How to tell if she's high maintenance

I don't enjoy dating women who are high maintenance. If you do, stop reading now. If you are like me, and you just don't think high maintenance women are worth it, read on. What is high maintenance? Well, in short it's someone who creates more problems than they solve. But I'm sure I didn't have to explain this to you. But how do you tell if a woman is high maintenance, particularly when you're dealing with an online dating situation? I'm glad you asked. Here's how you can tell, BEFORE you invest your time and money in meeting her:

1. She says "I'm not high maintenance." This is the biggest red flag you could possibly imagine. Run away. Run far, far away. Think about this for a second. Why would someone say she is not high maintenance? Because she feels that she needs to defend her high maintenance behavior! Either she has already done something to annoy you, other people in her paste have called her high maintenance, or she just knows deep down inside that she's tough to deal with. Like I said, run!
2. She makes things difficult. Look, I've met a lot of women online. Heck, I wrote a book about it. For 90% of them, the following is perfectly agreeable: We send each other a few emails, I ask her out, she says yes, I ask her to text me, she does, we arrange to go out for a drink. If a woman has a problem with any of this along the way -- for example, she doesn't accept a date invitation after a few emails, she wants to talk on the phone rather than text, she wants something more elaborate than drinks for the first date -- she's not worth it. Move on. She's telling you something, and it's only going to get worse.
3. She has a list of requirements/demands in her profile. Did I mention making things more difficult than they need to be? I feel like I did.
4. She uses the word "gentleman." When a woman uses the word "gentleman," it means she has some fantastical idea of what she thinks an ideal man should be. Be prepared for her to constantly expect that you conform to her ridiculous romantic dream. Sounds like fun, right?

Do women from OkCupid put out more, and does myBestFace work?

Anonymous writes:

I love your book: short and sweet. I came to the same conclusion on sending a generic first email, but was looking for someone who ran the experiment that I wanted to run. Now that I see you did it, I can rest easy.

Question: It makes sense that the women on match.com who are paid members would be more likely to respond and follow through on meeting you, but my how much more or less likely are they to put out quickly compared to the ones from say okcupid?

My theory would be that they are less likely to put out quickly because they are paying and expecting more commitment. But you actually have experience. Are there any noticeable differences?

He continues by offering a couple links on another topic from my book:

Okcupid myBestFace features is pretty useless:

http://jesse.la/okcupids-mybestface-would-be-awesome-if-it-worked/

https://www.joshsway.com/articles/view/stop-using-okcupids-mybestface

First of all, Mr. Anonymous, thanks for reading. I'm glad you like the book. How about a positive review on Amazon? Anyway now that that shameless promotion is out of the way, let's take these questions one at a time.

My WhatsYourPrice Adventure (Part 2)

So it's been a while since I've written about the online dating site for sugar daddies (ahem, generous men) and golddiggers (I mean, uh, women), What's Your Price. At the time I was intrigued by the prospects, but never got around to writing about the outcome of my adventure.

What happened? Well, honestly I figured out much more effective methods to meet women online, and no longer had any need for a gimmicky website like What's Your Price. But since so I've received so many requests to follow up my first piece, here it is, by popular demand, Part 2 of My What's Your Price Adventure.

Announcing My New Book!

Dear loyal readers,

I’m ridiculously excited and disgustingly proud to announce the release of my new book A Hacker's Guide to Online Dating, How to Train Your Computer to Get You Dates. Available on Amazon here.

If you enjoy the blog, you’ll love this book. It’s everything I've learned throughout my years in the online dating world. All the tips and tricks on how to optimize the dating process to do what online dating is supposed to do – get you actual face to face dates – as efficiently as possible. Basically, overcoming the paradox of choice. I've even included the automation code that I personally developed and use to have my computer do most of the work for me. Online dating on steroids!

I’ll be posting excerpts periodically – there’s so much good material here that I’m not going to limit it to just the book - but to wet your whistle, the table of contents is below. I also want to do something for my loyal readers. For the next 5 days, the kindle ebook is going to be available absolutely free! No strings attached. The whole thing. Free. What are you waiting for? Here’s that link again. The only thing I ask in return is this: if you like it, give me a review on Amazon. It always helps. And let me know how my strategies work out for you. You can always reach me here in the comments section.

Vaya con dios,
Dorian

Date night

Age: 24
Ethnicity: Hispanic, white mix
Met her: online
Height: 5’ 0”
Body: Somewhat disappointing. A little more than pictures indicated in the stomach, arms, and thigh regions.
Boobs: Again, didn’t live up to expectations.
Butt: Looked ok, but also looked like it took quite a bit of effort to get into those jeans.
Date: Drinks, and -- surprise, surprise -- some unplanned food.
Cost: $31 + $25 paid by her

Summary:
The date is best summed up by the following quotes:

   “Growing up, I was kind of a chubby girl.” (Uh oh)

   “I’ve never really taken care of myself, you know, aesthetically.” (Oh god)

   “Let’s do it again.” (I'll think about it)

Argument for seeing her again: She was cool, easy going. Her body wasn’t THAT bad. She was sitting down next to me at the bar the whole time, which tends to have an unflattering effect on the stomach (Ok, I'm rationalizing). Fat girls, or in this case, formerly fat girls tend to be, let’s just say, more adventurous in bed.
Argument against: Rule No. 4.

Red flags I missed: Upon further review, Nos. 2 - 4 may have been present to some extent. Again I was burned by the “average” body type. Probably should just steer clear of it all together.
Lessons: I’m starting to think the fact that I’m getting regular poon elsewhere is killing my motivation. I’m just not feeling the urgency. I’m not desperate enough. A few months ago I probably would have jumped all over a girl like this. But now? Not worth my time.

Date night

Continuing on my mission to share way too much information about my love life, here's what I got up to last night:

Ethnicity: Chinese (Cantonese, not Mandarin, in case you were wondering... I wasn't)
Met her: Online
Height: ~5’7” in heels
Body: More substantial than expected
Boobs: More substantial than expected
Butt: Didn't bother to check
Date: Drinks, wine bar
Cost: $29, 1.5 hrs, and a bit of a hangover
Summary:
I wish I had another pair of hands... so I could give this date 4 thumbs down!

Date night

I'm going to try something new here: chronicling my online dating experiences. Basically, it's just for shits and giggles, and because I'm kind of curious how much trouble it'll get me into. I want to be completely open, but more importantly, amusing. So let me know in the comments what kind of vital stats you'd like to hear about, and I'll try to oblige. Here's my first attempt, based on last night:

Height: ~5’5’’ (~5’9” in heels)
Ethnicity: black
Body: thin
Met her: online
Boobs: enormous, likely fake (which is fine with me, just saying)
Ass: a little flat, but hard to say with what she was wearing (maybe that's just wishful thinking)
Date: drinks, pool
Cost: $59
Summary:

Online dating trifecta: beautiful people, iPhone hookers, Zoosk statistics

1. Beautiful People an online dating site that only allows, you guessed it, beautiful people, had to lay down the law on 30,000 “uglies.” Good for them.
2. Apparently iWhores may be in our future. Ah, the march of progress.
3. New research from Zoosk on summer dating (I guess they were jealous of OkCupid). Here are the takeaways:
• Don’t talk about your ex on a first date. (Duh)
• The large majority of people expect men to pick up the bill for first date. (I guess you aren’t THAT independent, huh ladies?)
• Most women have made up their mind about a potential romantic interest by the end of the first date. For most men it takes less than an hour, some only 15 minutes. (Me? 15 seconds.)
• The majority of singles think an outdoor date is best for summer. (Not on the first date. See rule #2.)
• Very few people think karaoke is a good idea on a first date. (Ya think?)
• Most men, but less than half of women would go on date that requires a bathing suit. (My advice: not on the first date. Again, see rule #2. But it can be a good way to find out what you want to know. If she won’t show you her body, you probably don’t want to see it.)

What's Your Price: Prostitution or a good deal?

How much do I usually spend on a first date with a woman I’ve met online? And how often is it a total waste when she turns out to be either unattractive or uninterested? These are the questions I was asking myself after hearing about a new online dating site called What’s Your Price. It’s a new model where the suitors bid on what they'll pay to go on a date with the object of their affection.

My first thought: Is this a site for prostitutes or golddiggers... or both? But then I started thinking, maybe it’s not such a bad idea when you consider all the money I’ve wasted on bad dates. The average price of a What's Your Price date in my area (Los Angeles) is about $170 (not including the cost of the actual date), and the available women seem to be attractive, and let’s just say, “looking for a good time.”

It shouldn’t be to difficult to run a few numbers. But first, another question: How is this even legal? Isn’t this prostitution?

My top 6 online dating tips

Speaking of online dating I've been doing it for a while now, and have become somewhat of an expert.  I thought I’d share some of the stuff I've learned, for reference, and as always, for shits and giggles.  Here are some rules I've learned the hard way.  Sadly, these are all mistakes I've made personally, more than once.

1. Height: she must be at least 3 inches shorter than you.  No exceptions.  It’s just not going to work otherwise.  Trust me, I've tried.  Even 3 inches is cutting it close.  Keep in mind she'll be wearing heels most of the time.
2. First dates: Go out for a drink at night.  Read that again and memorize it.
• And notice I also said at night.  No first dates during the day.  Lunch, coffee, brunch… No, no, no.  It’s just not very romantic, and a waste of time.  Not to mention the odds of alcohol being involved is much lower.  If you think going in for a first kiss is awkward, try doing it sober, in bright sunlight, standing in front of a crowded sidewalk café.  Save it for later in the relationship.
• Don’t travel unless you’re absolutely sure it’s worth it.  Let me explain.  When you meet someone online, it’s sometimes hard to tell exactly what you’re getting into.  Maybe there’s one or two pictures, from weird angles, not in the best light, and no pictures that show her below the neck.  There’s a definite chance you could be attracted to this person, but it's just as likely that you won't be.  You say, hey, it's worth a shot.  Sometimes it’s much clearer.  There are plenty of pictures and there's no question that this person is someone you want to meet.  What I’m saying is this: only travel a long distance (20 min drive or something) for the women in the latter category.  It’s all about risk-reward.  Oh, and never travel more than an hour or so for ANYONE.  Unless you live in the boonies or something, in which case, just go ahead and shoot yourself.