one of my next "challenges".

You have to say something that will draw her in and will stand out from all the other messages she receives. It's kind of hard to do when you can't read her inbox. Usually making a quick comment on something you find interesting on her profile is the best way to go.

No.

I've found some very eligible and wonderful men via dating sites, I'm currently dating a few. Choose a good site, see effort when writing your profile and choose a flattering photo of yourself and you're off to a good start.

The thing that sucks - I can love a girl as a person but be repelled on the angle of physical contact, they could even be attractive but just not 'my style' and I'm kind of forced to realize that the negative turbulance I'm feeling not only will show outwardly but that most of being a good partner has to come from authentic motivation, it comes much more easy when you truly enjoy being with them on 'that' level. Without that, if you feel like you're trying to push two positive magnets together - in my own experience over the years - it feels worse than being single, its unhappily taken, and at the same time if they're really into you you feel terrible for them and its like every moment that you aren't working toward ending it or letting them know you aren't interested is another ethical step in the wrong direction.

Chemistry seems to be sort of a Holy Grail for you and a lot of other people, Techstep. My own orientation on this one seems closer to ValentineWiggin's, though, and maybe that's why I haven't had many bad experiences with meeting people I initially 'met' online. I understand chemistry and can feel it when it's there, but think it's something that, to some extent, is created and that people have limited control over.

It seems like if chemistry's worth a lot to someone, it's also got to be worth it for them to really know themselves and the nonverbal signals they're throwing out. I think this is the huge hurdle for people with Asperger's, who often have challenges with expressing themselves and can be slow-starters. Just like it's possible to create chemistry, it's also possible to kill it. I mean, that's why one person will have chemistry with one person and not another.

So, I think that it's probably good not to be too fatalistic about chemistry and think it's either there or not. There is a back-and-forth between two people and if someone does as much as they can to hold up their own end of it, they'll increase their odds of creating a spark with someone. Conversely, if someone comes across as an unexpressive wall of clay or something, they aren't going to have good odds of finding chemistry because their dates will play to what they are putting out. It's the "I'm rubber and you're glue" principle.

That's a positive way to spin it but it ignores one critical point: its not a misguided or ill-conceived attitude or choice. Its inconvenient and I didn't, I don't think anyone I really know who's in this boat, decided to opt in on this way of seeing things. It could be more of a childhood development thing than a genetic, it could be partially genetic, I don't know for sure, just that I can verify it is pretty well frozen in stone and at the same time I think my functioning (as an aspie with the strengths and weaknesses that come with that) have a lot to do with defining what it is and how it works.


I think there might be something to the idea that if you have two aspies who both look to NT cues to react you'll have a vacuum. It seems like when I have met people, if things are heartfelt and flowing, being a brick wall doesn't really materialize. I think the greeting is an important thing as well though; ie. if it starts off on an awkward page and if they stay in a particularly inaccessible zone from the start it ends up being an exercise in pulling teeth. I'd never say that someone else's style is their fault, at least in looking at what I've learned being me I'd find it utterly unfair to look at it that way and I tend to assume that other people are doing their best at any given moment with what they have. At the same time though their style and presentation does directly impact the quality of what they'll be able to get out of me (whether I choose it or not). I think this is the harder thing about being an aspie - we can find those rare people where we can be annimated and talk for hours just because they can access something within us, other people maybe halfway get us there, others - no fault of their own - shut us down. Especially when its a dating game at 25+, its two fully-formed people meeting and it seems even more clear that the dating process is scraping away the unknown of what's been there all along, if something does come out of the unknown that's a dealbreaker all it means is that you saw what was always there and always had been.

Ultimately though everyone's brain wiring is what it is. For those who have more play or more ability to change their impulses and how they're able to feel things on convenience, while I'm sure they can be at risk for permanently being lost and not knowing themselves they do have the added benefit of scrapping what's inconvenient. At the same time though, for as many different kinds of people there are out there, each with their life time buildup of idiosyncrasies, perceptions, and identities, it makes less than no sense for us to blame ourselves or wonder what's wrong with us if in the 'discovery' or what you could think of as the due diligence phase of dating, that a deal breaker comes up. A good part of why I don't even want to touch the dating scene for a long time is that I realize that not everyone has had the impetus from the pressures in their own lives to come to the conclusions and outlook that I have and, I hate like hell hurting people. Its kind of why I'd much rather just meet people IRL, go from nonverbal match-up first, and if in 10 years I'm single and approaching my 42nd birthday, so be it. From 25 on I've been dating off and on, whether friends of friends, whether E harmony, and every single time its been me bringing the "Er....mmmm....no, you're cool - don't get me wrong, but no". I think right now in my life I'll just continue to keep investing in myself, keep finding ways to really make it in this world, and understand that even if my dating life has near-zero productivity, I have every reason to feel great about life on every other angle and the whole PUA macho attitude so many guys seem to have on this forum internally that they're only validated or okay if they're in a relationship - I can think of many things in this world that would make much more sense for me to grill and rake myself over the coals on for nonperformance; something that I have no control over, something that's so intimately and inexorably tied to a persons identity on whether they sink, swim, or ever end up in the water at all; IMO life's a bit too short and a bit too meaningless to put some kind of religious status on relationships (which sadly for so many people as I look around IRL seems to have little regard for going concern or how happy/unhappy it ends up being in the end).

I think Alison Armstrong has a really big point when she says that most relationships split on what was there in the beginning. Divorces, bad marriages, and sub-par limping-along type situations are those that come from two people saying 'Yeah, I see that about them but, screw it - I don't want to be lonely'. A person's favorite ice cream might change, their favorite book, where they like to go for a round of golf or take the ATV's on the weekend, what brand of shoes or purse they might like best, but deeper level mechanics really don't. Mind you I don't just take her word for it at that she's supposedly a 'pro' on the topic, I've just had the same observation myself all of my life and it reminds me that if anything part of what's wrong with my approach is likely what's wrong with the attitudes of people who suffer from depression, anxiety, etc. - its 'unhealthy' accurate. Then again I think this is where society's illusions, particularly the ones they try to muscle down our throats, cause all kinds of unnecessary and what I think is fallacious hurt - I often have to wonder if my outlook isn't unhealthy accurate not because its unhealthy for its own sake but because I'm carrying the weight of society's illusions on my shoulders by not being a part of that.

Regardless though, much like depth isn't a choice (I've heard it come up in the past before and found it utterly strange), needs in a relationship really aren't either.


(btw: sorry if any of this was TMI but then again if it has to be said it has to be said)

Put a profile in the other part of Spain, and look for girls who are local to you.

Women are afraid that the local guys will ask them out really fast and prefer long distance relationships.

If it builds to where she really likes you, it'll end up being a good thing that you're actually local to her.

you're saying he should lie on his profile?

That still wouldnt be a solution because there are only two girls around my age/city on okcupid so chances would still be slim to none.

I knew this when I joined okcupid but I had been avoiding online dating for a while and its one of my best options at the moment, the whole lets see how compatible we are thing that was going on here at the time seemed like the perfect excuse to start using okcupid and get done with it

Ive now started using some spanish free dating site with more suitable girls but the profile layout/search method... is so bad that I dont like using it much.

Future challenge references update my profile on spanish website, try to find/approach a couple of possible matches a week for a month, see the results

Maybe that's the difference- I don't even look at people's photographs because they simply don't interest me.
I've met several people off OKC without having any idea what they looked like.

I definitely don't envy men the onus placed on them to initiate- I can imagine that it takes a tremendous amount of guts.

I always think it's better to try and know the result, good or bad, than to never try at all.
My mother met her husband on a dating site. She had been with several men over the years and swore that they were all jerks and that she was never getting married. I told her she should try online dating so I set her up a profile. Within two weeks she had met with the guys and within 6 months she had married him.

Worth it? To her it was.

I've had great luck, at least so far, with OKC. It takes a bit of time and effort. I had discussions with several women over a couple of months and eventually found one who I clicked with. I asked her out and four months later we've never been happier. My SO, like techstepgenr8tion, apparently had a bunch of great interactions online, but found that didn't translate into something great in person. For us it fortunately has, but we have also been extremely lucky.