Name: Just Wondering
Comment: This is more for curiosity’s sake than anything else–why did I get more attention from men (online) when I was chubby? A few years ago (in my early 20s) I was 50 pounds heavier and got FAR more responses from my online profile. A serious 5 year relationship and a loss of 50 pounds later I’m back on and get next to no attention (I have chosen photos to post that I get compliments on, full body shot, etc. I do get more attention from men when I’m out in public than I used to, though). Really I only seem to get contacted by guys looking for sex, which in and of itself is fine, but I am pretty clear about looking for a relationship in my profile.
It’s not like I’m losing sleep over this, I’m just curious. Should I post a chubby pic on my profile to go along with the others now?
Age: 29
City: Edmonton
State: Alberta
Unfortunately, I just don’t trust people who say things like the “only” people who contact them are such and such looking for so and so, despite how “clear” they are about what they want.
I think we need some examples of how you’re “pretty clear” about wanting a relationship in your profile. If you’re making statements like, “Not looking to be a booty call!” or other such declarations, well, that’s why you’re hearing from so many men who “just want sex.” Remember what I said about keywords. People who cruise these sites looking for no strings sexual encounters are going to search for profiles that include words like casual, fwb, sex, nsa, no strings, etc. If you have any such words in your profile, take them out.
The people who genuinely are “just” looking it get laid aren’t even bothering to read your profile. They are spamming women with messages in the hopes something will stick. There is no way to stop hearing from these men. None. You have to build a tolerance for that.
I think reason you got more attention before is two fold. First, you were younger. Let’s face it, age can often trump extra weight/bad behavior…for awhile. Second, and this one is a little more unseemly, your weight made you a target. Guys thought you were more forgiving.
Again I’m going to refer to this post over at XOJane.
The author insists that, because she gets attention from men, that her body type/weight isn’t universally unattractive. The problem with that, as we’ve said before, is that attraction is often secondary when it comes to seeking sex. Men and women both have the ability to get past the lack of intense physical desire if the goal is to get off. Basing your perception of yourself and your attractiveness upon insincere attention you receive is where you can get into trouble. The otherspeed bump is ignoring the possibility that our weight/body type is more appealing to people of certain ethnicities other than the one we predominantly date. You can’t take that attention and assume that their race or cultural experience doesn’t play a part. The woman from this article is choosing to believe what she wants – including the feedback from her friends that her weight isn’t an issue – than accepting her reality.
No, you shouldn’t post a pic of yourself when you were heavier to your profile. People will assume that that is what you look like now. Not only that but, what’s the point? Why would you want to highlight the fact that you used to be 50 pounds heavier? We’d all need to see these older photos to better answer this question. Maybe you were posed in such a way that your extra weight wasn’t as obvious. I can’t trouble shoot a scenario like this without evidence or actual data. But then, that’s the point, I guess. I’m not sure you want an answer as much as you want an opinion/experience validated.
You seem bothered that you’re not getting the amount of responses you used to get. I understand. But I’d guess the majority of people who were emailing you before weren’t genuinely interested in you in the first place. If you want more emails, post a great shot of your cleavage. If you want to find something substantive that could possible turn into something, then except that a handful of messages a week is the standard.
People really need to accept the fact that, when it comes to online dating, we don’t have the amount of options that we think. Everybody is so thrown when nobody replies to their messages or they don’t get any emails. Hello? Is this thing on? That’s online dating for pretty much everybody. It’s a crap shoot, one that requires effort and patience and self-awareness. Forget those stories you’ve heard about all the people you know who have met online and gotten married. They are not the rule. They are exceptions to the rule. To meet them it’s going to take more than a handful of dates or a few months on a dating site. The only people trying to convince you otherwise are the online dating companies themselves along with dating coaches who are probably being compensated to promote these so-called “facts.” These sites and experts chirp about studies and research and then create pretty info-graphics and blast them out to bloggers and encourage us to post them. Trust me. I’d bet the majority of people these sites poll are not the people you’re trying to meet.
It would also serve the general dating population well to dispel themselves of the notion that they are somehow doing somebody a favor by overlooking certain “flaws.” . No, you’re not meeting them out of curiosity. No, you’re not giving them the what for because you want to school them in etiquette. You’re pissed because you convinced yourself that that Mr./Ms.McDreamy was more into you than you were into them and it turned out they weren’t.
I am sorry to put it this way, but dating now requires that people have low expectations. If you want to be a grammar expert or spend your days sifting through profiles that make your heart beat faster, have at it. You will undoubtedly find excellent reasons to stay single. The rest of us will be going out with people who don’t use semi-colons correctly or don’t look like our imaginary celebrity boyfriends/girlfriends.
Re: grammer – on one level I get the grammar thing because I read a lot and love good writing. On the other, unless one or both of you are writers, it’s not like you actually get to see your SO’s writing beyond an occasional text or grocery list. If you met someone at a bar or through your social circle, I doubt you’d query him about his grammar.
In the linked article she talked about a guy who used too many ellipses. I know a guy like that. He’s very charming in person, but for some reason his emails are all lowercase and full of dot-dot-dots
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Some possibilities:
1) online dating in itself has changed quite a bit. In recall around 2005ish, I used to get a descent amount of quality emails. The last time I was online (2-3 years ago), my mail box was overflowing with spam that I stop reading and corresponding after the first week.
2) there is such a thing as “chubby chasing.” Perhaps when you were larger, you were above the mean for men looking for larger woman. Now you do not stand not quite as much amount hundreds of size 4′s.
3) has the 5 year relationship affected you attitude at all? Does your profile reflect that? People tend to steer away from these “freshly single after dramatic long relationship” profiles as they assume you still have emotional Babbage on board.
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i just want to bring attention to #2, which is a resonable thing to consider. to repeat what you said she might have stood out among the ladies who are curvy but now that she is skinny she doesn’t.
women should remember that somewhere in between fat & skinny there is normal and curvy & there are some men who prefer that. some women feel offended by it, but i think it’s no different than some men wanting a blonde or a redhead instead of a brunette.
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Also, OP, many people’s faces look a little better with extra weight. It could be that you are one of these people. If you don’t wear make up 29 is a good age to start.
Like Moxie said, age is also a big deal. The average age of marriage in the US is 28, so lots of people who were single when you were 24 are now married or in committed relationships.
Finally, I’ve heard many people say online dating just isn’t what it used to be. Maybe there’s some truth to that, I don’t know. Don’t let all this get you down though – you’re still fairly young and have a good shot at finding somebody. The last three weddings in my circle were people who met online. And a good friend of mine who was single for NINE years recently found a “real” relationship on OKC. Don’t give up – it DOES happen.
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It’s possible that the OP had pictures that were shot in a way that focused on certain attributes above others. I’ve seen plenty of curvier women online with several pictures in their profiles that emphasize cleavage and are mostly from the waist up. Nothing wrong with that, and it may draw in a lot of attention. Put simply, it’ll grab a guy’s attention fairly easily, and may lead to a higher number of responses (although, that may also include plenty of sleazy ones that are basically only about the cleavage).
Now, I have no idea what the OP had on her profile originally. However, the OP mentions she posts full-body shots in the current profile. It may be that the pics from the previous profile were angled and shot in a way that drew more attention to her cleavage (accentuate the positive, after all), whereas now that’s not as emphasized. The end result is that the total number of responses and/or profile visits may be dropping because guys aren’t just responding to her boobs.
I’d focus less on the raw number of hits or emails received, and look more at who are the kind of people emailing, and whether they fit what the OP is looking for more. Look at it this way. Your profile could be all bikini shots, and you’ll probably get a ton of views and emails. Will it be what you’re looking for, though? Obviously, only the OP can answer that, but if the answer is “no,” then maybe the drop in numbers isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If the quality of emails is improving, even as the quantity is declining, I see that as a net positive.
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Youth can often trump weight. I’m sure in your early 20s there were lots of guys that would be interested, and thinking you’re a bit easy because of your weight then. A lot would depend on how you carried your weight. Twenty-nine, nearly 30, even having lost the weight, your dating pool has changed.
Earlier on, those guys might have been interested in a relationship–and indeed, you seemed to have gotten a relationship–now you’re older and guys are older as well. If you’ve become more attractive, of course the guys want sex. If you’re looking for a relationship, you’re probably going to go for older guys.
Oh, and don’t post the chubby pics. That’s just baiting….
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I would guess that it is simply that online dating services have fallen out of favor. Around 2006 every person I knew who was single was on at least one sight. That was the thing to do if you were single. That crashed shortly after that…I cannot think of anyone I know who has been active online (or at least admitted to it) since around 2008.
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I’m not sure that online dating itself has changed as much as the people who are doing it have changed. I think what you’re seeing is a result of demographic shifts in terms of who’s using it.
Part of the population that was dating online in 2006, which came at it with a given set of expectations for what would be acceptable behavior, has either found it to be not quite the silver bullet they expected, or has coupled up with someone and removed themselves from the pool. At the same time, you have a lot of younger people entering the online dating pool who have different attitudes about what’s ok to do online (and offline, really). Certain segments of the population overlap by virtue of dating each other, so behavioral norms spread and shift.
The end result is that, for example, the notion of “trade long emails, have a 20-30 min phone call ahead of time, and set up a dinner date” is a relic of the past. People are just as comfortable trading a short email, sending a couple texts, and meeting for drinks, not even hearing the other person’s voice until their first meeting. I don’t know if that’s “better” or “worse” in any objective sense; I think it depends on who you ask. People who are more old fashioned may look at such behavior as evidence that online dating has declined and the pool of “quality” people has shrunk. Others might simply say “What’s the big deal? Isn’t the point whether you have fun when you’re out with them?”
Then there’s the population that’s actually been around the whole time, since 2006 — or in some cases even earlier. They remember a different online world, and may think of it as a better place. This could just be nostalgia, though, as the people pining for “the good old days” may also be affected by their own burnout/exhaustion and/or bitterness at the process, and are remembering back when the process of dating — in any medium — was more fun because it was still early days for them.
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Some people look WORSE when they lose weight and actually look OLDER because their skin stretched out. Example, Star Jones.
Even Jennifer Hudson looks like a bobble head doll. And weight loss only put emphasis on how ugly her face is (have you seen the lines around her mouth?)
So it is possible that at 29 your face might look much worse depending on the type of skin you have.
But then again, for men, a hot body trumps a bad face. i would ask straight male friends or post your pictures on rating sites and see what the outcome is.
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