How Women Screen For Cuddle Pals

edited October 2017 in General

A cuddle friend was over recently and asked me how I screened guys on here who message me. I showed him a few recent messages I'd gotten and told him why I answered some and did not answer others. Since there are so many posts bemoaning that women don't answer messages, I thought I share some of my state secrets.

It's taken about two months for me to get established and known on this site. I'm now getting a pretty steady stream of messages from people I don't know, so I rarely need to search for cuddlers any more. Since I'm getting so many messages, I'm able to be more and more selective about who I respond to, and I really have to because it's starting to take up a lot of time. Here are a few recent messages to which I did not respond and why:

  1. A two-line rant about pros charging what he considers to be too much, and "I guess that's the cost of loneliness." (a) I'm not a pro, but I am a woman, so I'm going to have sympathy with the businesswomen and not some random guy writing me a bitter little message. (b) If you're writing me a bitter little message, that does not inspire me to want to cuddle you or even get to know you. The same is true if I've seen you post such a message on the forums. (c) What exactly do you expect me to do with that little piece of information which is really quite uncomplimentary about you?

  2. "Love to git u in my arms." I would prefer someone more literate to get me, thank you.

  3. "hey cuddle goddess lol" What exactly was the highest level of grade school you completed?

Ladies, kindly share your screening tips. It might help some of the nice guys on here to be more successful. Guys looking for tips: also see https://www.cuddlecomfort.com/forum/discussion/2353/how-to-approach-someone-as-a-potential-cuddle-buddy

So this doesn't turn into a wall of text, I'll share some of the messages I did respond to in another post.

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Comments

  • In my opinion a lot of men on social media dating sites and even a site like CC send messages to women that sound very similar to catcalling a woman on the streets. And in their minds they think that is enough to elicit a response from the women they message.
    I’ve seen it countless times on FB where a comment on a woman’s picture post is something like : hey, you look beautiful, call me! Or your lips are awesome, I’d like to kiss them.
    And a lot of the posts here on the cuddle request section are similar in wording : wanna cuddle tonight? Or New here, wanna cuddle? Send me a text Or Looking for cuddle buddy, girls only, message me now. As if the girls are gonna read this and their gonna trample over each other to be the lucky ones that get to cuddle with those wordsmiths. I doubt that many girls even visit the cuddle request section.
    So being able to articulate why you wanna cuddle it’s important to reach a potential cuddle buddy and it has to go beyond a two line come on.

  • edited October 2017

    @mellow Excellent points! Thanks so much for that very helpful post.

    Guys, keep in mind that often times, a first message asking for a cuddle -- especially when sent to a non pro -- comes across very much like we're immediately being pawed on a first date.

    It's almost as off-putting as being on a dating site and having a man message you for the first time with, "hey, wanna have sex?" It does not matter that eventually sex may be a component of the relationship you're both there for. It simply means you have no class, and you are too aggressive.

    This is particularly true if the female cuddler is new to this site. It doesn't matter that we're all here to find someone to cuddle with. Women can be scared off very easily with overly aggressive or suggestive first messages. Be nice, be polite, don't be too eager, try to get to know her first, have some class.

  • [Deleted User]Greybeard (deleted user)

    Unlike some men or women who knew from an early age that they were same-gender loving, it took me a very long time to figure out my sexuality. One clue was my inability to receive and read the signals if and when a woman was ready and receptive to moving to the next step in intimacy. I was getting second dates, but usually losing out somewhere between third and fifth date. Feed back from mutual friends would come back that the woman thought she was signallling a readiness to proceed to another level, and I didn’t recognize it and remained too restrained. The only women (so very few of them) with whom I reached a recognizable level of sexual intimacy were women who were aggressive in pursuing intimate sexual contact with me. Honest to gosh, I believe that there is a small minority (of which I am a member) who dont’ just get the coding wrong, but we are oblivious to the fact that there is any kind of indirect communication going on. Honestly, I’m not much better at this skill with other men. When somebody tells me they just want to cuddle, I take that as an honest description of expectations. (Now I’m ready to be jumped upon by those two or three members here who live to jump on men and blame them offenses yet to be performed)

  • edited October 2017

    @Greybeard Thanks so much for your input. I do understand what you're saying, as I tend to be one of the more aggressive types that you mentioned. Your post would be a great topic for a thread on its own. We are all here on CC, after all, to come together. There is so much friction and frustration on here between the sexes, that I would love to do anything that would help. Any conversations that lead to better understanding of each gender by the other are valuable.

    But this thread is more about first contact and first impressions and how to get the conversation rolling in the first place so a guy doesn't get cut out of the herd right away.

  • [Deleted User]onceperyear (deleted user)
    edited October 2017

    I don't like messages where the other person comments on my body in any way. Hair, eyes, lips, even that I look cuddly.

    I don't like pet names. I don't know you, so you don't get to call me baby, honey, sweetie, etc.

    I respond to messages that have 3-5 full, grammatically correct sentences. The user responds to something I wrote on my profile. They have at least one clear picture, and their profile is filled out.

  • @corgilove Thanks so much for your input!

    Guys, when a first message comments about a cuddler's appearance or contains pet names or terms of endearment, it's a red flag to some women. Comments such as corgi has mentioned have definite sexual overtones to some women, and they do not like it because this is supposed to be a site for platonic activity. Your best bet when messaging a woman for the first time is to be conservative. Be polite, be respectful, and do not be too familiar too quickly.

  • Screening men or women I would think could be apply the same.

    We are seeking some one on the same level of communication. So message how you will speak when meeting for real is for the best. I think the message stating people are not polite and have bad grammar is wrong... these people are from different culture. Respectfully it is better to try and understand them not force and tell them to change. The American English Langue is growing and living creature in it self... in lot of ways there is no right or wrong way.

    But back on point...

    It is best to screen by finding common interest or views to your own... or maybe they have interest or view that you like to learn about.

    Profile are like covers of books.... messages that are sent back and forth are the back page and reviews and hints of what the books about. Only by reading into person more do we get to know them.

    We are not just screening but also getting pen-pal to message back and forth with as we get to know them.

    Some one I am going to cuddle with I want deep understanding friendship with and even verging into best friend area of some one I can count on. Some one to open up to and feel trust with.

    Even more screening for me is how a person want to meet up for the first couple times. Public and with other people around will make me feel safe and chance to get to know this person with out risk. But if they wish to meet privet and alone... danger and red light and flags tend to go off in my mind. Even with being a male.

    Yet there is chance you may deal with very shy person that does not want to go near others... and it is understandable. I will let my self meet these people in privet cause very often it will be many many messages back and forth over more then a couple of months before these people will even meet.

  • edited October 2017

    @WilliamD Your first theory is flawed because women screen quite differently than men due to security issues and for many other reasons which they have stated in the previous posts, which you have not seemed to have grasped.

    Any message that a woman writes saying anyone has been impolite in messages to her cannot logically or reasonably be argued with. That is her experience and those are her perceptions. So you attempting to negate her experience is what is wrong. And this is exactly how some of the friction between men and women starts on this forum. The woman makes a statement based on her experience and preference, and a man comes along and tells her she's wrong or completely dismisses it. Her experience is neither right or wrong. It is what it is, and no amount of debate can change that.

    Women who screen based on communications and poor grammar are also not "wrong." You said yourself that you feel people seek the same level of communication. If a person cannot communicate well in English, which is the common language on this forum and the language that every woman who has posted here so far speaks, then they cannot ever communicate on the same level. She is therefore perfectly justified in rejecting someone for that reason. Or any other reason.

  • Huge red flag...... When within the first couple of messages they want you to text them or email them! 95% of the time it's because they want to discuss something that is not allowed on CC. I also hate "hey Babe, can you send me a full body picture"! The cuddle requests that stand out to me are the ones that are genuine. The ones that are honest. It's okay to say that you've never cuddled like this before. It's ok to say that you are scared or nervous. It's ok to take the time to get to know me before climbing into my bed to cuddle. It's okay to ask a million questions. Spelling and grammar doesn't matter to me as much as being respectful and kind.

  • @Scarlette Thank you for your input.

    Women do not like being asked for full-length photos because since this is a site for platonic cuddling, why should their bodies be so important? It immediately raises a concern that the sender is interested less in something platonic and more in something sexual.

  • This thread is funny.
    Just how desperate are these guys who are messaging you?
    Guys definitely screen differently. They care more about looks.
    To me a red flag is when women start mentioning gifts. Some of them want us to buy them stuff. It’s very offputting.

  • @itcrowdfan That you find this thread funny says a lot about you. Women are very aware that guys care more about looks.

  • edited October 2017

    @corgilove Would you consider stating your photo requirement in your profile? Something like "I will only respond to messages from users with pics." Otherwise, correspondents who otherwise meet all your requirements (but post no pics) might be mystified as to why their thoughtful commentary on your profile gets ignored. I've made a tactical decision to post no pics here, though my profile states that I'm happy to send pics to any potential cuddle buddies after we've talked a bit and are contemplating meeting.

    @BlueIris Good points, cogently stated. Guys who put sexual overtones into a message on a site devoted to platonic cuddling are shooting themselves in the foot, as are guys who write "textlish" instead of English. Still, I would add the following caveat: Based on my own experiences, the majority of outgoing messages a guy sends will be ignored, no matter how conservative, polite, respectful, and grammatically correct said messages are. That's not a slam at those who don't answer. It's just the pitiless mathematics of the Internet. ;-)

    Most of the many threads on this topic are about assigning blame. [@BlueIris, I note this thread you started has a more "this may help you" feel, which I appreciate.] Men generally complain that the unresponsive women strike them as rude and lacking empathy. Women generally complain that the offended men are approaching them like Neanderthals. And those complaints are not mutually exclusive; both can be true at the same time in a given case. But I'm convinced that most of the time, neither of those things is the main thing. It's just the law of large numbers at work. So guys, if you're doing something most women find off-putting, please stop. But even if you are not, know that time and broad outreach may be the only solution to the problem of being ignored.

  • Very Insightful thread.

  • Yeah, this is a great read. Thanks, BlueIris, for starting it. I have found that posts giving this sort of advice and feedback are extremely helpful. After reading a recent post, I realized that I had really been lazy on my profile and went back and was much more thoughtful about it. I would be interested in seeing examples of posts that you found compelling enough to respond to.

  • @quietman775 Having corresponded with you for several weeks, I'm astonished to discover that you've had as little success as you've had. I wish I knew the reason why. Unfortunately, none of the women who have ignored a thoughtful reply have made an appearance on this thread. Thanks for your input. It's helpful in shedding light on why so many guys are so frustrated.

    @wedgewood I'm glad this thread has been helpful to you. I plan on starting a new thread once this once has run its course giving examples of messages that I have responded to.

  • [Deleted User]Elle7 (deleted user)

    Hi. If the person seems to hint at more than cuddling, then I no longer reply to their messages. Ill ask them why they like to cuddle or want a cuddle buddy. I will also talk to them more personally via my cell phone. That is how I screen potential cuddlers.

  • [Deleted User]chococuddles (deleted user)

    I'm very slow to give out my cell number on cc or dating sites - I even make it known that I go super slow (too slow for some). I enjoy a good chat and good energy and don't like to rush. If a woman tosses me her # quickly or I see "spoil", "gentleman" or anything that feels fast-tracked I'm outtie.

    Everyone has their own comfort level of progression and personal red flags but it seems everyone in the thread knows what's up.

    golf clap

  • [Deleted User]moonshadow (deleted user)

    The behavior of men and women on cuddle sites is essentially the same as dating sites. Men tend to be more assertive with initiating conversations, while women typically have a much larger volume of messages to sift through, and can be highly selective with their responses. Men screen women based primarily on overall attractiveness, while women use that plus a variety of other criteria to whittle down their long list of suitors.

    I don't see any problem with men or women screening based on attractiveness and physical characteristics, including body mass. It's not shallow; it's a matter of practicality. Who wants to spend hours cuddling with someone they find unpleasant? Personally, it's not at all enjoyable to cuddle with someone who outweighs me, so I screen out the large women.

  • [Deleted User]Greybeard (deleted user)

    @chococuddles
    Cell numbers are a flag for me. Women, especially, are understandably hesitant to give out a number. So when they ask for cell right away, I immediately suspect some kind of fraud. It’s just like the ones who want you to write at their g-mail or other independent account right away instead of communicating through the site. I figure they expect to get bounced from the site any minute or they are collecting email addresses to sell. Unless the other person’s genuine identity is established through a history with the site, or you exchange enough on-the-site messages to feel safe, I just wouldn’t do it! I already get too many junk calls and spam email, I don’t need to volunteer for more.

  • I think this is a great thread and good to follow these tips if your contacting anyone on the site including pros :) we like to know who we are meeting too!:)

  • I use a messaging app that doesn't use my real number. It's less cumbersome then trying to use the message box on the site, but still protects me. I'm not as picky about physical looks or age, I'm looking for more of a mental connection. I want someone I can talk to like a friend. And I agree that when someone jumps right to the physical its a red flag.

  • [Deleted User]SexyBrit (deleted user)

    @waywardchild80
    What app do you use?

  • I ran across this TED Talk a few days ago and found it interesting. It is about how to get the most from dating sites (and is aimed at women rather than men) but gives a nice glimpse into both sides of the process of meeting people online.

    I particularly liked his breakdown of how so many men have come to the point of sending out the meaningless messages that fill women's inboxes. Carrying the burden of responsibility for initiating contact, making it engaging, and making it feel safe is very difficult when we are given little to no information to work with. Most women's profiles that I've seen here have nothing or almost nothing about them. That makes it very hard to figure out how to approach them. For example, is it any wonder that men comment on how they look when their picture is the only thing there? Or does that mean they just want a message with a picture of us and nothing else? How are we supposed to know what engages or interests you if you don't tell us? Asking questions right away seems to be a no-no. It's also extremely difficult to learn what went wrong when someone simply ceases communication or never responds to begin with.

    I think I have fallen more towards the side of being too open and coming off as needy or clingy. Part of this is because I used to be desperately needy due to a lack of positive social interactions, but now it is because I feel so little fear of people that I tend to be more open than anyone expects. I've begun to accept myself the way I am, and that comes with a loss of fear of judgement from other people, which in turn makes me less vulnerable to negative feedback despite being far more open about my heart and what I've been through. I easily open up right away and am happy when others do, too, so I find it difficult to know what other people feel to be too much sharing or too much interest. I think I've started to figure out where the middle ground is (more than 3 sentence and no more than 4 paragraphs), but there are even more complications to it such as what kinds of things to share and how to ask questions that don't put people off. It'll take a lot more experimentation for me to really get it figured out (as much as it's even possible to figure out such a nuanced, variable target.)

    The whole process is even more difficult for people like me who have almost no social instinct. All of my social skills are learned and exercised intellectually. I basically observe my own interactions and interactions of people around me to build a mental database of things that mean certain things or are appropriate/inappropriate in certain situations with certain criteria. I then reference that database in future interactions or make extrapolations from it to try to figure out how to deal with situations I've not experience or observed. And most of what I have to learn from as far as personal experience goes is failed interactions, meaning I have to try to deduce from a lack of interaction what caused the failure and how to interact more successfully in the future. It took a long time for me to figure out that one of the potential modes of failure was incoming rather than outgoing communications. Sometimes people stop communicating or respond negatively because of their own problems or life situations, and reading too much into those failures can lead me to make flawed adjustments to future interactions because they're based on flawed deductions. All of this lopsided feedback leads to a bias towards failure rather than away from it.

    Even the video I linked above doesn't tell me anything about how to communicate better as a man; it just says "don't do this or that" and "write better" which is just more negative feedback. "Write better" doesn't mean anything without specifics. It's like gamers saying "git gud" without any tips on what skills to hone or how to focus on them. Thank you for this thread as a attempt to try to give us some way to learn how and what to improve. Though there is still a lot of negative feedback here about what not to do, there is also some positive mixed in about what works. These little nuggets of how to do things right can make a lot of difference in turning around the failure bias of people who don't have any other successes to learn from.

    Note: My uses of "negative" and "positive" in this post are entirely scientific in meaning rather than emotional. They're not "bad" and "good." Rather, they mean "this caused failure" and "this caused success." Information gained from failure is negative, and information gained from success is positive. Neither is better than the other, but negatives are far more common, while both are necessary for meaningful and accurate deductions.

  • @sexybrit It's called text now. You can calk and text on it and it assigns you a phone number.

  • edited October 2017

    Five days I got a "hi how are you" message, which is one I'm not usually inspired to reply to. A little more effort than that is generally required to get me to reply. I checked his profile. Three lines, no photo. This was a thoroughly unimpressive profile. But he was single, conveniently located and a software engineer. (I do not reject based on marital status, but single guys are often more available than married ones so for me this is a plus.) That last bit at least let me know he was going to be intelligent. I'd just had several guys who said they wanted to meet me not follow up, so I was sufficiently annoyed with that to investigate Mr. No Information a little more. I needed cuddles!! But because his profile was worthless, I was going to require that he make the effort he should have made in the first place.

    I wrote back, asked him to send a picture, asked him to tell me a little about himself and why should I cuddle with him, since his profile had no info. On the next message he had completed one task only. I asked him to do the rest. He did, and he gave me just enough information that I determined we'd have something to talk about if we met in person. Since he lived so close by, I decided to dispense with a video chat, which I almost always do before an in-person meet. It's usually best to do it to see whether the person is tongue tied or not. But I took a chance.

    We met for dinner (his choice). Conversation flowed easily, we made a good connection and had a nice time. And because he had an easygoing and charming manner about him, I felt comfortable enough with him that we cuddled the same evening!! And it was great!! Time from the first message to in-person meet was five days. That's a record for me.

    The takeaway: Guys, if you put in little to no effort on your profile or first message, you're going to have a much harder time getting a response. Mr. No Information still hasn't beefed up his profile, even though I gave him that tip when we met in person. However, he now has one good karma that I left him, so that's in his favor.

    Gals, sometimes it's worth looking past a bland first message and a nearly empty profile and investigating a little. You may find a diamond you would have otherwise overlooked.

  • I see several posts indicating giving phone # or eddress as a red flag. I am more comfortable communicating via text or email than onsite, but I understand a woman's reluctance to do that right away. However, I know some women are comfortable with it, so my solution is to give my contact info, saying that is my preferred method to communicate, but can certainly communicate onsite, if that is their preference. Would this be considered a red flag to anyone?
    <3 Jim

  • @I_am_Polylover From my experience on dating sites, this can be a red flag to some. Often it's the scammers who try to quickly move communications from the website to private emails or texting. Texting, also, as a means to get to know someone at the beginning is a pretty poor way of communicating, when you are trying to convey a lot of info at first. I would suggest having at least a few messages onsite first before suggesting that communications be moved to another venue so as not to alarm someone.

  • [Deleted User]Frankincense (deleted user)

    @BlueIris I think your reply to WilliamD was unnecessarily harsh. His comment comes across to me as someone calmly explaining their point of view, and there are hints in his writing that suggest English is not his native language. But your comment back to him comes across as harsh and bitter, as if you could have just summarised it to "oh you're just a man, what the hell do you know!"

    You wrote "Any message that a woman writes saying anyone has been impolite in messages to her cannot logically or reasonably be argued with."
    Really? So a woman's opinion of someone's message is the only valid one? WilliamD raised a perfectly valid point that those seemingly "impolite" messages may not be impolite at all but that language issues or cultural differences may be the cause of the misunderstanding. What makes a message impolite is the intent of the sender, not the assumptions and misunderstandings of the receiver.

    You were also unnecessarily unkind in your reply to itcrowdfan. Did it ever occur to you that what he found funny in this thread was not you or your thread idea, but the examples of terrible messages that desperate men are sending to women here? I thought that was kind of signalled by his inclusion of "Just how desperate are these guys who are messaging you?" immediately after saying "This thread is funny."

    You wrote "That you find this thread funny says a lot about you."
    Well I'm not sure just how much you learned about itcrowdfan from your assumptions about his post, but those two posts of yours sadly don't come across well.

  • [Deleted User]onceperyear (deleted user)
    edited October 2017

    @quietman775 I did state my preferences (on my profile) for how I'd like to be contacted. And surprisingly I still got tons of low effort, copy-paste, and/or creepy messages. I'm pretty sure the people who send those messages aren't reading my profile anyway.

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