Love conquers all

November 15, 2005 11:24 AM

Help me beat the online personals system.

I've seen someone on a site (Yahoo) I'd like to contact, but she says specifically that she isn't, and won't be becoming, a member. I don't mind paying to email her, but my understanding is that on these subscription dating sites, I won't be able to give her my own email address until we are both members (though I can't find where it actually says this on the site).
Is this correct, and how would this be policed anyway? And if it is,how can I bypass it? I've thought of writing a poem, with the first letter of each word spelling my email, but my attempts so far are not likely to get a reply.

posted by aisforal to Human Relations (11 answers total)

Have you tried just putting the address in the text, you know, nothing fancy? My (now) wife did that in the very first email she sent me, via an online dating site.
posted by MrMoonPie at 11:32 AM on November 15, 2005

I don't think that they will censor your messages. Donny, this is not Nam. There are rules here. If it doesn't work, you will probably receive a notice telling you that they didn't send the message.

I bet that you could get past any automatic filtering system by just doing some variation on:

aisforal(AT)email(dot)com
posted by dobie at 11:37 AM on November 15, 2005

Yeah, I've done it by simply writing something like:

dear lady, drop me a line! brautigan at hotmaildotcom
posted by brautigan at 11:38 AM on November 15, 2005

What I saw is that hotmaildotcom often gets filtered out. I got my profile taken off a few times because of that.
Now I use a picture with a wall behind me that has a poster on it, on that poster I added my email address in matching font. In the text I tell them to look at the poster behind me. So far so good. I am still on there!
posted by kudzu at 12:17 PM on November 15, 2005

Best answer: Usually you can say whatever you like, the question is can she read the messages you send to her though this system if she's not a member? So if she can GET mail w/o being a member you can send her a message with your proper address - your only worry there is if she's not ready to give you her real email address right off the bat, which many women aren't.

The old Salon/SpringStreet system was 'only sender pays' where I think Match required both to be a member. You'll have to read the Yahoo FAQ but that's what you're looking for - the answer to "can other people write to me if I am not a member?"
posted by phearlez at 12:18 PM on November 15, 2005

"Dear lady,

I'd hit it!

aisforal at the famous microsoft service that's the opposite of cold."
posted by Sijeka at 12:36 PM on November 15, 2005

Just sign your e-mail with your address and you should be fine.

I've sent addresses through Yahoo before, and I'm not even a paying member.

The way it works (as of a few months ago), is you can send an ice breaker for free. These are pre-written, so you can't insert anything into them. The person who receives your message, can reply once using an ice breaker or a note they write themselves. This is true whether they are a paying member or not.

I'm not a paying member, but I was able to insert my e-mail address into the free reply message and we carried on a conversation from there. If they aren't filtering addresses out of free messages, they certainly wouldn't be filtering them out of paid messages.
posted by willnot at 1:45 PM on November 15, 2005

I don't get it. If she's not a member of a dating site, how is it you can see her there? And,

dear lady, drop me a line!
Dear lady, I'd hit it!

Tell us, dear ladies of AxMeFi, would these lines alone warrent a reply from you?

Didn't think so. Get serious!
(The poem idea might work.)
posted by Rash at 1:55 PM on November 15, 2005

Don't know about Yahoo, but I've received some emails from match.com that said something like "Hi! bla bla bla, you can email me at [e-mail]!" (or something). They don't filter real email addresses, I guess they figure if at least one person is paying, they're in the black. (phearlez, Match members can email non-members with a profile, but the non menber's can't reply...unless they have the real email of the sender). If you're worried about filtering, I'd say something like, "hey, email me at my username at gmail"

Or, you can totally bypass the whole paying thing altogether by making your name "aisforalAOL" if your email is [e-mail]. Anyone with half a brain will figure it out. (AOL, Hotmal, Gmail, etc are universal enough so that it would be pretty easy to figure out.)

(IMHO, I find it silly that some people absolutely REFUSE to pay. Its really not that much, and my theory is, if you're going to bother to be on a personals site, shell out the (small bit of) cash and email who you want, rather than sitting there and waiting for people to come to you. I mean, COME ON! Take an active role!)
posted by AlisonM at 2:57 PM on November 15, 2005

Point her to your blog, or mefi profile, or somewhere else your email is listed.
posted by cass at 10:53 AM on November 16, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks to all but phearlez gets best answer, after checking (again) the Yahoo FAQ they do obliquely imply that you can send an email addy. I did the (at)dotcom thing too to be safe. The result? We're meeting up tomorrow to get hot and sweaty. Yup, we're going mountain biking.
posted by aisforal at 9:16 AM on December 1, 2005