Ugh...online dating. I had to give it up because it just made me angry (particularly that men do not read your priofile, and/or got the website confused with booty call . Com...).

Ayway, I hated the winks because it seemed sort of passive-aggressive to me. Then I found out that since you can have free profiles, you can wink but not e-mail, I felt a little better about the winks. Still, though, if a guy winked at me instead of e-mailing, I tended to just ignore him until he actually said something.

I'm a big fan of online dating, since I just married someone I met on Match. He winked, I winked back, we started emailing, and things went well.

I winked back at guys if they interested me, pretty much like with email. I interpreted a wink online as I would in real life: He liked my profile enough to give a little nod, but this might not go anywhere.

This is admittedly third-hand, but from the people I've talked to who have used online dating, they regard the winks as pretty useless.

No. Online dating is like a people market. He was looking through hundreds of profiles at a time, and mine was just one of them. Winking back cost me no time at all, and I expected him to follow it up with an email if he was truly interested. I wasn't going to send an email myself in response to a wink, so he ultimately had to email me anyway to get a real response.

I tried online dating for about 6 weeks-just deleted my profile because I started dating someone exclusively =). I HATED the winks. To me, winking says "I'm too lazy to take 5 minutes to email you, but let me send you this wink in the hopes that you'll do the work for me." No thanks. It also suggests that the person is indiscriminately winking at anyone they find semi-attractive rather than putting in the effort to find someone that they find actually click with.

Taking a systematic approach to online dating really worked for me. On the first day, I sat down and spent hours going through EVERYONE in my age range within a 25 mile radius, and flagged about 20 guys that I found attractive. The next day, I sent short emails those 20 people and continued correspondence with anyone who responded, giving out my number if there seemed to be potential after a couple emails. I kept my profile really basic, articulate, and upbeat, with a large variety of pictures-since let's face it, that's what people care about most. I also made sure when possible to friend someone on facebook before meeting them so we could both see more pictures of each other-I didn't want to mislead someone into thinking that I was more attractive than I really was, or vice versa.

Anyway, I went on 4 or 5 eh dates but ended up meeting a guy who I really liked and am now dating! I think the key to success in online dating is being really proactive. Mr. or Ms. Right is not going to fall right into your lap (or respond to your winks) so you have to get out there and initiate contact with the people you find attractive, otherwise you end up getting discouraged by all the duds contacting you.

You don't have any answers yet, so I'll throw mine in.

I don't think anything about the winks. Either he'll e-mail you or not, but a wink...eh.

I was on Match back when you got six months free if you didn't find a match in six months. I don't know if they still do that. You had to wink at people, and contact people every week in order to get the six months free, so I always looked at the winks as a man's way to fulfill that obligation.

I did wink back at the ones I thought were interesting, and often they'd shoot me an email, so it wasn't a complete bust.

I think the key to success in online dating is being really proactive.

Definitely.

I found I was much happier with the experience when I was replying and writing to people who truly interested me instead of casting as wide a net as possible. I made it really clear what I was about, too, in what I hoped was a funny profile. I guess it worked, because my husband, who only actually dated two people from Match, said he liked my profile because it was one of the wittiest, most self-aware ones he'd read.

It also occurred to me that winking is a way to weed through people who have let their accounts go inactive or who are already dating someone but haven't suspended their accounts. If they don't wink back, they're either not interested or not there.

I'm a man, so I guess I am not allowed to roll my eyes over this thread.

On some online sites, you can turn winks off. That's what I always did, because I figured if a guy was interested, he could string together a sentence or two. If I couldn't turn them off, I'd wink back if a guy interested me, ignore if they didn't, same as some others mentioned.

When I was doing online dating, I rarely if ever got a response to a wink. Almost all the advise I have seen is to not respond to them.

I am not sure what the idea is behind that. I mean, instead most guys are just going to send a form email with perhaps a minor tweak to make it seem individual - which I found worked best.

I view winks as to being something similar to smile at the bar. That is the comparison would go something like this - guy smiles (winks), gal smiles back (winks back), guys approaches (emails) girl. The advice I read often is that gals should not show interest - that is they should not wink back or smile back - guys should go directly to email or approach. Yet, gals get upset when guys approach them and they are not interested.

I would give advice to lady to go ahead and wink back...

Back when I was single I never bothered with the paid accounts, so the winkers didn't get anywhere. I was too cheap to pay for my own account, and why would I when there were enough guys who paid for theirs responding to my add?

"Didn't you get irritated that he didn't just write to you?"

It's been a long while since I've dated online (and even then it was for 3 short months).

"Winking" - wow, talk about wussy! (ha!) I don't think I'd be irritated as much as I would think he was kind of, well, not very manly. He would get an F in the assertive and self confident department, if I was in an overly judgmental mood (which, I usually am when selecting men I would consider dating). A wink comes off to me more like a giggling schoolGIRL, than a serious dating prospect.

Also, it seems it could also be a way for them to "troll" with very little effort involved (writing) and see who bites on their hook. So instead of taking the time to select women they would want to seriously date, they blanket wink. Lazy.

So, I would find "winking" lazy and girly.

:D

I'm curious about the mechanics of all this... in the real world, let's say a bar, there are certain unspoken cues given and taken between genders BEFORE anyone is approached. If you just walk up to a woman without ever making eye contact with her, and ask her to dance... likely rejection.

So, just writing emails to lotsa different women, is like asking them cold, care to dance? Either way, the intended lady will have to figure out if you measure up to her req's, but at least a wink would be like eye contact not made, or at least the sniff and turn away of nonverbal cue.

"He would get an F in the assertive and self confident department, if I was in an overly judgmental mood" Feebie

But what you are asking for is in real life, the guy who goes up to woman after woman and asks them to dance witout figuring out the room first, without lookinng for any non verbal cue. Not only is he going to deal with a lot of savage rejection, but he has to invest a ton of time for that rejection. Whereas if you wink and someone doesn't wink back, well, no foul, no harm. It's a very soft reject, like a broken eye contact or a frown. Neither person has invested much time into the initial stage, and there isn't a ton of feeling involved.

This is an important feature for women who would never move first in real life. She actually can on the net because there is less pressure about it.

Certainly, there is a lot of variability about if the online thing works at all. I and many compatriots regardless of gender have noticed that there is a LOT of false info out there, but that is endemic to the tools, not the wink. I think the wink itself kinda feels gradeschool, but it fiils the function of a nonverbal cue that you can't have on the web.

It certainly beats the, "before we talk, I'll send you my resume, medical history and 5 references." 'dude, it doesn't matter, you're too short and old anyway.'

There is a scene in Cherry2000 that is something like that if memory serves. ;)

I've lived through personal ads, video dating, singles dances, singles events and more. Honestly, I can't bring myself to do the online dating thing, as I've answered too many checklists to count at this point. That being said, one of the women I work with just met a perfectly delightful guy online.

It might not be the way I'd go about looking for a significant other, but if it works for you, who am I to judge?

Man, I never heard of "winks". Back in the day when I'd chase tail through coal-powered computing, these conveniences weren't available... We had to go to gatherings at pizza parlours and disappoint women in person. Kids today don't understand how the internet saves time.

I actually state in my profile that I don't respond to winks, and they still send them. Kind of proves the guy didn't read the profile, which is what I suspected.

Guys who are serious, and really do have something to offer, such as several matching criteria, seem to find the courage to write. In my experience, the ones who wink really don't have anything to offer me anyway, so I've never been tempted to wink back.

I think SwissArmyD is right. I liked the winks because, if a guy winked and I didn't find him attractive, then I could just ignore the wink, and it wasn't much of a rejection. I felt the same way when guys rejected my winks. If they wrote emails, then I felt compelled to reply. It was like rejecting resumes. "I'm sorry, but I don't find your application to be my boyfriend suitable at this time. I sincerely hope you are a good match with another woman (or man) elsewhere. All the best."

In real life, if you have any social skill at all, you can tell pretty quickly whether someone is into you. Online, winks are a good way of passing someone by without going through too much trouble. And, as we've seen here, if you wink and the other person isn't into winks, you narrow down the field that way, too.

Not only is he going to deal with a lot of savage rejection,

Oh, please. You're not even getting rejected as you, face to face, but as MustLoveDogs222. If you can't man up and write to a girl in the safety of the online forum, you should go to Costco, buy a pallet of Vaseline and a pallet of Kleenex, and plan to stay home alone and masturbate for the rest of your life.