Online dating at first sounds like the coolest thing ever. See a woman's picture you like, email her, and have her show up for a date the next day. Unfortunately, for most men, they're stuck either communicating with imaginary femme-bots or sending lengthly emails to non-members who can't read what they're spending so much time to write. Luckily, there is a way to find the right online service that will actually be a source of 3-5 dates a week for you.

The first thing you should figure out is if you can communicate with non-paying members. Most online dating services let you create a free profile which is worthless for anything but making the service look more popular than it is. People with free profiles usually can't receive any messages or send any, so they're merely decoys that waste your time and effort. Some services will not even tell the non-paying member you wrote in the first place.

To avoid this problem, join a service that allows instant messaging with non-paying members. I know JDate and American Singles allows this. You'll find yourself gradually moving to only instant messaging women, once you see how efficient and easy this is.

The next thing to find out is how inundated women are with emails on the dating site. Women I know often get hundreds of emails a day they don't even open. How are you going to get noticed with that level of competition? "Limited matching" is the way to go, if you want to fight through the competition. Eharmony, for example, only has three to six men a day message a woman, on average. Because of this, a woman will do more than just look at your picture to see if she wants to read your email.

Finally, pick a service that allows you to show interest in a member without having to send an email or instant message. Some places have you "send a drink," or "wink," or "poke." If you can do that to a number of women, often, some will write YOU back if they're interested, and you'll know they're paying members who can email. This cuts a lot of wasted time out.

No matter how hard you look, some clever sales copy and fake hot female members can get you stuck in a service that you didn't really want. To prevent this, only sign up for one month at a time, even if they're offering a 40% discount to get six months. The one exception is if they offer you multiple months for the price of one month. Eharmony does this sometimes. Never pay more than one typical month's worth at a time.

Once you have your dating site picked, you can start messaging girls and shoot for three to five dates a week. I haven't given you all the information on how to do that yet, but I will get it available as soon as I can. Until then, stick to instant messages, have fun, and be safe.