Like other Love Systems products, The Gentlemen's Guide To Online Dating is a really professional and practical resource. Written by Cajun, it covers the topics of how to meet women via online dating sites, how to use social networking sites such as Facebook for dating, how to use the phone to get girls to meet up with you, and how to have fun, exciting dates that have a high chance of ending in sex.
Cajun makes it clear early in the book that online dating should not be used as a substitute for going out and meeting women in the real world. Instead, it should be used to complement the other areas of your life in which you meet women.
While there are many dating sites out there, the main one that is used as an example in this book is Plenty Of Fish. It's free to use and is generally regarded as the biggest online dating site in the world. The same principles discussed in the book still apply for other sites, but you might have to make a few minor adjustments depending on the demographics and functions of other sites.
Setting Up Your Profile
If you want to have any success at online dating, the most important part is setting up an attractive profile. Cajun points out that the biggest mistake you can make is to take the whole thing too seriously, as it will turn women off if they suspect you are only on the site because you can't meet women in real life. To counter this, you should be using a lot of humour and your profile should show plenty of personality.
The first thing girls are generally going to look at on your profile are your pictures, so this is covered in depth in the book. There is a lot of advice on what to do to take the best quality pictures you can, which while it has some important points to consider, is probably overkill for most people. For example, using professional cameras and worrying about light filters and different lenses is going to require a lot of effort for the average person. If you want to go this route, that's fine, but most people will already have at least a few photos that will be good enough to use.
Cajun also suggests that you use a variety of different photos that reflect who you are. So it's a good idea to include photos of you doing things you are passionate about, with other people, or doing something that shows your attractive traits.
This is good advice, as it's important to make sure you stand out from all the other guys that are messaging women. If you have generic looking photos of you just standing in front of the mirror, there is nothing there to capture her attention on show her who you are. Instead, try and post photos that give her an insight into your life and let her imagine what it might be like if she were dating you.
Talking About Yourself
After checking out your photos, the next thing women will look at is what you choose to write about yourself. Depending on which site you use, there will be different questions to answer or prompts designed to guide you on what sort of things you should include.
The advice that Cajun gives on this particular aspect of online dating is among the best I have come across. He's really big on showing you how to convey attractive traits without looking like you are trying to brag or impress. This is something that the Love Systems company has really perfected, and it's a really crucial skill to know how to do.
Where a lot of guys go wrong in online dating is trying too hard to display their most attractive characteristics, and ultimately turn women off. This book shows you how to take even the most boring or dorkiest interests you have and talk about them in a way that makes them appear attractive. When you learn how to do this, you'll be able to use it when talking to girls face to face and not simply online.
The other big thing that the book covers in this section is how to include humour in your profile. Cajun gives specific examples from his own dating profile of things he says that make it obvious he is not taking online dating too seriously.
This is important, as if a woman reads your profile and doesn't laugh at all, she'll likely assume you won't be able to make her laugh in person. So if your profile is boring, in her mind you must be a boring person. Your chances of getting a date from this point on are practically non-existent. This book does a great job of ensuring you never get into this position.
A caveat worth mentioning is that the idea of not taking online dating too seriously, is that it is more of a tactic to use for younger, attractive girls. These girls are normally very social and have a lot of options, so you want to communicate you are the same.
If you're interested in women who are older and have fewer options, chances are they don't have the same level of confidence as younger women. They might be on the site because they struggle to meet single guys in real life, and therefore they are taking online dating more seriously and looking for a man who is in the same boat as they are. If your profile is too flippant and nonchalant, you run the risk of scaring them off. So if you're looking more for a serious relationship, you might want to tone down the indifference and cockiness a tad.
Sending Messages
You can have the most amazing photos and a clever and witty profile set up, but chances are you're still going to have to initiate the conversation. Just like in real life, attractive women are not starved of options online. It's not uncommon for women to get dozens, even hundreds, of messages a day on free sites like Plenty Of Fish. As a result, women often won't have the time or the need to peruse profiles and send the first message.
There are some examples here in the book of what to send for your first message. The idea is to be original and evoke an emotional reaction. Some of the examples are not things I would send myself, because it doesn't fit with my personality. I'd recommend you learn the principles here and why certain messages work to get a response, and then construct your own. There's also a bonus booklet included with the program that has even more examples of opening messages.
There's also examples of how to respond to the messages that you get, especially when women start testing you. One of Cajun's strengths is his cocky and playful attitude, and there are some great examples of it on display here. You'll see what kind of messages you should be sending to keep things fun and interesting and headed in the direction of a date.
Social Networking Sites
There's about 15 pages here devoted to social networking sites, mainly Facebook. I found this whole section less relevant, only because I am not a big user of Facebook. If it's something you use a lot then the information will probably be more worthwhile to you.
Basically there are two ways in which you would use Facebook for dating. The first way is you meet girls on dating sites, and then add them to Facebook as a way of making things more personal. The second way is you message girls directly on Facebook that you don't know but would like to talk to.
Cajun says that the second option is a bit of a long shot, but gives you tips on how to try to do this anyway. Some of the ideas are quite in-depth and time consuming and personally I wouldn't have the patience to try and do this. But if it's something you're determined to try then the tactics here are quite good.
The other ideas discussed here are more general and about how to set up your Facebook page to make you appear as attractive to women as possible. This includes your photos, your friends, your posts, and the posts others write on your wall.
I agree with pretty much everything he includes here, although it's not something I've delved into myself. I would say the more you are meeting younger women, the more useful this section is going to be. But using Facebook to meet up with women you meet on online dating sites is not a necessity, and you can do just fine without it.
Phone Game
Before you meet up with any women from dating sites, you're going to need to speak to them on the phone or text with them first. There is a chapter in the book devoted to this, written by another Love Systems instructor, Tenmagnet.
He references a Love Systems philosophy known as the Love Systems triad. While it's not essential to have a grasp of this to understand the content here, if you are interested in learning more about this, check out our review of their flagship product, Magic Bullets.
The main idea here with phone game is to build comfort so that the girl won't feel awkward about meeting up with you. Tenmagnet shares a few examples of things he'll say on the phone to make the girl feel more comfortable, such as a simple story about what he did that day. It's a good illustration of how you can take something quite mundane and talk about it in a way that makes it more interesting to women.
There is also advice on how often you should call a girl, depending on different circumstances. It's also suggested not to try and arrange a meeting on the first call, but the second. Unfortunately, the chapter just ends with saying you should arrange a meeting on the second call, but doesn't give actual advice on the best way to do this. This was pretty disappointing that it wasn't covered, as it's an area that a lot of guys can struggle with.
There is also a bonus chapter by Keychain, another Love Systems instructor. It's a really quick overview of online dating and gives a couple of examples of messages he sends.
To be honest, this chapter was so thin that there is little to no value in it. A couple of his personal preferences are in contradiction to Cajun, which just shows there is different ways to achieve the same result depending on your personality. Nothing was covered in any detail in this chapter, so I'm not really sure what the point of it was.
The Question Game
Something that is hyped up a little bit in this book is a routine known as the 'question game'. This has been talked about before by other well known dating instructors, such as Mystery, but is covered in a lot of depth here.
In essence, it just involves asking a girl a series of questions that get progressively more sexual, under the guise that you are just playing a game. It's a sort of under the radar approach to get into sexual conversations that are designed to arouse the girl and help lead things to sex.
In the book, Cajun says he has experimented with a variety of questions and tested it to the point where he has the perfect order in which to ask certain questions. The end result, he claims, is that it leads to sex at the end of the date about 80% of the time.
He also says that you could just use this routine on first dates for the rest of your life and never have to worry about thinking of things to say. While you can certainly play around with this game and try it out, I'd advise not to become overly reliant on a single routine such as this one when on dates. Ultimately you want to develop your skills to the point where you can have fun, interesting and sexual conversations out on dates without having to use any gimmicks to do so. But if it helps you feel comfortable in the beginning, it's certainly worth giving it a try.
Cajun's Real Life Examples
The most valuable part of the book is probably where Cajun shows you his own personal dating profile, word for word, as well as message logs of him chatting with women online that led to dates or sex.
He goes into detail about why he chose to write certain things on his profile and why it is important. Obviously the idea is not for you to copy this verbatim, but to apply these concepts when constructing your own profile.
The chat logs that are included are a great example of the type of conversations that create attraction and sexual tension. There's half a dozen included, most fairly long, so you get plenty of examples of actual things to chat about online. Most of the examples end with Cajun and the girl meeting up that night with the sole intent to have sex. These examples are a great demonstration of the type of attitude you should be trying to develop when talking to women face to face also.
There's also a list of bullet points at the end of the book, which are some quick tips that Cajun has learned after years of online dating. There's good advice here, as well as in the Afterword section, which contains some solid advice for improving your dating and social life in general.
