Recently I wrote about the only dating sites I’m currently using (match.com and chemistry) and why. But of course, that led to people sending me question about other sites.

So, let’s just get it all out there (and hopefully people will dive in with their experiences in the comments).

There are dozens of online dating sites out there.  Dozens.  Some of them have hundreds of members, and some of them have millions of members.  And some are free and some cost a lot of money.  I’m certainly not an expert on the industry, but I’ve probably tried more sites than most people.

So here are some more of my random thoughts.  My least favorite sites are Plenty of Fish and Adult Friend Finder.  Plenty of Fish has millions of users (it’s free, so…) and so I’m sure there are plenty of decent folks there.  But the majority of guys who contacted me were just kinda trashy. They sent one line messages like, “i think ur hot.  call me ### “.

Adult Friend Finder was just a little too aggressive for my taste.  I thought it might be a good way to meet someone casual (I know someone who met their significant other there, FWIW). But the messages I got all seemed to come with pictures of penises. I’ve had pretty much similar experience with other sites geared towards casual sex.  My feeling is that it’s just as easy to meet someone interested in casual sex on a site like nerve, and there I don’t have to look at pics of ugly naked guys.

I know a lot of people like the “specialized” sites of Spark networks – JDate, BlackSingles, ChristianMingle, Catholic… and I tried out that network a few years ago and loathed it.  It just wasn’t my thing. Which doesn’t mean that there aren’t dozens of people everyday who meet there and fall in love.

There are some smaller, start-up sites that seem like they could have a shot of doing well. I’m hopeful for them because I think online dating is an industry that could use some shaking up. Some sites to check out: Dating Revolution and Date Dispatch. I’m also somewhat fascinated by Thread and Gelato.

Lastly (gosh, I feel like I’m giving a lecture here), I want to give a quick shout out to the new mobile dating sites. I love the idea behind Urban Signals (and similar sites – I hear grindr is hot with the gays) and have it on my iphone. I am a little neurotic about actually using it, though. Something about GPS technology freaks me out.

So in conclusion, dear friends, there really are lots of online dating choices out there, with new ones popping up all the time. And smart people are finding ways to integrate online dating into other platforms and technologies.  So the next time I hear someone say that, “I tried online dating, once, and it didn’t work for me,” I’m going to smack that person.

Alright guys, lets get this out of the way:  Online dating is easy.  If you’ve tried it and didn’t get any dates, it’s because you were doing it wrong.  I repeat, if you’ve tried online dating and couldn’t get any women to go out with you, it’s because you were doing it wrong.

Let me be clear here, it’s not because they didn’t want to go out with YOU.  You might be a great guy.  Online dating is a skill.  Like playing poker or skiing or even driving a car.  It’s not hard.  Anyone can do it.  But you have to do it right in order to be successful.  Otherwise you’re going to end up broke or hurt or well, you get it.

So, what does a guy need to know?  First off, he needs to pick the right service or services for him.  Nor all online dating services are the same.  You need to pick the one that’s going to have the most women in your area/demographic that you find attractive.  This varies tremendously from service to service.  So take an hour and test drive them all.  Go from Plenty of Fish to match.com to OKCupid, etc.  Run right down the list.   Don’t waste a lot of time setting up your profile and taking tests until you know a site is right for you.  Just put in the minimum necessary info and do a search for what you’re looking for.  Then check out the chicks.

Next, after you’ve selected the right site for you, you’re going to need to write your profile and select appropriate photos to post with it.  Yes, you must post pictures.  This matters a lot.   A lot.  I’ll cover the photo selection process in more detail in my next post.

Now here’s one of the ways that women are very different than men.  Your picture will matter a lot.  But so will your profile.   Women will not contact guys who have poorly written profiles.  No matter how hot you are (or how cool your photos).  So for starters,

• Answer all of the questions.  Don’t leave a lot of blanks.  That makes you look lazy.
• Use spell check and carefully check your profile for capitalization and punctuation errors.  Yes, I’m serious.  Women complain about this all of the time.  They’re not going to reply to you if your profile is riddled with spelling errors or you don’t know the difference between there, their and they’re.
• Avoid clichés.  Women don’t need to read that you’re looking for someone who “gets you”.  Be specific about who you are and what you’re looking for.  And for god’s sake, don’t say that you’re looking for a woman without a lot of baggage.  It’ll make you sound like a jerk.

Once you’re all set up with your profile, it’s time to start actively using the site.  Smart online daters will check in at least once a day, just to see if they have any new mail.  My suggestion to you is that you set aside 30 minutes a day, during that first week, to search for women who seem interesting to you and then send them messages.  You must send them messages.  Do not wink.  Winks are lame.

The messages you send are very important.  They don’t need to be long.  They can just be a sentence or two.  But they need to be specific to each woman and they much not contain any spelling errors.  Women frequently joke amongst their friends about the poorly written messages they get on online dating sites(sometimes emailing them around).

So, if a woman mentions she’s a lawyer, you can ask her a question about the kind of law she practices.  If she mentions a hobby, you can say that you share that hobby.  If she appears to be playing a musical instrument in one of her photos, you can write something about that.  Do not say, “I think your pictures are hot.  Wanna get a drink.”

Online dating is easy.  Thousands of people do it successfully every day.   There are no guarantees, but I promise that if you follow this simple advice you’ll have a much better chance of success.

Below are a few more of the brilliant messages I’ve received from guys on Plenty of FIsh:

• Could i copy some of your profile? i like yours mine sux
• write me if I fit your profile… don’t waste my time neither…
• I’m looking for a pretty woman who looks kinda like you. I think you may like me for the intelligence factor. I’m very smart. I think you could be interested in me for a long time.

Those were nowhere near the worst of the lot.  They just happened to be at the top of the inbox.

I think I’ve had enough.  I gave it a few weeks.  I tried.  But that is just not the site for me.  Maybe I’m a snob, but I don’t think that’s it.  I just never (ever) got messages this lame on nerve.com.  And believe me, I got some seriously lameass messages there.  But at least those guys seemed to be trying.  If these guys are trying, well, then maybe I should go into business.  Because they need some professional help.

I know I haven’t written about it much, lately (there have just been so many other things I’ve wanted to write about), but I’ve been trying to keep up with my online dating.  You know, the online part of it.

I’m a little out of my mind right now on cold medicine, but I wanted to give you an update because something happened last night that had me laughing my ass off.

Well, first off, all of the guys from my one week experiment on Chemistry.com have flaked out on me.  There were a few that I gave my email address to and one that even earned my phone number.  But one by one they all flaked.  I’m so not bothered by it as I wasn’t all that interested in any of them.  I think I was doing a damn good job of keeping up a facade of being interested, but perhaps they sensed my lack of true interest.  Or something else.  Whatever.

So I have active profiles on Plenty of Fish, OKCupid and Match.com. Which sounds like a lot but I’m not that active on any of them because I just don’t find most of the guys on those sites to my liking.  They all have a shortage of men in my demographic (40-50 year old guys who live in Manhattan or REALLY nearby.   I don’t discriminate against the rest of NYC, but I prefer shorter commutes.  Yeah, I just said that.)

So I’m spending very little time on these sites.  Very little.  I get the emails telling me that I have new messages and I check those daily (OK, sometimes I go a couple of days as most of the messages are from guys who are totally inappropriate).

Anyway, I have 2 funny stories to share with you.  The first is a little funny.  The second is hysterical, at least I think it is.  So one of the guys from POF seemed OK.  We exchanged some messages and then I offered him the email address I use for online dating (I have a special email address for online dating and shopping).  We exchanged a few messages there.  And then I realized that he was talking about a lot of things that sounded as if he didn’t live in the city.  But his profile said he did.  So I brought it up.  And it turned out that he USED to live in the city.  A long while ago.  And he doesn’t anymore.  He just didn’t think to mention that to me? Even though my profile makes it clear that I don’t want to meet anyone who lives more than 10 miles away and he clearly does.

Lying shit.

OK, that’s just a little funny.

Then, last night I got a message from a guy who’s profile name I recognized immediately.  It’s oddly distinctive.  He and I met and went out on a date a few years ago (different site, but like him I use the same profile name everywhere I go).  And then sometime last year he contacted me as if it were the first time and introduced himself.  And I had to say, “hey, we’ve already met and we went out”.  It wasn’t a horrible date but it was a completely blah date and I wasn’t terribly offended that he’d forgotten.  Not terribly.

So now, he sees me again and this time he recognizes me from last year and so he sends me another message.  The message was basically that maybe we should try again.  OK, fine.  Nothing wrong with that, you say? But then I do a double take at his profile.  He’s officially aged 10 years.

According to his current profile he is 60 years old.   Now I know, I’m 100% certain that when we went out his profile did not say that he was that old (22 years older than me).  I am 38.  I look pretty good for my age.  I am frequently mistaken for someone younger.  I date older guys because I like older guys.  But, well, 60 isn’t older.  60 is old.  I’m sorry.  But that’s just how I feel.  I’m sure there’s some hot 60 year old out there who could prove me wrong, but I just can’t imagine getting naked with a 60 year old.

I haven’t responded to him.  I don’t even know how to respond.  I probably wouldn’t have been interested in going out with him again anyway.  But that’s moot.  All I can really think about is that his old profile, the one on the other site was a big stinking lie.  I know there are lots of people who lie about their ages.  I’ve dated guys who admitted to me on the first date that they were really 2 or 3 or 5 years older than their profile said.  And while I think that’s incredibly lame, I don’t hold it against them too much because I understand they think that it’s acceptable.  That everyone does it (I don’t).    But 10 years!

Seriously, I was laughing my ass off.

I had a date today with a guy I met on Plenty of Fish.  I’m supposed to be on a break from dating but it was an offer I couldn’t resist.  He invited me to go with him to the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Gardens (I’m not into orchids, but the show is kind of a big deal).  I’d read about the show in years past but never been.  It seemed like such a great idea for a date so I figured, what the hell.

The flowers were lovely.

The date was meh.  I wanted to like him.  I felt I should like him.  We had tons in common.  Tons.  But we just had no chemistry.  If there was such a thing as negative chemistry, we would’ve had negative chemsitry.

But that’s OK.  Really.  So, he’s not a good match for me.  It was a pleasant enough day and I saw some pretty flowers.  And maybe now I’ll resume my break.  Or at least wait until the next offer I can’t resist.