SERIOUS help with online dating... PLEASE!! !

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I've been using various dating sites and apps for the past seven or eight years, on and off, and I'm starting to believe I've had the worst luck of anyone who's ever used these things. In all that time, I think I've had no more than TWO dates. That's an actual number. Sex? Forget it, not even close. Strange thing is, I've had much better luck with women in real life than online. Strange because dating sites are supposedly meant to make dating easier, at least in terms of meeting people at the outset. Weirder still how many guys it supposedly works for, if you believe the online boasting (I do, but maybe that's my fault).

My main gripe is that over all these years, I've matched up with dozens of women, messaged with dozens of them, even gotten a bunch of numbers. Yet I can't seem to actually get anyone to agree to meet me (except for the aforementioned odd two). My conversations end up going nowhere because they all stop communicating, either during long, drawn out conversations, or after only a couple lines. Compare this with all the guys who claim to be able to hook up with someone practically whenever they want and it's a bit frustrating, but more puzzling. I mean, I'm obviously attractive enough that plenty of women have liked me. I've tried virtually every kind of conversation style possible- joking, serious, passive, aggressive, non-chalant, detail-specific, intellectual... nothing's worked so far. How can everything I write not be sufficient to attract anyone long enough for them to want to meet? I know that in person, I can come off a bit socially awkward and uncomfortable, but the point of online dating is that the other person isn't supposed to be tipped off about that until AFTER you meet them. Since it's based solely on looks (especially apps like Tinder) and first impressions, one's actual personality shouldn't be an obstacle. It's not like anyone should be able to detect my awkwardness from messaging, right?

Another thing that bugs me is the number of women I encounter who are "just looking", "want a serious commitment", "not interested in hooking up", etc. Yet from all the success stories I hear and read about, men make it sound like most women online are just looking for sex. Sooo... where are these women, exactly? I'm not trying to imply that I'm only interested in hooking up, I'm just trying to make a point about how while I've experienced nothing but impenetrable walls from extremely picky women, other dudes seem to have no problem hooking up at all. And, yes, I understand that confidence is key, but again... this is online, not in person. Messaging/texting isn't going to come off more confident from one person as opposed to another since it's just words on a screen. There's no personality behind it so anyone should be able to type the same thing and get the same response (unless, of course, you communicate like a complete mental defective. After reading this post thus far, if you're still wondering whether the way I express myself may be the issue, you haven't actually read this far, so my point is moot I guess. If you skipped ahead, shame on you. Go back to the beginning and start over.).

The only conclusion I can come to is that perhaps I just wasn't meant to use dating apps to make things easier for myself. As plenty of people have said, practically anyone can have some modicum of success on dating sites just by odds alone- even if you're not the best looking guy, you try enough times, it's bound to work out eventually. If you're at least decent looking and a competent conversationalist, plus you've been at it for years, you're bound to have more than just a few opportunities. ZERO opportunities is just supernaturally pathetic, but that's just my opinion. I'd really like to hear yours. If I'm missing something here, please tell me...

Dating apps are generally way worse for most people than real life. Real life you get the whole package, you meet and ineract naturally. Dating apps are way shallower.

If I was you, I just wouldn’t use them.

I’ve fallen for guys in real life that I would not have replied to on dating apps.

Also half the time people aren’t serious. They just want to see who likes them.

Wow, I've got the opposite problem. I have good luck with girls I contacted from dating sites and terrible luck with girls I didn't contact from dating sites. All five of my girlfriends have come from dating sites and I've dated over a dozen women from dating sites. I can chat to a girl online for a short time and I can ask her out and she'll often say yes yet when I try to ask girls out in meatspace they treat me with contempt.

I think it's because for me, I know the girls on a dating site are single and looking for a boyfriend yet girls I meet in real life may either have boyfriends or want to remain single. I have better luck asking out girls who I know are single and I know want a boyfriend.

I've used LOTS of dating sites in 8 years & I'm sure I messaged more than 500 women & I NEVER gotten more than a couple messages from each of them. I'm disabled physically thou & was stuck living with my parents so I had nothing going for me that they wanted.

[/quote]I'm female and it's been the same for me. I just recently set up an online dating profile and I'm running into similar issues. Granted, it's only been a few days, but I'm almost ready to shut it down. I'm very physically attractive and I've got a lot of responses, but no actual offers to meet. ( I assume you're offering to actually meet early in the conversation. If not, that could be the problem.) It makes no sense. How hard is it to just meet someone for coffee? I don't want to spend hours of my time getting to know someone online when I don't even know if I'll like them until I meet them in person. When I've suggested meeting, they always have excuses for why it's not convenient. The ones I've talked to also seem a lot more interested in talking about sex and I'm not going to do that with a total stranger I've never met. I can think of a few reasons why this might be happening.
1.They're not who they say they are. They don't look anything like their picture, or otherwise lied about themselves, or they're married/living with someone.
2.They don't actually want to meet anyone. They're just bored or want to "talk dirty" to someone while they look at porn.
3.They are (as you said) wanting to feed their egos by getting attention.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that the same thing happens to women. Also, the guys who claim to be so successful are probably full of s**t.[/quote]

Well, you are an attractive female and it's only been a few days so it's very likely you'll have better luck with meeting if you give it more time. I've been doing this for 8 years so chances are it won't get better for me. Whether these meetings will lead to anything long term and meaningful is a different matter but you probably won't run into the same problems I've had.

And I really don't know about the "full of sh*t" part... how many of these guys do you think are actually lying about all of this, or stretching the truth? A friend of mine (who I actually don't really like that much anymore) boasts about having slept with literally thousands of women, which seems mathematically improbable to me but it doesn't help me feel better about myself (not that I'm interested in sleeping with thousands of women, but still, not something I feel like listening to).

Ratio is said to be 20:1 for male to female meaning there are 20 times as many men as women on the sites. Also I heard many of the female accounts are actually fake, made to make the dating site stand out more to men and try to improve the ratio. This can be observed with pics that were found off Google Images. Therefore the female part of the ratio is inflated and I imagine I'd have to wonder even if I got responses if it's not a bot account.

I haven't bothered with one yet as I wonder if even exceptionally attractive guys might still be unlikely get even any reasonable simple conversations. Anything that sounds really good could be assumed to be a lie, like saying average or above average salary will be written off as made up. Any pic that looks good will be assumed photoshopped or fake as in not even being the actual person. Correct me if wrong. As a guy I'd use the Search by Image function on Google which will definitely turn up who it is in the picture if they did in fact used a celebrity/model's pictures. I've tested with my own pictures and they don't return a famous person but who knows if other people who always suspect fake will try search by image.

It might be different for me since my preference is greatly different like hardly on the same scale as others. Like a lot of models would rate as 4/5 for me because I find the overly skinny look unattractive and would rate a lot of conventionally average women as better than the models. Therefore the probable bot/catfish accounts are ones I'm not even likely to message.

I guess you need to show us your pic then.