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Modern Mating Methods: Dating Services & Strategies

rynner2

rynner2

Gone But Not Forgotten
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I guess this belongs here:

Dating website 'for ugly people' celebrating first engagement
Britain's first dating agency established for people who are "aesthetically challenged" is celebrating an unlikely milestone after it produced its first engagement between its members.
By Andrew Hough
Published: 7:30AM BST 29 Oct 2010

Tom Clifford and Janine Walker, who say they have ''great personalities", plan to marry later this year following a whirlwind online romance.

The couple met less than a month ago on www.theuglybugball.com - a dating website for the ''aesthetically challenged''.
But after four dates they became engaged earlier this week.
Now the pair, who enjoyoed a mutual love of junk food and TV dinners, are planning a winter wedding near their respective homes in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire.

Mr Clifford, 36, a carpet fitter who has a ''face that makes children cry'', said: ''I've been a joke to women for years because of the way I look.
''I always thought that I was too ugly to meet Mrs Right but my life changed when I met Janine.
''She's beautiful and I love her in every possible way. I still can't believe this is happening.''

Mr Clifford, who has been single since 1998, spotted Janine, 31, on the site in late August.
His cover email read: ''Dear Janine, Just seen your beautiful face on The Ugly Bug Ball and would love to meet up. You live near me, so this shouldn't be a problem.
''I've got a face that makes children cry but, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder - and I think you'll love me too.''

Miss Walker, a shop assistant who lives with her parents, agreed.
''The rest, as they say, is history,'' she said.
"I appreciate that Tom isn't Brad Pitt, but then I'm no Angelina Jolie either.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and to me Tom's the perfect, handsome prince."

She added: "I'm just so pleased to have been able to meet him, and I'm head-over-heels in love."

The pair are now planning an intimate wedding for friends and family and have already begun writing their own vows.

They have also received a free honeymoon to Borth in Wales, courtesy of The Ugly Bug Ball.

A spokesman for the site said: ''This is our first engagement, and we are obviously delighted for them both.
''We offered them the trip to Borth because we have a company caravan there and wish them every success in the future.''

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/relationship ... ement.html

And good luck to the happy couple! (rynner throws confetti)
 
That story is wrong on so many levels:
* that there even is a dating site for "ugly" people
* that someone decides that they are so "ugly" that they would even consider putting themselves on there
* that the Telegraph prints that for "beautiful" people to point and laugh at the "ugly" people

and more reasons, but I'm so exasperated that I can't think straight!

ANYWAY - that couple were NOT UGLY!! :x

Edited - haha I assumed at first it was an article from the Daily Fail.....
 
I agree that they are really not that unattractive, I was expecting a lot worse.

Although "a face that makes children cry" :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Maviself said:
That story is wrong on so many levels:
* that there even is a dating site for "ugly" people
* that someone decides that they are so "ugly" that they would even consider putting themselves on there
* that the Telegraph prints that for "beautiful" people to point and laugh at the "ugly" people.
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1) It may offend you that such a website exists, but it clearly fulfills a need.
2) Some people are realistic enough to understand their situation.
3) I didn't see any invitation to point and laugh - that's in your head.
 
I think its more for people with extremely low self-esteem.....or desperation.

Must be a sad place to be, if you think the only place you will find someone is on that site.

Although, might be some easy targets :twisted:
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
I think its more for people with extremely low self-esteem.....or desperation.
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More, I would have said, for people who realise their outward appearance normally handicaps their relationships, but who are nevertheless confident of their inner qualities and abilities, and are prepared to look for similar qualities in others.
 
Most of the people on that website don't look ugly.
 
rynner2 said:
Dating website 'for ugly people' celebrating first engagement
Britain's first dating agency established for people who are "aesthetically challenged" is celebrating an unlikely milestone after it produced its first engagement between its members.
By Andrew Hough
Published: 7:30AM BST 29 Oct 2010

Tom Clifford and Janine Walker, who say they have ''great personalities", plan to marry later this year following a whirlwind online romance.

The couple met less than a month ago on www.theuglybugball.com - a dating website for the ''aesthetically challenged''.
....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/relationship ... ement.html
Click to expand...
A very ugly break-up! Man with 'face that makes children cry' splits from woman he met on website for the aesthetically challenged
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:59 AM on 2nd June 2011

The self-confessed 'ugly' couple who got engaged through Britain's first dating agency for the 'aesthetically challenged' have split up.
Tom Clifford and Janine Walker, who shared a mutual love of junk food and TV dinners, parted company last month following a whirlwind online romance.

The couple hit the headlines last October after meeting on www.theuglybugball.com.
They became engaged after only four dates and less than a month after joining the site.

Mr Clifford, 37, and Miss Walker, 32, were originally planning a winter wedding near their respective homes in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, but postponed the date and have now separated.
Friends believe Mr Clifford - a carpet fitter who has a 'face that makes children cry' - may have got cold feet.

Jessie Bridge, 31, who has known Miss Walker since childhood, said: 'All I'll say is that Janine and Tom have very definitely broken up.
'It wouldn't be right for me to divulge information about the split, but I will say that Tom has been acting edgy about wedding plans for some time.
'Objectively-speaking, it may well be that the thought of marriage pushed him over the edge.'

etc...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1OCcyhqeJ

After I spent all that money on confetti too... :(
 
I really don't think either of them is ugly. Fat, yes - ugly, no.
 
But don't you understand, fat is ugly?

Actually, a quick look at their front page shows a number of quite attractive ladies on there. Unless they're hiding a second head or chronic icthyosis, I don't see how they qualify as "ugly".
 
I know a few people who are happily married to someone they met on a dating website. Still, I think people on dating websites are usually what you'd call 2nd sorting.
 
Xanatic* said:
I know a few people who are happily married to someone they met on a dating website. Still, I think people on dating websites are usually what you'd call 2nd sorting.
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That's a little harsh, perhaps. There are a few good people, but they get snapped up pretty quickly.

I have to say, though, my own experience of dating websites has been a bit negative. I used to naively think it was a good way to meet someone with the same interests and a similar worldview, but all I met/got in touch with were people who had nothing in common with me, and I didn't fancy them anyway. In one or two cases, they were even unpleasant.
I've given up using such websites, preferring to keep my money firmly in my pocket. :)
 
I met MrsCarlos on a dating site in 2003 - and we've been together ever since.

We've even married twice (once Pagan in 2004, then 'in the eyes of the law' on our tenth anniversary in 2014) so it can work!

I only lived 5 minutes away, but our social and work circles were poles apart and the chances of us meeting without the internet were almost zero.
 
Xanatic* said:
I know a few people who are happily married to someone they met on a dating website. Still, I think people on dating websites are usually what you'd call 2nd sorting.
Click to expand...
The corollary to that being that - I assume - we all know of failing/failed relationships that did not originate via dating sites. Dare I posit - hark at me, up here in my ivory tower - that it's not so much the introductory mechanism as it is the introductees?
 
Krepostnoi said:
The corollary to that being that - I assume - we all know of failing/failed relationships that did not originate via dating sites. Dare I posit - hark at me, up here in my ivory tower - that it's not so much the introductory mechanism as it is the introductees?
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Yeah, some people work hours that don't allow for much socializing, or that kind of thing, so it's not all bad. But as you say, it's the introductees, not the mechanism.

Years ago I made a "friends only" account on one of those sites (meaning, only seeking friends and activity partners, not dating). I was living in a place where I didn't have much in common with anyone else, so I was hoping to find people I could get along with. Turns out there weren't many others with common interests from my area either, but it did produce some interesting information.

It was one of the sites where you can answer thousands of questions to find your closest match. Since I can't resist a quiz, I answered more that 800 questions. The site gave the option to find your best matches for friendship or love, or your worst matches of any gender, based on these answers. This was enlightening.

For one thing, the women with whom I had most in common tended to live in the Pacific Northwest (perhaps explaining why I feel like such an outlier in Texas) and the men tended to live in cities like Berlin or Prague! The closest distance-wise was probably British Columbia, which is a long way away. :p Worst female matches were women looking for sugar daddies, and worst male matches had a definite trend - they all had the phrase "just keeping it real" in their profile. (This last was spot on because it's a phrase that frustrates me - is the speaker keeping it fake otherwise?)

Anyway, it helped me understand that I wasn't quite so freakish as a person, just not living in the right place. Plus I did strike up some conversations with my closest matches, even though we were far away, and we had some great talks.
 
Ulalume said:
Anyway, it helped me understand that I wasn't quite so freakish as a person, just not living in the right place.
Click to expand...

Yes, I always think that you sound a bit out of place. Just going by Texan stereotypes I see on television. There could be something in that for the You That Could/Should Have Been thread.
 
I've always thought of online dating as a way of improving your chances of meeting the right person.

You've got more far more chance of meeting someone who shares your interests etc on a 'people search engine' than you have by hoping you bump into them in the real world.

Not very romantic I agree...but if you're looking for love why wouldn't you increase your chances?

I do have to admit that I was a bit shocked when a mate showed me Tinder. But then I guess a never-ending stream of faces that you judge silently with a swipe is the logical end-product of 20 years of online dating sites.

And strangely not all that different from scanning a room of faces and deciding who you're going to speak to.
 
It is, but since you will likely have a 5 or 10 to 1 ratio of genders, it might not improve your chances much. Also I doubt love is what people use Tinder for.
 

As an avid watcher of old media, one of the situations that often come up is the plotline of computer dating. As presented in old shows, it is usually eager people who fill out questionnaires and, while waiting for the computer to tell them who to date, accidentally find somebody on their own and then have to prove to the corporation or computer that their human choice is the right one. Or, the computer sets them on a date with somebody completely wrong for them based on a mistaken answer, like a Love, American Style episode where two straight guys with ambiguous first names were set up on a date. It was so present in culture, I thought that it might be interesting to see what the history of computer dating was.

I found this article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technol...eird-tech-computer-dating-of-the-1960s/71217/
The 1960s gave us many gifts. Psychedelia and New Journalism, civil rights and the Velvet Underground, JFK and the sexual revolution. The last gift spawned something else entirely -- the 1960s introduced us to computer dating.

Yes, you read that correctly. Computer dating. Decades before Match.com, OkCupid, and Craigslist there existed a different sort of online interaction. The 1960s sport carried many of the same hazards and thrills as virtual matchmaking today. Computers did exist in the '60s, in some form -- not personal computers, but computers nonetheless. These machines could crunch the numbers on our personalities and spit out intimate matches. Sites like OkCupid perform a similar service now, only with more pictures, interactivity, and complexity.

But in the 1960s, what was known as "computer dating" involved no Internet and often few to no visuals. People submitted their vital stats along with questionnaires by mail. Not e-mail, of course, but old-fashioned, stamp-licking mail. No instant gratification followed. People waited patiently for days, weeks, and months as companies processed their answers on intelligence, attractiveness, quirks, and preferences, and would perhaps find them matches ... the hope for true love. The questionnaire model dated back to the Scientific Marriage Foundation in 1957 and flourished throughout the '60s and '70s. Any time of profound social change calls for a good date.
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I certainly had never heard of the Scientific Marriage Foundation, so I thought I'd look for it, and discovered that it was founded in 1957 by George W. Crane, MD, PhD.
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/05/marriage
In 1957, he started the Scientific Marriage Foundation--sort of a low-tech version of the popular matchmaking Web site eHarmony--which took a "scientific" approach to marriage. Applicants filled out forms that were sent to an IBM sorting machine that matched them in to compatible pairs. During its three years of existence, the foundation claimed to have set up more than 5,000 marriages.
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So it only ran for three years! But it had an effect on pop culture stories for years to come. The same article above indicated that he started the thought process behind computer dating in the 30's:

One such example is the "Marital Rating Scale--Wife's Chart," a test developed in the late 1930s by George W. Crane, MD, PhD, (1901-95) of Northwestern University, who ran a counseling practice, wrote a syndicated national newspaper column called "The Worry Clinic" and started his own matchmaking service.

The test was designed to give couples feedback on their marriages. Either husbands or wives could take the test, which rated wives in a variety of areas. For instance, if your wife "uses slang or profanity," she would get a score of five demerits. On the other hand, if she "reacts with pleasure and delight to marital congress," she would receive 10 merits. The test taker would add up the total number of merits and demerits to receive a raw score, which would categorize the wife on a scale from "very poor" to "very superior."
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This website has examples of the Marital Rating Scale tests with both the Wife's and the Husband's Chart. Can your partners pass the test??:
https://dustyoldthing.com/1939-marriage-quiz/

husband.jpgwife.jpg
 
"doesn't like children", "wears red nail varnish", "puts cold feet on husband", "fails to sew on buttons and darn" is 7 demerits.

"interesting conversation" and "GSOH" (both according to my husband) is 2 merits.

I've gone negative and the scale starts at zero. I don't even make it into the "very poor (failures)" group! :rollingw:
 
The thing that bugs me is that the wife gets the points or looses the points and there is no questions about whether the man is a decent husband. Total misongynist tripe. And I do realize this was from the 30's, when women who could not keep a smile on their face and keep their mouth shut were put in mental institutions.
 
JahaRa said:
The thing that bugs me is that the wife gets the points or looses the points and there is no questions about whether the man is a decent husband.
Click to expand...
Hubby can get demerits too on his card - snores and leaves shoes in living rooms are among the no-nos!
 
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