“I guess it’s kind of embarrassing,” said Gina DeCarlo with a small smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “I met this guy online and we talked for six months. We were always on the phone, texting and calling. I totally had feelings for this guy I had never met.”

But when the Loyola graduate student tried meeting up with this man near his home in New York, he didn’t respond to any of her phone calls or texts. When she got back home a couple weeks later, he immediately started texting her again.

“Clearly he was married or something,” said DeCarlo. “Because he just totally didn’t see me.”

Amy Webb, an award-winning journalist experienced something very similar. During a dinner with a man she had met online, her date left to use the bathroom, only to never come back, leaving her to pay for the $1,314.37 meal he had ordered.

The similarities? Both women have had horrible experiences with online dating sites.

During a Ted Talk, Webb spoke of her struggle of staying in a committed relationship. By the age of 30 she wasn’t married and had no kids. As a woman who wanted children by the age of 35, it was important for Webb to find someone quickly. So she turned to online dating.

“Now there was one small catch,” said Webb. “As it happens, I was really, really busy. But…the biggest problem is that I hate filling out questionnaires of any kind.”

So Webb decided to insert her resume instead. The result ended up giving her plenty of men who wanted to date her, but with men who ended up being terrible dates. But Webb said that the algorithms of these dating sites weren’t the problem.

“While the algorithms work just fine, you and I don't,” said Webb. “Very few of us have the ability to be totally and brutally honest with ourselves.”

Another problem is that the questions the websites would ask were too superficial, said Webb.

DeCarlo agrees, “It matches you off the stupidest elements like your zodiac sign… and your hair color. It doesn’t really focus on personality.”

This was affecting Webb’s chances of finding a potential husband, so she decided to change her whole plan by treating these sites as databases. She flipped the entire system, and created 72 data points that were important to her.

She then prioritized her list. “I broke it into a top tier and a second tier of points,” said Webb. “And I ranked everything starting at 100 and going all the way down to 91.”

Webb then built a scoring system. For 700 points, she would respond to an email. For 900 points, she would go on a date, and for 1500 points she would consider being in a relationship with them.

This method worked tremendously well; however, Webb forgot of the competition. She started searching what other women were posting on their profiles by creating 10 fake male profiles, exclusively for gathering data.

One month later, Webb collected enough data to do another analysis. Women were most likely to write words like “fun” and “love." So Webb dumbed down her profile, to become more approachable.

Photos also made a big difference. “All of the women who were popular showed some skin,” said Webb. “They all looked really great, which turned out to be in sharp contrast to what I had uploaded.”

With all of this information, Webb was able to create a super profile. She soon became the most popular person online. It led to her finding her husband Thevenin; two and a half years later they got married, and a year and a half after that they had their daughter, Petra.

It may have worked well for Webb, but sometimes online dating doesn’t work for all.

“I don’t think I’ll meet him (husband) online,” said DeCarlo. “For years and years people didn’t need [online dating] to meet someone. I’m old fashioned, and I think it’s just meant to be and I haven’t found it yet.”

But Webb provides hope for those online. “There is an algorithm for love,” she said. “All you really have to do is figure out your own framework and play by your own rules, and feel free to be as picky as you want.”