Okay, here's the concise Spartan Guide to success on OKCupid. I'll start with the general and move into more specifics.
1. Forget about "Game" (aka be yourself)
I think this is fairly universal, actually. The idea behind the "Pickup Artistry" movement is essentially that you need to adopt a certain personality (typically a cocky and misogynistic one) in order to be attractive. I've found this to be flat out wrong in all regards. Forget all that crap. There are two effective take-aways from "Game" and these are: confidence, and what's known as "demonstrations of higher value" which is essentially PUA code for displaying social status.
Confidence is fairly obvious so I won't belabor it, but the "DHVs" is the one thing I've found to be very clever in the PUA movement. Long story short, this essentially involves dropping keywords that demonstrate that you are "high in the pecking order". In practice this means casually mentioning an accomplishment or something you're proud of. Something that sets you apart from the crowd. But the key is to make it look like you're NOT trying to brag or show higher value. You have to say it without saying it, between the lines as it were. More on specific applications of this to come.
2. Embrace "Game Theory" (aka have reasonable standards)
Again, this is more universal. See this clip from "A Beautiful Mind":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CemLiSI5ox8
(Or, for the more amusing/lyrical version, this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkoMbxHQ ... r_embedded )
This one's simple. There are only so many 7/10s and up (that is, really pretty people). These are the girls that everyone is going for--in fact, the ones that everyone has been going for since they grew boobs--which means they will also be the hardest to get, and they know it. The same idea, that there are limited numbers of very attractive people, applies to men. IMO, it's true that women are slightly less shallow than men--but the emphasis is on the "slightly". I'm not going to belabor this point but the simple fact is you will have much better success by internally acknowledging where you stand in terms of attractiveness and pursuing those within a notch or two of yourself. Nobody likes to hear this but it is common sense.
(I will further add that really attractive girls on dating sites just don't belong there. Again, these girls can walk down the street and pick from any number of guys salivating over them. If you spot a girl like this on a dating site it's more than likely she's a troll account, an attention whore, or in some way really defective. Truth hurts.)
Now, again, there is more to attractiveness than mere physical appearance, for both men and women. This is where confidence and status come into play.
3. Make a good profile
This is where I have some more specific suggestions. When I started out on OKCupid, I filled out all the profile sections with very brief, witty responses, and answered about 100 of the matching questions, so as not to appear like I was taking it to seriously. In other words I did what 99% of guys on the site do.
My breakthrough came when I decided to create a female account just to see what the competition was like. Answer: a sea of identical guys all doing the exact same thing.
So I decided to switch it up and demonstrate more of my personality in my profile. I ignored several of the extraneous profile sections ("6 things you could never do without", I mean seriously?) and instead wrote a rather long, detailed "About Me" section. My account is now disabled so I can't reference, but the template was something like this:
"Witty introduction" - A few sentences or paragraphs that introduced me and my sense of humor. This could be a joke e.g. "I've heard girls like guys who are either funny or dangerous, so whenever I tell a joke and a girl doesn't laugh, I stab her." (Just throwing it out there, you get the idea.)
"Flipping the script" - I then went on to describe how dating profiles are like late night infomercials ("But wait! Order now and you'll also receive my six pack abs and gourmet cooking skills at no charge" or something like that) in that everyone pretends they're these perfect little products and no one wants to talk about their faults, even though NO ONE is perfect. So how about we do something different for a change and I open up to tell you some of my faults?
"Demonstrations of higher value in disguise" - Then I thought of the old job interview question, "What's your greatest weakness?" and the stereotypical response of, "Well, I just work too darn hard!" There's a fine line here. I mixed in a few innocuous/funny weaknesses (e.g. "I live alone and don't always leave the seat down; deal with it") that doubled as demonstrations of high value (in that example it's saying I don't have roommates or, even worse, live with parents). I also confessed I can be long-winded, and that it is deliberate--"because I figure if you can't read a profile that barely fills two pages, you probably don't have the intellectual faculties required to read a novel". Again, a subtle way of putting you at a higher value than the reader which makes them intrigued by you.
In the "Most private thing you're willing to admit" I actually said straight up that I have and am acting on a plan to retire within 10 years so I can focus on things that really matter, like writing, family, travel, etc.
Somewhere in there I also mentioned that, "while I could walk up to strangers in a bar and proposition them", I liked online dating because it allows you to preview their personality before meeting (which clears up the underlying and status-devaluing question of what you're doing with online dating in the first place) and also that I had dated a lot of cool, fun, attractive people through OKCupid already (it certainly wasn't true when I wrote it but it became true afterwards--again, demonstration of value).
4. Conversations
Pretty much the same thing here. Be yourself and don't be afraid to write a little more than you might think is "standard". You don't want to be "standard". You certainly don't want to just say "hey" or "you're sexy" or anything even remotely like that as this comprises 99% of the messages girls get and is easily ignored. The number one thing I can say is never copy and paste the same pickup line. It's easy to tell. What I did instead is set up a basic formula of introducing myself with a joke or something, picking up one or two things from their profile to talk about, and asking an open-ended question or two. The conversation should flow organically from there. I never visited profiles for more subject fodder after the initial conversation got flowing, but if it got stuck I had some standard questions I'd throw in, e.g. "Do you prefer Chinese or Italian food? What's the last book you read? How many Cheetos can you fit in your mouth?"
5. Profile pics
Generally you need more than one, and at least one of you at your most attractive--but not trying too hard to look that way. My main pic was a standard "mirror pic" with my hair done nicely, wearing work clothes and contacts, and with a nice smile. Other pics were me doing stuff outdoors or with other people and animals, again, demonstrating value. I would NOT recommend shirtless pics or the like unless they are at the beach.
This is becoming long-winded already so I think I'll cut it short here. Feel free to use some of these suggestions, but of course, the most important take away is to make it your own and be yourself (merely the best version of yourself). Like I said, when I revamped my profile with these things in mind, the difference was huge. I was even getting contacted by girls for a change and in fact my current girlfriend contacted me first.
