Here’s something interesting my friend B. just brought to my intention:

My match.com dates almost never cancel.  But my POF dates canceled at a much higher rate, and my HowAboutWe dates canceled at a higher rate than that.  I’ve never done OKC, so I can’t speak to an experience there, but I’m curious about other people’s experiences.

Here’s what my experience has been:

When I did Match.com, I rarely had anyone cancel. There was the standard fade after a few emails, which is par for the course for online dating. That’s it.

OKC, however, is a different story.

It’s not just the men online that are flaking. I had a spirited conversation with a Facebook friend last week. He was a great looking guy, polished, handsome. But he was quite down on online dating. His experience:

Canceling when I’m standing at the meeting place. Canceling an hour before because she’s “not feeling well,” even though we spoke an hour earlier. Leaving 20 minutes after meeting while I’m in the bathroom. Not having the balls to say “I don’t wanna see you again,” but rather offering bullshit lines like “I’ve started seeing someone exclusively” or just not replying at all to my calls or texts (the “fade”). Saying they want to see me again, then dodging. Just weak shit in general.

I think there’s two schools of thought here:

1. People are being blown off because the people they are meeting are only moderately interested, if that. Or they are somehow playing their hand too soon ans scaring people off.

2. Online dating, especially the free sites, attract a larger concentration of flakes because there is no financial investment involved.

What has your experience been?