The Art Of Screening: How To Avoid Meeting Lame Women Online

Ellie210 posted an interesting question over on the mASF forums about how to avoid going out on dates with women you meet online who end up being lame (not ugly, mind you, just girls who aren’t fun to date).  His question goes something like this…

ellie210 writes:

How to avoid lame chicks online

I get quite a handful of dates from online dating, in fact it’s my main source of recruiting new women. But holy fuck, a huge majority of these women are fucking lame. I’m not even talking about looks or how hot a woman is (I’m pretty impartial to looks, as long as she’s not a warpig). I’m talking about lame chicks who you can’t even have a conversation with for more than 5 minutes.

I know some of you guys just pitch the date off the site. What I do is get the girl’s number and I give her a call to pitch a day and time. But I also call to screen out lame chicks, if I end up carrying most of the conversation.

Do you guys get dates with women who turn out to be lame? Or do you always get dates with cool, awesome women?

Speaking as a guy who does a lot of online dating (and I mean A LOT), I can safely say that the way to avoid most “lame chicks” is to properly screen them BEFORE you meet up.

What do I mean by this?

Well, its a pretty simple process of making sure this is the type of girl you want to meet BEFORE setting up some type of date.  I’ve had lots of situations occur where I met a girl online who was pretty attractive according to her pictures, but the moment I got her on the phone, it became painfully obvious that there was a reason this girl was single.

Now, keep in mind that some guys are out there just to bang anything that has a pulse, and there’s nothing wrong with that (you know, as long as they’re not rapists or something).  To these guys, as long as the girl meets their standards for attraction, they don’t really care about screening them.  But me, I prefer to meet up with girls who are fun, interesting, intelligent, and can string more than 3 words together.  So for me, screening them becomes a MUST.

But keep in mind that you don’t only screen for personality, you screen for danger signs too.  I once met a girl online who seemed great, but during the screening process I discovered she had severe mental issues (as in, she started getting way too attached way too fast and started threatening to kill herself if I didn’t marry her).  Had I actually met up with this girl, there’s no telling what kind of train wreck might have ensued, but because I screen the people I meet online first, I was able to weed her out before such a thing happened.

Now, the screening process for online dating isn’t all that complicated.  Basically, you want to do what Ellie210 said he does, which is GET THEM ON THE PHONE.

What I’ll normally do is text the girl after getting her number, and carry on the conversation I started off email on the website.  After a round of chatting over text message, I’ll call her up and talk for a half-hour or so.  If I get a bad vibe, I won’t suggest we meet up quite yet, but I’ll end the call by saying I’ll text her later.  This way, I can keep screening her without committing to anything yet.  (Some girls take a bit of time to screen properly)

If things on the first phone call go well, and I get a good vibe from it – like we have a good conversation, the girl’s funny, etc. – I’ll set up a meeting right there, but I’ll set up a meeting for a few days later, like maybe 3-4 days into the future.  This way, I can do a bit more screening through texting before meeting up.  If any warning signs appear before the meet, I can always cancel.

So screening is just really talking to a girl as much as possible before meeting up to find out if you’re compatible.  It can be a lot of fun when you find the right girls, and help you weed out the girls who aren’t for you rather quickly.  Keep in mind – some girls aren’t big on texting, and some girls aren’t great on the phone.  You gotta use your gut to know what’s gonna work and what isn’t.  My current gf isn’t that great on the telephone because she has an accent and she’s kinda hard to understand when she’s on the phone.  But, she’s very responsive over texting.  If I can get a good text session from a girl, but she’s not so hot on the phone, I’ll still meet up with her, because the possibility for rapport is there, it might just need to be nurtured a bit more.  Me and my gf have good conversations and stuff when we go out, even though talking to her on the phone is typically a chore.  So the interpersonal aspect of creating and building rapport is important when you’re face-to-face with a girl.

But if a girl is bad with texting you, and bad with talking to you on the phone, then chances are she’ll be a dud on the meet-up.  If you’re only out to hook up, then that might not matter.  But if you require stimulating conversation and good, strong rapport with a girl, then that’s a warning sign she’ll probably be lame.