PICTURES
On internet dating sites, pictures are the first impression you get of your potential new date. This can be because you are searching them out or because they have initiated a contact with you. Scammers are usually going to be hot on your trail, ladies. And I have a feeling that our demographic, women in our later years, are a prime target for their not-so-tender mercies.
The pictures you will receive of these men will be of exceptionally handsome men within the age range you have specified. My age range is from 45-69. Now occasionally, you will get men who are younger but say they like older women. These guys lie about their age on those websites like Plenty of Fish (POF) that limit contact with people within 14 years of the specified age range in order to date women much older than themselves. But I will talk about those guys at a later date. The background is what you want to take a look at carefully. It will appear photoshopped. Sometimes the background will be plain but often it will appear to be someplace exotic or it will be slightly out of focus. It just has an appearance of unreality. Guys who are real will post pictures of themselves with their dead fish or hunting trophies, in the front seats of their cars, on their motorcycles, or even worse, in front of the bathroom mirror or laying down in their bed or recliner with their dogs or cats. Study the pictures carefully and after awhile, you will be able to spot what I mean.
PROFILE DETAILS
Even though POF is a mostly free website and so, because of that, you get a ton of scammers and lowlifes just looking for hookups. I like it because a guy has to put in a ton of information about himself and you can gather a lot of data about the person whether he wants you to or not. Analyze that data carefully. Even his profile name can give you a hint about who he is. If he has his first and last name in the profile like mikemorrison13 you can almost bet that it is a scammer or not a real person because who would be dumb enough to put that kind of information out there on a free website? Then POF has you put a headliner under your initial profile picture. Boy howdy! Can that ever give you insight into what a guy is after or thinking. This can range from “Seeking a serious relationship” to “I just need a lady to eat her vigona [sic]” is one I just read, honest!!
Next, we move on to statistics like age, where they live, height, job, education, eye color, hair color, body build, religion, ethnicity. We’ll save the relationship status and wants for another paragraph. You can glean a lot of information from these statistics. First, do the statistics even match the pictures? On POF, there is a lot of hacking going on, so check to see if these things match. And also, for some reason, many men think that women don’t bother to read profiles. How wrong they are! We check out those details not once, but over and over again – or at least I do, and I’m pretty sure that is common of all women. I check carefully to see if these details match up. For instance, lately I have been seeing a lot of Engineering as a job and then the guy will say he has a master’s degrees. This is not common. If a person has a degree in Engineering, a master’s degree or a PhD isn’t needed and rarely does anyone pursue that. The other thing? If you are an Engineer, you need a Bachelor’s degree, so if you say you have some university, that doesn’t add up. Now I am talking to one person who works on a railroad and says just that. But what you are doing is technically not engineering. It is maintenance. I think that many men who do not have college degrees have no idea what a master’s degree is and just pick it because they think it sounds good. I have one so it disturbs me that someone claims it and hasn’t earned it. So, just look and see what matches up and what doesn’t in these details. Look for lies. Are they doing it to make themselves look good or creating a fake profile?
Relationship details are tricky to figure out. POF has almost too many categories so it can be very hard to figure out just what a guy is looking for. For example: One I am looking at now says: Divorced, Man, Actively seeking a relationship, Seeking a Woman, for dating. What does that mean? You only want to date? But just one person? The choices included for relationship intent: I want to date but nothing serious; I want a relationship; I am putting in serious effort to find someone; I am serious and I want to find someone to marry. For what kind of relationship do you want the choices are: Hang out; Long-term; Dating; Friends. In general, I have found that Hang out means they just want a – pardon the term – fuck buddy/friend with benefits. So buyer-beware. If that is all you want, then fine. Go for it. But I have found that is very empty and can be potentially dangerous or heartbreaking. So, be honest about what you want and ask what he wants and if it is not what you are seeking, just don’t go down that road. Also, beware of the guys who say they want to marry. I think most of those are either scammers or ones who might be really desperate or have another agenda. This is a dating website, after all. Who truthfully is going to put it out there that marriage is the end game?
On POF, the next section is About Me. It used to have a minimum of number of words that a person had to put here about themselves and I don’t know if that has changed or what, but it seems like guys have found a way around that and some are putting nothing or very little here, which is disappointing. But I will tell you, the ones who go one forever and it is all about wonderful he is or it is too flowery are the ones most likely to be scammers so pass them by. Also, the profiles with English mistakes in grammar are also likely to be scammers. This might not show up in the profiles because they are written more carefully, but it will show up in the chats. But if the profile is unrealistically glowing, take care. That person is not who you think. Another giveaway? Often the profile will state “I speak English” or “I do not have a second language” but you can tell from the way that he writes that English is not his first language. A dead giveaway is when he sends the first message. It will say something like this: Hello pretty. I read your profile and I will like to get to know you better and will like to read from you soon”. Notice the use of the helping future tense verb will? No one that grows up speaking English would use that form of of the verb in speaking or writing so it is a sure fire giveaway that if he is lying to you on his profile about his language skills, then what else is he lying about and why?
POF next has a section titled Lifestyle where you can find out if they smoke, drink, or do drugs, are ambitious, have kids or want kids. Then there is a section labeled More About Me where it gives the zodiac sign, if they have pets and what kind, a choice that says something about yourself, if you own a car, whether or not you speak English or some other language, and about the length of your longest relationship. Next is a list of your interests, and finally a section for conversation starters. As you can see, POF, for a free site, has a lot of information on a person that is provided even if someone chooses not to fill out the parts where one has to write much about himself. There are lots of drop down menus that they must choose from that gives you a lot of data to sort through. Which is why I like it even if there are a ton of scammers, lowlifes, and people I wouldn’t date if they were the last men on earth (or fish – haha) on the site. Because remember, just because someone sends you a message, it doesn’t mean you have to respond to them.
I have used several other dating websites besides POF: Match.com, Silver Singles, Zoosk, Hinge, Bumble, OKCupid, and checked out a few more over the years. They each have their positives and negatives. Match is quick to respond if you report someone and lets you know if there is a problem with anyone’s profile. But I have only met one person on there in all the time I’ve had my account and they mainly keep sending me people who live in another state as suggestions, so I haven’t been all that impressed. I do like that it shows, if they choose to select it, what political persuasion a person is and that is helpful. But they do not make a person give that much information about themself nor do they have them say what kind of relationship they are looking for so if they don’t self-proclaim it, you have no idea. And the most hits I get from there are men from out-of-state, which I am not interested in. I think most of men that contact me from out-of-state are either scammers, married, or just want to sext.
Internet Dating at 66 - A Woman's Perspective 