What do you consider an average body, a slim/slender one, or a toned and thletic one?

And, why do women feel the need to post pictures of themselves 50lbs lighter and 2-4 years younger? Or lie in their profile about body type.

Do they think it won't matter when we finally meet? That personality will triumph over instinctual physical attraction? Even mroe than that, if they are so insecure that they have to be dishonest about how they look, what doe sthat say about their character?

This is driving me nuts, 3 dates in a row with women who only somewhat resemble their pics.
My pics are within 4 months, all of them.

Tibolt,

Men do the same thing. I had a man post his picture, in the picture he was about 180 lbs, 6ft tall. When we met for dinner, the man was about 350 lbs.

I had another that showed me a younger picture of himself, he told me he was 42 years old, when I showed up, he admit he had lied about his age, he was 53 years old.

It's just not a woman thing. I guess people are insecure about themselves, and it doesn't say much about their character IMHO.

Online we can be anything we *want* to be...

In real life it's a whole different ball game!

I have never done the online dating thing... but my XH has.

Same thing - the woman he hooked up with, I'm sure the picture she posted (which he showed me) is probably 10 years old... her body type didn't change but she *looks* older now and not as umm ... 'perky' <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I know a man of my acquaintance who showed me his online profile once (we were friends, we didn't date or anything) - by his own admission the picture he used was years old - in fact I couldn't recognize him *at all*.

IMO more reason to try to meet someone in real life without the online thing... then what you SEE is what you get.

JMHO

JinGA

Not that I'm active on the sites, but I used up to date photos and no responses. Nada. And I'm not over 200 lbs, and consider myself an average build.

its not really on line dating, its on line advertising. .

dating is always done in real life. . .

wiftty

Touche', WIFTTY!

For that matter, when you go to a restaurant, how often does the food brought to your table look exactly like the food in the photograph? How often does the advertising copy describing a product actually tell the truth?

Why do men tend to prefer the most attractive woman available?

most men are superfacial...sad but true

Men are pigs. Oink oink.

AGG,

Men are pigs? What chapter in HNHN does Harley say this? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

UpandRunning ~A Chick~ <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

LOL at some of the responses, 10 year old pictures!! Crazyness.

I've had a lot of activity in the three weeks I have had my profile up. Most of it is from overweight women, or women with kids. Neither one of those are on my desired list. Yet they still bug me.

You are seriously asking why men prefer the most attractive woman available?

-Rant On-

I can say the same thing about women. They even had a TV show about it with nerds and hunks and guess what, the hunks always won. No matter how sweet, smart, and funny the nerd was. THE hunk ALWAYS won.

Physical attraction IS very important. At least for me. If I don't find you good looking, then a relationship will not even begin. You could have the heart of mother Teresa, the sexual appetite of a young Madonna, and the brains of Barbara Walters, but if I don't think you are hot, then none of the above matter.

OTOH being fine but lacking in everything else won't cut it either, as my ex gf found out a couple of months ago.

Look, I am no Brad Pitt, but I take care of myself, working out, running, keeping my teeth white, head shaved smooth, eyebrows/ears/nose/uhh down there trimmed. I wear nice matching clothes and splash just enough cologne so if you are up close and personal you can smell it. I am 32 and most women think I am 26-27 at the most. Going to clubs and bars to pick up tang isn't hard, but I don't want to do that anymore. Hence why I tried the online thing.

But, guess what? I expect a lady to take care of herself as well.

-Rant Off-

I am just suprised at how many people lie about stuff on those online profiles. I think I'm just gonna have to start letting them know that one of my big pet peeves is people lying about their profile.

What other experiences have you had with online dating?

Cinderella,

exactly my point!

thank you for agreeing!

Tibolt,

ah, why are you surprised at your findings? your expectations are that the rest of the world should follow your behaviors? its very simple, online is advertising, and you have to discriminate and be judgemental. . everyone is not equal and right for you, you have to decide for yourself, which involves upholding your values, and not dropping to the mass's values.

the famous quote from billy beane is still true, "its a process, not an outcome." you can't manage by outcome, you have to go through the process. . . and you can create a detailed process or a quick process. . . but the process involves being attracted visually or otherwise, then checking out to see if the real life is congruent.. . .

its a process, just ask AGG, his has been years, and now he is so experienced, that he can tell just about within the first few minutes, yea or neah. ..

it never was any else but a process, just that some people get beginner's luck, and other's missed the experience in the developmental years, . . .

good luck

wiftty

Well it's been said that men are more "visual" than women - so logically it *may* be more important for a man to find a woman physically attractive, than it is for a woman to find a man attractive.

For me, looks aren't everything. I went with a guy that weighed over 300 lbs. The relationship didn't last but it wasn't because of his weight or his looks.

The man I'm dating now is the same height and probably 120-130 lbs LIGHTER than the last man I dated. Doesn't matter to me.

I do get that for men, that might not be OK.

And - there are men who *prefer* larger women...

There's someone for everyone. If everybody had the same preferences there'd be a lot of single people in the world <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

And online dating *is* advertising. I know how it works - you peruse the list of men (or women) that fit the criteria you plugged into the search engine - distance, physical characteristics etc, and it spits out a parade of photos and blurbs.

You eyeball the pictures - you see one that floats your boat, you click to read the blurb and if the blurb doesn't make you wanna hurl, *maybe* you send a wink or whatever.

My XH encountered more women from foreign countries trying to gain access to the US, or just get money, than legitimate "dates"... eventually he put on his profile that if you're just after money or a Green Card, please don't bother! LOL!

I know a couple of men who have got tangled up with Internet Golddiggers... my friend's XH got tied up with one and she screwed him to the tune of $45000. What a dumb bunny.

JinGA

For some reason I seem to attract women that have been divorced more than once. Over 90% I've been in contact with are either divorced twice or the case for their second divorce is pending. It's not a good demographic for me.

Check out my blog for OLDW rants and raves.

Tibolt, you need to fine tune your profile. You need to spell out that you are big into personal appearance, grooming and fitness. To some, this will sound like you are superficial, but don't sweat it. You have too many responses already, and this is a way to weed out the ones you won't be interested in. I personally would never answer an add like that because I hate running, the box of whitening strips is still half full in my closet after a year, and I'm happy if I get to mow the lawn. (I'm also decent looking, but not what you'd like)

Set your criteria really high and back it up with a writing style to deselects those you aren't a good match for. For example, if you want someone smart and well educated in a particular area, you write about it and use the jargon. Jargon is very off putting to those who don't know it.

I have to say that many of the women I have met via online services have looked similar to their photos, some even much better!! But, I recently had one very disappointing experience. The photo showed a very lovely woman, dressed very nice with hair slightly below her ears. When we met she had hair well past her shoulders, skin like old shoe leather, and was wearing jeans and obviously did almost nothing to groom herself before we met.
Why did she even bother?

I have had several good meetings with men from online dating. Even if we didn't click, it was nice just to get out and meet new people. Right now, I have put online dating on hold. I have met someone from the online dating and have been seeing him for the past 6 weeks now. I honestly can say that we probably would have never met if it hadn't been for online dating. I just met his youngest son last night, so I am pretty excited about this relationship going somewhere. Still, I am taking it one date at a time...

I can't help but wonder - what if she had the sexual appetite of Mother Teresa, the brains of a young Madonna, and the looks of Barbara Walters?

Actually, I do understand what you are saying. As a woman who is quite visual, a man's appearance is very important to me. He doesn't have to like like George Clooney, have the wit and humor of Billy Crystal, and the compassion of The Pope, but he does have to be attractive to ME as shallow and superficial as it sounds.

I don't do internet dating for reasons previously stated elsewhere on this board but I'm a bit curious as to what you expect? For that matter, how honest are you?

I agree with the poster that wrote that it's online advertising. People are interested in marketing themslves. These poor women and men probably identify the consumers' wants and needs and make the product to satisfy these. If the recent picture isn't cutting it, they post an old one for more succesful distribution and selling.

What I think they should do is launch mismatch.com and edisharmony.com where you get all the bad stuff upfront. It would sure save a lot of disappointment later.

I'm a newbie here, I have a WW I did not deal well with (went 2 emotional) and have acepted that divorce is inevitable. I hit the 'dating' sites about a year after separation (complicated D in process) with recent pictures and a honest appraisal of my situation. Some of the few women that did respond were 'not as advertised' :^)
Of course some of the women I met described mostly the same thing of the men online, some great (and absolutely hillarious) discussions happened over this.

Well, for what its worth, I did meet someone and have been dating them for the last few weeks.

She is smoking "turnheads" hot, funny, and has her PhD. It almost bothers me how someone so fine and smart is still single (never been married). But I guess she has been engaged once and did spend a lot of her early 20's in school.

Best of all, she likes me =)

We'll see how this turns out but so far I've been pleasantly suprised with her.

I was pretty up front about looks, as was she. Which was cool. I also stressed working out, running, and physical fitness as important things in my profile.

-giggidy

oink oink. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />