For a long time, in the early 2000s when I was single, I held the dubious record of being the only woman I knew who had used Craigslist for online dating and had never received a single dick pic. Then one guy sent one and ruined my streak; oh well. :)

I'm an online dating coach, and I have to urge y'all to avoid sounding TOO template-y when you message women. There was a time when that kind of formula worked, but at this point the majority of guys follow a template, so it sound very stale and kind of suspect. You're all outcompeting each other!

This is so cool. Years ago I read an interview with Cameron Diaz, and the way the (male) reporter described her food attitude over their luncheon seemed like she was very down to earth. She was so candid about how her own natural body type just happened to be super popular in Hollywood, and she was so refreshingly…

I only see "short term dating" used by women who are super clear that they specifically want to get out there and get laid in a no strings attached kind of way, like say if they just exited a long sex-starved relationship and want to get to know the whole scene again before they start trying to date more seriously. If…

Can ya blame me? Everyone on here is complaining about how terrible online dating is; that's exactly what I aim to alleviate. :) It really depends on the site and person, but in general, it means DTF. Which is so silly, if you think about it—EVERYONE is looking for short-term dating until they click with the right…

It totally is! http://theheartographer.com for more info; I'm happy to cut you a Jezebel discount too if you mention you found me here. :)

I never did it when I was single and online dating; I only do it now for my work as an online dating coach. (And even then, I don't create fake profiles to study how different markets behave; I only have them to allow me to look over my clients' profiles that are set to private.) I don't think it's wrong, necessarily,…

Dude, so does the myth that men are all willing to have sex with anyone really hot. Not all men fall into that stereotype. And some women do. I'm sick of sexual desire and attraction being listed as a universally and exclusively male trait! (I know that's not exactly what you're saying, but let's avoid these "all men…

Totally—but there are cis people (mostly gals and gay dudes) who get fetish-bombed because of their race, too. And others who get it by being vaguely geeky (a pal of mine who later became a client got bombarded with enthusiasm about tentacle porn because she listed that she liked Animé.) It's totally not fun, the…

I totally sympathize, Molly—my trans online dating clients get frustrated with OKC and online dating in general; being openly trans is somehow an invitation for really crazy confessionals from some people. But I urge you to reword or remove your disclaimer—as messed up and inappropriate as that line of conversation…

Nice! Congrats! I met my husband on Craigslist, of all places, and now I help people find love online for a living. They're not all laid back dudes of lameness; we can attest to that. :)

Exactly! It's not the site itself that sucks, and it's not even the users as a collective. It's the specific users that you happen to have had unfortunate experiences with.

Haha, you crack me up, Penny. It's totally true that there are zillions of super lame profiles out there; most of us aren't that great at writing about ourselves. But I know for a fact that for every "gross dude" out there, there are tons of decent ones, too—it's just hard to perceive those signals through all the…

Totally. This was a fun little experiment she did, in terms of acting like a jerk and getting positive feedback, but I feel like she's conflating all the results with the results of a chick who posts model photos and says she wants casual sex. These are essentially two different studies—bearing in mind that Cracked is…

I see what you mean—I'm probably kinda small to get whitelisted, at least as of now! :) My former employer did the same thing, and only whitelisted an extremely short list of sites. It was aggravating, since I worked in translation and always needed to look things up! Sometimes one language forum domain is not enough,…

The thing that upsets me the most is how fricking COMMON this is. I often have to explain to my guy clients that, while girls on OkCupid may seem reticent to reply to them, they're being vetted against some seriously bitter jackasses. Guys like this one can ruin the online dating experience for not just the women they…

Aww, boo, but that's not surprising since I talk about stuff they don't want you pondering at work. :)

Hey Megan! I suck; I didn't see this reply until now! The kids thing is your biggest challenge, but it doesn't mean no one would be interested... it just makes it logistically harder and you have to be careful in how you disclose the parent stuff (and of course in introducing your little guys to any new love…

Oh mah gosh, Kinja is the WORST! I never saw this notification until now; sorry! I do indeed; it's http://theheartographer.com and you can dig around for lots of free advice/analysis or just call me up. :)

It's worth noting that in their Verge interview, the OkC guys mentioned that they themselves don't even consider match percentage to be a true metric of fundamental compatibility. It's basically a trick they employ to increase perceived likelihood of getting along at that first date; a mechanism to convince you to…