Plenty of Fish online dating
POF online dating has been one of the easiest ways for me to meet women lately. This is of course in regards to POF USA. Despite the fake ads and e-whores the POF dating site still makes it possible to meet a lot of real women. As far as dating outside of the US goes I cannot speak for the effectiveness of the any particular dating site. If anyone wants to volunteer their experiences outside of the US, I would be happy to publish it here for the benefit of my overseas readers.
I have been reading a lot of bad press about dating sites in general lately. In case you missed it there was a recent story where a deceased US soldier’s photograph had been used for some sort of POF advertising. While this is unfortunate, sad, and just in plain poor taste, it is easy enough to imagine how it might have happened without the site’s knowledge. The part about the soldier being deceased that is, NOT the fact that they purposely used a photo that clearly did not represent one of their real users.
So how does all of this affect us single guys when it comes to meeting women on the internet? Long story short the same rules as always still apply.
1. Don’t invest a lot of time pursuing one particular woman.
2. Get her on the phone as soon as possible.
3. Insist on a recent photo. If you are suspicious in any way ask her to take a pic holding a sign with your POF username on it.
4. If she says no to the above she is either a fake or very unattractive. Cute girls love to take pictures. If she claims to not own a camera she is a liar… and probably very ugly or worse yet, male.
5. If possible create at least two profiles and do your own "split test" to see if your potential dates are sending the same response to everyone.
So why have I started using POF dating more and Craigslist dating less? Well to put it simply Craigslist is still a great way to meet women but it is a very passive method for doing so. It’s easy enough to put up a few ads and just sit back and wait. After that you basically have to hope for unsolicited responses. This method still works just fine but in the meantime why not do something constructive like contacting women through POF, OKCupid and whatever other free sites you may wish to explore? Maybe I have become a dating addict but I have to tell you that being able to choose between ten different women on any given night of the week does have its benefits.
New product review coming soon.
I wanted to give you guys a heads up on something very cool that I found recently. Since it would take a long time for me to compile all of the techniques that I describe on this site into one easy to read guide, I have been looking for the next closest thing so that I can share it with you. The problem is that there is so much garbage out there when it comes to online dating advice. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I have finally come across something that looks legitimate and will be posting a review here when I am through with it. I will keep you posted. If you haven’t done so already be sure to sign up for my blog newsletter for future announcements of product reviews and new articles.
E-Whores making their way to Plenty of Fish
It looks like the POF-Plenty of Fish website is becoming more and more spam ridden. Lately I have noticed a big increase in the number of e-whores posing as women. If you remember from this post, e-whores are simply guys and occasionally girls who use dating sites for the sole purpose of selling something. In some cases you aren't even dealing with a real person but rather a bot designed to harvest your email address and then spam you with some sort of worthless offer.
Fortunately POF seems to be fairly vigilant about banning users and even suspicious IP addresses when they receive complaints about malicious activities. While this helps, you will want to know how to spot an e-whore yourself just in case you come across one. I have quite a few POF accounts so my chances of getting spammed are quite a bit higher than most peoples but just in case...
Signs of a POF E-whore
1. Responds with a message that asks you to email them directly right away. Most women want to know something about you before they give you an email address. This is not a definite indication but it is a very common one.
2. Has an email address watermarked on one of her photos or hidden in her profile. No woman wants to get spammed by publishing her email address publicly. If you see this just move on to the next profile.
3. Asks you to "verify" that you are anything such as an adult, not crazy, not someone she knows, etc. by joining any sort of membership based site. The popular ones are adult friend finder and ihookup but there are tons more out there. If she is directing you to these her profile is fake and you are wasting your time. Not only that but you are helping the guy at the other end make money just by clicking on his links. Don't fall for it. More recently e-whores have gotten wise to the fact that their profile will get blocked eventually so they will instead harvest a lot of direct messages and then spam everyone at once. If she doesn't respond for a day or two and then asks you to contact her by email, wait another day or two. I'll bet money that her account is gone by then.
4. Her reason for getting your email address is that she is afraid her ex is stalking her on POF. This is one of the most common ploys that I see. These guys should really get more creative.
I will add more as I think of them. For now I would encourage you to report any e-whores that you find. If we make their job difficult enough then maybe at least some of them will find another way to make a living.
POF Meetme update
I can't take credit for this as a friend of mine found it on some internet marketing forum. I would give credit if I knew where but he isn't around at the moment so anyways here it is.
There are a few caveats for this trick. First of all you will probably get a lot of unattractive and overweight women replying to you. That comes with the territory. You will have to take some time to find the ones that you are interested in. On the flip side, you'll see what it's like to be a female on POF getting a barrage of messages from people that you are not interested in. And if you happen to like BBWs or just want to keep your nail from getting rusty, this should provide many opportunities for practice. Secondly, don't set the macro to run to some ridiculously high number. Try a hundred or so your first day and see what happens. If you do too many too fast it looks like POF may limit the number of Meetmes that get sent. Do this at your own risk. It is entirely possible that they may eventually decide to delete profiles or block IP addresses based on this so if you have a proxy, use it.
Unlike Craigslist you can't just put an ad up on POF and expect a lot of women to contact you. That is unless you have a great photo and let's face it, if you are a pretty boy then you probably don't need my help. So, when it comes to POF and OKCupid, both of which I highly recommend, you will have to do some work.
Contacting a lot of women takes time and effort so writing something specifically personalised to one woman just isn't practical. Add to that the fact that you can expect somewhere between 5-10% response rate. This simply makes meeting women with online personals the traditional way too difficult.
Using the POF Meetme feature is way easier and faster than writing a message. Just point and click. This was working very well for a while although it seems that the people at POF have caught on to a little method that guys were using to automate the system. If you aren't familar with macros, look them up and then proceed with the following.
Download the Firefox browser if you don't already use it. Next you will need a program called iMacros for Firefox. Click on the Meetme section and hit record on iMacro. Click Yes on the meet her option. Loop the macro and hit play.
Good luck and have fun.
