The "Angie POF Gal" part 1

A couple of months ago, I decided to write this blog to gripe about my struggles with online dating, particularly on Plenty Of Fish, because it is free for the most part. Well, one of my readers suggested I make a female online dating profile and gauge responses.

I have to admit, I was reluctant to do it. After all, I am a man, and exclusively heterosexual, so reading messages from men potentially telling me they want to "tap 'dat az" is not my idea of a lazy Sunday afternoon. But, after reading my share of ALL CAPS rants from female profiles tired of getting "nasty messages" from men, I decided to take the plunge.

So, for a day, The "Angry POF Guy" underwent a virtual sex change operation and became the "Angie POF Gal." No joke, I literally called my female profile "Angie POF Gal."

I know. Very clever, huh?

Seeing as how I was playing a silly game for the sake of writing an article for this humble blog, I have self-imposed a few guidelines.

First, I tried my best to make a mundane yet somewhat unique profile-- something that is inviting but not blatantly "my legs are spread eagle." Nothing bitchy, condescending, or negative. Something that implies you can get away with sounding a bit like a jerk to get Angie's attention (since I chose Cincinnati as my target, I made a local reference just for authenticity purposes)

A real masterpiece. I expect a Pulitzer Prize for this award-winning profile!

Second, I have made it a point NOT to read profiles before they contact Angie. Back when I was serious about finding dates, I perused lots of profiles, so I wanted to see if it was truly easier for women.

Third, I intentionally picked Sunday Morning as my day to introduce "Angie" to the world. Why Sunday? It seems to be the day of the least activity. Most activity takes place towards Friday and Saturday on the site. As you can see, I am trying to balance my little experiment.

Before I move on to the results, there was one unresolved question-- what picture should I use? I thought about using a porn star pic, but a "Tin Eye" search could easily blow my cover (FYI, TinEye is a service that allows you to search pictures on the internet to see if they are found on other websites). Luckily for me, I was once engaged to a gal who had a real aversion to the internet, and thankfully, she lives in another state. She was about 5'2 and 170 pounds, but she worked out a lot so she was what some people would call "thick." I had a picture of her wearing the stereotypical red party dress-- not too revealing but with enough cleavage to get attention. Perfect.

So at about 11am or so, Angie POF Gal went online. As usual, I get that introductory email from "Markus" welcoming Angie to POF. I had not even finished deleting that canned message when Angie received her first message. I went to fix a sandwich.in the time it took me to slap some cold cuts between two slices of bread with some mustard, three more messages came.

By 2pm, when I started working on this article, Angie has received 25 messages, and 20 guys want to "meet" Angie. It certainly exceeded expectations, considering the time frame and my lack of interaction with everyone.

As a result of all the negative profiles I have read from women, my first expectation is a lot of jerks making comments about Angie's ample bosom or her pretty jet black hair. Well, of the first 21 messages, none were anything more than mundane "hi,' "how are you," a couple of "hey sexy/ beautiful," and similar comments. Nothing groundbreaking. No nasty comments, no sexual references (unless you could getting a simple "hey sexy" from a man using a screen name with "well hung" as part of his screen name).

Cincinnati's demographics are 53% white and 43% black, so it is fairly close to even-- at least far higher than the national average-- 73% white, 13% black). The stereotype, of course, is that white guys prefer a skinny blonde and black guys like a "thick" gal. Well, of the 23 guys who messaged in the first three hours, 16 were white, 7 were black, one was Arab, and one had no pic (and remember I'm not reading profiles yet). Of those who said they want to meet Angie, 15 were white, 4 were black, and one was "other" (I think Hispanic going by the pic). So far, it isn't looking good for the black guys want thick girls myth.

Of the 87 men who actually viewed Angie, 25 sent messages, so roughly a third were impressed. Compare that to my real profile, where well over a hundred women viewed my profile yet I received less than 10 responses. It goes without saying men are more willing to make the first move, but tend to write little more than the simple "hi, you are beautiful, wanna chat?" Where is all the "lets get naked and do it" comments?

So far, my first impression is this. Guys do make the first move, and maybe some guys have a one-track-mind, but I believe the ones who do aren't hiding it, and women just tend to get easily offended by the ones who do.

Now, by the time I published this, my experiment was over. I decided later on to wait till Saturday to delete the profile. Don't worry, I will share my final results soon.