Recently, Dawn announced she had returned to the dating pool and started writing about her experience with the world of online dating. At the same time, she asked to see if she had any friends who wanted to write about the topic from the male perspective. This was an incredibly wise move on her part – not because it gave me the opportunity to write for her, but because the male side of online dating is so vastly different from the female experience.

Before I talk about those differences, however, allow me to share a little about myself. Unlike Dawn, I somehow missed out on the dating experience before my 40s. From about the age of 18, I was involved in one long-term relationship after another (one of the dating websites refers to this as “serial monogamy” – who would have thought that being committed would also have a stigma!), leading to four major relationships with no real dating period between them. Because of this, the experience of dating as a whole is relatively new to me, let alone doing it online.

After I recovered from the breakup of my last relationship (which took a couple of months), I decided to give dating a try. I had hoped to try it without resorting to online services, at first asking out a couple of old friends from Facebook who I knew were single. As it turns out, that was a good way to dip my toe in the dating pool. I was still nervous, but at least they were people I knew. None of them went in the right direction though, so I dove headfirst into online dating. That was ten months ago, and the difference in the male/female experience is noticeable from the start.

Online Dating At 40: The Male Experience

I really found Dawn’s opening experience really interesting. After a few days she considered one of her profiles “a complete bust” because “I got contacted like 3 times total.” Meanwhile, her more successful profile got her messages from 40 different guys and 144 “Meet Me” requests, which means the person is interested, either because they liked what she had to say or, more likely, they found her picture appealing. On a side note, I’m still a bit shocked at how many women admit that they are probably just playing “hot or not” rather than taking time to actually check out a profile. Then again, I don’t recall getting a message from any of those women, so I guess I qualify as “not hot,” not that I think I have much of a problem with their estimation of that.

So how is the male experience different? Well, by her criteria, all of my profiles would be a bust. See, guys don’t get inundated by messages like women do. From my conversations, women commonly find their inboxes filled within a short period of time, ranging from a day to a week. Guys only get a smattering of infrequent messages, usually in response to one they’ve sent rather than someone else initiating the conversation. Thus, it’s a vastly different game based on gender.

Why is this? I have no idea, although I have a few theories. I suspect it lies somewhere buried in traditional gender roles, where guys are expected to do the “asking out”. I read that, on average, guys can expect one response for every ten messages sent, and maybe a date out of every ten responses. This could easily lead to a quantity over quality approach, where guys just send messages to anything with a pulse in hopes something sticks. It also doesn’t help that some guys are still hell-bent on sending pictures of their shortcomings, zoomed in to make them look more impressive, as if that’s automatically going to light the fires of passion. Of course, women then have to sort through all the drivel in hopes of finding a match that actually interests them, and there you see the result: women being caught in a hurricane of messages while men look at their inboxes like Charlie Brown on Valentine’s Day.

It’s been almost a year since I started my foray into online dating, and I’ve certainly accumulated some experiences to share and stories to tell, just not at the rate Dawn is probably going to get them. I look forward to sharing some of these tales in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear why you think the ratio of messages between men and women is so off. Traditional values? Flooding of messages? Levels of desperation? Sound off in the comments below!