Window Shopping for Women

Window Shopping for Woman is an ebook describing a method suitable for meeting girls online on social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook.

I have experimented in the past with Style's online method that he had posted on Cliff's List, and had gotten some good results on dating oriented sites, but I had miserable results on social networking sites where women are not explicitly looking for a new boyfriend.

What I like about the book is that is that it tries to give a bigger picture, which is probably especially useful for people that are just getting into online dating. The authors touch lightly on the subject of self-improvement, from lifestyle to beliefs, and touch the basics in each area. They refer the reader to other books for a deeper understanding.

A big part of the book is dealing with designing an attractive profile which is doing most of the attraction work. This was a new idea to me, as so far, I had hidden my profile on dating websites and simply emailed the chicks I liked, with the email doing all the work. The authors explain what to put in a profile, what characteristics to demonstrate and how to demonstrate them without going over the top. They also have a neat little trick to get some social proof (crucial!)

The method is simple, but seems to work: have a cool profile, email chicks to get a conversation started, escalate, take the conversation off line (phone/text,) then have a first meeting. The book describes each step, and gives one example of an email conversation from start to finish. It also includes some tips for the meet up and how to stay congruent with the identity projected online. What I think is particularly cool about the method is that it allows sending emails without customization in the beginning stages, i.e. it's purely copy-and-paste, and not very time intensive. The book itself contains a few snippets that can be copy-pasted into emails, but the authors stress that it's better to get the attitude and banter down instead of relying on copying lines word for word.

One thing to keep in mind with online dating is that it is a numbers game (which is acknowledged in the book.) For example, I am in my mid thirties now and try to get with girls in their early twenties; I had to send out quite a few emails to get some responses. I loose quite a few prospects on the way to meeting up, but maybe I'll figure out a tweak around that problem.

What would be very helpful is a few more guidelines on when to escalate the conversation. Here they are a bit short, and write that calibration comes with experience; maybe a few additional email conversations from start to finish could help. Also, a few more examples for profile design would have been helpful; the authors had previously published their profile with explanations for why they did what they did on their blog, but this detailed description did not make it into the ebook.

The ebook has 125 pages and is a PDF that can be printed or read on any computer platform. The only thing that I thought was a bit silly was the non-disclosure agreement, which asks people to only discuss the methods taught in the book with other book-owners.

Overall worth the money if you are looking into online dating and life in areas where social networking websites are more prominent and target-rich than traditional online dating websites (think college towns or large cities.)

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