Hi all,

I have been doing some online dating lately and have made some remarkable abservations.

I am registered on two sites. On one I say I am a PhD student and lecturer (the honest approach) and on another I don't (being creative with the truth).

I get about 300% plus more responses to the non-PhD profile page than I do to the other one. It's a very dramatic difference and I find it quite disheartening.

Why do you think men dis-like qualified women so much, and isn't it sad that we have to lie about this?

Hey Eska!

I actually found my fiance on an online dating site that my friend signed me up to as a joke! My fiance was the third person I dated from the dating site. On my profile I put down that I was a researcher, and left out the PhD bit, although I 'came clean' with the people I actually met up with. To be honest, I'm not sure whether it's the 'female and doing PhD' bit or just the 'doing PhD' bit in general! Let's face it- especially for people who don't know a lot about the uni system there is a general stereotype that all PhD students are geeks. I totally love Big Bang Theory, but it doesn't really help our image! One of my dates didn't know what a PhD was but the other worked at the same uni as a member of staff, although he had not done a PhD himself. With the guy at the same uni, and with my fiance actually, there were a lot of the 'well, I could have done a PhD if I wanted to' sort of comments. Maybe they could have done, but it is interesting that they felt the need to make that clear to me!

Maybe it is a male/female thing, perhaps related to the rather out-of-date notion that men should be the main bread-winners etc, and the thought of going out with someone more qualified threatens that. Although I really don't care, it does bother my fiance a bit that in the new job I will be earning more than double what he does. He was really embarrassed at the estate agents just the other day when I said I'd be putting down the deposit and the rent money would be coming out of my account. But then again, I owuld have felt the same anyway if it was the other way round. Of course, I may be unemployed and struggling a year down the line anyway whilst he progresses- who knows!

Anyway, best of luck with the dating! I never thought I'd be an online dating success story, but there are a lot out there lol!
Best, KB

======= Date Modified 07 Sep 2011 08:26:59 =======
From a male perspective, I don't know if it is a gender oriented thing to be honest (i.e. male bread winners). The letters PhD are held in awe but are feared at the same time. I think potential interest make be driven away regardless of sex by the letters PhD as either people see you as some sort of egghead (no one liked the swats at school) or someone they can't measure up to.

I have to re-enter the dating game myself sometime and to reverse the situation, as much as I don't want it to be my postgrad / PhD background will end up influencing who I take an interest in. As bad as it sounds, you have to be able to relate to the person you're in a relationship with. :$

It's not too dissimilar to the job hunting issues many of us have.

Thank you KB and McBeefy. What you say makes perfect sense - it's an egg head thing, not a gender one. And now you mention it, I can remember feeling a bit like that as an undergrad.

XXX

I am a member of the online dating world as well... it can be rather soul-destroying but it has worked a few times, nothing really special though. I am honest about the fact I am doing a PhD and teaching and they seem to be rather impressed, generally because I am reasonably young (23). It often gets asked about when they send a first message; I am always put off if they send a generic first message because it looks like something they say to every girl rather than actually reading a profile properly.

But I think the intimidation factor does come into it as well, although I usually end up dating older guys (30+) who are generally more successful than I am, so then I am the one feeling intimidated. I have the other issue of being rather hard-up, so I am always concerned that they see me as a gold-digger.

The interesting difference in responses I have observed is due to whether I use a photo where I am wearing my hair extensions or not! Naturally my hair is just below my shoulders but they love my Kate Middleton style extensions!

Good luck with it! xxx