Let’s face it – dating can be an expensive business for a guy. There are so many things you have to worry about paying for, things like gas, dinner, gifts, parking, and a bunch of other stuff just to attempt to learn if the girl really loves you or not.

And if you are attempting to meet women, the prospect isn’t all that much better. You’ll have to pay money for going out to bars and clubs (things like cover charges can be expensive!), purchasing drinks, paying for parking, and all kinds of other expenses related to going out to “pick up chicks.”

But if you decide to try and stay home and do online dating, your outlook isn’t much more encouraging. A lot of dating websites nowadays charge a lot of money every month to have you use their website. And you know what? There’s not even a guarantee you’ll find someone after paying all that dough!

I know some men who have spent upwards of $100 bucks joining assorted web dating sites only to have every e-mail they sent out go UNANSWERED.

As I am sure you can imagine, they were not happy!

But here’s the thing – you don’t have to spend a ANY money at all on online dating sites if you don’t want to! There are a great deal of free options for men who need to save some cash but still want to meet women on the internet.

Here are my favorite methods to meet women online for free:

1. Plenty of Fish – this is one of the best, and most active, free web dating sites out there. You can sign up and be flirting over email in seconds. Because this site is so well liked, it can be hard to get attention from girls because of the amount of competition on there. Spend some time networking on the forum and be conscious of events going on close to you for a chance to mingle.

2. Facebook – Facebook is quickly becoming one of the highest trafficed web sites in the world, and for anybody familiar with this ever-growing social network, you’ll know there are a MULTITUDE of women on here! The hard part is actually MEETING them.

Luckily, there are a number of groups on Facebook made to help singles meet each other. Just search Facebook’s groups for dating and see what’s in you are area. When you find a good club, join it and start contacting members and posting on the forums.

3. MySpace – MySpace isn’t as popular as it once was, but it’s still good for one thing – dating hot chicks! Yes, there are still a huge number of attractive young women on this website and you can still use it to meet a great girl.

A great way is to try a search of members in your area and then emailing the ones you like straight away to start up a dialogue. Or, you can go to the Classified’s section and see what girls are on the market in the “dating” category and contact them there.

4. Craig’s List – though most folks think about Craig’s List as a place to discover a job or sell some old nick-nacks, its also an excellent place for dating. Craig’s List gets a crazy number of users visiting it daily, and you can go to their personal’s section to post an advert or make a response to a lady’s ad. Due to Craig’s List primitive design, it can be difficult to maintain a record of your correspondence with others, but you may meet some very engaging folks on this site – not to mention hot ladies.

5. Chatrooms – And if you really are into ways to meet women online for free then you can always join 1 or 2 chatrooms on the internet and see who’s interested about talking with you. Chat-rooms get a bad name due to some creepy people who abuse them, but they seem to be a way to meet great folks who have the same interests.

Yahoo and MSN have surprisingly active discussion rooms that you can get access to through their messenger applications. You can download them for free and see what chatrooms are available. After you join a room, start talking and see if there are any girls in there who you can start a private conversation with.

Obviously, I could continue to write for pages about the various tips, tricks, and nuances that go along with each of these free methods for meeting women online. But for the sake of brevity, this should help you get started.

Just remember that despite what method you use to meet ladies for free online, you actually need to make them meet you offline as soon as you can in order to be successful. So be sure to ask for their number and try calling or texting them as swiftly as you can.

And if you stick with it, you may never have to pay for another dating site again!

How To Meet Women On The Internet

Let’s face reality – meeting women on the internet has become one of the fastest and easiest ways to start dating a multitude of women.

The stigma of dating over the internet has long faded away.  Today, its perfectly acceptable to turn to the internet to meet beautiful girls.

The only problem is… they’re not usually all that beautiful, are they?

Who hasn’t gone to sites like Match.com and eHarmony, gotten in touch with a girl who had a great picture in their profile, only to meet up with them and find out that picture was from 5 years and 100 pounds ago?

Meeting women on the internet isn’t hard.  But knowing how to meet women on the internet the RIGHT way is a skill few men have learned to master.

If you’re not worried about the quality of the women you meet, then just send out enough emails and you’ll get a number of women ranging from hideously ugly to butt-nut crazy ready and willing to date you.

But if you want to get a QUALITY girl, someone who’s mentally stable, attractive, and most of all – fun – then here are some tips you need to know about how to meet women on the internet.

TIP 1:  Be Extremely Specific About The Type Of Woman You Want To Meet.

Very few guys ever write in their profile what it is they are really looking for.  They either ignore this completely or keep it too general.

Here’s the thing though – if you are extremely clear and specific about the type of girl you’re looking to meet, it will actually GET those types of women to respond to you!

And contrary to popular believe, it won’t scare off too many girls who don’t fit the profile of the woman you want either.  Most women respect a guy who knows what he’s looking for, and they’ll contact you anyway hoping they can “broaden your horizons.”

It’s a very powerful thing to be specific with what you’re looking for in a girl.  Don’t be afraid to go into detail about how you want your girl to look and act.

TIP 2:  Explain What You’re NOT Looking For.

Telling people in your profile what you’re not looking for can be just as effective – if not more so – than telling people what you are looking for.

For instance, saying something like: “I am NOT into girls who like to be smacked around, so if you’re into abusive guys, please, do not contact me.”

In this instance, you’re actually using what you’re not looking for to communicate to girls reading your profile that you’re not someone who’s abusive, and this implies you respect women and would never hurt them.

But you’re phrasing it in such a way where you’re putting the girl in a position where she has to prove to YOU that she’s worthy of your time, and not the other way around.

This is a very powerful tactic.

TIP 3:  Don’t Include A Picture In Your Profile.

Profiles with pictures get a lot more searches than profiles without pictures, but I’ve found that if you’re the one contacting women (and let’s face it, very few women send out emails on these sites), it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a picture up.

In fact, it works out better.  Just say in your profile “I’m worried about some crazy girl on this site cyber-stalking me, so I’m not putting up a picture.  But if you email me, I’ll send one to you. Promise.”  That will be good enough for a response from a girl.

The key here is to let their imagination fill in the gaps of what you look like, and have the words in your profile be what attracts them to you as opposed to your picture.

This is a great technique for guys who maybe aren’t all that attractive, or are insecure about their looks.

TIP 4:  Sign Up For Multiple Dating Sites

Just like you wouldn’t just hang out in one bar or club to meet girls, you don’t want to hang out on just one website to meet girls either.  It’s always best to belong to multiple dating websites if you can, because it increases the number of women you can meet!

Here are some of the sites I like to use to meet women on the internet…

• MySpace
• Match.com
• eHarmony
• Plenty Of Fish
• Yahoo Personals
• OKCupid.com
• J-Date
• Craig’s List

Some of these sites are free, some you have to pay for, but all of them will get you results!

So don’t just limit yourself to one dating site.  Go for two or three if you can.

TIP 5:  Write Funny Emails

Humor is the most attractive thing you can do online.  Writing emails that aren’t the same old “hey, what’s up?” or boring emails like “I noticed you liked blah, blah, blah in your profile, I like blah, blah, blah too,” are very powerful.

And the easiest way to do that is to write emails that are light-hearted and funny.

Sending an email that says something like: “Hey, just wondering how many guys with half-naked pictures of themselves have contacted you today.  I’m taking a survey. (Don’t ask.)” can get a girl to respond to you instantly.

TIP 6:  Get The Girls On The Phone Quickly

Don’t spend too much time emailing back and forth.  People are very different over email than they are on the phone.  By the third email, you should be asking for her number.

Once you have the number, call her up and talk to her.  This is where you’ll find out if there’s some chemistry there, and if there is, you can go ahead and set up a time to meet.

The biggest mistake guys make is they wait too long to talk to a girl on the phone.  Don’t let this happen to you!  Understand that she’s probably getting contacted by lots of other guys, so if she’s a winner, you don’t want to lose her to someone else.

Work fast, and you’ll see some good results.

With a userbase of over 200 million members, MySpace is the perfect candidate to use in your efforts to meet women.  In fact, it’s one of the best resources available to guys looking to find women to date!

Why is this?

Because not only is MySpace free to use (a feature which ensures many, many women will use it), but MySpace actually augments, and to a certain extent, replaces the social lives of the women who use it!

What I mean by this is, women who use MySpace regularly depend on it to keep in touch with friends and fulfill their social needs.  A busy girl with no time for dating or going out with friends can still feel connected to people by logging onto MySpace, chatting, sending emails, and seeing updates from their friends.

Not only that, women on MySpace tend to skew younger, which means the average age for girls who use MySpace is between 18 and 30.  This actually makes meeting the women on MySpace a much easier task, because many of the women you’ll be contacting aren’t as jaded as women who’ve been playing the dating game for years.

On top of everything else, there’s a huge advantage to using MySpace to meet women because people don’t think of it as a “dating site,” therefore you’ll find lots of girls aren’t expecting guys to contact them and try and pick them up.

This means the barrier to meeting women is far less than a site that’s more of a “meat market,” like Match.com.  The reason for this is because girls on dating sites get deluged with emails from guys trying to “get with them.”  On MySpace, girls typically only get emails from people they know.

So here are a few easy steps you can follow to start meeting beautiful women on MySpace…

STEP 1:  Create A Profile

Creating a profile on MySpace is free and very easy to do.  In fact, the whole process will take you less than five minutes to complete.

STEP 2:  Fill Out Your Profile

Once your profile is created, you’ll want to put information about yourself on it.  Think of it like creating a profile for a dating site.  You’ll want to have a flattering picture of yourself, an interesting headline that will grab people’s attention, and some information about yourself and the type of woman you are looking to meet.

Be sure to include your interests in your profile.  This is a great way to give people conversation topics to chat with you about after checking out your profile.

You can also personalize your profile by changing the theme of your layout, adding music you like, adding videos you enjoy, and a whole host of other things to make your profile more personal.

STEP 3:  Add People You Know As Friends

After your profile is created, invite some people you know to become friends with you.  Having a small number of friends helps you look more “normal.”  It’s inadvisable to begin contacting women right away without having any friends yet, since this makes it look like you’re just trying to use the site to meet chicks (something that’s actually a turn off for most girls on MySpace!)

MySpace makes this easy by accessing your address book and sending out friend requests via email.  But be sure to only send an invite to people you feel comfortable letting see your profile!  You may want to uncheck coworkers and the like.

STEP 4:  Search For Women

MySpace has a great search feature that allows you to look for exactly the type of people you’d like to be “friends” with.  Just click the Search button, but be sure to use the “Advanced Search” option.

This will allow you to search based on gender, age, race, height, and most importantly, location!

I typically like to search for women, age 18-30, who are interested in dating, within 10 miles of my zip code.

The results you get should be numerous, especially if you live in or around a big city.  Simply browse through the pictures in the results, and find girls you think are attractive, and check out their profile pages.

STEP 5:  Contact Women

Once you find a profile you like, click the button to send them an email.  This is done through MySpace’s system.

Your email should be short, sweet, and most of all – fun and interesting!

Sending an email that just says “Hey what’s up?” won’t get you anywhere.  Instead, make your email one to two paragraphs, commenting on something about her and how well you think you’d get along.

So sending an email like:

“Hey, I was just checking through MySpace and stumbled across your profile.  You seem totally awesome!  Seriously, if you were living in the 80’s, you’d probably be ranked up there with Def Leopard and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that’s how awesome your profile is, lol.

Anyway, we should chat.  Email me back and tell me what your favorite 80’s movie is, and we’ll compare notes.”

As you can see, the response above is short, interesting, somewhat humorous, and bound to get a girl’s attention.

Contact as many women as you like using this method.

STEP 6:  Follow Up

You’ll find most women you contact will begin to respond to you.  Continue to email back and forth, and even add them as a friend if you like them.  Allow them to get to know you.

Once enough rapport has been built up, you say you’re bored with email and ask them for their number so you can text them.

Telling them you’re going to text them as opposed to call them is important, because then they’ll be sure to give you their cell phone number, and they’re not committing to have to talk to you on the phone.  Most girls will be willing to share their cell phone number if you approach them like this.

Once you have the number, start texting, ask when a good time to chat is, and then call them up at the appropriate time to set up a date, or a get-together.

It’s really that simple to meet women on MySpace.  And you’ll find the quality of women, in terms of looks, is much better than most paid dating sites!

Here are some other quick tips to help you use MySpace to get dates…

• Download MySpace Messenger so you can chat with your friends and other women when you’re online.  IM sessions go a long way towards establishing rapport!
• Look through your friend’s friends to find girls you like.  Meeting through someone you both mutually know can make the transition to romance much easier than approaching a girl you don’t know.
• Dating is a numbers game, so try and meet as many women through MySpace as possible to maximize your chances of finding a winner.
• Ask women you meet throughout your life if they’re on MySpace, and get their email so you can add them as friends.  This is a great way to keep in touch and follow up with women you’re interested in.
• Don’t worry about messing things up with one girl.  There are so many women on MySpace, and new ones signing up every day, you’ll always have another chance to get things right.

Meeting women on MySpace can be fun, easy, and most of all – effective!  Instead of wasting your time on paid dating sites, give MySpace a shot and see what kind of results you can get.

But if you’re paying $30 a month for these sites, you are probably missing out on one of the single best online dating sites around. And best of all, it’s free!

I am, of course, talking about Craig’s List.

Craig’s List was started by Craig Newmark in 1995 to better help people connect through events around San Francisco. Since that time, this simple site has exploded into a national community.

Craig’s List is, at it’s heart, a classified ad site. It allows people to find places to live, find work, buy and sell stuff, and even find dates – just like the classified ads in the back of your local newspaper.

Anyone who’s ever visited Craig’s List may be skeptical about fining quality women on such a “low rent” looking website. But if you’re judging a book by its cover, you’re really missing out.

Here are the advantages to using Craig’s List for dating purposes:

1. Large Userbase

Craig’s List gets literally millions of visits a day. This means that your chances of meeting a great woman on this site is greatly increased.

2. Local Targeting

Craig’s List is divided into sections for local areas. This means you can actually meet women who are local to your area quickly and easily.

3. It’s Free!

Most dating sites require a monthly subscription. But Craig’s List is a free site, which means that more women use it than your typical dating website. This means more chances for you to meet the right girl!

4. Dedicated Community

Craig’s List is more than a service site, it actually has people who visit the site daily, multiple times. It has message boards, and is updated constantly. They also have members who moderate the website. All this contributes to a vibrant community that you can become a part of – something most dating sites lack.

So now that you know why Craig’s List is a great site to meet women on, let’s talk about how you can go about using Craig’s List to find dates.

Step 1: Create a new email address

One thing you’re going to want to do before you start using Craig’s List to find love is create a “dummy” email address. This will help you keep from getting spammed from the site, since lots of disreputable people use Craig’s List to harvest email addresses, so it’s a good idea to have a “throw away” email address that you use just for Craig’s List.

Step 2: Create an account on Craig’s List

Creating an account is free. Just sign up using the email address you created. This will allow you to repost your ads very easily, something which will come in handy later.

Step 3: Write An Ad

Next, you’re going to want to craft an ad to post on Craig’s List, explaining the type of girl you’re looking for.

Step 4: Create Up To 5-10 Ad Variations

Craig’s List has strict guidelines on posting duplicate content. They don’t want their site spammed by ads, so you’ll want to re-write your ad at least 5-10 times, so you are able to post it often.

Step 5: Post Your Ads

Once you have all your ad variations ready to go, post your ad. You’re going to want to post your ad at least twice a day, once around noon, and once around 5 or 6 o’clock. This will increase the likelihood of your ad being seen.

Step 6: Repost Your Ads

Every 3 days, you’ll be allowed to repost the same ad you posted before. Just log into your account and look at all your posts, then select the ones you’d like to repost.

Step 7: Keep Reposting Your Ad

You will want to repost your ad often, since this is the key to success with having women on Craig’s List respond to you.

Step 8: Browse Ads From Women

In addition to posting your ad, you’ll also want to browse ads that girls have posted on Craig’s List.

Step 9: Email Women you’re Interested In

Once you find an ad you’re interested in, be sure to email her. Use the Craig’s List email address you created though, don’t use your personal email.

Now that you know the general process of meeting women on Craig’s List, let’s talk about two important factors – where to post, and how to craft a great ad.

First off, you have two choices of categories to post in on Craig’s List. The first is “Men Seeking Women,” and the next is “Causal Encounters.”

The “Men Seeking Women” section is where women browse looking for guys that seem interesting. This is a section for finding dates. The “Casual Encounters” section is for more physical interactions, such as casual sex, one night stands, etc.

Figure out which section is more for you, and post there. You can of course post in both sections if you like, but I’ve found it’s best to focus your efforts on one section only.

Now let’s talk about crafting a winning ad.

The first thing you want to do is create a great headline. Your headline is what’s going to get people to click on your ad. Usually, you want to have some type of benefit in the headline to entice women to check you out.

For instance, a headline like “Looking For A Great Girl I Can Wine, Dine, And Romance” showcases a big benefit to the girl. Every girl likes to be romanced, so why shouldn’t they check out your ad?

Another great tip is to include a picture in your ad. Ads with pictures get clicked on more than ads without pictures. If you’re wary about putting your image on Craig’s List, just find a generic picture of a romantic restaurant or something like that to include in your ad. Any picture will do, just so Craig’s List can list your ad as having a picture in it in the results listing.

Use humor in your ad when you can. Showcasing a fun, funny attitude will make you stand out from the others and get you more responses. You always want to try and communicate your fun personality to girls, and this is especially true online.

Talk about yourself in the ad. Don’t just give details like hair color, body size, height, etc. Also include things you’re passionate about, things you like doing, and your idea of what a great date will be.

Then, talk about the type of girl you’re looking for. Be specific! The more specific you are, the more chance you have of getting a girl you like!

Always tell the girl that she must send you a picture, or at least a link to a MySpace or Facebook page so you can see what she looks like. Don’t just assume they’ll send a picture. Let them know you’re happy to share a picture of you in return. Most girls will respond well to this. If a girl emails you asking for a picture, give her one of you, but always ask for one in return.

Longer ads actually tend to do better than shorter ones. Long ads stand out, and girls will take time to read the ad if it’s interesting. So don’t worry if your ad seems long.

Use proper grammar, punctuation, spelling, and spacing. The nicer your ad looks, the easier it is to read, and the more responses it will get!

When you combine regular ad posting with emailing women directly on Craig’s List, you’ll start to see lots of women contacting you.

But just a few words of warning…

Warning 1: There are lots of “fake women” posting personals on Craig’s List. These are done by SPAMMERS looking to harvest email addresses. If you get a generic “hey, thanks for emailing me” ad, be wary, since it’s typically some spammer trying to get you to sign up for a porn site.

Warning 2: Women can be suspicious of guys online, so always be up-front and honest with them. Women have safety issues most guys don’t, don’t do what it takes to make a woman feel good about contacting you.

Warning 3: Don’t spend too much time emailing. Try and get the girl’s number so you can call or text her as soon as you can. Too much emailing might get you stuck as an “online fantasy.”

Warning 4: There are crazy women on Craig’s List, so if you’re going to meet them, always meet them at a neutral place, like a coffee shop, never have them come directly to your place. You want to screen them first to see if they’re stable before inviting them into your home.

Warning 5: Don’t give up! Too many guys post one ad on Craig’s List and then quit. If you want to be successful, you have to post regularly and often, and keep emailing women until you find a good one.

When you follow all these tips, you’ll get amazing success with meeting women on Craig’s List.