[dev_jim]

Try OKCupid or a similar dating website. It gives you the opportunity to meet new women at your convenience by initiating contact through a 3-line email. And if they respond you know they are interested.

As far as skill set...just be yourself and talk about your interests and her interests. Having some sort of 'game' or whatever isn't going to work very well on educated women.

[klipt]

Unless your pictures are very attractive, I think you need some "game" just to get people on OkCupid to write back to you. For example I find my reply rate goes up a lot when I inject humor into my first message (whereas in real life I might save the jokes for when an opportunity arises naturally in the conversation).

[HeyLaughingBoy]

That's life, isn't it? We all have to show ourselves in a good light if we want people to like us.

I'm married (met my wife online as a booty call/hookup), but the main lesson I remember from online dating was from the woman who commented, "...you don't sound at all desperate." I didn't understand, so after we met, she showed me a sample of messages she got from guys and I couldn't believe how absolutely awful they all came across. Other women since that verified the same thing: 99% of men they met online seemed like losers at first glance so they just hit <delete> and moved on.

Basically, sound like a friendly person with a sense of humor and you're way ahead of 90% of the rest of people looking for love & sex online.

[dev_jim]

I live in NYC where I'm pretty sure I'm about as average looking as they get :) I usually just write a quick 2-3 liner about some shared interest or something I found interesting about her profile. Reply rate is about 33% (OKCupid has a ton of stats, is there a way to find out the actual rate?). Maybe that's game? I just see it as natural conversation.

[klipt]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't NYC have more women than men? I think I'm pretty average too but I'm pretty sure my non-humorous messages get a lower reply rate than that here in the Bay Area.

I would like to do more casual dating than I do at the moment, but there aren't that many OkCupid profiles I'm attracted to in the first place, and even fewer of them reply to my messages, so...

[Fargren]

That only works in countries that have a lot of people in OKCupid(or a similar service). Despite the recent growth in USA and some other parts of the world, a lot of places still heavily stigmatize the use of dating sites, specially among people younger than 40. That usually means there aren't any eligible candidates to be found on those sites.

[GFischer]

I met my girlfriend over a dating site, but I had started actively trying to meet people a year before (friends of friends), and I realized I had lots of interaction problems to correct, as well as trying to improve myself not only to be a bit more interesting, but also my physical appearance as well.

And I disagree that other parts of the world stigmatize dating sites (it's too broad a statement). For example, Badoo (the site where I met her) is huge in Latin America and UK and Russia and other very dissimilar sites.

It also took a long time, I met about 50 girls before meeting my girlfriend.

I don't think I'm exemplary, but if I managed to get a girlfriend, most can do it.