Online Dating – The Official Blog Of Scot McKay

Sharpen Your Online Dating Skills Using Twitter [Video Blog]

Let’s face it, guys really know how to mess up their chances with women online.

As a matter of fact, it usually starts with the very first email a guy sends to a woman he’s interested in. And once he’s blown his chances there, it’s nearly impossible to recover.

Well, short of cutting and pasting something that has “proven” to work–for someone else–what’s a guy supposed to do to get past that hurdle?

And ladies, what if you actually get an e-mail from a guy you actually do want to respond to? How do you send the picture-perfect reply without messing up a potentially good thing? After all, how many lame-o messages did you have to sift through to get to that ONE really interesting one?

If you’ve ever wondered about this sort of stuff, I’ve got one word for you: Twitter.

Can you close your eyes and imagine a world where the right words flow naturally from your fingers to the keyboard and glowing, enthusiastic responses from exactly the type of person you want to meet are more the norm than the exception?

It all may not be as far away as you think. If you’ve got ten minutes, I’ve got a solution. Watch this, y’all:

OK, I know you have comments. Will you give what’s in the video a fair shot? Or do you think I got a hold of a hookah full of bad shisha? Either way, talk to me. And let me know what topics you’d like me to hit in future videos, would you?

If you did in fact dig this video, then please Digg this video using the funny looking string of icons below this post.

Also, if you re-tweet this URL I’ll be a happy man. Use the “Tweet This” button below if you prefer. I’ve got nothing but mad love for re-tweeters.

Be Good,

Scot McKay
@scotmckay

Online Dating: More Than Just A Pretty Face? [Video]

I think we’ve all seen those online profiles where the woman automatically assumed that she was enough of a “hottie” that her pictures were all that was necessary. The rest of the profile is essentially blank as a sheet, with the possible exception of a stray line to the effect of, “Hey, you’ve seen the pics and u know u like…now holla at ur girl!”

Well, here’s the suitable response to all of this from the nation known worldwide as “Deservewhatyouwantland”…

Be honest with me.

Guys: Have you ever found a high-quality woman with the “whole package” from a profile like that?

Ladies: Have you ever met anyone other than the “sex-focused” type–“Mr. Nice Guy” included–having published a profile like that?

Be Good,

Scot

P.S. Yeah, I’ve gotten a haircut since. Thanks for asking, “taurusmoxie” dude on YouTube.

P.P.S. MASSIVE announcement coming next…stay tuned.

Dealing With Breakups: Ending Short-Term Relationships [Part Three Of Four]

Part Three Of A Four Part Series On Breakups For the first two segments of this series we focused mainly on the question of “why” a potential breakup would happen.

For this third installment, and for the final one, we’ll be talking more about the “when” factor.

You and I both already know that there’s a big difference between ending relationship that hasn’t been going on all that long versus breaking up when you’ve been seeing each other (or married to each other?) for months or even years.

Or is there?

The answer may very well be, “It depends.” And what it “depends” on is generally the emotional state and/or maturity level of the partners involved.

People can get super wrapped-up in a relationship very, very quickly. In fact, if you are particularly solid in your ability to create attraction while projecting a tantalizing image of high character and irresistible charisma, then you may run into a particularly upsetting problem.

You see, once you become a person who genuinely deserves what he or she wants, you are going to find that people you date even once or twice will literally go on a mission to corral you into the barn, pardner. Preferably now, that is, if not as soon as possible.

As high-quality a problem as this sounds, it can get downright irritating if your own personal plan is to get to know as many MOTOS as you are comfortable with on the way to discovering (over a reasonable amount of time, please) who the right person for you is.

Or, sheesh…maybe you’d like to JUST DATE LOTS OF PEOPLE for now. Period.

Continue reading “Dealing With Breakups: Ending Short-Term Relationships [Part Three Of Four]”

Online Dating: My Rant On eHarmony [Video]

A warm welcome to the second video blog in the latest series dealing with Online Dating.

By now, you know that I’m generally a good-natured guy. So I figure that I’ve built enough “emotional capital” with you that I can indulge myself in a good, old-fashioned rant or two now and then.

With that in mind, what better place to turn than eHarmony. (or is that, “eHarm-Me”?)

OK, well…enough of an intro. I’m already getting carried away. I’ll let the video do the talking.

But did I mention that eHarmony actually rejects over 20% of it’s applicants without explanation…after they’ve spent over an hour completing the questionnaire? To me that’s gotta feel kind of like losing a hard-earned Word document to the “blue screen of death” before hitting “save”.

Wait…I have to throw in that if you are a guy under 5’7″ they’ve already predetermined that you’ll get rejected, since–after all–you’re “unmatchable” (read about it here, on eHarmony’s own server under “The Chemistry Factor” section.

Okay, okay. It’s time for the video. Really this time…

So what are your experiences with eHarmony? Are yours different than mine? Share your point of view by leaving a comment.

At 5’7″, I guess I made the cut (FYI, 5’6″ does indeed get rejected, as noted here).

I was set up with women 2000 miles away who were the exact opposite of what my preferences stated (including smoking habits and spiritual beliefs). In fact, my “potential soulmates” were literally all over the map–literally and figuratively.

So after systematically rejecting my allotment of ten per day (?) for the first few days in a row, I asked customer service about all of this.

The response? “Well,” they said matter-of-factly, “why didn’t you just limit your responses to your own metro area?”

Go figure. When you actually fall for their plaintive exhortation to “not limit your geography…this is your soulmate we’re talking about here!”, what happens? They lead with Sacramento, California and Nampa, Idaho when they actually had “the girl next door” in their back pocket all along. Great.

As it turned out, my “soulmates” in San Antonio didn’t cut it either. The one that was interesting I had already met…on Match.com!

OK, then.

Lest I be branded a “Match.com apologist” by the masses, I’ll give you my “rant” on them next time around! It’s all in good fun.

Be Good,

Scot

Online Dating: Kicked Off The Island [Video]

As promised, here we go with another round of video blogs.

In between installments on that series about breakups we’re on, how about some more online dating tips you can actually use in the real world?

Have fun with this one, because just about everyone can relate to it. If you’re even marginally involved with online dating–or especially if you’ve been frustrated thus far by it–I think it’s going to lift a load off your shoulders…big time.

A shout to the guys at Fly Racing, who gave me the shirt off their back…literally.

Back atcha next time with Part Two of our series on breakups. Don’t touch that dial…

Be Good,

Scot McKay

New And Improved: E-mails To The Highest Quality Women Online

In a previous post we considered the art of writing first e-mails to the very sharpest women online. In the case study I chose, the real-world group of targeted women in Los Angeles included actresses, models and even a former world-class gymnast.

Our hero, James, certainly had his work cut out for him. In order to succeed with this echelon of hotties and dominate his metro area, his first e-mails would have to rise to a level above some admittedly serious competition out there in Hollyrock.

Well, based on the input given after the first pass, James has gone back to the drawing board. Read on to find out how things are progressing.

As before, my words are represented in italics. The order in which he wrote the women changed this time, but note that I retained the sequencing convention from last time for easier reference this time.

So let’s take a look, shall we?… Continue reading “New And Improved: E-mails To The Highest Quality Women Online”

Step Two To An Online Profile That Stands Out [Part Two Of Two]

In part one of this series we discovered a major reason why most people have boring, generic online profiles. Simply put, we do what we’re told. When asked to write “About me and who I’m looking for” (a la Match.com), that’s exactly what we do.

As in–that’s what all of us do, it seems.

So as mentioned last time, we already know that you can dramatically increase your online profile’s effectiveness by rephrasing the questions more interestingly.

But I promised yet another killer way to make your profile read differently. And this one is used by so few people out there that you will instantly separate yourself from the herd should you try what I’m about to tell you.

You see, the inherent problem is that the profile narrative is a writing assignment…literally. Filling it out reminds us–at best–of completing a job application.

And at worst, it feels a lot like writing an “essay” did back in junior high.

So subconsciously, many of us write as if we’re going to be graded. It’s almost as if someone at Match.com has a big red pen ready to scrawl disparaging notes in the virtual margin of our profiles.

Either that or, well…some people just never were all that good with essays at all so they’re starcrossed from step one. If you can’t spell, punctuate and/or agree in gender, number and case…well then you’re hurtin’ for certain.

And let’s face it…MOST of us (except for the freakish weirdos amongst us who think blogging is fun) really don’t look forward to writing “essays” anyway.

So what to do? After all, without a killer profile narrative you’re online presence suffers in a big way.

Well you could hire me to write something for you. But the problem is that I don’t do “profile rewrites”.

I do, however, teach men and women how to transform their mediocre profiles into expressions of greatness. All the time.

You see, were I to write your blasted “essay” for you the real problem might actually be exacerbated rather than helped.

Why?

Simple. Because whether I write your profile or you write it yourself with your head lost in “Sixth Grade Essayland” the issue is the same: It just flat-out won’t be YOU TALKING.

As much time as I spend writing stuff, I am no match for YOUR authentic self. And for that matter, neither is your mindset when lapsing into how you were trained as a child to compose theme papers.

The solution?

What you do instead of WRITING your profile at all is…you SPEAK your profile. Because when you SPEAK, your true self is portrayed.

If you have a digital voice recorder around the house, you’re all set. If you don’t, they’re about $60 retail (for a really good one, at that). Fortuitously, the chances are even pretty good that your mobile phone has a voice recorder feature.

Speak what you want to express in your profile narrative into the voice recorder. Then transcribe it. That’s all.

And don’t let me catch you making a “crib sheet” with notes scrawled on it. In order for this exercise to make sense, you must start only with general thoughts in your head rather than hardcopy notes or some memorized “lines”.

Speak from the heart. Remember how you rephrased the “essay question” itself (as talked about in Part One) and talk to those thoughts.

As retarded as it sounds, if you want to talk to a friend while you record or even pull up the profile of someone you potentially like and talk to it, go for it. Then again, if talking into thin air with your eyes glazed over does it for you, so be it. Whatever puts you into the flow.

When you are through, play it all back and write it down as you spoke it…COMPLETE with the “you knows” and “I’ll tell you whats”. Use the spell checker and by all means punctuate appropriately, but don’t correct your “grammar” or the wordsmithing itself. If you can upload the digital file to your computer as an MP3 and pause it as it plays that’s even better. If it’s kind of long, you can even use freeware like Audacity to edit it before you write. You have options.

My educated guess is that your profile narrative–when completed–will sound exactly like YOU talking. Probably because it IS you talking…duh.

And it will stand out from the sea of generic wannabes without a doubt.

Your responses will go up because your profile narrative will be REAL. You won’t have to write crap like “no games” because you’ve already DEMONSTRATED that concept. in real-time. Fantastic stuff.

And when you actually meet someone, you’ll not have to worry that you’ll seem completely different in real life than you did in your profile. Sure the pics will have to match also, but you already know that.

Go and give this a try and email me your success stories at scot@datetoorder.com.

BTW, if you are a guy there’s 11.5 hours MORE targeted strategy on how to dominate your metro area for you in the Online Dating Domination program. It takes a strategy that’s tight as a drum to call your own shots online, but it can absolutely be done…and in less time than you think. If online dating is frustrating you, imagine how it would feel to write women you actually WANT TO MEET…and HEAR BACK FROM THEM more often than not. What would your social life look like if you were able to harness online dating into being your tool like that…rather than vice-versa?

And ladies, after literally months of work Emily is very, very close to releasing her brand-new program called Click With Him. We literally have the very last of 17 audio programs in the editing stage, and if you click the link above you can check out the basics already and even pre-order. Among what she has in store is a 30-Day Plan To Finding A Great Man Online (which she can back up) and a full-scale top-secret session on how to become the kind of woman a man wants to commit to. Believe me when I tell you there’s something to what she talks about.

Emily even had me sit down and spill how to spot great men behind mediocre profiles. Hey…not every guy reads this blog, let alone has Online Dating Domination on his iPod, okay?

I’ll be talking again to you soon…literally. Then next post will be video.

Be Good,

Scot

Step One To An Online Profile Narrative That Stands Out [Part One Of Two]

Ever notice how people tend to say the exact same stuff in online dating profiles?

Seriously, if it isn’t the same tired chorus of “I don’t want to play games” or “friends first”, then it’s what I unaffectionately refer to as “Comma Chameleon Syndrome”. This is where someone (man or woman, really) proceeds to spew forth a comma-delimited list of literally everything he or she can think of to describe him or herself. Typically, when considered as a whole, the list paints a picture of that person as pretty much whomever you’d like for them to be. Like a chameleon, this person’s “true colors” are clearly (or is that “unclearly”?) subject to change.

So why is it that everyone seems to follow such a generic “formula” for writing a profile? Seriously…virtually nobody stands out from the crowd, even though instinctively most of us know doing so can dramatically increase online dating success.

Well, the simple fact that the exercise is called a “narrative” in online-dating speak (I’ve even seen a dating site or two refer to it as an “essay”…crazy) tends to put people in the same frame of mind as they were back in elementary school. And when a writing task is approached more as an “assignment” than a creative expression, what tends to result is very much like unto what you see on the typical online dating “essay”, huh?

I believe there’s a secondary issue that compounds this state of affairs even further. Namely, the instructions to the online dater on how to fill out the “narrative” section are wrong-headed.

On Match.com, for example, the only description for the section when confronted with filling it out reads “About me and who I’m looking for”.

My theory is that–again, like what we were all taught back in grade school–people simply do what they’re told.

We’ve all been trained to “follow directions” and to “be objective” when it comes to writing assignments. And for Heaven’s sake, one simply must follow proper paragraph structure and whatever. If your school experience was anything like mine, you’d otherwise be hit with “VAGUE” and “INEFFECTIVE” scrawled in red ink all over your “essay” when it was returned to you.

So then, what do we do on those profiles of ours?

We write a litany of things that describe us. And then we write a litany of things to describe some third-party whom we are allegedly “looking for”, as if we’ve lost our puppy and are making posters to wallpaper the neighborhood with.

If your head, you already know that talking about yourself (especially in list form) is B-O-R-I-N-G to MOTOS (Members Of The Opposite Sex) when you’re out on dates. Guess what? Nothing’s different in this context.

And who is going to be inspired by a generic list of bullet points when it comes to “who you’re looking for?”

Once you begin to see exactly why we tend to write such boring profiles, you can quickly determine the solution: Break the blasted rules.

That’s right, instead of blind obedience to the given format, why not try rephrasing the objective in a whole new way?

Instead of “About me”, try thinking of the concept as: “What sets me apart as especially attractive” or even, “Why you will be attracted to me”. I particularly like the second option because it’s positioned in the second person. When you have a particular person in mind whom you are addressing, the free-form section of your profile can’t help but improve.

And that goes double when it comes time to rephrase “Who I’m looking for”. Have a particular person in mind–even dare I say someone whose profile interests you quite a bit–and write to that person. Put “one-itis” phobia on the shelf for now and treat this as an objective exercise designed to get you results. Then, write to the thought of “What your life will be like after we meet”, or “What the person I’m wild about is really like.” Lookit, you can rest assured that the finished product in such case, when written out, will be more inspiring and hella more positive than a list of traits or “dos and don’ts”, right?

So that’s a simple but highly-effective strategy for combating “generic” profiles. Although somewhat obvious when you think about it, almost nobody deviates from “following directions”. Be a trail-blazer and watch your responses increase noticeably.

But what of the related issue about writing our narratives as if we’re composing a 6th grade theme-paper? I’ve got that issue covered in a way that will blow your socks off…next time.

Meanwhile, for over NINE HOURS of practical online dating strategy that can help you become more successful online than any other guy in your metro area (for real) be sure to check out Online Dating Domination. By the way, Emily’s new online dating program for women, called Click With Him, is coming very, very soon.

Be Good,

Scot