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Comment by colmvp | Hacker News Reader

I was bullish on using dating apps as I went on a good date within a week of signing up to one, amazing since I'm on the lower end of the 1-10 attractiveness scale. Realistically, I'd put myself as 2. However, since then, it's been miss after miss. And it suuuuucks. Nothings more demoralizing than going weeks without a hit, or having women 'accept' to communicate with you, only to give uninteresting, insipid responses.

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Once upon a time I dated a very good looking girl. I got to see the "before" and "after" as it took her two hours in the morning to get ready. It gave me a theory which I call the "two hours a day" theory. If anyone (even a self-described "2") puts in 2 hours a day trying to look attractive, they will have some level of success.

That might be 2 hours a day picking your clothes, 2 hours fixing your hair, brushing your teeth, whatever... short term things.

That might also be 2 hours a day in the gym (physical appearance), or 2 hours a day practicing public speaking (confidence, crowd control), anything which helps radiate attractiveness, draw people in so they can see all the things that make you attractive which don't appear at first glance.

If you're not spending 2 hours a day trying to look attractive or be attractive, you can't really complain because the most attractive people I know spend (invest) on the order of that much time to get there and stay there.

If it's a weight thing, hit up the weight loss subreddits (/r/loseit, /r/fitness, /r/progresspics, etc) and talk to a psychologist about it. When you don't take care of yourself it can manifest as weight gain, but the core is not taking care of yourself which is fundamentally psychological. (ie: rating yourself as a 2 on a scale of 1-10 doesn't bode well for positive self-image and self confidence).

Talk to a psychologist about it, seriously. May is Mental Health Awareness month so it's a perfect time to look into it and take action.

If it's anything else cosmetic (hair, teeth, skin, clothes) that's an easy fix and a lot of times can literally be resolved in an afternoon if you have the right instruction (/r/skincareaddiction, /r/malefashionadvice, /r/streetwear).

My email is ramses0@yahoo.com if you or anyone else wants to continue the discussion (news.y.c messaging isn't the thing I check the most) and if you're in the Bay Area I wouldn't mind meeting up some time, hanging out and just talking.

Really interesting point. I had similar thoughts but I always distributed the time investment over the course of the day, like you spend 5 minutes at lunch in your decision not to get fast-food, 20 minutes throughout the day getting the right out-fit, an hour doing cardio, etc.

I think the two hours at once thing is more meaningful because it makes you really great at that one thing. Then you get to spend the whole day thinking in the back of your mind "I'm really great at this one thing".

Hah that reminds me of the pornstar before and after (google it) you see pop up on Buzzfeed like sites every now and then.

Anyway, this is probably quite close to the truth.

I mean I've had conversations for years in high school about the ugliest and nerdies guys in my class. We'd basically be going over 'why he wouldn't just do x, y and z, because he'd go from a 2 to a 6 with a basic change in apparel, clothing, perfume, haircut, and to a 7 within a year by working out'. I mean that's what most of the 7s do in this world. I'm no different, really, just a normal dude who brushes his teeth, showers, mimics a casual hip style and gets a haircut at a hip place once a month. I barely pay attention to my looks, but I definitely make sure to get the basics right.

Of course once a year, an ugly person would become 'beautiful' over the summer vacation and would return to school with a new look, confirming the notion. Nothing changed about them in those 2 months, except the cut of the hair, the pieces of clothing, the paint and smell. A lot of the time it was just kids 'maturing' their style for the first time at age 15. Isn't everyone familiar with that story?

I mean, take all of those makeover shows where they transform someone who's just horrible... usually the only 'big' thing they do is find a person with horrible teeth and fix that, which isn't a trivial thing... but that's not applicable to most people, perhaps a tiny bit of whitening is needed which I don't think costs much anymore these days. But other than that, it's all just a few hundred bucks of clothing, a $30 haircut, $30 perfume. Add 2x 60 minute workout sessions and a decent diet and you're pretty much there.

I think most people who haven't put in any effort, can get a change that's at least somewhere on this spectrum: http://static.businessinsider.com/image/527bdb6969beddec59df...

Don't be so quick to rate yourself ugly. Women actually consider 80% of men to be worse looking than average average: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dati...

That reality can make a lot of average to somewhat good looking men feel ugly.

Are you in incredibly good shape?

Have you hired a professional stylist?

Have you hired a professional photographer?

Have you taken professional pictures shirtless, with dogs, traveling, and with cool friends?

I'm guessing you haven't done all of the above, so there is hope.

Women are attracted to your overall value, not just looks. Find a way to show it online.

Implement all of the strategies from this online dating guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/3l310a/the_red_...

The Red Pill is notoriously sexist. I'd recommend /r/okcupid's guides, which apply to any gender or sexual orientation:

- https://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/wiki/dosanddontsprofile

- https://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/wiki/dosanddontsmessaging

Agreed. Coming into college I found The Red Pill and thought it was some kind of guide to male-success. Really it's just the path to being a cynic which is neither the path to happiness or success. It takes the lowest stereotypes and applies them as natural laws to society. The problem is there is no set of laws for societal interactions, people are good, people are bad, people do crazy things, people do predictable things..

I found the red pill guide far more actionable and effective than the okcupid guide.

Men and women don't have the same challenges in dating so combining advice for the two is unhelpful.

(Ignoring the ad hominem)

FWIW, 'notoriously sexist' is a mild way to put it. The community is a hate group. Recommending them is like saying that joining the Klan is a good way to get involved in your community.

A non-sexist guide to interacting with the opposite sex would, by definition, be useless.

The problem with TheRedPill is that they encourage "plate-spinning" over monogamous relationships.

There's nothing that's inherently a problem in that. It definitely makes sense that this is the Red Pill viewpoint given their audience and demographics: all male, largely middle aged, many of whom have been "burned" by a previous monogamous relationship.

Women actually consider 80% of men to be worse looking than average average

I think that our culture's "knowledge" about how men/women/gender works is out of whack. Monogamy seems to be demonstrably more stable, but I suspect it's simply better than the preexisting alternatives for high population densities and highly organized societies. I don't think our brains and our cultures are any better suited to human sexuality with access to effective birth control any more than our brains and cultures are suited to a world full of freely available fats and carbohydrates.

That said, one should also be wary of any ideology that seems to come with a tinge of hate or disdain to a particular "type" of person.

You can be ugly as sin, but lucky for you women are not that vapid. Working on self esteem, confidence, and emotional awareness will pratically erase any physical deficits.

You can have all the self esteem and confidence in the world, but without verbal communication or body language these traits are hard to perceive.

It takes extra effort to not be vapid on Tinder and co, and to recognise that a person's ability to craft a compelling impression out of a few flattering photos and a shred of text is an indicator of a capacity for self-branding and not necessarily much else.

Uh I feel like it's fictional to frame it as if women don't care about physical looks. Just go to a cafe and see who they are paired up with. Rarely do I see huge variance with physical attractiveness between the pair. Or read dating stories on Washington Post's date lab where as a reader you can decipher physical attraction between the participants within first few paragraphs and accurately predict the likelihood of the participants dating a second time.

In the case of Date Lab, it's more likely this is because the writer knew the outcome so she will slant the piece from the beginning. She will only add material that advances the thesis--which is that they belong together or they don't.

Well you are right that it is certainly not an absolute truth. Some people do select mostly on appearance. However, since appearance is so subjective and the way we are seen is not absolute, attractiveness loses a lot of meaning.

I think it is also dependent on age: younger people tend to go for appearances far more.

Nonetheless, confidence is not as subjective: it really has a positive impact when all other things are held equal.

You can blame online dating for that, too! http://priceonomics.com/online-dating-and-the-death-of-the-m...

    but lucky for you women are not that vapid

So I used to believe this. I believed that allowing myself to be a slave to physical attraction was a character flaw, that every time I paid attention to an attractive woman and rejected an unattractive woman that I was a shallow, vapid person. I felt ashamed of it.

But have you ever tried dating someone whom you just weren't physically attracted to? I have (twice). It turns out it doesn't work in the long run. Convincing yourself that its the "right thing to do" will work in the short term, but eventually you'll build resentment towards them until the relationship falls apart.

I'd encourage you to reconsider this viewpoint, and to stop promulgating it. Be honest with yourself. Anything else is just being reckless with another human being's emotions.

Well said, whenever I hear some one say "I don't care about looks" I think they're trying to put themselves above being superficial, but I think a lot of the time its just lip service. Everyone has their own definition of "good looking" and to that end looks do matter to many people.

Everybody looks different to each other, and there are definitely women who are seen by others to be attractive which I don't find all that attractive (not my type).

Likewise, women do not purely look at physical appearance to decide if they find somebody attractive, and neither do men. There are clearly other factors at play.

So for somebody to say: I am not physically attractive and therefore not suitable to date is likely not true. Even if you could objectively say that you were physically unattractive, your best bet is to compensate by being better at the other things that form attraction.

About the 'accept but don't communicate'... I've watched friends, boys n girls, just swipe everything without looking. Then when they get a match, they look and consider it.

Essentially they're optimising for themselves. Why do the filter work on a group of maybe's, when you can filter on a smaller group of certainties?

So if someone accepts you and does't reply, I'd say nowadays (not 1-2 years ago), it's pretty likely they didn't change their minds, but simply decided for the first time you're not for them.

Other than that, don't read into it too much. I've got one pretty attractive friend, easy 7, who doesn't match shit, in fact we were laughing about it among friends (including him) a few weeks ago, he hadn't been on a date in months and he was definitely trying. Keep ya head up! :)

As with many things you will get out what you put in.

Eh. I put a helluvalot effort in the messages I send. I can't necessarily say the same for the responses I receive. It is what it is.

Honesty that may be part of your problem. Think of Tinder as meeting someone in a virtual bar — you're not going to spend a hell of a lot of time on what you open with. All you're going for is something just interesting and personal enough to actually start a conversation.

If you're regularly sending opening messages more than a sentence or two long, you're probably investing way too much effort to start out.

Yep, this is a big mistake. Messages should be short and should take almost no effort to write. On OKC my success rate was very high and my initial messages were made up of 3 sentences max:

1) Hello 2) Show I read their profile. "Oh you like The Mountain Goats? I saw them when I was in Chicago last summer." 3) Ask a question about their interests. "I've been looking to take cooking classes. Any recommendations?"

I had an incredibly high response rate, 1 out of every 3 or 4.

Agreed, I get a much higher response rate with a quick message than I used to when I would send more ahem in-depth messages. I think it sort of mirrors real-life interactions in that way, generally one doesn't approach someone at a bar and start off with a long-winded introduction.

To me that even seems like tooo much effort. I had great success with the "funny tongue in cheek question/comment about a photo" approach.

"Looking pretty friendly with that penguin, do you guys still keep in touch?"

"Id say we should hula hoop together, but my hula hoop is in the shop. Unless you have a spare?"

That's not what I meant. The mistake is thinking that you know all you need to know and that if it doesn't work it must be someone else's fault. This is an emotional protection from accepting the truth, which is that you aren't giving women what they want (which is why they aren't giving you what you want). Everything is a skill that can be improved with practice and learning from others, including online dating.

I'm sure you can come up with all sorts of rationalizations as to why this isn't true, but accepting that you can do better is the first step to improving.

Try this - for your first message just send 'Hey I noticed your page and have a question for you' ('noticed' not 'saw', 'page' not 'profile', and 'question for you' not just 'question'). Why does this work? It makes someone curious what you noticed and what your question is while minimizing neediness, which is kryptonite to a woman's attraction. Want to really blow your mind? Create a woman's profile on whatever site you've used.

Do what you've always done, get what you've always gotten. The women that I met through sites were almost all sweet, sharp, quality people and they would all tell me how they would receive hundreds of messages.

As your username would suggest.

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