Anatomy of a Good PlentyofFish Email

As most women on PlentyofFish will tell you, a large majority of the emails they receive are terrible. We even took a look at seven of these awful emails in the last post. We also found that, in our fake female reconnaissance profile that in less than two days, we received 60 email messages from men on the site. The sad news is that almost every single one of those emails were terrible. Out of sixty only one email caught my attention and would be considered good. Take a look:





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Not too bad in my opinion. It's not great, but I'd say it's in the top 1% of the rest of the garbage that flows into a female's inbox. Why do I think it's good?

• The subject line, it's true, is simple, unique and makes me want to open the message. By saying, "it's true," it makes me curious as to what he's talking about. Much better than the ever popularly lame: hi, hey, hello, etc.
• There are no spelling or grammar mistakes. Nor are there any shorthand phrases, like replacing you for U, or other nonsense.
  
• He isn't putting her up on a pedestal by giving her unconditional praise. Instead he opts for his you're adorable opener. This works as a nice little compliment without going overboard
• The next line: but my mum always warned me about rockstar girls; works great as a disqualifying tactic, as well as being a cute way to flirt with her.
• He shows that he actually read the profile by mentioning the Karaoke thing. In the profile, I wrote that this girl loves singing and going to Karaoke. This guy picked up on that and fed it right back. Also, he is setting the groundwork for a future date possibility.
• Finally, he mentions indirectly that he's away traveling. We don't know why, but it could mean that he likes to travel, which most women find attractive or that he is traveling on business, which means he probably has a good career.

Though many of these aspects may seem simple and subtle to many men out there, it was executed extremely well in my opinion. It's intriguing, it's simple, it's flirty, it displays high value and it leaves us wanting to reply. This is exactly what a first email should entail.

Of course, this is coming from a man's opinion, I'd like to know what you ladies think and how would you respond if you received this email message on the PlentyofFish dating site or other online dating site?

7 Awful Plenty of Fish Email Messages from Men

In an earlier post we discussed how awful many of the subject lines were in messages sent by men to our reconnaissance female profile. In this article, we will look at and analyze some of the Plenty of Fish dating messages from the men on the site. Lets take a look:


PoF Email #1 - Low Self-Esteem Guy



So this guy sends an email with a simple, hi, and nothing of substance in the message body. The worst part is that he states, "I know I have no chance..." If you knew you didn't have a chance why did you send the message? It is a dating site after all. Unless, perhaps you are looking for someone to give you pity or feel sorry for you. If that's the angle, then I'm sorry to bust your bubble, because it is simply sad and pathetic.



PoF Email #2 - Put Her on a Pedestal Guy



Listen, it's ok to give sincere compliments to women, however it's not ok to put her up on a pedestal and shower her with praise in a lame attempt to somehow attract her. In fact, you are doing the opposite, you are pushing her away. You simply are displaying how inferior you are by raising her value and lowering yours at the same time.

Ever heard the phrase: women like a challenge? Well, it's true and when you put her high up on a pedestal in your very first interaction with her, then you are not being challenging at all.


PoF Email #3 - The One Word Wonder



This type of message just baffles me. One word and a smiley face. Come on dude... you have to put in at least a little effort if you're going to expect a girl to keep from hitting the delete button the instant this hits her inbox.

POF Email #4 - Dr. Showoff



This guy might as well have said, "Hi, I'm a doctor... want to sleep with me now?"

Though it is important to display that you are a high value alpha male, such a blatant attempt to brag or showoff isn't attractive. He could have easily showed he was a doctor by being indirect in his approach, mentioning it as a passing thought without putting all the emphasis of his message on being a doctor.


POF Email #5 - Lame Pathetic Guy



This guy is similar to Pussy on a Pedestal Guy except far more lame and pathetic.


POF Email #6 - Retarded Guy



Listen, if you can't even put together a proper sentence, how do you expect anyone to find you attractive. Intelligence is an attractive quality in anyone and displaying it in a simple message to someone you are trying to attract will better your odds. Conversely, sending a message that looks like a dictionary puked on the screen is enough grounds to hit the delete button.


PoF Email #7 - Super Direct Guy



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I'll give this guy a fraction of credit as he has the balls to be honest and direct, however, this is certainly not the way to swoop a woman off her feet.

First, he doesn't bother using complete words, opting for U instead of You, etc. Second, he starts by putting the girl up on a pedestal right off the bat by calling her, very very very sexy. Third, he decides to throw in a sexual line about being on his knees for her. Fourth, he apologizes for his previous statements and finally gives out his phone number asking her to call him... sigh...

There are so many things wrong with this I'm not sure where to start. First, it should be obvious to anyone that if you want to display at least basic intelligence then you should probably attempt to use proper grammar. Second, when you put a girl up on a pedestal you are automatically lowering your own value. In essence, you are telling her that you are not even worth her time.

Third, telling her that you want to do sexual things to her in the first email is wayyy to direct for most women. Granted, I do believe in the direct approach in real life, but online and in this manner is going overboard. Fourth, if you are going to be that direct, why apologize for it? If the direct approach even had a chance of succeeding, you would have nullified it by apologizing. If you were truly sorry, you wouldn't have said it in the first place.

Finally, he gives his number out to a complete stranger on the first email. Dude?! How do you know this chick isn't really a guy posing as a chick? Well, it is. I now have your number and could easily prank call you and tell you how much you suck at online dating:)

Conclusion

• Almost all the guys had terrible spelling and grammar, displaying low intelligence.
• Most of the messages focused on complimenting the woman on her looks rather than writing about the many interests and content within that woman's profile.
• Most of the guys put her up on a pedestal when there was really no basis for doing so.
• Most of the guys had one sentence messages that were not unique in anyway and were not worth the woman's time.

Out of the 60 email messages that I received during this experiment, all of them encompassed the same or similar traits as the seven guys above, except for one. Yes, only one guy out of 60 managed to write a good solid attractive message. In the next post we will examine this one message and the qualities that makes it a good Plenty of Fish dating email message.

Increase in Promiscuous Girls Online

PlentyofFish.com has recently released a press release which states that the promiscuity in the women on the site has doubled since 2004. According to their site's statistics, 18% of it's female dating population have selected the "intimate encounter" option in their profiles, up from 9% four years ago.

So what does this mean for the men on the site?

You'd think that an increase in promiscuity of the women on the site would mean an increase in guys getting more action. However, in my opinion, these numbers are not reliable and will likely not have any significant impact on a guy's attempt to get laid from the Plenty of Fish dating site. There are two reasons why I feel this is insignificant:

1. Increase of Bait and Switch Profiles

We've all seen these before. Profiles of beautiful women who message you out of the clear blue, proclaiming their interest in you, except that they only communicate through another paid dating site which you would need to sign up for if you want to talk to them. Seriously, I can't believe there are guys that fall for this stuff.

Because Plenty of Fish is now the top online dating site in the world, with over 10 million users, and free, it is only natural that there would be an increase of these fake bait and switch profiles. The larger the market share, the larger the opportunity for spammers to take advantage of that market.

2. Online Promiscuity Increases Selectivity

Lets suppose that this increase in promiscuity is real and that there are in fact women online that are simply out to have sex. If this were the case, then I would think it'd be even harder for the average man on Plenty of Fish to attract these types of women. Why? Selectivity.

We already know that the odds in online dating are strongly skewed in favor of women. Well, this is even more true for women who are looking for "intimate encounters." These girls will get way more attention then a girl looking for normal dates. Thus, the competition is higher and their standards are likely higher as well.

In this regard, an average looking woman in pursuit of an intimate encounter will likely only pursue the highest quality, best looking men on the site. This means, that your average guy doesn't even come close to having a shot with these women.

In the end, I don't think this changes the online dating game. In reality, the only reason for PlentyofFish to send out this press release is to attract more men to the site who believe they have a chance at some random play.

YouTube PlentyofFish Dating Rant

I just found this video on YouTube of a guy ranting about his frustrations with the PlentyofFish dating site. He basically bitches and moans about the things that women do, which is not fair for him. I'll let you watch the video first and then I'll give my commentary and analysis afterward:




Did you watch it? Notice how this guys is completely frustrated by his attempts at online dating? I'm not surprised, he is a typical guy on the site and is going about it all wrong. He gripes about three things in the video and I'd like to address all of them and break it down.

Girls Not Revealing Their Correct 'Body Type'

This is to be expected on any dating site not just on Plenty of Fish. He basically accuses larger obese women of putting themselves in the wrong categories. This does happen quite often and not just with women. Men fudge their statistics too, particularly the height category. Essentially everyone nudges their personal traits to be more favorable, after all, they are trying to attract mates as best they can.

So, you can't stop women from fudging their profiles, but you can screen them easily if you know what to look for. For example, if she only has head shots in all of her pictures or if she put's "I'd rather not say" in the body type category, then there's a good chance that she is larger and you just move on (assuming you're not attracted to larger women of course).

Who's Who?

His second gripe is regarding girls who put up pictures of themselves with another girl or a bunch of other girls. I somewhat agree with him here. It is hard to tell who is the owner of the profile if the only pictures they show are group shots. However, there is a rule on the Plenty of Fish dating site that says your main picture should be a head shot of just you. So, assuming that rule is enforced then you should be able to tell the face behind the profile.

Helloooooo

The main reason I wanted to show this video is because this guy's last gripe is EXACTLY what I talked about in my last post about subject lines. He complains that a girl chewed him out because all he did was send her a message saying, "Hello."

From the experiment I ran in the last post, we saw that in the female profile, 39 out of 60 emails had subject lines that simply read: hello, hi or hey. With that many guys sending you crappy messages that just say 'hello', it's not hard for me to imagine a girl flipping out on a random dude every now and then. It's kind of like listening to kids in the back of the car, constantly asking, "are we there yet?" Eventually, one of the parents will snap and tell those little ankle bitters to shut the f#@k up.

Plenty of Fish Subject Lines that really SUCK!

We know that online dating is very much lopsided towards women. Women tend to get a significantly higher amount of emails/messages to them then guys receive from women. For example, it's not uncommon for an attractive woman to receive 50-100 emails a day versus maybe one to two, for a guy of equal attractiveness.

I'm sure of this because I have seen the dark side my friends. Yes, I created an experimental fake profile of a woman on the Plenty of Fish dating site, and what I saw shocked me.

Let's take a look at what the "other side" sees.

[WARNING: a few days after doing this, I had both my personal real account and my experiment account deleted. The PlentyofFish system seems to have several methods for detecting duplicate accounts, so you may not want to try this at home]

Not long after getting the profile setup by loading up a few pictures of a female I grabbed from another site and writing a quick generic description, I was quickly swarmed by dudes who wanted to IM me. Seriously, the little boxes were popping up every five seconds. This annoyed me to no end, so I quickly disabled the IM feature.

I let the account sit for about a day and a half and this is what I got:



In a little over a day, I received three pages of emails from different guys. That's approximately 60 emails total! This is pretty insane considering that the woman was of average looks and my own personal (male) profile barely gets one or two emails in a month, let alone every few minutes as this account did.

So one thing we can take away from this little experiment is that, if you are a guy, you have A LOT of competition for PlentyofFish dating. Not exactly a comforting thought is it?

But Wait!

It does gets better. After further analysis, the experiment showed that despite a tremendous amount of competition, a large majority of those guys, like 95% of them, are pathetic when it comes to online dating. Thus the competition is also weak.

The most notable weakness is the lack of any thought into how they initiate contact with a female on Plenty of Fish. If you look at the above screen shot again you'll notice that a large number of subject lines are simply lines like this: "Hey", "Hey there", "Hello" or "Hi."

A quick count through all of the subject lines gives me a total of 39 guys out of 60 who sent an email with some variation of "Hi" in the subject line. That's 65%! On top of that, the remainder subject lines were either really lame, rude or vulgar.



Now lets take a second and put ourselves in the shoes of this woman. If you are a busy attractive female and are receiving 60 emails a day from random men, whose email are you more likely to open? The ones that all say the same thing in the subject line or that one message with something clever, intriguing or at least different than a simple "Hey"?

Keep this in mind, as the next post about POF email messages, will examine the body of the messages that were sent to the experimental account and trust me, they're not pretty...

3 Ways to Increase Your Plenty of Fish Profile Visibility

One of the more efficient Plenty of Fish dating methods I talk about is sending messages to those people who are already attracted to you. Another efficient way of getting dates is simply letting people message you first. Using these two techniques, assuming you've set up your profile properly, you will save yourself a ton of time trying find potential dates. However, there is one drawback to this method, it only works if a high volume of potential dates find your profile.

Based on the need to get your profile viewed by as many potential dates as possible, there are three things you can do to significantly increase traffic to your Plenty of Fish dating profile:

1. Main Profile Picture - Your primary profile picture is very important because this is what is shown when people do a search and is also shown randomly in the picture bar on the website. So, obviously you want a very good profile picture that will draw people to click on it. Also, if you set your picture setting to allow people to rank it, then you will get additional exposure from people using the ranking feature.

2. Interests - There is a section in your profile which allows you to list all of your hobbies and interests. It's important to realize that when this section is displayed in your profile, you can click on the linked interest and it will take you to a page listing other people with the same interest. So, if you list out as many of your interests as possible, you are also increasing the chances of other people clicking through to your profile.

3. Participate in the Forums - This one is often overlooked and is also an excellent way to increase traffic to your profile. If you go into the Forums you will notice that in each thread, in the author section of a post, there is a link to view that poster's profile. So, as you may have figured out, the more you post to the forums the more traffic you'll get. This is by far one of the biggest traffic generators, as it is not uncommon for many forum threads to have over a thousand views. Even if only 10% those clicked through to your profile, you're still getting 100 extra visits simply from posting to one thread. Imagine how much traffic you'd get from posting to the forums on a regular basis!

With these three methods of generating traffic to your profile, you can massively increase your Plenty of Fish dating prospects.

How To Move Your Plenty of Fish Dates Off-line

While the allure of browsing through thousands of potential dates and creating online connections is addicting, there is a time when you want to stop using the PlentyofFish dating site and actually meet people in real life for real dates. Lets face it, you didn't get into online dating for a pen pal, you did it to find someone you can actually hang out with in person!

Unfortunately, a lot of people fall into the trap of an endless chain of back and forth messaging. This is not good, because the more messages that get exchanged before meeting in person, then the less likely it is you will meet that person. It seems counter intuitive, but for the most part, it's true. The reason this happens is because as people continue exchanging messages, their expectations of that person increases and their anxiety of meeting them in real life also increases. Thus making people nervous and hesitant about meeting off-line.

What you want to do is exchange enough messages that you realize both people are interested in each other and that's it. There's no point in telling someone your life story through email when you can do it in real life on a date. It also makes the date easier because you will have more to talk about. So, to make the process more efficient and increase your number of "real life" dates, then it's probably best to keep your emails to less than five interactions before proposing to meet up. Any more than 10 interactions and you've got yourself a pen pal, either push for the date or cut your losses.

The ideal number of online interactions to have is about three to four email exchanges.

• The first email is simply a 'bait and hook' to get the other person interested
• The second email is going to be playful and display some of your value
• The third email will need to qualify the other person, basically a challenge that gives them the perception that they are chasing you
• The fourth email you simply state that the two of you would have much more fun in real life, so lets go grab a coffee, beer, whatever your first date idea is.

You always want to be moving the interactions forward, towards the goal of a date. If you're not moving towards this goal then you are wasting your time. Again, Plenty of Fish dating is not meant to waste your time, used properly it can be quite effective for getting many dates...in real life!!

How To Increase Your Plenty of Fish Dating Success

What if I told you that there was a simple easy way to get almost a 100% response rate from people you message on the PlentyofFish dating site? Well there is. In fact there are two seldom used, yet powerful features that can drastically increase your dating success.

Many people, when dating online, will spend countless hours browsing for potential dates and sending out many messages. They'll waste tons of time only to receive very little in results. Perhaps they'll send out 10 messages and only receive one in return. You spend all your time chasing prospects that aren't interested in you. This is a terribly inefficient process.

It's much easier to simply send messages to those people you already know are attracted and interested in you. So, how do you find out who's already attracted to you? The two features I'm talking about are the "favorites" and the "fans" features. By simply looking at the information in these two sections you can basically send a message with almost guaranteed interest in return.

Favorites

At the bottom of every one's Plenty of Fish dating profile there is a link called "Add to favorites." The way it usually works is when someone is browsing through profiles and likes what they see, they often add that profile to their "favorites" list. If someone adds a person to their favorites list, we can only presume that the person is attracted or at least interested in that profile.

Now here's the good part, you can see which people have added you as a favorite. All you have to do is go into your favorites list and click on "find out who has selected you as a favorite" and you get a list of all the people that are interested in you.

Fans

Another great feature for finding successful dates is the fans feature. There is a picture ranking system on Plenty of Fish much like that of the original Hot or Not website which allows people to give pictures a rating from 1 to 10 (10 being the best). So, If you've selected your pictures to be ranked, which you should, then you can easily find the people who are already attracted to you.

You can do this by viewing your own profile and in the top right corner, on the 'rate my picture' line, there is a link called "fans." Simply click on this link and you will be given a list of all the people who rated you 7 or higher.


There you have it. Two simple and efficient methods for increasing your Plenty of Fish dating success.

How To Find Your Best Dating Profile Pictures

There is a feature on the Plenty of Fish dating site that many people overlook. This one tool, used properly, can help you maximize the attractiveness of your profile pictures. What is this great tool? It's the picture rating system.

When you go into your 'images' section onto Plenty of Fish, there is a little check box next to each of your pictures that says "rate image." By checking this box you are allowing other people to give that picture a ranking from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most attractive. This one tool can help you create a profile that will vastly improve your chances of attracting more potential online dates.

Here's what you do:

• Go into your 'images' section of your profile and check of the 'rate image' box next to each of your pictures.
• The next step is easy, simply wait about a week, or enough time that enough people can rate your pictures.
• Next go into your own profile and next to the "Rate My Picture" line in the top right corner, click on the 'Vote Breakdown' link
• Once in your Vote Breakdown section, you will see some bar graphs with various statistic information
• Naturally this shows you on average and by demographic how people find your pictures to be attractive or not
• If you rate highly on a picture (7-10) then you know you have keeper, but if you rate low on a picture (below 5) then it's probably a good idea to get rid of it and swap it out for a new one.
• Also, be sure to pay attention to the breakdown by demographic. Sometimes, you may rate low in one group and high in the other. If you aren't interested in the group that rated you low and are interested in the group that rated you high, then it is still beneficial to keep that picture even though your average overall rating is somewhere in the middle.

So, as you can see, this is a pretty powerful tool for your Plenty of Fish online dating profile. Using this one technique you can easily maximize the attractiveness of your overall profile.

5 Tips for Writing Your "About Me"

When creating your Plenty of Fish dating profile, one tricky part is the "About me" section. This is usually difficult for any online dating site and often leaves us frustrated while attempting to describe ourselves in a way that will be attractive. Here are five tips for helping you to create the best "about me" section possible.

1. Spelling and Grammar

This should seem obvious but I often see Plenty of Fish profiles who write like third graders. Intelligence is an attractive quality in anyone and the best way to display this while dating online is through your writing. Be sure to use proper sentence structure, use paragraphs, and stay away from Internet acronyms like LOL. Also, there's no reason not to spell check these days. If you're using the Firefox browser, which you should be, make sure the automatic spell checker is activated. This will basically spell check everything you write on the Internet. Finally, when finished writing, make sure to re-read it a couple of times and edit as necessary.

2. Substance

Writing something of substance is the key to this whole thing. This is where you are going to display your personality. This is where you write about who you are. When describing yourself online you want to have some substance in your description. So, if you are passionate about something in your life, something that you love to do, this is where you want to talk about it. Try to stay away from making a list of hobbies and activities, those go in your "interests" section, so there's no need to repeat it. Stick to the things that you're passionate about and give some insight to your lifestyle, but just enough to leave some mystery as well.

3. Length

Having some substance in your "about me" section is key, but you also want to make sure it's not too short and not too long. If you only write two or three sentences, you are hardly providing enough information for someone to become attracted to you. Also, you don't want to write a book either. If it's too long, people won't have t he attention span to read the whole thing. You will also be giving away your entire life, which will leave nothing for you to talk about when you meet in real life. I find that about 200 to 300 words is probably enough to give your Plenty of Fish dating prospects enough information to make them intrigued but not overly indulged that they know your life story.

4. Who You Are Looking For

Many people like add what type of person they are looking for in this section. That's fine, but it's important not to be too restrictive when doing this. You don't want to disqualify or screen out potentially good dates. This seems to be a big issue in many a woman's profiles on Plenty of Fish. They'll often make a list of traits that they don't want, which will often unfairly screen out some potentially great guys. It's also makes you look picky and unrealistic. Instead of writing about what you don't want, write about qualities that you are more likely to be attracted to.

5. Positive, Interesting and Funny

As mentioned above, you always want to appear positive and not negative. People who are always on the bright side and stay positive are always more attractive then people who are negative. Also, try setting yourself apart from the crowd and be interesting. Check out your competition and take note of what types of things that everyone else is writing and then do something completely unique. Finally, having something humorous, that will make someone laugh or spit milk through their noses, will make you all the more memorable.


Stick to these tips when writing your "about me" section on your Plenty of Fish online dating profile and you'll be off to an excellent start in attracting quality dates.

Don't Be a Plenty of Fish Nice Guy

Are you a nice guy and still getting terrible Plenty of Fish dating results? If you said "yes" then you are probably making the classic mistake that most nice guys make. You are putting the women you are trying to date online up on a pedestal. You are seeing these beautiful women online and worshiping them without even knowing who they are. This behavior may seem counter intuitive but you need to start putting your own needs higher than the women you are pursuing.

Perhaps you've been taught to always treat women with respect and to be a gentleman. That's good, you should always be gentleman when dating, but there is a difference between being a gentleman and being a supplicating push over. You can still respect women and place a high value on yourself at the same time.

It amazes me that when guys see a beautiful woman online, that they immediately put them up on a pedestal. Why? There's no reason to start worshiping the ground a woman walks on or to fall in love with her without having gotten to know her in person. You also come across as a stalker, which is obviously not attractive. A girl can't respect a guy who she can walk all over. It just doesn't work that way.

Some good examples of this topic can be found in the following thread on the Plenty of Fish dating forums. The women basically explain how they have guys sending messages claiming that they will treat them like goddesses or princesses. If this isn't your typical nice guy "putting the girl on pedestal" behavior, I don't know what is.

When you place more value on a woman by sending her these types of messages, you are stating right away that she is too good for you. So, if you're telling a woman that she is too good for you, what are the chances she is going to want a date with you? If we think about this logically, we realize that putting the woman up on a pedestal actually does far more damage then if you think about yourself and show these women that you are a high value man.

So, if your a nice guy and are involved with Plenty of Fish dating, please do these women a favor and stop being a push over.

7 Plenty of Fish Profile Picture Mistakes

Creating a seductive profile online is probably one of the most important aspects to Plenty of Fish dating. Within the profile though, the pictures section is by far one of the most important and often most neglected feature. Here we will talk about some of the seven most over looked mistakes while posting pictures on your profile.

1. Not Having a Picture

This is pretty obvious and it's still surprising that there are people who think they are capable of attracting perfect strangers online without having a simple picture of themselves. Basically, if you don't have at least one picture, you are 100% wasting your time.

2. Pictures Without a Shirt

This applies mostly to the guys, however, I doubt women could get away with a topless picture on a legitimate dating site. Regardless, guys, keep your shirts on. Yes, we're all impressed with your big muscles, but posing/flexing for the camera is making you look like a tool and a douche bag. Amongst all my research and surveys with women who date online, I have yet to find one that thinks this is a good idea.

3. Not Having a Good Head Shot

This is actually a requirement for your main picture on the Plenty of Fish dating site. The reason is that people want to actually see a good close up of you, rather than a group shot or some stick figure standing in the distance. Even if you think you're ugly, having a good close up picture is good, because it shows you are honest. One of the biggest complaints in online dating is meeting people in real life that don't look like their pictures. These people who misrepresent themselves are obviously not getting a second date, which makes all that effort worthless in the end. Better to just stick with your ugly mug for the sake of efficiency.

4. Pictures With Your Ex Cropped Out

These are the pictures where you can clearly see the ex cropped out of the picture. I don't think this one is that big of a deal if you are really short on quality pictures. However, if you are serious about raking in the hotties on Plenty of Fish then why not just get some better pictures - don't you own a digital camera? Another thought is to simply leave the other person in the picture as means of social proof. Who cares if your ex is in the picture? I think it shows that you are open and don't care how people judge you. If you're worried about privacy for the other person then simply put a black bar across their eyes.

5. Self Portrait In the Mirror

You know what I'm talking about. The people who take their own picture with a cellphone while standing in front of the bathroom mirror. People please, this is just lame. First, it makes you look like you don't do anything, because you don't have any pictures of yourself and it makes you look like you don't have any friends. Do not do this.

6. Not Having Enough Pictures

Recently I did a little research where I browsed through 100 random male profiles and 100 random female profiles. For each profile, I recorded in a spreadsheet two sets of data: the number pictures shown and the number of times that profile was given "favorite" status. The results turned out to what I expected. Regardless of looks or written content, on average, the profiles with more pictures (6-8) had more favorites given to them. The profiles with less pictures (only 1 or 2) had little to no favorites given. Essentially, the two sets of data are directly proportional. So, we can conclude that the more pictures you show, the more interest you will receive in your online dating profile.

7. Not Diversifying Your Pictures

One observation I noticed in my research from number 6 is those profiles with 6 - 8 pictures, some did good while others did extremely well. The difference was that the pictures that were exceptional, had a diverse set of pictures. Conversely, the pictures that had 6 shots of the same thing only fared as well as profiles with 1 or 2 pictures.

A good example is one guy who had 8 pictures shown and was given favorite status by 130 women!! By far the highest number I've seen for a male dating profile. So what set his pictures apart from everyone else. He basically showed, through his pictures how awesome and exciting his life was. He had pictures of him doing the following: skydiving, riding a motorcycle, snowboarding, surfing, sitting by the fire in a camp setting, playing with his dogs, and one simple but clear head shot as his main picture. He barely had anything written in his profile either, but he didn't need to, he displayed his exciting life through visual proof!! Think about it folks.


Hopefully these seven tips of "what not to do" will help you avoid some common pitfalls for Plenty of Fish dating and other online dating services. If you have any to add please feel free to write it in the comments section.

Making First Contact on Plenty of Fish

You have your Plenty of Fish dating profile setup perfectly and it's likely you are starting to attract a little bit of attention, but in order to ultimately utilize this site you'll need to make first contact. Aside from your profile, this is the second most important aspect of online dating. Unfortunately most people, especially guys, also mess this part up big time!

Why is this step so crucial? Because, your first contact is only meant to accomplish one thing only and any other message you try to convey will likely be futile. So what's the one thing you ask? Simple, all you want to accomplish with the first message is to get your prospect curious enough to look at your profile. It's a bait and hook maneuver. That's it!

The bait and hook is crucially important on the Plenty of Fish dating site. This is for multiple reasons. The big one being that, assuming you're a guy, the women you are contacting are receiving tons of messages each day. Most of the time they are getting the same old ridiculous emails over and over again. So the trick is to set yourself apart from everyone else with a short yet intriguing message.

Here's a few examples of what has been getting good responses for me:

Pick several things from your prospects "interests" list that you have in common and use the following type of message

Subject: Hmmm, that's interesting...
Body: You like [interest1] and [interest2]! How come we aren't best friends yet!?

That's it short sweet and simple. Remember you aren't trying to make the girl fall in love with you on the first email. Your only goal is to get her to read your message and get her to check out your Plenty of Fish dating profile.

Let's break down why this works.

The first thing we want to accomplish is to get her to click on your message in her already stuffed inbox. This accomplished with the subject line. By implying that there is something interesting, but not stating what it is, you are giving her a lot of intrigue. It's likely that she can't help but read your message right away.

Second, now that she is reading our message, we quickly show her that we have some things in common and then give her a "call to action" by asking her a question. By giving her a simple question to answer, it's more likely that she'll respond with something. It's also more likely that she'll check out your profile, which is key.

Now assuming you setup your profile correctly, it will already do a lot of the leg work for you.

So, in the next couple of posts will look at some examples of what not to do and some of the next steps to take for dating on Plenty of Fish.

How To Set up a Plenty of Fish Dating Profile

The first and probably most important task for successful Plenty of Fish dating experiences is to set up a great profile. Unfortunately, most guys are too anxious to begin browsing for women that they don't put much thought into their profiles. This is a BIG mistake. Setting up an online dating profile in a way that is unique and attractive will make Plenty of Fish Dating much more efficient and effective.

In my personal profile, I decided to go with a technique that was pioneered by Race de Priest, who is an expert in the field of MySpace and Facebook seduction. One of Race's biggest techniques for getting women on MySpace is displaying one's fun adventurous personality through pictures and playful pieces of text. So, I figured if these techniques work so well on MySpace and Facebook (they do, I've tried them:) then why not adapt them for Plenty of Fish?!

Well, this is exactly what I did and within just a few hours of finishing my profile I had already gotten a few messages from several girls, all from simply creating a seductive profile! Here's how to do it:

• First thing is picking a good headline. This is one of the first things that a woman will see when looking at your profile and it needs to have several different qualities all wrapped up into a single little phrase. It should be unique, related to your personality, mysterious, and fun.
• Don't put things that include, "searching for", "looking for", "seeking", "nice guy", etc in your title or description. These types of things will make you look needy. The key is to look like you don't need online dating at all, you're simply there to try it out as another option and have fun.
• Next are all the descriptive fields like height, hair color, body type, etc. This section should be pretty self explanatory but surprisingly a lot of people mess it up. You should make sure you tell the truth, especially when it comes to 'height' and 'body type.' There's no sense lying about this because when you do get a date then you'll only look like a liar and will have just wasted your time.
• Also, never use the "prefer not to say" options because this will make you look like you're hiding something. The best profiles are those that are open about themselves and don't care what other people think.
• The 'Profession' field is a little tricky. Unless you have a really cool job, I prefer to have fun with this part and make up something totally outrageous. For example, Vice President of Rock or Zombie Slayer. I think it's ok to make something up here so long as it is blatantly obvious that it's not true. And if someone really wants to know you're profession then they can simply ask.
• You also want to have some fun with the 'Interests' section. Try not to just list out a lot typical average activities that most guys do. List things that are unique, adventurous and funny. Also, if you have any cool hobbies or unique talents, this is the place to put them.
• Next is the description and first date sections. Again, stay away from the typical boring stuff. Don't write an entire novel either, just keep it short and simple but still describing how much of a fun guy you are.
• Finally, the best and most important for last, pictures! I can't stress this enough people. The more quality pictures you upload the more responses you will get. It's as simple as that. Plenty of Fish allows you to upload a maximum of 8 pictures. I recommend using the maximum amount. Go through your pics and get eight of your best. Try to diversify them too, one good head shot for the main pic, a good body shot, and then the rest showing you engaged in fun adventurous activities. Please guys, do not overlook this part, it is probably the most critical part of the whole system.
• And one last note on the pictures, don't use ones with your shirt off, it makes you look like a try hard and a showoff, regardless of how big your muscles are.

So, those are some of the basics of this particular Plenty of Fish dating technique that I'm using. Again, I'm still experimenting with this as it is an adaptation on Race de Priest's MySpace seduction system, but so far it seems to be working quite well. I'll keep you guys posted on further developments and any new tips I come across while seducing the women of Plenty of Fish.

Plenty of Fish Dating Statistics

Before venturing off into the great unknown of Plenty of Fish dating, I first want to take a look at some of the current online dating statistics for this particular site.

This first thing I want to highlight is the number of users on Plenty of Fish. By taking a look at Google trends and comparing it with the other top online dating sites, we can see that Plenty of Fish is the second most visited dating site behind Match.com.


So, because POF is the second largest online dating site, we can only assume that size of our potential dating pool will be quite significant. This is important because as we continue to experiment and refine our dating system, we are going to need to interact with a large quantity of potential dates.

Second, if we look at the registration page for Plenty of Fish, you'll notice that they cite two interesting statistics which you can view in screen shot below:

Largest Dating site in the world generating over 300,000 relationships a year, larger than all other free dating services combined.

49% of women who leave plentyoffish.com found their boyfriend here. Love really IS just a click away.

The first statistic of being the largest dating site in the world conflicts with the Google trends data, but it's difficult to say how accurate either is. One thing is for sure though, Plenty of Fish has A LOT of users!

The second statistic cited is also interesting. I'm not sure how they got this number, I'm assuming through some type of survey, but if it is true than it is quite impressive. 49% of women, almost half, find a boyfriend through Plenty of Fish. That's pretty damn good if you ask me. Although, I'd be much more impressed if the success rate for men were that high. However, for some reason this number is not shown, but I'm guessing it's much lower.

So as we can see we're not messing around with some rinky dink dating site. The pool from which to draw dates from are in the millions. Certainly enough women that we can essentially screw up several hundred times and not be concerned about our prospects for dating on Plenty of Fish.

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Welcome to Plenty of Fish Dating Tips

There has been a lot of talk about PlentyofFish.com lately that basically denounces the service as a terrible online dating site for meeting other people. Despite being free and one of the largest online dating sites in the world, the Plenty of Fish dating site gets a pretty bad rap. There a few reasons for this:

• Because it's free, there tends to be a lot of users who aren't active on the site
• Men complain about not getting responses from any of the women they try to contact
• Women complain of the scarcity of quality men on the site

Now I agree that PlentyofFish.com may not be as useful as a paid service like Match.com or eHarmony but given the sheer size of PoF, it makes me wonder if this tremendous resource could be used effectively. Well, that's what this site is going to be about.

My observations has shown that the quality of Men and their online dating strategies are extremely poor, as in Beta male poor. Thus, if a guy can come up with a killer method for dating on Plenty of Fish, then that guy would truly clean house.

In addition, if this were to become a resource to help increase the quality of even more men who use the site, then the site's overall quality will also increase. If women know that they can snag a decent man on PoF then that will help spread positive reviews about the site and drive more quality women and men to it.

So, over the course of this blog, I will be testing out different online dating profile techniques, giving my analysis, making observations, running experiments, giving proven tips, and hopefully writing about all the dates I will go on:)

This is a journey and hope you all enjoy it.