Post: #1

There seem to be a lot of guys here who have a hard time getting dates. Is this primarily due to location?

Conventional wisdom dictates that a higher population means a more active dating life. More options means more dates right?

Except men are the initiators. And women are as choosy as their options. A woman in Los Angeles will get at least 50 messages per day. A woman in Ithaca, NY may only get 5 message per day.

Since the average girl in LA has an inbox flooded with guys messaging her, this makes it harder for the average guy in LA to stand out. Meanwhile an average guy in Ithaca may have an easier time getting a date because there are far fewer men to compete with.

Average guys who've done online dating in both big and small cities, did you get fewer dates in a big city (Population > 2,000,000) than in a smaller city/town (Population < 300,000)?

Post: #2

What are the ratios and quality like in Ithaca?

An Ithaca 7.5 may be an LA 5.5.

I would think if an average dude in Ithaca is going after a chick that looks as good as an LA 7.5 hes gonna face the same difficulties due to supply and demand.

Post: #3

I have fairly limited experience with online dating, but I'll add my two cents:

First, I don't think even many of the most attractive women are getting 50 messages a day, every day. They may be hit with a flood of messages when they sign up or change pictures or their profile or something, but over time that figure is going to drop off. There have been experiments done and I don't believe they bear out such a consistently high figure.

Second, the majority of those messages are going to be shit messages from shitty people - a lot of guys just don't know how to write or skim a profile and come up with a funny opener. Stuff like this basically: http://hell-is-okcupid.tumblr.com/ Most women are just going to bin those in 3 seconds without replying. I think if you have an interesting/funny profile, decent pictures and can write well that puts you above maybe 70% of your competition automatically. So the numbers game isn't quite as bad.

Another factor is that many of the women getting the highest message rate, who have the sexiest pictures, are probably women you really want to avoid. Even in my short experience I can pin the type - they go on and on about themselves and what they want in a mate for paragraph after paragraph in their profile and have answered 942 of those silly "personality" questions about themselves. They're obviously pathological people looking for a clone to abuse - they're never going to look as hot as their pictures anyway and probably aren't worth the trouble even if you did manage to set something up. Seek out diamonds in the rough.

With that in mind, at the moment I feel that I would definitely choose to play my cards in or around a large city rather than a smaller one. If you can be in the top 30% or whatever, I think the availability of options can work for both sexes and is not necessarily a zero-sum game; the population density/diversity advantage is great enough that the tide can lift all boats. With a large enough population there are also niche interests and personality types that one may appeal to. My opinion may change if I find that big city also means serial flaking, but at the moment I'm cautiously optimistic. I've been on a certain site for about 3 weeks, and I'm middle-aged and not particularly devastatingly handsome, but I've already received several replies and have a thing set up, so we'll see.

Post: #4

(05-05-2015 07:10 PM)XPQ21 Wrote:  With that in mind, at the moment I feel that I would definitely choose to play my cards in or around a large city rather than a smaller one. If you can be in the top 30% or whatever, I think the availability of options can work for both sexes and is not necessarily a zero-sum game; the population diversity advantage is large enough that the tide can lift all boats. My opinion may change if I find that big city also means serial flaking, but at the moment I'm cautiously optimistic. I've been on a certain site for about 3 weeks, and I'm middle-aged and not particularly devastatingly handsome, but I've already received several replies and have a thing set up, so we'll see.

Except men do the initiating (mostly) and women do the choosing (mostly). Bigger population means more choices for women AND men, but it's ultimately men who ask and women who decide Yes/No (mostly).

A woman can't possibly date all the men who message her and ask her out, so she must naturally be more choosy.

Meanwhile, a woman in a small city/town may only get a handful of messages. She might give an average guy a chance because she doesn't have many better prospects lined up.

Post: #5

(05-05-2015 07:16 PM)Jaffna Wrote:  

(05-05-2015 07:10 PM)XPQ21 Wrote:  With that in mind, at the moment I feel that I would definitely choose to play my cards in or around a large city rather than a smaller one. If you can be in the top 30% or whatever, I think the availability of options can work for both sexes and is not necessarily a zero-sum game; the population diversity advantage is large enough that the tide can lift all boats. My opinion may change if I find that big city also means serial flaking, but at the moment I'm cautiously optimistic. I've been on a certain site for about 3 weeks, and I'm middle-aged and not particularly devastatingly handsome, but I've already received several replies and have a thing set up, so we'll see.

Except men do the initiating (mostly) and women do the choosing (mostly). Bigger population means more choices for women AND men, but it's ultimately men who ask and women who decide Yes/No (mostly).

A woman can't possibly date all the men who message her and ask her out, so she must naturally be more choosy.

Meanwhile, a woman in a small city/town may only get a handful of messages. She might give an average guy a chance because she doesn't have many better prospects lined up.

Women in a bigger population are going to be more choosy, sure. But I think many of them are going to use the dating site population advantage they have in a certain way - i.e. they have a certain type of "niche" guy that gets them hot and they're looking for that. In a city of millions of people there will be "7.5" cuties who are looking for say, a man who has a great beard, or who listens to both death metal and hip hop, or who has curly hair. Or who is a professional pilot, or watches Star Trek, or works in science/engineering, or is a hippy who drives a brown biodiesel station wagon, or likes to fuck in graveyards. Or some permutation.

She can't possibly date all the men who message her, but lots of them won't hit the particular niche and won't interest her. They aren't all holding out for Brock Hardjaw McMillionaire, and there aren't enough of that type to go around anyway.

Ithaca may be somewhat different because it's a college town, but the woman from the average American small town is interested in her dogs and Jesus. Not much to work with there.

I think the idea to make it work in a big city is to find an angle and excel at it.

Post: #6

I think big cities are easier purely due to volume. In the smaller towns, the options run out quickly.

Post: #7

(05-05-2015 08:30 PM)CleanSlate Wrote:  I think big cities are easier purely due to volume. In the smaller towns, the options run out quickly.

Unless you're into fat women, the options in a small town run out before you even start.

Post: #8

I noticed WestIndianArchie agreed with me. Wonder what he has to say?

Post: #9

I am confused on what you mean by "here" and "average" in your OP.

Are you saying men where you live are not getting dates? I would think anyone that is here on this forum would tell you that online is just part of what they do to increase success, no matter what their goals may be for ONS, LTR, or otherwise.

As for average... I have no idea what that means for you. I would say the average man here is doing as well as he wants to do based on his commitment to implementing a strategy based on his own strengths.

Personally, I don't think it would matter between 300k and 3M. A town of 900 people in middle of nowhere USA might.

Post: #10

Big city such as NYC is good for day game. I'm sure it is quite good for online dating, but that's being lazy.

Post: #11

When I lived a city of 5 million+ literally every girl on OKCupid was Red (Replies Very Selectively). Even the fat ones.

Now in a city of 300k I notice a lot of girls here are Yellow and Red - and they're not fat either. Wouldn't this imply girls in smaller locales get fewer messages and are therefore less likely to be picky?

Post: #12

(05-06-2015 07:00 PM)Jaffna Wrote:  When I lived a city of 5 million+ literally every girl on OKCupid was Red (Replies Very Selectively). Even the fat ones.

Now in a city of 300k I notice a lot of girls here are Yellow and Red - and they're not fat either. Wouldn't this imply girls in smaller locales get fewer messages and are therefore less likely to be picky?

Even the fat ones in a huge city are going to receive a ton of "hey wanna fuk" shit messages that aren't worth replying to, and if they bin those without replying their bar is going head in the red direction as surely as night follows day. I think some may try to game the system a bit by replying "no thnx" or "heh" or something pointless to low-quality messages to keep the numbers up and make it appear they're more responsive than they actually are, but the algorithm the site uses obviously cannot determine the actual content of the messages involved. In my short experience there has seemed to be almost zero correlation between the bar color and whether I get a response or not. I've received replies from red bars who were poor "matches" and total radio silence from green bars who were good matches.

TLDR: I think the algorithm used to determine "reply rate" is no indicator of "reply rate to good messages" and breaks down under even moderate volumes of shitty openers. The colors are meaningless, don't pay them any attention.

Post: #13

I moved from the suburbs of NYC, a heavily populated area where plenty of people were around and within a 10-20 minute car ride, to NYC and my online dating results exploded.

It's funny cause in the suburbs you can drive a few towns over in 20 minutes or whatever, whereas in NYC a subway ride from one neighborhood to another can take an hour or more + walking + trying to navigate areas you may not know. So it seems like the suburbs has easier logistics with most everyone having a car.

But NYC just brings out the sluts man, what can I tell you.

Before I moved I had 2 funny stories.

Met one girl who lived in the burbs, our first date was in the city, drinks, makeout, I felt like we vibed. Second date I tried to get her to come to my place so I invited her to somewhere nearby and she completely rejected it saying she felt "more at home" in the city or some bullshit. I dropped her, didn't need that bullshit taking trains to make out with some girl.

Another girl, I met for a first date in the city in the city. I put I lived in NYC and so did she. We both lived in the suburbs about 20 minutes apart. First date drinks in the city and it was going good. Second time around she was actually to meet up and hang in the burbs and we banged. But it wouldn't have happened if I was honest I lived in the burbs.

Post: #14

(05-06-2015 07:33 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  I moved from the suburbs of NYC, a heavily populated area where plenty of people were around and within a 10-20 minute car ride, to NYC and my online dating results exploded.

It's funny cause in the suburbs you can drive a few towns over in 20 minutes or whatever, whereas in NYC a subway ride from one neighborhood to another can take an hour or more + walking + trying to navigate areas you may not know. So it seems like the suburbs has easier logistics with most everyone having a car.

But NYC just brings out the sluts man, what can I tell you.

Before I moved I had 2 funny stories.

Met one girl who lived in the burbs, our first date was in the city, drinks, makeout, I felt like we vibed. Second date I tried to get her to come to my place so I invited her to somewhere nearby and she completely rejected it saying she felt "more at home" in the city or some bullshit. I dropped her, didn't need that bullshit taking trains to make out with some girl.

Another girl, I met for a first date in the city in the city. I put I lived in NYC and so did she. We both lived in the suburbs about 20 minutes apart. First date drinks in the city and it was going good. Second time around she was actually to meet up and hang in the burbs and we banged. But it wouldn't have happened if I was honest I lived in the burbs.

Interesting. I put my location as being where I actually am, in the suburbs. Maybe I should try being more vague and see if that changes my response rate.

Post: #15

I will say Yes, purely for statistical reasons.
According to the most recent data the population of London is 8.3 million.
Now if we're extremely generous an assume a 50/50 gender ratio and of those, about half of the men have some form of online dating profile.

That is competition with over 2 million other men.
Those are not good odds.
Even if you diversify your approach base by covering all the bases with OKC, POF, craiglist etc. it still doesn't give you an advantage over every other man who's soaked up all the information there is about maximizing time investment-return ratio.

You're just a picture and some words on a screen. And since women are primarily emotional creatures you'e got a window of maybe a few seconds before they swipe on.

That's why I can't advocate online dating. Okay, it does work some of the time and certainly has more viability in less crowded cities but for the London gamer, especially one who's still learning like myself, it's far more rewarding to go for physical approaches.

Post: #16

(05-05-2015 07:16 PM)Jaffna Wrote:  Meanwhile, a woman in a small city/town may only get a handful of messages. She might give an average guy a chance because she doesn't have many better prospects lined up.

I spoke to a 53 year old lizard online this week. She is borderline disabled and made it clear in her profile. She said she is inundated with messages. Small city, less than 300k population.

We could deduce that an actually desirable woman(younger and not disabled), would get even more attention, even in a small city/town.

Post: #17

(05-06-2015 07:17 PM)XPQ21 Wrote:  

(05-06-2015 07:00 PM)Jaffna Wrote:  When I lived a city of 5 million+ literally every girl on OKCupid was Red (Replies Very Selectively). Even the fat ones.

Now in a city of 300k I notice a lot of girls here are Yellow and Red - and they're not fat either. Wouldn't this imply girls in smaller locales get fewer messages and are therefore less likely to be picky?

Even the fat ones in a huge city are going to receive a ton of "hey wanna fuk" shit messages that aren't worth replying to, and if they bin those without replying their bar is going head in the red direction as surely as night follows day. I think some may try to game the system a bit by replying "no thnx" or "heh" or something pointless to low-quality messages to keep the numbers up and make it appear they're more responsive than they actually are, but the algorithm the site uses obviously cannot determine the actual content of the messages involved. In my short experience there has seemed to be almost zero correlation between the bar color and whether I get a response or not. I've received replies from red bars who were poor "matches" and total radio silence from green bars who were good matches.

TLDR: I think the algorithm used to determine "reply rate" is no indicator of "reply rate to good messages" and breaks down under even moderate volumes of shitty openers. The colors are meaningless, don't pay them any attention.

On that note, I've noticed a glitch in the reply rate bar. It's always green (i.e. "replies often") for girls who haven't logged onto the site in weeks.

Post: #18

From my experience in online dating - I think city girls are generally less picky and you will get better results in the larger pool. there is more to it than just volume and stats, though. City life in general brings out dating/hookup culture more. Girls want to live life "in the fast lane" and meet rando's and slut it up. Small town girls I personally have found either to be more choosy or just doing it for validation. Th only exception, like has been said, might be college towns which can be small, but colleges are a veritable microcosm of party-life an hookup culture.

Post: #19

(05-07-2015 08:12 AM)MasculineOfCenter Wrote:  

(05-06-2015 07:17 PM)XPQ21 Wrote:  

(05-06-2015 07:00 PM)Jaffna Wrote:  When I lived a city of 5 million+ literally every girl on OKCupid was Red (Replies Very Selectively). Even the fat ones.

Now in a city of 300k I notice a lot of girls here are Yellow and Red - and they're not fat either. Wouldn't this imply girls in smaller locales get fewer messages and are therefore less likely to be picky?

Even the fat ones in a huge city are going to receive a ton of "hey wanna fuk" shit messages that aren't worth replying to, and if they bin those without replying their bar is going head in the red direction as surely as night follows day. I think some may try to game the system a bit by replying "no thnx" or "heh" or something pointless to low-quality messages to keep the numbers up and make it appear they're more responsive than they actually are, but the algorithm the site uses obviously cannot determine the actual content of the messages involved. In my short experience there has seemed to be almost zero correlation between the bar color and whether I get a response or not. I've received replies from red bars who were poor "matches" and total radio silence from green bars who were good matches.

TLDR: I think the algorithm used to determine "reply rate" is no indicator of "reply rate to good messages" and breaks down under even moderate volumes of shitty openers. The colors are meaningless, don't pay them any attention.

On that note, I've noticed a glitch in the reply rate bar. It's always green (i.e. "replies often") for girls who haven't logged onto the site in weeks.

It's not really a "glitch" per se, it's just that the algorithm has no way to calculate response rate for someone who isn't there actively responding, so that's what it defaults to.

In an ideal situation there would be a different color, like grey, to identify people who have been AWOL for a long time, but OKC wants to encourage users to message women who haven't been on for a while and entice them back by crapflooding their email with "new message" notifications, so that's why it's the way it is.

I saw a woman in her mid-40s sitting in her car in the parking lot of CVS the other afternoon, madly swiping away on Tinder or something. Eesh. Sometimes I resent the corporations that made this gauche behavior possible, and the fact I have to use my brain to think about this online shit at all.

Post: #20

Right now I am hitting up Chinese girls in NYC using WeChat and Google translate. To be honest it's more useful when you actually meet the girl in person first and instead of asking for her phone # (since her English is probably poor) just show her the WeChat app and either shake your phone or scan the QR code

Post: #21

Cities are better and it really isn't even close. I will admit that flake rates are high. But when you literally never run out of matches in a one mile radius on tinder, it doesn't really matter.

Not to mention that day game is far superior in a big city and women tend to be more promiscuous, albeit way more neurotic and unrealistic about life. Maybe that's just NYC women though.

Post: #22

(05-07-2015 03:33 AM)Lizard King Wrote:  

(05-05-2015 07:16 PM)Jaffna Wrote:  Meanwhile, a woman in a small city/town may only get a handful of messages. She might give an average guy a chance because she doesn't have many better prospects lined up.

I spoke to a 53 year old lizard online this week. She is borderline disabled and made it clear in her profile. She said she is inundated with messages. Small city, less than 300k population.

We could deduce that an actually desirable woman(younger and not disabled), would get even more attention, even in a small city/town.

She had fibromyalgia.

I have never encountered a male with the condition, it seems to only afflict females.

Post: #23

(05-31-2015 08:22 AM)Lizard King Wrote:  

(05-07-2015 03:33 AM)Lizard King Wrote:  

(05-05-2015 07:16 PM)Jaffna Wrote:  Meanwhile, a woman in a small city/town may only get a handful of messages. She might give an average guy a chance because she doesn't have many better prospects lined up.

I spoke to a 53 year old lizard online this week. She is borderline disabled and made it clear in her profile. She said she is inundated with messages. Small city, less than 300k population.

We could deduce that an actually desirable woman(younger and not disabled), would get even more attention, even in a small city/town.

She had fibromyalgia.

I have never encountered a male with the condition, it seems to only afflict females.

No, I've known some men with the condition - I believe it is actually a legit illness though medicine probably doesn't fully understand it yet. Possibly autoimmune in nature, like MS.

Life with chronic illness sucks for anyone. That being said...

A woman with chronic illness will get lots of support from friends, if not necessarily from the medical profession in cases like this. Even if she's severely disabled, unable to work, and bedridden some of the time she can still throw up a dating site profile and have some kind of sex life while being supported by the state or a beta husband, etc.

A single man who develops severe chronic pain will receive long term monentary and psychological support from nobody, except perhaps his closest relatives. If he can't keep on working to support himself despite the physical issues, he will rapidly descend into abject poverty and isolation and be well on the way to suicide.

That's perhaps a reason why you've never met any men with such severe fibromyalgia.

Post: #24

Large cities have more competition, but more selection too.

My sense is that in a large city, there's more of a tendency for alphas to monopolize lots of attractive sexual partners.
In a smaller community, sexual partners are spread more evenly.

If you're at the high end of the attractiveness and game ladder, you'll do better in a big city. Like Paul Janka.
If you're average or below average, it'll be less competitive in a smaller city. The smaller cities are less winner-take-all.

Post: #25

I'm curious as to what constitutes "big" and "small". Would you consider somewhere like Indianapolis or Cincinnati "small"? Ithaca is obviously a small town, disregarding the effect of the student population that is there most of the year (which is rarely above 7 anyway).