Online Dating - Progress So Far

After several tearful sessions with my Counsellor, following the 'events of May', she said to me that I should consider putting myself on to an online dating website. In her words, I could "meet a new girl each week and just enjoy chatting and getting out there again". "Yes", I thought, "that would be good". The most horrible thing about splitting up with someone is that feeling of loneliness. The feeling that you're on your own again and no-one will fill that great emotional void that you feel inside you. All you can think about is the good times you had and the bond that you had between you both - surely you're not going to find someone else who has all the same plus points?

I got very close to breaking down completely when, out of nowhere, an inner message of strength and determination came through that told me to stop being the victim and get up and get out there. So, at that very moment I decided to seize the moment and set myself up on a dating website - initially just to see how it all works and get an idea of who is out there. To set myself up on a dating website would be a small, positive baby step towards recovery. A friend recommended to me the free dating website called 'Plenty Of Fish' (www.plentyoffish.com).

Plenty of Fish

Plenty of Fish is one of the most popular free dating websites out there, covering all countries of the world. Signing up was straight forward enough, although when it comes to creating a profile, you need to be feeling a bit creative. The 'about me' section simply allows you to type text about whatever you want. However, as a man you have to make your 'about me' good. Why is that? Well, the simple fact is that when women set their profiles up on these free websites, they get inundated with messages from men - some women get 100 to 200 messages from new men every day (albeit, 90% of the messages are terribly worded, boring or indicating that the man is just after sex). Not only do you have to make your profile stand out from the crowd, but you have to be pro-active in messaging women too. You can't just set your profile up and hope that messages will start arriving, because unless you are a fantastic looker and have the 'ultimate' profile, they won't.

So, how do you create the perfect 'about me' profile? Well, there are lots of articles out there with tips on what to do - from being humorous, making yourself sound interesting, keeping it brief and to-the-point, avoiding negatives, including bits of NLP (neuro-linguistic-programming) and more. Day-by-day I read and discover new things and ideas, so, like mine, your profile is likely to always be changing and evolving.

One of the other important factors of your dating profile is to get a good photograph. One thing I noticed when looking at the photographs of women, that matched my search criteria, was how few actually have a smile on their face in their photograph. To me, it is one of the first things I look for. Also, the photograph is advertising the person - if I don't like the photograph then I won't click to view the profile. So it doesn't matter if your profile is the best one in the world, if you have a crap photo then people won't click through to read it.

So what is the problem with Plenty of Fish? Well, it's a great site and it is free. However, being free does cause issues, the main one being that not everyone on there is necessarily looking for serious dating. You end up with people from all walks of life (some profiles are quite tear-jerking), wanting different things from just chat to intimate encounters. As I mentioned earlier, when a woman sets her profile up, she gets inundated with emails from men trying their luck - it is free, so why wouldn't they? So, this really does diminish the chances of success. The whole dating thing seems far less serious, unlike a paid website where you set yourself up, try hard to find people and take your profile off again once you're in a relationship with someone. You're paying for it and time is money.

After three weeks of being on Plenty of Fish I decided to set myself up on match.com, a subscription based online dating website, to see how it compared.

Match.com

Setting yourself up on match.com does require a bit of time to fill out the forms. Most of it is fairly straight forward and it does go into more detail than Plenty of Fish. Once again, it does require some creative thinking to certain elements about what you like, local places you like to visit and your overall 'about me'. Initially I copied across my Plenty of Fish 'about me' profile, but I quickly realised that I needed to be a bit more serious with my match.com 'about me'. So, I removed some of the outlandish humour and added some more serious bits about what I like and what I am looking for in a woman. I found that for the first week or two, I was regularly tweaking the profile and improving it. Match.com seems much more comprehensive and has features such as 'winking' (sending a little msg to the other person to say that you have winked at them), and daily matches (5 chosen matches per day). A friend of mine, who has been on match.com for a couple of months, told me that I should become a 'serial winker'.... which sounds a rather dodgy title to me. But I will see how it goes. Match.com is costing me about £14 a month, including a couple of added extras like being more highly 'featured' in results and being told when women read my messages.

I am still very new to this, so I will give updates on what I find works and doesn't work, in due course. I'm also going to do another blog post with more information on profiles - what I've researched from other sites (forums) and what I've found works myself. Yes, you have to represent yourself in a profile (not someone completely different). But, the profile has to sell you and make you sound interesting - to entice the woman to make contact and to believe that you are someone special and worth knowing.

Location, Location, Location

Today I am going to blog about the area that I live in. Now that I'm officially 'on the market' again, it is going to be important to find new places and ways to meet interesting women. This is not going to be an easy task. The town in which I reside is an old people's retirement town - the sort of place that in years gone by was a resort for families who wanted to visit the seaside for their holidays. Some people call this town 'sleepy'. To me, it has been in a coma for about the last 20 years and they're finally switching off the life-support. The Council try to push the 'tourism' idea, but in all honesty it only has one tourist attraction... and many, many more retirement homes. The biggest event here last year was the 20 Yard Zimmer Dash (ok, I made that up). When you have a night out here you really struggle for choice in terms of decent places to go.

So, what towns are nearby? Well, on either side are two towns where you could go to a bar, approach a woman, talk to her nicely and have her call you a name and throw up down your best shirt. If you visit these towns, you may find yourself in bars with people who regard contracting gonorrhea as a good, event-filled night out. Pretty scathing? Most definitely!

The whole area, rather depressingly, seems to have a far higher percentage of men than women out-and-about. If you were to go into any bar and look at and count the women... then look at and count the number of men standing in circles around them, it would quickly become apparent that not only are these bars bad places to meet women, but the towns in general really aren't that great either. I am not one for clubs, but on the occasions that I have been to the local ones I have observed a few women on the dance floor, completely surrounded by men attempting to impress them with their latest version of 'drunk man tries to be Michael Jackson'. Thriller? No... more like 'gorilla'!

The whole club scene here reminds me of the animal kingdom, where the males all try to display themselves in such a way as to tempt the female to choose to mate with them. I actually remember one funny occasion in a club where a very drunk man was desparately trying to impress a tall lady who was dancing in front of him. What the guy didn't realise (and may well have discovered, to his shock, later on) was that the girl he was dancing with was actually a man dressed as a woman (albeit, quite well disguised). Boy, was he in for an interesting evening!

Ok. So what choices do I have if I want a night out where there is plenty of opportunity to chat to interesting women - not too young and not too old? Well, I think it is time to get out of the local area completely. This weekend is a bank holiday weekend in the UK and I'm off to London to see what the night life there is like...

New Beginnings For a Small Fish

I have just come out of a long-term relationship - a relationship that lasted all the way through my 20's, including four years of marriage. The break up of my marriage was difficult, to say the least. At the end of May 2009 our offer on the 'dream' house had been accepted and my father was in hospital awaiting serious heart surgery when I was asked, by my wife, to move out of our family home and back into my parents' flat. Two days after the operation, my father died. So I had to come to terms with the loss of my Dad and the loss of my wife and home. Almost straight away, after moving out, my wife moved another man into the house - a friend who went on to become more than that. This made visits to see my three year old boy especially difficult - I felt like I had been replaced.

Loss is one of the most difficult things anyone will go through. They say that losing someone close is the most stressful thing you can go through in your life. The second most stressful thing is a relationship break-up. The third most stressful thing is moving house - which I have had to do in moving out of our house. So, there is a lot of hurt for me to get over.

So, what is this blog all about? Well, in my early twenties I was never particularly confident around girls. I met my first girlfriend and she went on to become my wife, so I've never really experienced the dating game. However, I have always had the drive to learn and improve and because of this I am very successful in business. I am an Internet entrepreneur and am CEO of an International Internet organisation. So, I'm not a total chump. I'm also a funny guy - I have been told by a few people that I am the funniest guy they know. So, what is the problem? Well, in the looks department I'm no Cruise, and I really struggle with the importance of that.

This blog is here to show the highs and the lows that I experience during my time of learning about, and getting on, the dating ladder AND continuing my recovery from the worst few months of my life. I think it is going to help me in my recovery, whilst at the same time be interesting and entertaining to you. It will also be a blog about my thoughts on people and the interactions that I have with people.

I will be honest, I hate my looks, but I am learning that there is a lot more to being a good man than just looks and if you talk and act the right way, you can achieve success. As I begin my journey, I have read up on various books including The Game by Neil Strauss, How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie and a book on Neuro-Linguistic Programming. I have also decided to no longer say no to invites for parties, wedding receptions, etc. Instead I am going to use these as an opportunity to get out there, meet interesting women and try some new things out.

So, this blog consists of three main themes, all intertwined:

1. Getting over a series of big losses in my life, and through the continuing battle with depression, in pursuit of finding happiness. Is Miss Right out there?
2. The dating game: getting myself out there and meeting women - how I cope with it, what I learn and the funny stories of success and failure along the way.
3. Striving to improve: realising my strengths and weaknesses in myself and finding ways to improve those in order to better myself and become a more confident person.