Am I on a dating site?
June 12th, 2009 | 
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When you start approaching people online, you have to be aware that not all social networks are dating sites. This means, that even though the site might look like a dating site, it might have similar functions, it still may not be one. Now that social networking has become more of a norm, I suppose misplaced dating requests have gotten fewer (active daters, can you confirm?), but I doubt that it had stopped completely.
Pen pal sites, Social Networking sites, Business networking sites etc: They are not dating sites, and you should not assume that all women there want to be married to a man from Ghana. Do not disturb people who are not looking for love there, even if they were single. I know it is sometimes hard to understand why people would use a social site and still be annoyed for someone contacting them, but you just have to agree to disagree.
If you are on a strictly dating site, the type that has happy couples in the front, uses phrases like “dating site” (dead giveaway) “romance”, “love” and the sort, you are safe to assume that people there are looking for love. Regardless, they are not looking for just any kind of love:
Read their profile
To find out what the person is there for, read the profile! It’s that simple, always read the profile before contacting anyone. That is just common courtesy and wise. It gives you an competitive edge too, because a lot of people don’t read profiles. Pick something that you find interesting about it, and when you write the first message, mention that interesting thing, so the receiver knows you went through the trouble and you’re not just speeding through a bunch of pretty/handsome people.
“But that takes time and she/he still won’t reply, I know!”
If that’s what you’re saying, you’ve already lost. The best you can expect to get from this, is someone who is VERY DESPERATE to meet someone. People want to feel special, especially when it comes to the matters of love. If you send random messages to random people, you will give them the impression that you don’t care at all who’s going to reply to you as long as someone does, and that makes you seem desperate and thus undesirable.
You wouldn’t (hopefully) try to pick up every member of the opposite sex at a Entrepeneur’s Conference, so make sure you know why everyone has come to this place. Sure enough, there will be someone wishing for a fling at the conference as well, just as there will be at a normal social networking site, but you’ll have to know who the people are and how to approach them. Online it’s just that much easier: RTFP (Read the Fucking Profile.)
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This is so important to know when on a networking/dating site.
I cannot tell you how many men come off as desperate or are rude to women and then expect her to fall for them from one message…when it is obvious they are not suitable and have not read your profile.
Or don't see that you are not on Myspace for dating…just to make friends and network.
They just see a face that stirs their loins and fire off a misguided message without reading the profile of the woman.
I know there are women out there who are the same but, being a woman…I have only experienced the men doing this.
Before I got married I hung out on a social networking site with a strong dating side to it. A guy complained on the discussion board, that even though he has sent an email to every girl he can find on the site, nobody replies. He was genuinely upset and bewildered by it, and I know he had done a good job sending those emails, because I remembered getting two! Then all the girls told him that of course they can tell if the email was sent to them or not, and as it wasn't there was no reason to reply to it, because he wouldn't remember who didn't answer. I don't think even they guessed that NOBODY would.
Just imagine how desperate you have to be to do that? The sad thing is, he wasn't ugly or blatantly undesirable, but his approach was just completely wrong, even though in his case he was in the right place to do dating.
I have to confess that I tried to use Facebook as dating site, and I can tell you that it doesn’t work!
Didn’t work for me at least
Facebook has applications you can add for dating purposes, but trying to use it as one as it is will almost certainly fail. Facebook has one of the worst setups and cultures for dating as it is generally indented for real friends and colleagues to connect on, and everyone uses their real names. They would also have to date (and risk getting turned down) in front of their friends and colleagues. There is only one site that will be even harder to date on; LinkdIn. I suppose you would easily get banned there for trying to use it as a dating site. :p Of general social networking sites I’ve heard people have some success on MySpace, but there the rule “read the profile” is very super duper important.