Phase 1: Use Internet; Phase 2: ?; Phase 3: Hook-up.

October 19, 2009 3:06 PM

Recommendations and advice sought for hooking up online in the UK.

I've been single for a little too long now and being uncomfortable with the bar/club environment I've been trying to organise a hook-up online. Trying and failing, utterly. I could use some advice and recommendations for UK-centric casual encounter websites. I'm male, straight, late twenties, not prohibitively unattractive, but not all that hot either.

One problem is that I'm not comfortable with uploading a facepic to my profiles/ads. Sending one by email, or after exchanging a few messages is fine, but being discovered by a colleague or family-friend on an internet sex site could have serious consequences for me so I do need to exercise a little discretion. I've been using body pics (head obscured or out-of-frame) so far. If this were a dating thing the picture wouldn't be such an issue, but this is a sex thing.

I'm beginning to wonder if the whole idea is a waste of time and I'd love to hear from anyone in the UK who this has actually worked for. I should stress, I'm not looking for a serious relationship. A casual-girlfriend thing could work, but sex is what this is all about. I'd assumed that there must be some reasonably attractive, compatible woman nearby who's looking for the same thing, and that it wouldn't be all that tough to at least meet for a coffee and see how it goes, but maybe my assumed parity of supply and demand is wildly unrealistic. Interested to know your thoughts on this.

Anyway, here's where I'm at:

Tried Plenty of Fish but they only allow photos if you include your face, and their user-base skews moronic.

Tried Craigslist. No bites.

Tried Gumtree (UK's craigslist equivalent). Nothing.

Tried okcupid. Sent a load of messages. Zip.

Tried eharmony. Doesn't seem suited to hook-ups.

Tried (paid for!) Adult Friend Finder. Sent a load of messages. Nothing. This one really surprised me.

I'm interested in specific recommendations, anecdotes, or critiques of my entire position. Go nuts. And thanks, really.

posted by anonymous to human relations (10 comments total)

okcupid is not an "internet sex site," and not uploading a picture puts you at a distinct disadvantage indeed. how many image-free profiles have you sent messages to? i'm guessing "not as many as those with images." everybody else is putting up pictures, there's no shame.
posted by rhizome at 3:17 PM on October 19

I would recommend AdultFriendFinder, Alt.com, InformedConsent.co.uk, Gumtree and (if you're prepared to be honest that you're looking for sex rather than a relationship) Guardian Soulmates.

But actually I'd recommend that you raise your game in bars, too, because most women can go out any night of the week and pick up one of five or six guys who hit on her during the night. It's so easy for many women to pick up men that they don't need to bother with sex sites.

Accordingly as a man on a sex site you are just a small fish in a massive pond. The few women who use them have the pick of the men. Even some of the "women" are just men. Whenever I pick up a woman on a sex site I ask her to show me some of the mails she got. The replies come in quick within seconds. They always receive dozens, if not hundreds of mails. Most of them have gross penis pictures in and the vast majority are completely and utterly boring. Some are clearly copy-and-paste automatic responses.

So here's the hard news: whatever you're doing, you're doing it completely wrong.

You're not supplying a photo? Come on. Get real. Do you think any sane women is going to waste her time looking at a guy with no photo when she has dozens of mails with photos in her inbox? The kind of woman who wants no-strings sex almost certainly would prefer to have sex with a good-looking guy - so you're already sending yourself straight into her trash filter.

What about the text you're writing? I wish I could see it as then I could critique it. Perhaps you might be so kind as to give us an example. But if it reads like your question then it comes across as weak and apologetic - again, not usually the characteristics that most women seek out of a casual sex fling.

There are dozens of guides online (people like David De Angelo and Mystery and Neil Strauss) discussing tactics for picking up women. Some of it is garbage but, somewhat distressingly for my otherwise feminist tendencies a lot of it works. It's all about being different. You want the first line of your post to capture their imagination by being truly original. You want to be funny and cocksure without being an arsehole.

And you want to sell to her why a night of sex with you will be better than a night with the other 36 chumps who have mailed her that day...all without coming across as a total arsehole. (Actually, coming across as a total arsehole is preferable to coming across as a wet blanket, but don't pin your ambitions on being an arsehole.)
posted by skylar at 3:32 PM on October 19

I have no idea whether this is a good idea or not, but if you are responding to ads, or doing any reaching out, why not sent a nice pic of a rose, as well as YOUR picture. If you keep not supplying your pic, you will not succeed at this.

I would imagine that the economics of this are WAY skewed towards the female end (in het online dating). Supply and demand, and you are a dime a dozen, sadly.

You need to stand out, somehow (in a good way).
posted by Danf at 3:41 PM on October 19

Speaking as somebody who uses okcupid, those without a foto will get zero response from me, and most likely a good number of other women too. My inbox is filtered against the no-foto people, and I limit my searches to not include them. You really need to put a facepic up if you want any success, as I get plenty enough messages/winks/favorites from guys and I'm nothing special. I can imagine some women get dozens a day, and delete en masse, with the first to go being those with no pictures.

I understand that you would not like to be found by people you know, but perhaps changing your location would work? I've read a few profiles where they've listed one place, but made clear in the text/subsequent messages that they're really in another. That doesn't sound weird or offputting to me, as I understand it prevents them from being searched for and found, and it doesn't mess with matching as it's typically the men sending messages to women - and you know where you really are. Pick a location more than 25km from where you really live, say Coventry if you live in Birmingham, and it should make you a little harder to find.

So yeah, somehow you have to deal with the idea of having your picture out there, or put in place a way to make yourself feel more secure about it not being found. As a man you're already running this race handicapped, so you don't need to make it even more difficult.
posted by Sova at 3:48 PM on October 19 [1 favorite]

Keep in mind that anyone who finds your picture is surfing a uk casual encounter site.
posted by CharlesV42 at 3:55 PM on October 19

This question has some similarities and may have some useful answers within the comments.
posted by selton at 4:05 PM on October 19

Can you post your pictures on dating sites, and say that you're looking for 'dating'? I feel like 'dating' covers a lot of things without being dishonest. And then only email those girls who are looking for hook ups, or sound like they are. Have your profile say you're looking for fun girls to hang out with and more, or something like that but less cheesy. It might take you longer to find someone, or you might have to actually go out with them before hooking up, but at least people will see your emails, write back to you, and if a co-worker or someone you know finds you, you're just on a dating site looking for 'dating' so there's nothing wrong with that. Once you email someone back and forth a couple of times you can try to gauge how quickly they'll hook up with you by their responses to hints at hooking up, or something. Warning: this might not work at all, but it's a way to get your picture out there without anyone you know finding out about what you're after.
posted by KateHasQuestions at 6:15 PM on October 19

I agree that the pic issue is what's hurting you here. As a woman, I would find a guy on a singles site who puts pics of his headless body up a bit creepy.

I do understand you don't want people you know to think you are looking for casual sex. But why would they assume that ? As KateHasQuestions suggests, you can indicate that you are looking for "casual companionship," "dating" or "no strings attached" or any of a series of euphemisms rather than I MEAN SEX. It will become clear in your correspondence that this is what you want, without your profile on the site explicitly saying it, so if your picture is up there, it's no big deal.

Additionally, not putting your face out there suggests that you are actually married or in a relationship or trying to hide something, making women more prone to cross you off their lists before they ever get to know you, even online.
posted by misha at 6:42 PM on October 19 [1 favorite]

Yep, you'll get nowhere sans photo. Though I am not in the UK, I'm female, late twenties, used OkCupid for awhile, wouldn't even bother to read a message from someone with no photo. It's like every Thanksgiving when my parents fight over who has to go to the liquor store to get the bourbon for the Derby pie because *mild fit of the vapors* someone might see them there! Anybody who spots you on a dating site is also on a dating site. Besides, I don't know about the other sites you list, but OkCupid is for both dating and the random hook-ups. If you're okay getting spotted in the dating context, I would think you'd be okay there anyway.

You could use a photo that is not unambiguously you. The one I used was black and white and shadowy and I wasn't looking directly at the camera, but it was enough to show that I'm female and at least probably somewhat attractive. (I wasn't trying to maintain anonymity, but I always do stupid stuff when someone points a camera at me, so I have basically the one good photo I've been using for everything for years. spring break '06 wooo!)
posted by little e at 10:33 PM on October 19

As a compromise, you can usually send a photo as an attachment with your response or with the first email to a new person, this won't stop you from being overlooked in a search.
posted by kanemano at 1:33 PM on October 20