Be Prince Charming - A Guide to Charming Women

User Disconnected: Failed Online Pick Up Post Mortem 1

2009-06-02T16:45:00.000-07:00

Lets kick this off with a bleeding obvious one. To give you some background, I have a relatively detailed profile, following my own advice to other women, including a passphrase to show people have read my profile and got further than the pics.

From: ... (View Profile) (View All Correspondence)
Subject: Britain DOES have talent...! x Sent Date: 6/2/2009 1:21:02 PM

Saw you on here and thought WOW!!... God, how cheesy did that just sound???!!

Oh, have been told my pics look very gangsterish... May I point out the most gangster thing I've ever done is steal a packet of cheese and onion crisps from my local when I was 12yrs old... oops!!

Bob x

So why did Bob fail to pass through the net, failing to even get a polite response, to register a genuine attempt?

1) He failed to include the passphrase... or ANYTHING to show he read anything on my profile.
....Why should I go to the effort of writing back, when you didn't go to the effort of looking any further on my profile than my photos? Think logically. If you think I am pretty, so will other men. Some of them however will bother to read my profile. No matter how hot (you think) you are, not showing any interest in a girl's personality will put her off. Only the most desperate (and likely, psychotic) of girls will bite on such lame bait. Do you really want the most desperate of girls?

2) Unsophisticated cultural references
Ok this will not apply to all, but really, us girls can get away with admitting to watching things like Desperate Housewives, or even, Britains Got Talent. But you guys? Seriously, it's just not manly. It makes me think you have nothing better to do than sit on a smelly sofa cracking the beer cans open watching Simon Cowell. Maybe, heaven forbid, you are unemployed and have nothing better to do.... Okay, this snobbery will not apply to all people, and if presented in a comedic, ironic way, it can be cool... However it fails if presented in combination with...

3) ...Excessive cheese
"Talent", "Wow"? See the comment on number 1. Pretty girls, as most of us girls on dating sites at least appear to be (soft lighting effects, flattering angles, Photoshop), will receive plenty of compliments. Cheesy ones do not grab our attention. Big deal, you find us attractive. So do plenty of other men. Cheese, in my opinion, shows a general lack of experience with women, or worse, a general lack of respect for women. You aren't Captain Kirk and I am not some helpless blonde alien girl needing rescue from some native troll-like creature. I am not a damsel who will fall into your arms at the declaration of your interest. Men, listen up. If you haven't realised already; men make the applications, women make the recruitments. We aren't mad for you, we are independent creatures. Find more charming ways to convince us that we should give you a chance.

4) Commenting on flaws does not eradicate them
It might make you seem more honest, but essentially the question I would pose to sunglass-posing Bob is this: What are you hiding? And if you have had comments that you look gangster-ish and seem to mention this apologetically, why not change the pics? Also, commenting the fact that what you just said was cheesy does not suddenly make it seem cute. It's still cheesy until a more thought-out comment comes along.

5) The message could have been copied and pasted to a dozen other girls.
See my first entry for the girls on online dating. This guy is using the machine gun approach, hoping to maximise his response rate. Seriously. Think about the most successful armies in the world. Go in like a sniper, choose your target carefully, study your prey. And you will be much more likely to catch it, also, you won't be wasting time on a prey that is unsuitable, or likely to be uninterested.

Did Bob do anything right?

Yes, he made a small, relatively amusing joke. It wasn't enough to make up for the various flaws, but it was a good effort. Humour is GOOD.

Online dating: Advice for the girls.

2009-05-03T05:52:00.000-07:00

Some of us girls are picky. For those somewhat more cerebral than slutty, the usual mating rituals of getting drunk on a Friday and/or Saturday night whilst baring lots of flesh do not really cut it when trying to find the perfect guy. So what are our real options for finding the creme de la creme, a guy we would actually consider dating, and granting admittance to our tastefully decorated bed chambers?

Of course, one of the best methods to finding a potential suitor has always been, and will always be, the friend of a friend. This way, they come vetted, and even a nasty guy is less likely to try dirty tricks on you if he realises this may have repercussions on his social life. In fact, most of the lasting relationships I know are where people initially met through friends, became friends themselves, and then love blossomed. After a drunken kiss in some cases, true, but still. Love did blossom.

But what for the rest of us? What if, in our social group, there just do not happen to be any tall, dark, handsome, bilingual, vegetarian, preferably foreign young gentlemen available and/or single? (or short, skinny, tattooed, red-headed men with many piercings, if that happens to be your thing). What to do? And what if your type is quite limiting... Maybe for religious or ethical reasons, or a fetish for an unusual or very high standards.

Welcome to Online Dating

So here are some top tips for girls wishing to use internet dating to find Mr. Right, and avoid the many weirdos.

1. Safety first
Never use your real name as part of your user name or text. A first name if you feel like it, but treat everything in your public profile as if it could be read by a potential axe murdering stalker. Also, be very cautious about giving out your email address or phone number. For safety reasons, consider using a pay and go mobile which is not linked to your credit card for any telephone conversations, as these are less easily traced. Be cautious about when you meet people, make sure you have an idea of who they are, meet in a public place and tell a friend. Arrange for a friend to call you around 15 minutes in, claiming to be upset, so you have an excuse to leave if necessary. Arrange for another call after an hour or two if you feel safe, but want an easy way of getting out of the date if you aren't interested. If you are really paranoid, get a friend to drop by 'just by chance', and they can ask you how you are - you can use a code, e.g. "I'm good" = I feel safe, don't worry, and "I'm fine" = Please make an excuse to stay, I feel uncomfortable. You never know... If you have a history of choosing men badly, you may wish to go for the more paranoid approach! Safety first, after all.

2. Profile: Be true to yourself
If you want a generic man, fair enough, make your profile equally generic, listing your hobbies as "drinking", "going out", "having fun", and describing your personality as "bubbly". If you want a man with whom you connect, list the things that REALLY interest you. There is no point in putting a generic profile up with pretty pictures, to attract the greatest number of men (unless you have low self esteem and this makes you happy), if you actually want a relationship for a while rather than just one night, make sure the things that really define you are up there. Be honest, you can leave off your most negative traits, but do not lie. If you are into archaology and stamp collecting, put it up there. You may find that hottie is more likely to reply if he also shares these interests. If others are put off by such interests, do you really want to get to know them anyway? And wouldn't things have ended as soon as they got to know the real you anyway?

3. Profile: Use a password or phrase
Just like in real life, many men go for the machine gun approach to attracting a mate. They fire their puny shots everywhere, in the hope that one might hit a target. But do you want a machine gunner, or a sniper? Someone that has clearly taken the care to read your profile in depth, eager to discover something which makes you so unique? If so, then a good way of filtering the chaps from the chavs is to include a password, phrase or question. Myself: At the end of my extensive profile I have included the text: "Include the word "peanut" in your first message, as creatively as possible. Otherwise I will not reply." Similarly, you could ask people to tell you their favourite animal, their most embarassing moment, anything that proves their ability to read. You can then also feel less guilty about not replying to that guy who just hasn't caught your attention: If the word peanut (or similar) isn't there, he clearly wasn't bothered about you enough to read your profile anyway.

That's the basics, but I will keep adding to this as ideas come to me.

(picture credit: www.telegraph.co.uk)

The aim of this blog

2009-05-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

Hi. My name is Rose. I am a perpetually single, selective and hard to please young 22 year old. I am moderately experienced in love, sex, and complicated friendships, and have a lot of close male friends. One of these, an online American friend, founded www.mikethemasterdater.com, where he tells women how not to be psychos and send men running for the hills. I aim to do something similar here, for the male of the species.

I will focus on various scenarios, from the very many pitfalls (and potential big wins!) of internet dating, the bar / club pick up scene, the random meetings, everything... Everything and everywhere you might bump into the woman of your dreams. Be she for tonight, or every night. I will also try to cover relationship scenarios, and try to impeach upon you some of the limited wisdom I have garnered from my MANY mistakes.

I think I shall make a regular feature of the Online Pick-Up Disasters. I shall post some of the funniest (and worst), so we can both laugh at them and also avoid repeating their mistakes.

And why am I doing this?

Because I am a single woman, annoyed by the awful attempts men make in trying to hook up with me. Furthermore, I am frustrated to know that SOME of these men were probably deserving of a second look, they just presented themselves poorly! So maybe, with my little drop in the ocean, I can splash the water of love all over the world. Make of that what you will.

Happy Reading.