Making Contact

In spite of my hopes of being more frequent in my postings it seems a long time has gone by before I finally got round to writing another post so I hope there are still some readers out there.

The intent of this post is to talk a little more about how to use online dating sites as an aid to illicit affairs but it will also include a few stores of my own experiences about what happens if you get it right – and even more importantly what happens if you get it wrong.

So you have followed my lessons, selected a site (or more), written a profile and may even had had some responses. You are on your way. Now how do you break the ice and convince her (or him but in the rest of this article just transpose the gender according to yours and your taste – it’s way too inelegant to keep using both) you are the person she wants to have some adult fun with? Well it’s a good idea to start with a message.

Here we return to my regular theme of being honest – but not too honest. With luck she will have responded to a question on your profile but for now we will assume you are the one initiating contact. Now for some bad news: you might have to do some work – read though the profiles that seem likely and select some possibles. As previous advice: try not to be too choosey but equally there is no point in being realistic either – if you want to meet and are not a jet set traveller someone a plane ride away if probably too far. There is no doubt that a personalised mail is best. That’s why I said you have to do some work: reply to something on the profile that shows you have read it. That alone will set you apart from most of the others out there playing this game. Now we hit a a trade off – this is still a numbers game: it’s a sad fact that most messages will not get a reply. This does not mean that all the women you write too are bad – just that they probably are overwhelmed with mail and only scan it. It is also likely a lot of them are not interested in a “player” like you, just accept it: if they had replied it would have been a waste of time anyway. So that trade off I mentioned: you want to send lots of messages but you want them personalised. If you have a lot of time write them all individually. If you do not I find a good compromise is to include a sentence or two that is personalised at the beginning then the rest is a cut and paste pro-forma. I try to make the “standard” part of the words humorous and not too obviously cut and pasted. I always include something questioning as questions make an answer more likely. One thing I have done is to ask something like “would you like glass of wine to celebrate us having found each other?” then end with “red/white or perhaps some bubbly?”

If you do all of this you should start to get some replies and from here on in I have to leave you on your own a little bit more. You are after all an individual and you need to show your character to the people you are interested in. There are a few tips though:

• Don’t be too eager. Rushing to say “let’s meet tomorrow” in most cases will get you blown out, unless of course the lady’s profile clearly states that what she wants
• Don’t jump in and talk about sex up front. I usually spend a bit of time talking about interests on her profile and getting to know her a bit. Old fashioned I know but it does seem to work for me. Quite often the lady will make some sort of comment herself that might be a hint or at least something you can use to drop an innuendo into the conversation to see how she reacts.
• Realise that often it won’t work out. Early on I try to filer out those where it really won’t work. For instance I find for me anyone who answers questions with a closed “yes” or “no” often have rather poor conversation skills and it’s likely I would find her very boring to meet. If a lady does give you a “sorry but not for me” or just disappears be pleased it was before you wasted too much time.
• Timing is everything. Find out when she can chat and try and fit her schedule. Some sort of real time interaction (say by Instant Messenger or just quick email responses) will enable you to establish much more of a rapport than one email a day. Also if you find it’s a bad time for her, back off: there is nothing more annoying than someone pestering at the wrong time.

So there you have another lesson. I hope by the end of this you will be ready to arrange a meeting. For my advice on that topic you will need to wait for my next instalment.

Happy Philandering.

Writing and using your profile

Before I get into the meat of this article firstly an apology for being away so long. No real excuses just real life got in the way and although I kept meaning to do the next article somehow other things kept getting prioritised over it. As they used to make me say at school "I promise to try and do better."
OK so you have set up your basic tools as per my last article and now you want to put up a profile on a site. For this purpose I am assuming you will be writing on a regualr dating site but most of the techniques carry over with a little modification for other sites too just use your common sense. I have some basic personal rules I use that have stood me well so I will share them with you.

1. Be open and honest about what you want but try not to scare them away at the same time. By this I mean if you are looking for an eventual real life affair with sex as part of the final relationship say something like "I'm looking to meet someone eventually who like me is out to have some discreet fun. What's Fun? Well as the quiz show says 'you decide'!" Lets examine that quote a bit further. It does not say "I am only here to get laid" - it might be what you want but trust me it will scare off even a lot of the fun players. It is direct enough to make clear that you want to meet, it says you are looking for "discreet fun" which while ambiguous about sex has a pretty strong implication. It also makes clear you want someone who will be discreet. This also has a benefit of giving a message to those looking for "true love" - that is not what you want. Final point about my quote - it leave the final decision to her. I think this is important to show you know she has a choice and in a few words sets you apart from 90% of the guys there who only say what they want. Similarly I am a big believer in being honest about being married - unless you are the worlds best actor or secret agent whoever you meet will find out eventually and I bet most of those once they find out will run a mile because you were not open from the start. Depending on the site you chose this might be as simple as having a field set on your profile or it might be in main text of your profile. Personally I always make it clear in the text as well as it amazes me how many do not look at the details elsewhere on the profile. Also be honest about things like height, weight and looks: again they will see the real you so be upfront. A woman who only likes tall men over 6' will not be impressed if you pretend to be tall and turn up as a medium sized guy. Similarly be honest about things like race. Personally I have no preferences regarding the colour of a woman's skin and find racism repulsive but it is a sad fact of life it matters to some people so again be honest: at worst all you have done is kept away a racist who you would not have wanted to meet anyway.
2. Write proper English. Ok if it's not your native tongue write in the suitable language for you, but you know what I mean. This is a personal thing and I am sure mileage varies, but I find that there are a lot of people out there who find a lot of modern text or IM speak annoying and conversely in my experience people who do use that sort of language have no problem with real English. This is not me being a prissy school teacher, rather one of my continuing themes of doing things to maximise responses and keep options open. If you find spelling or grammar a problem just write your article in something like Word and use the spelling and grammar checker.
3. Don't take yourself too seriously. Humour seems to work really well breaking the ice and making yourself the butt of a joke shows you are not precious. I often like to put a joke somewhere on the profile but it's far from essential, just try and avoid coming over as too serious.
4. Say what you are looking for in the person you will meet. If age, size, hair colour, smoking habits matter - say so. But don't limit yourself too much - does the colour of her hair really matter that much? Personally I adore petite blondes with short well groomed hair who wear stockings all the time and have large breasts - but I would never say so on a profile. I tend to talk about personalities (e.g. "someone who does not take life too seriously") rather than physical types. Much as I like those petite, busty blondes a skinny tall brunette with wicked sense of humour and insatiable sex drive is much more fun than a dull celibate blonde!
5. Say something about you. Be honest - but not TOO honest! Say what you like, say what makes you laugh, say a little about what you do for fun (unless it's axe murdering of course) but do not say things that limit your choices. As an example saying "I hate gardening" (and I do, with a passion!) but saying so on the profile might put of that nymphomaniac plants woman who is in every other way perfect. Once you start communicating you can qualify out those who are obsessed with things you hate. Actually this rule is one I probably follow least now - as I have got more skilled at writing profiles that attract I actually get too many responses sometimes, so now I do put things in deliberately to keep away unsuitable people. However for now do as I say not as I do: think of too many responses as great problem to have.
6. Be challenging and ask questions. This for me is a big one. I love to put a question or two on my profile that invites a response. The act of asking question just invites a response and hugely increases your response rate. Now what should the question be? Well here I cannot really help you as it needs to reflect you character. I have used everything from asking which is someone favorite cartoon character to probing questions about politics. In each case though I try and not to give a clue about my own opinions so as not to scare off those who disagree with me. Here ia an example: "I love 60s cartoons. Who do you think is smarter Bugs Bunny or Jerry from Tom and Jerry and why?" The question is partly closed (it gives a choice) but also partly open ("and why?"). It deliberately invites someone to reveal a little about herself but has a core of a simple question. Be creative - and if I find that cartoon question on your profile, I will know where it came from.
7. Be discreet. This is another biggie: assuming you are married or similar and are out for extramarital fun you really do not want to get caught. Don't give anything away in the profile that means your partner or her friends (or even your friends for that matter) can identify you. That means no photo. Yes that will limit your responses but is it worth the risk? Now it is a fact that having some sort of picture gets a better response rate, so I have a few cartoons and other pictures I put there instead: shows a sense of humour, says something about me and most important means you show up if someone ticks the "picture only" box on a search. Sadly some sites audit all photos and if not a real one sling it out. If you are using one of those you just have to live with the fewer hits. But it is not just the photo that identifies you - remember the "not TOO honest rule"? Well it applies here. Do not say what you do if it is not a very common job (e.g. saying you are a builder is probably ok, saying you are a chief auditor for a local authority probably is not). Similar try not to be too specific about where you live: saying "London" or even "North London" probably is ok, giving the name or post code of a small village a bit too dangerous. If you do live somewhere small where you are known my advice is to say you live in a nearby big town or city.Right so now you have my basic rules - go ahead and write that profile.

Now for some bad news - even with all my expertise there is every chance you will put your profile up, wait with baited breath and days later still have had no response. That is why this article is called Writing and USING your profile. I have found there are certain techniques that really increase responses to my profile. The simplest is to write to someone else first! I will cover the techniques for that in another blog as there are a lot of pitfalls in that first contact. For now here is a way to increase people visiting your profile.

Most of these sites have a way of seeing who is online and telling who has visited a profile. This is a great way to attract people to YOUR profile. Make sure your profile is set to show who visits you and as important make sure they will see if you visit their profle. Then simply visit as many profiles as you can. Now for fastest results do a search for women who are online that fit your basic criteria (e.g. between 30 and 50 who do not smoke and live withing 50 miles of London). Remember our theme of not being too choosey! Then quickly click on each person found. Do not even bother to read the profile - this is a numbers game. I have got really proficient and clicking and returning and then clicking again etc. This really seems to pay off: in the next hour or so you will see the hit count for you profile creep up and if the profile follows the basic rules there is a good chance someone will write you a message.

Remember I said this is a numbers game? Well in some unscientific counts I did I came to the rule that for every 10 profiles I visit I get one or two stop by to look at mine. Of those who looked at mine probably about one in ten makes and effort to respond to the profle - usually making comment about the "bait" question I mentioned above. For a well written profile that might be as high as 1 in 5 but it takes practice to get to that. So what that means is, on average to get one response you need to visit about 100 profiles! Get proficient on that mouse.
Right, now it's over to you. Write that profile and see what happens.

Getting started

Ok so you have decided you want to give this online dating thing a try so how do you get started?

Well before you set off an any journey a little pre-planning never hurts. Decide exactly you want the outcome to be as a very first thing. Now that may seem obvious - you want to get laid right? What I mean about outcome is are you looking for a series of one night stands or long term affair? Are you after lots of sex or just an occasional extracurricular activity? We probably all start thinking we want lots, but be honest with yourself: just how many nights away from home will your diary permit? Is the quality of the sex imporant or is how your partner looks important? Again we all probably want both in an ideal world but if we know our priorities we are more likely to get something than nothing sooner rather than later. Are you after vanilla sex or perhaps you prefer something a little kinkier?

Ok so let's assume you know what you want, you will also need a little technology preparation. As a minimum you need a private email address - these luckily are trivial to set up on Hotmail, Yahoo! or a miriad of other sites so should not present a problem. In a later post we will spend a lot more time on covering your tracks, but for now remember: caution is the word. If at all possible never use your secret mail or do any of this on your home PC shared with a spouse. My preferred approach is to have a private laptop only I have the password to and one that is totally locked down so it even had a password at power on, although I do realise that this approach may be too expensive for some people. But this is an expensive hobby you are about to embark on so get the best tools of the trade you can afford! Your private email probably also sets you up on an "instant messenger" service (e.g. MSN Messenger soon to be known as Windows Live Messenger, or Yahoo! messenger). You will probably want to use one of these to chat with your potential conquests before you call or meet. Not quite as urgent but a good idea to get sourced from the beginning is a private mobile phone (that's Cellphone if you speak American). Anonymous prepaid phone accounts are dead easy to get and should not present a problem to obtain in most places for a very low price. Even cheaper is just to get a second SIM for your phone although this is less convenient it does have the advantage of not having to explain to a curious spouse why you now have a second phone!

Right now you are tooled up and ready to go so where do you start? Well obviously you need to advertise and to see who is around where. The internet is overrun with dating sites so you have a huge amount of choice and in this first post I will not go into great detail on site reviews but will leave that for a subsequent article, however I will make a few general comments. Sites where you can "meet" the opposite sex really fall into 5 categories:

1. Community sites like www.myspace.com or www.facebook.com . These are not out and out dating sites but an awful lot of dating does get done through them! My personal view is if you are out to get laid this is not the best place to start. These sites often have lots of kids and "innocent" members who we don't want to offend and just as important all the non "players" are just noise and get in the way of us adult pleasure seekers. Perhaps indulge in time on one of these sites once you are confident of your techniques, but for now I will ignore them.
2. Community sites that have a dating or adult bias. The site I typify for this sort is www.faceparty.com not officially a dating site, but it's pretty clear that's why most people are there. These are not a bad choice of place to start and worth considering.
3. Official Dating or matchmating sites. There are LOTS of these by region, relgion, sexual orientation, you name it one will exist. Possibly the biggest players here are www.friendfinder.com www.match.com and in my home country of the UK www.lycos.co.uk (update: sadly after many years of service to philanderers the Lycos dating site has gone) the Friend's Reunited dating site www.friendsreuniteddating.co.uk . These are an excellent place to start but they do have a couple of disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage is most of the people there will be seeking True Love and not after the recreational sex we are looking for. In a later post we will look at techniques for dealing with this in more detail but for now I will just say remember that most women on these sites are after weddings not being laid and you will quickly become adept at filtering them out. Most sites have some field for "marital status": it's usually a good bet that any left blank are married and might be in the same game we are! Another tip is that profiles without photos are often people like us who might not wanting their spouses or friends of spouses finding them on these sites so again a good bet they might be playing.
4. Adult dating and swinging site. Probably the brand leader here is www.adultfriendfinder.com (a close relative of the regular Friend Finder site listed above) but there are also many others. Superficially these look to be a GREAT place to meet women who are also "in play" - and they are, but they also have a big disadvantage in my opinion that because of this they attract a WAY too many many men who are not skilled in this game. The side effects of this are twofold: firstly there is so much "noise" it can be hard to get the woman of your dreams to notice you (don't worry dear friend I will help you out with techniques in a later article), secondly it means many women who may be interested in playing our game give up very quickly as they swamped with in articulate mails basically saying "wanna f*ck?" My advice for beginners: have a look at these sites, maybe test your profile writing skills and use it as a general "playground" to test your technique but don't take too seriously until you have proved your methods elsewhere.
5. The final category is the out and out kinky sites. It doesn't matter what your tastes there will be a site to meet people of similar bent. For instance www.alt.com is the one in the Friend Finder stable for people into "alternative" sexual activities (read BDSM and the like). I will not comment on the desireabilty or otherwise of any activity - my view is if everyone involved is giving informed consent that's fine with me! If you are after something of a specialist nature by all means seek out the site for you. These sites often have smaller more "dedicated" communities which mean far less "noise" so you might find success easier than on the mainstream adult sites. We will not really mention specialist interst sites again but most of my techniques can be easily modified once mastered to carry over on to this field. Similarly if you are Gay I am sure you will be able to learn from the techniques but as again as a straight man you I can only help so much!

So, we have set up the basics, know what we want now we need to decide on the site(s) we want to use. My advice if not to try too many sites at once - maybe a main one and a second to test out ideas in a different environment are enough to start with. The next thing to do is register and look around (you will need that private email for this - don't make the mistake an online friend did of using his private mail out of habit and then trying to explain it away to your wife!). One big decision is whether to pay or not. Most sites give some sort of "free" trial but for many many the free period is limited or what you can do for free is severely limited (e.g you can reply but not initiate email conversation). I think payment is probably inevitable but for now you can look around for free. As you look around you will see what I call the "flavour" of women in your geography and target age range. This varies from demographic to demographic but you will quickly get a feel for whether any of the women you see interest you. If they do it might be the site for you. Remember not just to look for people with photos: it may be harder to decide physical attractiveness upfront (in fact impossible but we will deal with that later) but many of those profiles are photoless for a reason: it's another married person out for fun! As you look around see how many targets you can spot? Once you have done this on a few sites you are ready to do the next big step and build profiles on the site(s) you are interested in. I will leave the art of profile writing for the next post, but for now have a go yourself and see what happens.

Happy hunting from The Philanderer

Or how to successfully meet women online for fun and pleasure...

Hello one and all,

This is the first of a series articles I intend writing to share my experiences with the online dating game. Not really a diary (even though that's the title), rather more a series of recollections, stories and tips designed to help other guys (and girls although it's written from a man's perspective I'm sure a lot of the tips apply to both sexes) meet women online and then to successfully take that to a real life sexual relationship. What happens after than is entirely up to you.

First a bit about me. I am a British guy in his mid 40s. I am married and like many men of my age the marriage is ok but frankly a little bit boring both outside but especially inside the bedroom. And it is always in the bedroom which of course is all part of the problem. I was by nature a pretty loyal guy and apart from the very occasional drunk liaison at the occasion business conference I had remained completely faithful to my wife. About 6 years ago my frustration levels had reach rock bottom when one day there was a TV advert for an online dating site. Now as an official internet nerd and user going way back to the 80s this seemed like an interesting idea to me. I put up an advert and the rest is history. My sex life has never been better and I go through life with a huge smile on my face. I recently got into Blogging in my "real" life and this sparked the idea of sharing some of my experiences with other people about my secret life. I've made mistakes and learned some very useful lessons and I hope they come in handy for others.

Over the next few weeks some of the topics I hope to cover (in no particular order):
Writing your profile
How to get the women you are interested in interested in you
Keeping things secret at home
How to spot the "fakes" and potenial bunny boilers
Going from "online" to "real life"
First dates
Keeping it going both on and offline
Exit strategies

Anyway enough introductions. First real post coming soon.

Philander