Online & Apps  Chase's Guide to Online Dating (2010)

Chase

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Originally posted in the first Girls Chase Forum on Thursday, 13 May 2010

Alright gents, here's the latest on my online game.

We're all friends here, and mostly in different towns, and heck, I'm leaving this one pretty soon anyway – so I'm going to lay out everything I'm using right now for online dating.

In the past, I'd generally send out between 30 and 70 messages total on a given site and get maybe 4 to 7 replies, one or two of which might translate into something worthwhile. A few lays, a few cute girls met over the years – maybe one with good looks and good personality, the rest either “meh” in both looks and personality, or super-cute in looks but super-crazy in personality.

But recently, I've made some tweaks. Scratch that. I've made a complete overhaul. And the shift is pretty dramatic. Same exact pictures I was using before (one cool new one). Entirely redesigned profile and opening message. The results have been eye-popping.

I'm using Plenty Of Fish right now, because it's free and it's HUGE. Tons of girls on here. The quality tends to be all over the board – I have dates set up next week with a red-headed stripper who claims she's clairvoyant, a bleached-blonde California girl with a professional degree and a super-sharp wit, and an educated, cultured Asian girl with a little bit of a wild side. All of them very cute – like, ranging from “Nice” to “Top-Notch”. And it's been... relatively easy. It was never this easy before. And to top all that, the responses are coming in droves. I have an inbox that's six pages deep, and they're putting 10 messages to a page. After a week-and-a-half.

I used to be a little sad at the realization that online seemed to be mostly about looks. I made a fake profile with a blond-haired, blue-eyed model, and it got swamped with unsolicited messages from women. Use the same exact headline and profile text with my OWN pictures – where the pics are the only difference – and crickets. Not a single “hello”.

Then I'd send out bunches of messages, and get next-to-nothing. Or sometimes just nothing, period.

Here's what I've tried in the past:

  • the “sincere” profile, where I just talked about myself and a few of my travels – met a few cool girls from a very specific niche with this; every other kind of girl didn't even reply
  • the Style-inspired “selfish prick” profile
  • the “cool, laid-back” profile with a lot of quick bits about neat things going on my life (actually, recommended to a buddy, and his results went up noticeably with the recommended changes)
  • JohnnyC69's “screening” profile, where you're basically just screening the crap out of girls without revealing anything about yourself

After my latest round of messages went out using the Johnny-inspired profile I had up, I noticed that the only replies I got back were from girls who didn't view my profile. The ones who checked me out didn't bother saying hi back. That told me I was still doing something wrong.

So, I went back, removed most of the really cool pictures I had up, and rewrote the profile. Maybe the hardcore screener isn't a good fit with my look, I thought. After all, I have a very chill, slightly upscale / more worldly look, and a guy who's screening hard with that kind of look is going to seem well-nigh unapproachable. So maybe I ought to disarm myself and come off a little more... fun.

And that's what I did. I focused on first picking two good pictures, one that showed my body, and one that showed my face and style. Then I chose one that showed me doing something really cool and unconventional. And I eliminated the rest. I saw an OKCupid study recently where they found that the men who got the best response rates were looking down and away in their profile pics, so I changed my main picture to one where I'm looking – you guessed it – down and away. Probably it's the case that looking dead-on at someone is kind of expectant – in the same way how it's a little startling to a girl if you tap her and she turns to be met with your gaze already fixed on her. Better to let her look at you first, then meet her eyes once they're already upon you. Same way with profile pics.

Next I did my rewrite, mainly focusing on combining Johnny's screening approach with a funny, outlandish one. Here's what I came up with:

  • MAIN PROFILE PICTURE
    chase-pof-01.jpeg


    ALL PICTURES
    chase-pof-02.jpeg
    chase-pof-03.jpeg
    chase-pof-04.jpeg


    HEADLINE

    Not Mr. Right... Maybe Mr. Wrong

    PROFESSION

    Knight

    INTERESTS

    kicking asses first and asking questions later

    ABOUT ME

    Tired of reading the same boring profile over and over again? “I like hanging out with friends, going to the beach, and surfing / snorkeling / snowboarding.” Fascinating, and utterly unique.

    NOT! Boring... yawn. Onto the next profile.

    Me? Chances are, I probably like the same things you do and have done them / do them regularly. Because I do all kinds of shit. Like you wouldn't even BELIEVE. That's right old lady, sit down before you have a heart attack. I represent.

    Do I like clubbing? Yes, I'm the master of your favorite nightclub. Traveling? I've been to that country you've wanted to visit since you were five. Like, twice. Exercise? 24 Hour Fitness wants me there so bad they gave me a DISCOUNT. Access to all locations for the same price as one, baby. Sudoku? No, actually... that one's all yours.

    You? I expect you to be AMAZING. Like, capable of both kicking Angelina Jolie's ass all over Hollywood, while at the same time being able to talk over all five chicks on The View. Or is it six now. Looks are important. Smarts are important. In fact, everything's important. If you've got it ALL going on, apply below. If not... don't worry, there are still plenty of guys on here who play the guitar and know how to surf and would love to get to know you better at a Starbuck's located somewhere between both of your addresses.

    Think you can handle me? You're probably wrong. But if you're bold, go ahead and try and find out...

    FIRST DATE

    First of all, I don't “date”. I kick ass. So we probably won't have a first date. We'll have a first ass-kicking session. But don't worry, we won't be kicking each OTHER'S asses... just other people's. I like to do things together on a first ass-kicking.

    Where will we have our first ass-kicking? I'm afraid I can't say. If I did, no one would go there and we'd be out of asses to kick. So for now, you're just going to have to sit tight and trust my judgment. Don't worry... you've never met a man with judgment like mine.

Pretty fun, right? The whole point of dating is about making girls feel good emotions. Make them smile, make them laugh, and keep moving things along with them, and BOOM! You just got laid. Straightforward. The theory behind this profile was that so many men's profiles are so unbelievably, incredibly boring that if you can write one that's both A) attractive, and B) engaging, you'll stand out in a big way. There's also still a big screening element in there as well (thanks to Johnny). Of course, the more serious girls / ones who are lower self-esteem get blown out by this. But that's the point. I need high-confidence, ambitious chicks who can hang with me. Softy pushovers need not apply. If you decide to use this profile verbatim (which you are certainly free to do, provided you're not in San Diego – if you are, trust me, I've already messaged all the cute girls in town and it'll just be weird if you do! Use this more as a template than a straight copy-paste in that case), obviously make some tweaks for your area (no surfing in the Midwest, I imagine).

Pictures are super-important too. They must gel with the profile nicely. Nothing that overstates value too much; avoid anything showing you with a girl, and avoid anything that looks like a blatant value-display. Get some stuff close to what I have there – two showing what you look like, one showing you on some awesome adventure – and that's all you need.

Now, the message. Here's the really fun part. When I designed this message, I had three rules:

  • the first message must be short – Law of Effort stuff... she's hasn't put any work in, so you shouldn't be putting much in yet either
  • the first message must be fun – it's got to put a big smile on her face and get her laughing if possible
  • the first message must be personal – it's got to have stuff in there that's specific about her so she knows she's not just getting the same generic message as everyone else

I also had in mind that the subject line had to be intriguing enough to get girls to actually read the message. The subject line is actually pretty huge – you want to start with an incomplete thought that makes her want to know what else you have to say. I used to use the line, “I'm confused...” from the Window-Shopping for Women guys, which got decent results, but got a little bored of that. I tried using, “I can't believe you...” but that got a poor read rate. So I switched it up again. My final message ended up looking like this:

  • SUBJECT

    You know what...?

    BODY

    I hear the people who like cats and sushi make the worst Wii Sports players.

    ;)

    How's the online dating world treating you, Ms. Sociable?

    -C

The smiley I added in after the first round of that style message went out and it got a lower reply rate. Adding the smiley in instantly boosted my reply rates. A lot of these girls are getting bitter guys sending them nasty / passive-aggressive messages all day long, so it's pretty important it seems to take the edge off and reassure them you're just kidding around with them.

How it works is, you take a couple things, usually (I've used one-long, odd thing as well) from her profile, and throw them in that first line replacing the bold, brown words. IMPORTANT: calibration is key here. You want to pick two totally unrelated things, because you don't want her to have any association between the two. So you might say, “people who like Hello Kitty and Motorcross,” or, “people who like chihuahuas and jacuzzis,” provided she mentions liking both in her profile, and you're fine and dandy (and pretty funny). If you pick things that are too closely related, though, and she has an association between the two in her brain, it feels like you're singling her out for something and that the two of you don't relate. It's also not funny. Same rule goes for things that are very common. So you wouldn't say, “people who like Metallica and Led Zeppellin,” or, “people who like tattoos and surfing,” because those are too closely related and too common. But you could certainly say, “people who like Metallica and bicycles,” or, “people who like tattoos and calamari,” and she'll laugh.

Also, if you're picking the stuff for the first line out of her interests box (say, on POF), make sure the descriptor you choose for the closing line is out of her profile body. Use something positive and fun that she uses to describe herself, such as, “Outgoing,” or, “Traveler,” or, “Ambitious,” or, “Zany.” Shy away from anything with an even remotely negative connotation – even things as almost-innocuous as “sarcastic” or “wild” or “adventurous”. You're effectively qualifying her with this last line, and if she feels like you're qualifying her on something negative or sexually-related, it comes off mildly creepy for most women. If she likes the look of you, she'll be hooked harder; but most girls aren't going to respond well to this. You stand a far better chance of hooking with something more positive and upbeat and less threatening. You can introduce sexy talk a little later.

Whew. Didn't realize you could put this much analysis into online dating, did you? I was going to post some correspondence chains, but most of what I have is these chicks sending me really long messages... quite often in their first message. Note on responding to what you get from this message: lots of girls will banter back about the Wii Sports, or give a boring logical response (e.g., “Well you must've heard wrong, because I'm a Wii Sports All-Star!!” or, “I don't play video games, so I guess you heard right”). Be ready for that and keep moving in your reply (e.g., “In that case, I stand corrected!” or, “Ah well. I'm sure you have other redeeming qualities ;)” or ignore that topic altogether if you have other stuff to riff off of in her response). Also, a high-value, quick response to what she says about online dating is best; you don't want to dwell on the subject in most cases. Hit it and move. So if she comes back with something like:

  • Not so great, I'm thinking about leaving actually... how's it going for you?

You'll want to reply with something like:

  • No way? Blah. Been a few years since I did it, but it was OK for me back in the day – a few *really* cool people I met, balanced out by a few stealth-weirdos – you know, the ones who seem totally normal, until they take off their shirts and show you the skull tattoo inked on their backs with the word “P.A.I.N.” etched across its forehead. lol

    Sucks to catch you on your way out. Tell me a little about you though before you go. Some fun stuff you do when you're not cruising on here for the man of your dreams, say ;)

    -C

Remember to match your investment levels roughly to hers. That means no 3-paragraph responses to a girl's 1-sentence reply. She has to feel like you're putting in roughly equal amounts. That also means not replying too often. Take around the same amount of time to reply to her that she takes for you. If it took her twelve hours to get back to you, take ten hours or fourteen hours. If she replies to you instantly sometimes, and takes a day other times, mix it up back with her like she does with you. Keep your patterns rough... if she picks up that you always take exactly the same amount of time to reply to her that she took to reply to you, it comes off almost as tryhard as does a guy who replies right away every time.

Right now, I have 6 messages from 6 different girls sitting in my inbox. Some of those girls I've already corresponded with today; some of them are first responses to my opening email. I'm not going to respond to them until tomorrow though; there's no rush. So long as you respond in a reasonable window, you're fine.

Also, make sure you're messaging new girls frequently. Right now, I'm messaging a good 25 to 40 girls a day. With that message template, it's easy. Do a search (in POF, I use the “Advanced” search function to specify only “Thin” or “Athletic” body types, since everything else is 99% fatties – helpful tip: if all of her pictures are shot from boobs-up or are pictures taken from above [slimming effect from that angle], she's a pudgy piggie – and I also search by ethnic group to keep things easier / more organized – e.g., I know I just messaged all the Asian girls who've been online recently, so now I'll do the white girls), then open all the profiles in tabs of girls with cute faces. Scan their profiles quickly and plunk down the words you pick out to use in your message; paste the message in the “Quick Message” box (along with your subject line... I find Google Chrome best for doing this, because as soon as you hit the letter “y” a drop-down box appears with your standards subject line if you've used it even just once before, and you can select it and paste your text and you're good to go), and hit “Send”. Then, onto the next girl. You can message those 25 to 40 girls in a half an hour if you're booking.

Three big reasons to message lots of new girls on a daily basis, by the way:

  • 1. It keeps a continual rotation of fresh new faces entering the arena – plenty of new girls for you to talk to, and

    2. It keeps you living in abundance and not worried a whole lot about any one girl. Girl A stopped replying? No biggie, you have four or five other girls sitting in your inbox

    3. You take advantage of high turnover – most girls are only on online dating for 1 to 3 weeks max before giving up (deluged with lame / boring / gross messages) or pairing up with someone

And, that's it. Be fun, be witty, be cool, and set up a date in a reasonable number of messages (don't take too long!), and you'll be meeting pretty new girls off the Internet before you know it.

Cheers fellas,
Chase
 

Jeet02

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Nice! I have actually been having problems with getting girls to reply in okCupid and PoF. I have only had one date from there and it wasn't even worth it. Two quick questions:

1)Have you met decent girls in there? Even if it is just for a quick lay at least?

2)Should we try using the same words from your profile, see if we get results? Or would you say we should try to come ip with our own from the get go?

Thanks for the guide...I will definitely try it and posts the results!

Cheers!
 

Jeet02

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How about instead of "Not Mr. Right...Maybe Mr. Wrong" go with "Not Mr. Right...Maybe Mr. Left" ? too lame? haha
 

Chase

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Jeet02 said:
How about instead of "Not Mr. Right...Maybe Mr. Wrong" go with "Not Mr. Right...Maybe Mr. Left" ? too lame? haha

How about, "I don't want to hurt you... but I still might ;)"

Or, "Weak hearts, keep your distance..."

Chase
 

Jeet02

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haha I liked the "i don't want to hurt you..." one. Gonna try it! Thanks.
 

Thinkingenigma

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Just found this post this morning. I redid my OKC profile and messaged about 6-7 girls this morning, and I'm already setting up a date with a girl for next week. It used to be rare that I'd even get a visit to my profile, let alone a reply. This has totally changed the way I'm using OKC.

Oh, and btw, the chick is smoking hot.
1572761601912238647.jpeg
 

Jeet02

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Thinkingenigma said:
Just found this post this morning. I redid my OKC profile and messaged about 6-7 girls this morning, and I'm already setting up a date with a girl for next week. It used to be rare that I'd even get a visit to my profile, let alone a reply. This has totally changed the way I'm using OKC.

Oh, and btw, the chick is smoking hot.
1572761601912238647.jpeg

Holy crap man! Nice!

I am curious, how did you set up your OKC profile? Just like Chase's example, or what did you do?

Kudos!
 

Thinkingenigma

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Jeet02 said:
I am curious, how did you set up your OKC profile? Just like Chase's example, or what did you do?

I used some of Chase's material mixed with some of my own along with a few interesting things I picked up from a friend on FB who also has an epic profile. I basically used Chase's message template, but I ran into a problem with a few girls where they didn't have stuff on their profile that I could use. A perfect example would be a really cute girl from my hometown who had a pretty good profile, but didn't really list anything too specific (from her profile, I can tell that she likes to travel, that she's ambitious and she is very cultured, but there aren't any unique things that I can specifically point to that wouldn't fall under the too generic category). Does anyone have any advice for messaging these types of girls?
 

Jeet02

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I actually messaged one that left her profile completely empty. And I just said "I hear the people that leave their profile empty make the Worst Wii Sport Players!"

So maybe you could try something like that. Or seeing how it is okCupid, you could also go into the questions area of it and see what you find. Maybe she might not be a 100% sure of what you are talking about though, cause sometimes people forget what they answer in there! haha

Let me know if you come up with a solution!

-Jeet
 

bigoiltrader

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Has anyone tried using this strategy comparatively between the different sites? I'm curious whether a pay-site such as LavaLife or Match would yield better results than OkCupid. I abandoned Plenty of Fish, as I had absolutely no success on there the first time around.
 

bigoiltrader

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Jeet02 said:
I actually messaged one that left her profile completely empty. And I just said "I hear the people that leave their profile empty make the Worst Wii Sport Players!"

So maybe you could try something like that. Or seeing how it is okCupid, you could also go into the questions area of it and see what you find. Maybe she might not be a 100% sure of what you are talking about though, cause sometimes people forget what they answer in there! haha

Let me know if you come up with a solution!

-Jeet

I tried the "empty profile" insert. The response I got was quite funny; I have to share:

You know what? I heard douchebags like you can't get girls of substance cuz u have none.

But the online dating world sucks cause all there are, are Cali tools like yourself
 

Jeet02

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bigoiltrader said:
I tried the "empty profile" insert. The response I got was quite funny; I have to share:

You know what? I heard douchebags like you can't get girls of substance cuz u have none.

But the online dating world sucks cause all there are, are Cali tools like yourself

hahaha! That is pretty funny. I guess we know why SHE is single! Geez...no sense of humor. I guess she is right about the substance, in the sense that we aren't being creative ourselves...but I don't think she has any way of knowing that....does she?!

Thanks for sharing tho! Made my morning! haha

-Jeet
 

Silluger

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Quick question,

I just set up a profile a couple days ago similar to your format Chase, but what I found is that I've gotten quite a few girls who looked at my profile but didn't say anything back. I think I sent out 30 messages, got 2 or 3 responses back and another 5 or 6 that saw my profile but didn't bother saying anything. I guess this means it wasn't quite as fun as I thought and it's too much of a hard screen? I also got a couple girls - 3 or so who looked at my profile maybe cause of my picture but didn't bother saying anything either. Do girls usually send messages to guys they checked out immediately or wait a bit?

I saw that you had the same problem when you were starting out and I think I'm doing something wrong too, although I had this one girl who actually complimented my profile. What would be a laid back revealing small tidbits profile look like?
 

goldenglory

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Silluger said:
Quick question,

I just set up a profile a couple days ago similar to your format Chase, but what I found is that I've gotten quite a few girls who looked at my profile but didn't say anything back. I think I sent out 30 messages, got 2 or 3 responses back and another 5 or 6 that saw my profile but didn't bother saying anything. I guess this means it wasn't quite as fun as I thought and it's too much of a hard screen? I also got a couple girls - 3 or so who looked at my profile maybe cause of my picture but didn't bother saying anything either. Do girls usually send messages to guys they checked out immediately or wait a bit?

I saw that you had the same problem when you were starting out and I think I'm doing something wrong too, although I had this one girl who actually complimented my profile. What would be a laid back revealing small tidbits profile look like?

If a girl looks at your profile but doesn't send a message, I wouldn't necessarily see that as a sign of disinterest. Girls who have viewed your profile are actually the most likely to respond. Maybe you could look at profile viewing as the online equivalent of standing near to a guy. A lot of women will put themselves out there to that extent but then expect the guy to make the first move.


I'm really pleased to have discovered this thread btw! That message template in particular is pure gold. I've grappled for a while with initial messages.

IMO you want to:
- Reference the profile
- Keep a playful vibe

But not:
- Show TOO much interest
- Seem like you're trying to impress the girl by proving that you 'get' her
- Look like you're forcing a connection

Getting that balance right is a real tightrope walk. And if you spend ages composing a message only to be ignored, it's a real challenge not to get disillusioned by the whole thing. This message really nails the right tone - and since it's so easy to fire off, getting blanked shouldn't feel like so big a deal. Thanks Chase!

One thing I would like to ask about is the subject headline. POF doesn't have that anymore - so how would you recommend modifying the message? Just start with 'I hear that...' perhaps?

Also I'm not really a big gamer - is Wii Sports 'so 2010' by now or do you guys think it's still fine to reference it?

Cheers

GG
 

Little Jester

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Hmm great stuff in here to think about and experiment with! Thanks!

btw, I recently started doing a first message one line attack thing that is also getting me much more results than before.
Like when they are a little higher in their 20ish, but look young and hot, I simply attack them on their age. Can be quite fun:

Me : "You are not [insert her age]!"

Gets me replies like:
- "Haha, oh yes I sure am!"
- "yes you are right. On the photo I was 27, but I just turned 28"
- or a simple "Thank you"

Can also attack them on a weird hobby, her profession, her hair color, whatever... Works for me, provided I don't have the most intimidating look on my profile picture, so maybe that's needed to balance it out.
 

Thinkingenigma

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I'm also running into a problem with the profile template. I'm using a modified version of it, but I'm finding that it's really difficult to set up a date that doesn't start at coffee shop or something similar. Because of this, the Starbucks line is hamstringing my conversations. A simple fix is to alter the line to something like "there are still plenty of guys on here who play the guitar and know how to surf and would love to grab dinner and a movie somewhere between both of your addresses." This allows you to send the same message while still allowing you to start the date at a very casual public place. Obviously, you don't want to end at the coffee shop, but at the same time, you don't want to ask someone you haven't met IRL to meet you and be alone with you from the get go. While this is a fantastic place to end the date, both in consideration of your safety and hers, I would think that meeting somewhere like a Starbucks would be good, even if it's just for a few minutes, to get her to trust you before you ask her to be alone with you.
 

Whizzy

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Hmmmm sounds like I'll definitely have to take a look at this and try some tests of my own
 

Tyme2k

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Maybe my previous notions on this topic are off. I might try this when I get some free time.
 

Andres

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Hey, does anyone have a good template for an OkCupid profile? Chase's template for PoF is pretty good but I think it may be a bit difficult to transfer something like that onto OkCupid. My profile seems pretty average where I just answered the profile questions. I have only been successful on that website around twice. I look at profiles and some of the girls look at mine but my messages go ignored 90% of the time. I try either simple hey, what's ups? to picking something out on their profile to talk about. I'm a hispanic average male and I did post that my height was 5'6. It blows being short. However I do wonder if that is why I am not being replied to. Any suggestions or advice?
 
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