12 standard replies to "Do you want to go climbing?"

Has anyone had similar experiences?

I’m truly exasperated trying to look for climbing partners, mostly through Mountain Project. I really like MP & think it’s a wonderful tool. Maybe it’s just that I’ve had the worst luck, though on average out of say 30 people I’ll contact, something like 29 of them will give me 1 of the 12 standard replies below. I’m drawing from actual, lived experiences of these, some of them over and over again. Was it something I said?

I’m posting this anonymously, since it’s been & continues to be, humiliating enough for me already to try to find a climbing partner. Haven’t been asking for a 5.12 crusher, just moderate sport and trad, where both climbers are even roughly complementary in lead climbing level and years of experience (I have more than 10).

If nothing else, maybe this can help raise awareness of how not to treat others on MP & in person.  

12 standard replies to the question, “Do you want to go climbing?” sent via text, email or voicemail or through a partner finder post that you put on Mountain Project:

1. “For sure!” “ Definitely!”, or some variation of this. Perhaps even a very long detailed response. You send a reply back, maybe to directly set up a day to go climbing, or to get a general idea of their availability if It’s not indicated on their MP profile, and you never hear from them again. Maybe you even send a follow up message to this one. And the reply? See #6, below.

2. “I’m down!” Sent a few weeks before the day you are supposed to go climbing. You proceed to set up a day of climbing, and then they cancel at the absolute last minute, leaving you high and dry, with no time to look for another partner.

3. “Hi! I’m going with my friend to check out another climbing area nearby. Do you know what the conditions are like? Thanks in advance.” Points for an ungenerous, entitled, completely self-seeking reply. Thanks for that.

4. “My friend and I are set to go climbing @ x climbing area. You wanna climb? You’re welcome to join! We’re leaving at 10” This text sent to you 5 days after you sent yours, where you had asked them about going climbing. This text sent to you on the morning of the day you had asked about going climbing on, sent at 9:30AM, 30 minutes before they leave to go climbing at the same area that you had asked about going to. The climbing area doesn’t have cell service. Points for intellectual condescension, aloofness, a good snub, & striving to make the recipient of this text feel like disposable garbage.  

5. The most straightforward snobby kind of reply, a text something like the following: “no can go”. Also points for intellectual condescension.

6.                                                                                                 That’s right, you guessed it. Nothing.

7. A way out-of-left-field reply to an MP post that prompts you to ask, “Did they even read my post?”

8. Maybe not standard, but in general there could be a lot of variations on this one theme: A reply from a mysterious, brand new MP account from an opposite sex potential climbing partner, lets call her Casey for now, whose account was created 3 days after you had gotten an earlier reply to your post from a same sex potential climbing partner, let’s call him Sage for now. You haven’t had time to respond to Sage yet, but are going to. Sage’s account has been around for years, and it’s very developed. Looks like a normal climber. The mysterious new reply from Casey is from an account that only has a photo of a cute, opposite sex climber in outdoor gear, in an outdoor location, with no to-do list, no ticks, no hometown, no indication of what level she climbs at, what type of climbing she does, nothing. Just a name and a photo. Casey is extremely excited to go climbing, and interestingly, you find out that Casey and Sage happen to climb at around the same grade, which is much lower than the level you are climbing at, and both are in the same place when it comes to leading, and they both want mentoring on leading.

Casey gives you her tel # to text her, and it happens to have an area code that’s right in the same area where Sage’s MP profile says he lives at. Casey tells you in a text that she lives in your local area, which is hundreds of miles away from her tel #’s area code.  You’re hesitant, but you respond separately to both Casey and Sage, and encourage them both, and agree to help them. You never hear from Sage again, and once you start to act like, in your responses to Casey, that you believe she is a real person and express an interest to go climbing, Casey also disappears and you never hear from her again.

Now of course this could be coincidental & I can’t prove anything, though if I had to make a first guess, aside from calling it a coincidence, I’d call this a pretty unsophisticated attempt at catfishing. Was Sage angry that I didn’t respond immediately to his reply to my post, and did he “create” Casey, to see how I would act if it was an attractive opposite sex potential climbing partner, instead of him, who happened to be in the same situation as him, and who was asking for the same thing? Are they both actually just someone else? Are they both actually real people? Who knows? Weird, though.

9. You get a reply, actually go climbing with the person, and it turns out that they have severe emotional/mental issues & disturbances.

10. You get a reply, actually go climbing with the person, and it turns out that they are nothing at all like they described in their MP profile as far as climbing ability. For example, their profile says that they follow 12a trad (& that they lead 5.7 trad. Should have been a big red flag right there), and while climbing with them, they are constantly yelling “take”, while following a 10c. Straightforward 10c trad, with no off-sized cracks, tricky friction, etc., and are also yelling at you while they are leading, because they are freaked out of their mind while leading 5.2 trad. Never see them try to lead 5.7. Hmmm……  

11. You get a reply, actually go climbing with the person, and it turns out that all they wanted was a cost-free climbing guide. They possibly bring along a significant other as well, that they tell you about upfront beforehand, tell you about at the last minute, or don’t tell you about at all. They just show up too.  Sometimes a lot of crossover between #11 and #10.

12. You get a reply, actually go climbing with the person, and it turns out that all they wanted was a belay slave.

       

Really?

Stop. Go to the crags with your stuff and meet people. Face to face is 1000x better than online hookups IMO

So you have successfully met some climbing partners on this forum and only had bad experiences? Who is the common denominator here? It's normal to have some missed connections or incompatible partners, but it's time to look inward if you are reaching out to that many people with nothing to show for it.   

If this is a serious post, go and try some other ways to find partners if MP isn't working for you. There are more ways than ever to meet partners. Yes, it takes effort, and not all climbers are a good fit for partners, but it's well worth it.   

You created a new account to ask this question? Why not use yours?

Ever tried using the app MeetUp. Actually really good for linking up with partners or groups

Once again, responses to a fellow climber’s difficulties border on sociopathic.

Tldr?

anon one wrote: Has anyone had similar experiences?

I’m truly exasperated trying to look for climbing partners, mostly through Mountain Project. I really like MP & think it’s a wonderful tool. Maybe it’s just that I’ve had the worst luck, though on average out of say 30 people I’ll contact, something like 29 of them will give me 1 of the 12 standard replies below. I’m drawing from actual, lived experiences of these, some of them over and over again. Was it something I said?

I’m posting this anonymously, since it’s been & continues to be, humiliating enough for me already to try to find a climbing partner. Haven’t been asking for a 5.12 crusher, just moderate sport and trad, where both climbers are even roughly complementary in lead climbing level and years of experience (I have more than 10).

If nothing else, maybe this can help raise awareness of how not to treat others on MP & in person.  

12 standard replies to the question, “Do you want to go climbing?” sent via text, email or voicemail or through a partner finder post that you put on Mountain Project:

1. “For sure!” “ Definitely!”, or some variation of this. Perhaps even a very long detailed response. You send a reply back, maybe to directly set up a day to go climbing, or to get a general idea of their availability if It’s not indicated on their MP profile, and you never hear from them again. Maybe you even send a follow up message to this one. And the reply? See #6, below.

2. “I’m down!” Sent a few weeks before the day you are supposed to go climbing. You proceed to set up a day of climbing, and then they cancel at the absolute last minute, leaving you high and dry, with no time to look for another partner.

3. “Hi! I’m going with my friend to check out another climbing area nearby. Do you know what the conditions are like? Thanks in advance.” Points for an ungenerous, entitled, completely self-seeking reply. Thanks for that.

4. “My friend and I are set to go climbing @ x climbing area. You wanna climb? You’re welcome to join! We’re leaving at 10” This text sent to you 5 days after you sent yours, where you had asked them about going climbing. This text sent to you on the morning of the day you had asked about going climbing on, sent at 9:30AM, 30 minutes before they leave to go climbing at the same area that you had asked about going to. The climbing area doesn’t have cell service. Points for intellectual condescension, aloofness, a good snub, & striving to make the recipient of this text feel like disposable garbage.  

5. The most straightforward snobby kind of reply, a text something like the following: “no can go”. Also points for intellectual condescension.

6.                                                                                                 That’s right, you guessed it. Nothing.

7. A way out-of-left-field reply to an MP post that prompts you to ask, “Did they even read my post?”

8. Maybe not standard, but in general there could be a lot of variations on this one theme: A reply from a mysterious, brand new MP account from an opposite sex potential climbing partner, lets call her Casey for now, whose account was created 3 days after you had gotten an earlier reply to your post from a same sex potential climbing partner, let’s call him Sage for now. You haven’t had time to respond to Sage yet, but are going to. Sage’s account has been around for years, and it’s very developed. Looks like a normal climber. The mysterious new reply from Casey is from an account that only has a photo of a cute, opposite sex climber in outdoor gear, in an outdoor location, with no to-do list, no ticks, no hometown, no indication of what level she climbs at, what type of climbing she does, nothing. Just a name and a photo. Casey is extremely excited to go climbing, and interestingly, you find out that Casey and Sage happen to climb at around the same grade, which is much lower than the level you are climbing at, and both are in the same place when it comes to leading, and they both want mentoring on leading.

Casey gives you her tel # to text her, and it happens to have an area code that’s right in the same area where Sage’s MP profile says he lives at. Casey tells you in a text that she lives in your local area, which is hundreds of miles away from her tel #’s area code.  You’re hesitant, but you respond separately to both Casey and Sage, and encourage them both, and agree to help them. You never hear from Sage again, and once you start to act like, in your responses to Casey, that you believe she is a real person and express an interest to go climbing, Casey also disappears and you never hear from her again.

Now of course this could be coincidental & I can’t prove anything, though if I had to make a first guess, aside from calling it a coincidence, I’d call this a pretty unsophisticated attempt at catfishing. Was Sage angry that I didn’t respond immediately to his reply to my post, and did he “create” Casey, to see how I would act if it was an attractive opposite sex potential climbing partner, instead of him, who happened to be in the same situation as him, and who was asking for the same thing? Are they both actually just someone else? Are they both actually real people? Who knows? Weird, though.

9. You get a reply, actually go climbing with the person, and it turns out that they have severe emotional/mental issues & disturbances.

10. You get a reply, actually go climbing with the person, and it turns out that they are nothing at all like they described in their MP profile as far as climbing ability. For example, their profile says that they follow 12a trad (& that they lead 5.7 trad. Should have been a big red flag right there), and while climbing with them, they are constantly yelling “take”, while following a 10c. Straightforward 10c trad, with no off-sized cracks, tricky friction, etc., and are also yelling at you while they are leading, because they are freaked out of their mind while leading 5.2 trad. Never see them try to lead 5.7. Hmmm……  

11. You get a reply, actually go climbing with the person, and it turns out that all they wanted was a cost-free climbing guide. They possibly bring along a significant other as well, that they tell you about upfront beforehand, tell you about at the last minute, or don’t tell you about at all. They just show up too.  Sometimes a lot of crossover between #11 and #10.

12. You get a reply, actually go climbing with the person, and it turns out that all they wanted was a belay slave.

       

Really?

Don't over think it bro.

I'm #9

Most of these are not MP-specific, and I've run into a few of these items with seemingly nice people I properly met in person before making climbing arrangements.  I could add my own complaints in a similar vein to the list.

In part I think it's a culture mismatch.  Or something along those lines.  Maybe across generations, maybe across some other dimension.  There is a similar thing about being late, where apparently in some cultures it is totally fine and you're weird if you think it's not.

Also, some people just seem incapable of being organized (or maybe they reserve it for work and treat pastime as an opportunity to be spontaneous).  I don't think they mean it as disrespect, and they may genuinely not realize that some of us value planning in the context of climbing.  I've hung out with this one person who I am pretty sure (based on their other actions) was motivated to climb with me, but they just couldn't seem to get their shit together to a point where climbing with them was worth the hassle for me.

So I think this is just another inter-personal compatibility item that's impossible to communicate in MP partner preferences.  For people who respect others' ability to plan and expect others to respect theirs, most climbers are just not a good match.  Planners are probably a minority in climbing.

You’re lucky to even get a reply. I’ve replied to people asking for partners and all I got was crickets. It’s just kind of strange to get this let’s go vibe from people’  posts and when I actually ask them to do it, just silence.

I haven't had the exact same experiences, but I've gone through my share of partner mismatches over the years and I sympathize. Finding compatible climbing partners can be like dating. You kiss a lot of frogs. And you are someone else's frog. 

I can say for myself that I pretty much never respond to people who are looking for partners to do specific routes or areas on specific dates, or who are just passing through town.

I'm much more likely to respond to someone local to me who puts up a post or DMs me who is clear about what they like to climb, what they are looking for in a partner, and their general availability.

I have occasionally found a good outside partner at my gym. 

Some of my best steady partners are people who found me in the MP partner finder, checked out my profile, and DM'd telling me why they think we'd climb well together. Not all of those partner-finder matches have worked out either - sometimes because of personality divides, sometimes because our schedules didn't align, or because we didn't connect before the season ended and then just lost touch.

I do think there's a technology component to a lot of missed connections. Things get lost in the firehose of notifications. It can be worth a polite check in, one time. 

I'll say also that for any potential partner from MP, I absolutely will go to your profile and read some of your past contributions and posts. If they don't show some basic compatibility, I'm not climbing with you. I hope anyone thinking of climbing with me would do the same.

Dudes and dudettes, I never fret for a partner. Here are my secrets:

-Scour the forums constantly for potentials. Then Google the shit out of them.

-Once you find a worthy bae, court them like you would approach the neighbors dog. Carefully but with ardor.

-Once you've scored a commitment, double check, triple check, quadruple check, that they are committed. If they start to sound flaky, get a backup pard'ner but don't tell either, one or the other will bail anyway.

-If they show up, and that's a big "IF", punch them straight in the mouth, this establishs dominance. With dominance you set the pace, pick the routes and generally own the day.

-If they survive the first climb, before they can quit, drag them onto another climb. Followers love leaders. Write that down.

-At the end of the day, stand over them while they gasp for air and smoke a cigarette, commenting how there's still light left. Again, followers love leaders. Write that down again.

Are you getting all this? To sum it up, carpe diem.

Daniel Winder wrote: Tldr?

You actually missed out on a great post.

Anything else you haven't read you want to tell us about?  Lots of long literature out there...

Tradiban-

Really, bud? This sounds weird as hell:

"court them like you would approach the neighbors dog. Carefully but with ardor."

Andrew Rational wrote: Tradiban-

Really, bud? This sounds weird as hell:

"court them like you would approach the neighbors dog. Carefully but with ardor."

Yep. You must be one of those gringos who runs up to the dog all fuckn excited, teeth exposed with your arms flailing about. Don't do it.

Tradiban wrote:

Yep. You must be one of those gringos who runs up to the dog all fuckn excited, teeth exposed with your arms flailing about. Don't do it.

Nah, not me, I like dogs, am comfortable with dogs, and have/had dogs.

"Ardor" is what I found weird, as in a weird choice of words.

Edit: "court" is a little weird, as well.

Marc H wrote:

You actually missed out on a great post.

Anything else you haven't read you want to tell us about?  Lots of long literature out there...

Post a wall of text complaining about everyone and I won't read that either.

Op: "was it something I said?". Why don't you tell us what you said? It sounds like you're anonymously hitting up people in the database. If that's the case, not too surprising. Also, always have a plan b or be disappointed.

Like Bob Ross, I'd probably fall in at 9, but i do give a good belay. 

Daniel Winder wrote: Tldr?

Tldr.

Wow Anon One. You have either a bad outlook/approach, or really bad luck.

I joined MP a while ago. It has been the single best source of finding like minded, solid climbing partners that I have ever experienced. I can count on both fingers and toes on how many partners I have found on MP. Many of them are truly life long friends/partners.

I can attest that at least 5 people I have met on MP are people that I will either climb with on a weekly basis, or will keep in touch with to go climb, locally. The other ones are people who have either moved to a different state, or had a drastic life change which doesn’t allow every week climbing. But, it is an absolutely excellent resource. 

I don’t know if I’m a lucky mofo, but I have done things with MP that potential partners can look at, like ticking routes, and comments on both routes and forum topics, like this one. Maybe that is a plus, so people can actually see what you’re up to/climbing? I dunno. But, people have either wanted to climb when I reach out, or they reach out to me.

Either way, I have never had a bad experience finding people to climb with on this site. These are also people that I’d fucking die for, go to war with, or never lose touch with. Ever.

This website is excellent for finding partners, and life long friends. This is a fact. Keep trying, and be diligent with your searching Anon One. Reach out, post up, and keep after it. You will not be disappointed. I certainly am not, and am very thankful and grateful for what MP has done for my climbing life. It has been essential.