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Online Dating Site Variance

Bboy100

Cro-Magnon Man
Cro-Magnon Man
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Throughout my career, I've tried quite a few dating sites including POF, Okc, Tinder and now I also tried Bumble. I always had marginally less success on Okc and POF than on Tinder. But I just assumed that was because of the way the sites themselves are designed (i.e. there is no swiping/matching system on POF and Okc and they also have long profiles to fill out). But now, I also tried Bumble which is basically the same thing as Tinder. The only difference is that girls have to message the guys first. And Bumble does not work with my profile AT ALL.

For some reason, even when I set up the exact same profile, I get little to no success on POF and Bumble, I get some success on Okc and I get lots of success on Tinder. The differences are like night and day. Any insights into what's going on here?
 

Regal Tiger

Cro-Magnon Man
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This may just be in my area, but here are my observations:


OkCupid is more for people that are a little bit weird. The girls that have actually met me and even just gotten into conversations with, are usually a little different from mainstream society. They like a little bit of oddness in men. I'm hesitant to say hipster or nerdy, but that's about the only thing that comes to mind. I find that conversations are generally better on here because I'm a goofy individual and I like OKC's women a lot better than the other two, though sadly the userbase has tanked over the year and not many use it anymore where I'm at :(
Though there is the possibility that I'm a little bias as I did meet what I would consider to be my dream woman on there. Though I wasn't good enough to keep her... le sigh....



POF is more for women looking for a provider guy. Someone who looks good on paper. Interestingly enough, I did best on this when I was newer and not as good with women as I am now. Probably because I was largely naive at the time and was largely unaware of what I wanted besides dates and was easier to control. And I would consider the women are largely naive on there as well. I don't like POF as much as the other two, even if it has a larger user base. It seems to me that the users of POF are largely unaware of how the world works. I also absolutely hate how they moderate it. The women can say whatever they want, but if a guy sends anything with certain words/phrases on there the entire message gets deleted and you'll never know. Example: the word dirty is outlawed. The guy running it is a true chump. There's just no other way to put it. So you'll have to go largely indirect on here just to get your messages sent.



Tinder is the trendy thing and I do best on it now, though it's not my favorite of the 3. But the amount of people seems to have skyrocketed over the past year or so. It also helps that I'm fairly good looking and have learned how to photograph well after quite a bit of work on myself. The strategy you'll want to take with Tinder is have 3-5 good pictures of yourself.

--------A nice headshot, smiling (have tested this a lot. I get a ton more matches with a smiling picture than I do with anything else and I don't care what OKCupid's old data says. This is what my observations have told me)

--------Body shot of you actually doing something (example; I use a picture of me doing a flip into a lake)

--------Picture with an animal/friends

--------Random other shot that shows a little personality

Basically, you want to seem like a fun, good-looking guy on Tinder. The strategy that works with for me on Tinder is to open it and leave it for a few days before swiping on anything. Then start swiping and going through your conversations and after about a month you'll notice that you don't NEARLY as many matches as you used to. So once you've gone through the matches you do have and are sure you've gotten everything you can out of it, delete it and start over.
 
the right date makes getting her back home a piece of cake

Bboy100

Cro-Magnon Man
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I actually do very well on Tinder right now. In fact for my first year or so of doing this, it was my only source of dates! I'm actually more interested in finding out what I'm doing wrong on Okcupid and on POF. And how come I get so few matches on bumble, even when I use the same pics as Tinder (where I get more matches than I know what to do with)
 

Thedoctor

Tribal Elder
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Jun 13, 2013
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512
Bboy,

If you're having success on Tinder, I'd say that means your pics are good (and I'm assuming you're using the same pics across all the sites, correct?). If it's not the pics, then it could be something on your profile. The profiles are more in depth on POF (or at least they were a couple years back when I was still on there) and it's possible there is something that could be improved upon on there.

But I also have a different theory. When POF came out, Tinder didn't exist. The main difference with tinder is it requires very little initial work at the start, so it's easy, and since it's so easy, it doesn't carry the same stigma as "oh... you date..... online?" It really brought online dating into the mainstream. What this means is, anyone still on POF has decided to expend additional effort to create their profiles, so I would imagine some girls on there are becoming more guarded. This means that an opening on tinder may not work the same as an opening on POF. The way Tinder was created also makes it incredibly addictive, which is probably why many people stay on there longer than they do on POF. But again, all just theories.

As for Bumble, according to Play store, the amount of downloads is only in the 100,000's, comparing that to Tinder, which is over 50 million. Looks like sheer numbers will explain your difference in success here. There are 500 times more people on Tinder.

-John
 

ProblemSolving

Tribal Elder
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Keep in mind that Tinder's matching algorithm favors new accounts and accounts that are new to a geographic location. Therefore, if your account is new or your location is new, you will have a competitive advantage since your profile will be shown to more girls which of course increases your match rate.

I do well on both POF and Tinder and the only difference I've seen is that there are more time wasters on Tinder. I believe this is due to the ease of use and low barrier to entry. Lots of them are just looking to soak up attention without meeting anyone so there's more screening involved.

I haven't tried Bumble, but it sounds like my dream app. Girls have to initate conversation or the match expires? Good bye attention whores haha
 

Bboy100

Cro-Magnon Man
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As for Bumble, according to Play store, the amount of downloads is only in the 100,000's, comparing that to Tinder, which is over 50 million. Looks like sheer numbers will explain your difference in success here. There are 500 times more people on Tinder.
Yeah. This makes a lot more sense now. I met a guy while I was driving Lyft who said he uses Bumble, and it actually works better for him than Tinder does. So I figured it was pretty popular. I never checked how many times its been downloaded though. Good find!

This means that an opening on tinder may not work the same as an opening on POF.
My opening line shouldn't be a problem. Trackrunner12 on these forums actually does pretty well on Okc, and he told me the line he uses. Still didn't make a difference.

Keep in mind that Tinder's matching algorithm favors new accounts and accounts that are new to a geographic location. Therefore, if your account is new or your location is new, you will have a competitive advantage since your profile will be shown to more girls which of course increases your match rate.
This shouldn't be a factor. I stay in more or less the same place the entire time.

I do well on both POF and Tinder
Tbh, I think that based on our past threads, your pics are even better than mine. Like...mine is good (6000+ matches in a small town & in Seattle during last summer over the past year or so). But I usually can't get away with just saying "hey, how are you?" as an opener like what you do. So I think that might be a factor.
 

ProblemSolving

Tribal Elder
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467
Be careful when judging the "effectiveness" of an opener. I can shoot off a bunch of clever openers that have a 90% response rate, but how many dates do I actually set up? In my case and many other players, the amount of dates made stays the same, so the generic openers help screen out the window shoppers from the girls that are really interested.

I've actually had girls use clever openers on me which prevoked a response, but I never had any intention of meeting them, so it just wasted both of our time. With others girls that used generic openers on me, if I was interested I responded, if I wasn't I just ignored it which saved us both time.
 

Skippy

Cro-Magnon Man
Cro-Magnon Man
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Jul 6, 2014
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486
currently getting essentially zero action on bumble right now.
I used the same pics as tinder but I don't think they look as good on bumble and the cropping is a bit harder to do accurately.

One theory I have is that since there's a 24hr window for the girl to message you, girls will slow down considerably with the swiping and only message a few guys at a time. Just a thought.
 
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