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My girlfriend and I (yes, online dating worked eventually, thank you very much!

Also get some new male friends. Those types of comments have a solid leg mired in misogyny, you deserve better then that. posted by Dynex at AM on [1 favorite]

I understand the temptation – when I was looking for a partner online, I was tempted to lie about my age myself because I don’t feel my age is a very useful data point about me. I do look younger than my age (but then everyone thinks that, don’t they?) but primarily because my course through life has simply not been like that of most of my age cohort. I haven’t had the same life experiences someone of my age would be expected to have, and am not at the same “stage of life” if you will. It was very frustrating to know that I was getting lumped in with other people of my age while I had very little in common with most of them.

However, I concluded that it was simply dishonest to lie about it, and I didn’t want to start a relationship on a foundation of lies. There is also a small subset of women who would sort of “half-lie” in their profiles. They would lie in the age box to get themselves into different sets of search results, then come clean in their profiles. e.g., “By the way, I should let you know that I’m not really 35 but am actually 47. But you believed me based on how I look, didn’t you? And I’m really young at heart!” I realized I was really, really put off by that for some reason. It just came off as so insecure. And so I concluded the only thing to do was just be up front about my age and let the chips fall where they would. It’s not like I was going to keep up the lie for years until my relationship fell apart because I accidentally remembered some kids show that I shouldn’t have seen.

) have spent a fair amount of time comparing our respective experiences. She notes that she also had a very bad response rate when she contacted men first, and takes this to mean that men want to do the chasing. Personally, I think that’s nuts. I would have loved it if a woman approached me IF, (and this is the tough part, isn’t it?) she was someone I would have wanted to approach myself. I would have loved to have some encouragement in that case because sending out that first contact is a scary thing. But it wouldn’t induce me to respond to someone I wasn’t attracted to. I think maybe the compromise is not to send full-blown “hello” messages to men you’re interested in, but to just wink and see if they take the hint. That lets them do the hunting if that is what they want, while at least encouraging them that you probably won’t shoot them down. posted by Naberius at PM on [1 favorite]

Three thoughts: a) I would get off of OkC because in major cities, it tends to skew younger than you (in my experience, physically and emotionally).

b) Most men on dating sites did not care about my age or even my age range filters; they ignored them and messaged me or responded to my messages because they wanted to. I’m not saying your age is or isn’t a turnoff, more that I doubt it’s the SOLE reason you aren’t getting messages.

c) I know a couple of women who did this, both on OkC. One was 35, claiming 33, and looked about early 30s, but still got no bites. One was 33, claiming to be 30 japansk kone, looked like late 20s. Got a few first dates (mostly from younger guys) but no second dates and the responses were all over the place, from “makes me feel manipulated” to “how can I trust you?” to “just kinda weirded by this.” Your mileage may vary, and maybe none of those potential second dates would have been third dates anyway, but it’s kind of a tossup as to whether you have anything to lose – or gain, but I think the potential for you to feel worse about your singleness is high. posted by sm1tten at 5:35 PM on [1 favorite]

I have dated men who I later found out lied about their age, sometimes by a few years or sometimes a decade or two (not exaggerating here. ).Sometimes the man had a very unique googlelable name;other times the guy made references to things that he did, which were decades before I was born so I can do the math.

They are basically the spammers of the dating world; chances are they just send the same icky message to every woman in a certain age category

So sure – if all you want is the false hope and ultimate disappointment of first dates that never lead anywhere, by all means go for it and lie all you want. Personally, I prefer quality over quantity, but your mileage on [9 favorites]

If you think it will help to make it 32, do it and pass it off on the 3rd or 4th date as a typoe clean early, but after he likes you for you not your age. If you are asked something like what year you graduated from college tell the truth and if the math is noticed, then disclose the mistake. posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:30 PM on [3 favorites]

So single women in NY are going to have a harder time finding dates, may need to be less choosy about who they date, and some women that choose to remain in NY will never find a partner.

Finally: skeevy older men just come with the territory of online dating

My two most successful outcomes were based on telephone calls because neither had provided a profile picture when they first got in touch. My least successful was the person who started quizzing me about my personal wealth within minutes, practically requesting banker’s references, I played it for laughs and she hung up on me.

One thing I have found worked well for me in the past is to be so considerate and interesting to my dates that even when a girl and I don’t have romantic chemistry, she wants to stay in touch and be friends. Usually this results in me being invited to more parties and being introduced to her single female friends, since people like to see their friends get set up with genuinely nice people. I refer to this strategy as “building a repository of goodwill” and I recommend you try that approach first. posted by wolfdreams01 at 5:22 AM on [1 favorite]

I got messages from them when I was in my early 30′s. It’s no reflection on you. posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:57 AM on [2 favorites]

It’s hard to know without seeing your profile if you touch on this (maybe you have kids), but take it into account.