If a man says he is looking for an "honest" woman then why aren't they honest? Honestly!

I set my profile up and I am very specific about what I'm looking for but 9/10ths of the responses I've gotten have been from guys in other states, guys looking for marriage, married men, or guys looking for "true love." Am I in the wrong place to just find cool people to hang out with, is my explanation not straightforward enough or is it that no one is reading it?

Help me understand this online thing.

They don't read your profile, they see a photo and respond. And they don't care what you want, or they wouldn't respond.

Would I be better off taking the pictures down then? I thought I was doing the right thing by being open and honest. That's the type of person I am. Drama and secrecy isn't my thing but if I have to take my pictures out so guys will "read" about me so be it I guess.

It won't do any good..

I did that here and on other dating sites..to TRY and force the guys to read the profile to see what, if anything we had in common..rather than just loooking at the picture...
Didn't work...
All i got were messages asking for a picture, asking why i didn't have one...

Funny dat...I see a LOT of guys on dating sites with no picture...and whan I ask *them* why ('cause, fair is fair)..the blather some nonsense about their job, their friends, etc...
(honey..we *all* have jobs and friends)

But yet..they expect women to message them sans picture....when *they'd never message a woman without one...
double standards..

some people read profiles , some don't
<shrug>

i would sagest you setting up email preferences , its in mail settings under, Limit who can send you mail


or you can click this if on a computer

http://mingle2.com/inbox/filters

Welcome to the forums Red that Joined Mon 09/17/18
best wishes on your hunt and i hope that helps : )

Quite possibly another reason some men don't post their pictures is that they may be married (or in a relationship).

I think you gotta consider 'this online thing' source.
Online you don't have the luxury of selecting people like in the real world.
In the real world you scan the area you are in and get a 'feel' for the type of people. Online it could be anyone.
Online, you have a lot of people from all over the world looking at you.
People from many different walks of life with different goals and different values and morals. Some are aggressive and some are passive.
Some are intelligent and some are not. Not everyone exists with a reasonable state of mind. Not everyone lives in the same culture or lifestyle as you.

The best thing to do is set your message preferences and use discretion in who you contact. Realize that people are here for many reasons and may not be in alignment with you. There are also a lot of jaded, hurt, biased, and desperate people that think you are here for them.

Being in the forums is very helpful because you get to understand the personality of the people by reading how they participate. You can get a general consensus of how different the wide range of people are by how they participate in the various discussion.
Some are deadly serious, some are not serious about anything and all the shades between.
However, what the forums gives you is mainly real people where the profile search system is full of fakes and predators.
The site has auto suggest in the form of a match game. Its an algorithm used to generate activity. Most of the people in the forums know this.
Since you're rather recent, you wouldn't know that if you haven't read much in the forums yet.

As for replies, no reply is a reply and if someone persists that you do not want contacting you, you have the option to block or report them.

Think of it like a big box of BBs of all different colors. You gotta sort thru all BBs to find the color that you want.
Good luck in your search

Men look at photos first especially on Free sites they pay nothing to look.

On many paid sites men Read profiles. I got several nice dates on Paid relationship sites geared for Dating.

Free sites many are on Forums like on Mingle2.

You place 4 women (or men) in an empty room, one in each corner.
You lower a man (or woman) into the center of the room.
Nobody says a word.
The one in the center will show interest in one of the four over the others.

Now, do the same thing but the room is pitch black.
Now the four in the corners describe themselves one at a time.
The one in the center will prefer one over the others.

If you go into a bar, church, roller rink, library, etc, the first thing you do is look at the people that are there. Even if you know nobody, you have preferences based on the way they look.

The reason why people (not just men) respond to pictures on profiles is because they are conditioned to be attracted to certain appearance qualities.

Some of us can tell a lot about a person by the photo(s) they put up.
There have been studies done on appearance.
I worked as a service advisor for a new car dealership once.
I handled appointments and dealt with people directly.
I have talked to women that I imagined looked a certain way but they looked nothing like I imagined when I met them.
People value the images they see. It causes us to want to form some type of connection with the person we see.

On a dating site, when we see a pretty girl (woman) or a handsom boy (man) we click in to find out more about them to see if they might be interested in us.

In a dating profile, the picture is vital if you are here to meet new people. If you don't have a profile photo, I figure you're not interested in attracting anyone by random. No photo, no click in.

Just had a man message me today, with No photo.

I messaged back, where is Your Photo!

Every time I changed my photo here, I get at least a dozen are more views from Men.

I t is like a game. Some are the same men !!! Over and Over ! Stalkers !

Need a Delete button for them!

But...that is the whole point *of* dating sites and a profile...to be able to READ about someone, get a feel if the two of you have anything in common...any basis to start a conversation..

Rather than go up to some random stranger in public and try to chat...only to find out they have one or more things that, had you *known*, you have never initiated the conversation...

I can't tell you how many "nice" looking guys on various sites I see, with didly-squat for a profile...("ask me anything"..."Just ask")..
They are lazy, and expect the woman do do all the work to find out about them..
Or, worse, the &%$#@! who claim "ask them anything"...when you DO, they say "This ain't no damn job interview..."

Oh honey..it kind of *is*..
I don't know the first thing about you...and you were to lazy to make even the slightest effort to describe yourself, so..yeah..I'm going to ask you things to find out about you...

I don't care how nice looking he is...I won't message someone with no profile...

Okay thank you Tom4uHere. That explanation makes a lot of sense. I will go back and play around a little more with my page and put up a few more "roadblocks" so to speak. Thanks for the heads up about the forum discussions. I'm usually not much for that but I can appreciate the advantage of utilizing them in this kind of platform to weed out the serious from the not so serious.

Exactly I_love_blugrass!! The ones with no profile information or say just ask are the ones asking all the questions that I've clearly already answered in MY profile but when I get around to asking them questions it's one word answers or "I like whatever you like" or "I like your smile". Come on really? Do you have an independent thought??

Or, what *I* get..
"Ah lak mos' everthang.."

Really?
Somehow I doubt that..

*If* they can list anything at all, its the same bland, generic, boring stuff I have seen on a hundred other profiles..
"Spending time with my family/ grandkids....being outdoors..classic rock and country music.." etc..

Those bastards!!!!

I agree, its the photo AND the profile that attracts me enough to message them.
But, look at the profiles that we don't click on.
I'm not saying the photo is more important than the profile.
I'm only saying that there has to be some reason to click on that particular profile in the first place. The photo is the initiator many times. (in a general search)
I read profiles of women with no photo that have participated in the forums and my initiator is something they wrote that made me interested.
But, in a normal search, while scanning the search results I only look at profiles that have pictures that I find pleasing.
I don't look at those perfect picture profiles anymore because experience has taught me they are fakes.
I actually look for imperfections, I look at the backgrounds.
I click on the woman's profile that I am interested in meeting and that interest has a lot to do with how they look in their photo. The appearance qualities I have come to value. The ones that I like to look at.

Seriously, how many people do you date that you can't stand to look at?
How long will a relationship last if the sight of them turns you off?
Sure, you can put a bag on their head and go for it if that's what ya want.

I've had friends of the opposite sex that I was not attracted to but were really good people. Quite a few have been really attracted to me.
No intimate relationships formed because the attraction was not mutual.
Its just how life works, you form bonds with people you like to look at.

Its not shallow or discriminating, its normal. We initially do judge a book by its cover, even when we don't realize it.

~~groan~~

"Seriously, how many people do you date that you can't stand to look at?
How long will a relationship last if the sight of them turns you off? "

There's *quite* a big difference between someone you can't stand to look at / turns you off....and not being someone you would go up to *solely* based on their looks alone...

And, just because someone doesn't intially light my fire/ flip my switch doesn't mean I may not find them *more* attractive and interesting after I talk to them a bit..

I don't care if you don't believe me....don't care if you disgaree with me.
*I* know myself..

I have *very* different criteria as far as looks than most women in my age range..
What *they* seem to find attractive/ hot/ drool over leaves me cold...
(George Clooney and Dwayne Johnson/ The Rock are two that come to mind that women seem to drool over, but they do *nothing for me)

If a guy is hot looking...but dim, or we don't have anything in common, all the talking and want to in the world isn't going to make me interested in him..
OTOH..If he's not much by society's standards (which clesarly isn't *mine*)..or borders on toad-like..?
But we have a ****-ton in common, share the same world view and ideology....then i will absoutle date him...

I wish we could sort profiles based on what's written..to search for "keywords"..as it were..
The few sites that allow for that, isn't doesn't work a lot of the time..

Because then i wouldn't have to waste my time clicking on profiles that say nothing, or are the opposite of what i want in a partner.

Again, don't care if you beileve me or agree with me...
Cheers!

Peace, love, and cinnamon rolls to ya.

I guess you are right. I'm looking for a "personality" first and then if the personality is halfway there for me it makes up for what a person may lack in looks. I've dated good looking guys that couldn't hold a conversation and it bored me to deatb! By the end of the night I didn't care what they looked like! I had a good looking male stripper friend once who couldn't figure out why I wasn't attracted to him. I told him I liked him more for his personality then I did for his looks. Plus he was shorter than me. We had so much fun as friends. I would shave his back when he had shows to do and run interference when he was trying to escape women. But we always stayed friends. So for me, personality can make or break a man's looks.