I took a few months off of here because I thought I knew what I was doing; maybe I do. I also thought I didn't have a use for this community, but my negativity is bleeding into my friendships and I'd rather burden you perfect strangers.

I had to put down my dog a couple months ago, so I'm REALLY spoiling for some female companionship (considering putting that in my profile in a way that doesn't liken women to dogs). I am getting no love online, though. I'm experimenting with trying to write in a way that appeals to women and it's just not working. So, to tie it all together, I don't know if it's failing because there's underlying negativity/depression/neediness in the profile and I need some outside perspective. I've also sent some really excellent messages, but I'm not getting responses. Also, maybe my picture is bad?

Asking men is kind of the blind leading the blind, but... http://www.okcupid.com/profile/minsok oh, and here's my fairly unused POF profile http://www.plentyoffish.com/viewprofile ... d=20696200

It looks like one is self-focused and the other is needy-other person focused.

Pics:

Your pictures are fine, tho they come as a tad bit model like. I would switch the black and white one with the one of you with the black T. Has more sex appeal and it is easier to see you.

Profile:

I get the feeling you are trying to hard. The whole wording and such isn't smooth or connecting for that manner. You should redo your profile, but this time instead of trying to make it appealing to girls, think of it as you are selling or marketing your self instead. Keep in mind you don't want to say too much or too little.

Messages:

What sort of messages are you sending? A big part of online dating is the message. Send the wrong message and the girl will not reply back. What you say in your profile doesn't really matter a whole lot. Your message and pics almost matter more than anything else when it comes to online dating.

Maybe there's some incongruence between gangster and museums ... but get the vibe right on your profile and you don't have to write a clever message. but if you write clever messages they've got to have congruence with you profile. Your profile is a mix of identities and some weird sh*t. Probably no one 'gets' you. If your messages are as good as you say, you can be pretty sure your profile is killing you. scrap that and start again. I'd go with the same pic that jurupu suggests too.

Thanks for the input guys. I wrote the profile in patchwork, so that's probably why it doesn't flow together. I'm going to keep trying to make something that connects on an emotional level and not worry so much about logic or whatever; I really don't think girls are that exacting, especially since their profiles are 90% of the time all over the place and self-focused. The messages I'm sending are consistent with my profile, and I think they smell of try hard, too. Meh, whatever, I'll smooth it over when I'm motivated to try again.

It's a process of trial and error. According to theory of the paradox of choice, too much choice is bad for us. Either it makes us whimsical or we're forced to create arbitrary rules to cope. Apply that to dating sites and it makes girls fussy in ways that are hard to predict. You can't judge girls by how they write their own profiles. They're as bad at writing profiles as anyone else but their different experience of the system will naturally affect their subsequent behaviour within it.

The most effective profiles I've seen are minimal on hard facts. Which in itself is contrary to okc which encourages hard fact....

Yeah, my experience shows that rote lists of any kind are a hard NO. Makes you boring. I'm trying to figure out the romance novel angle because I'm tired of girls that are unemotional.

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31 and still figuring it out.

Updated my profile. It's really new territory for me, so I don't know what's going to happen; hopefully good things. I have a feeling it's too intense or serious for most women, though. Or maybe it's because I'm not very serious, but I am about dating, it's not congruent? Shit's confusing.

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31 and still figuring it out.