Better Ways to Send Messages in Online Dating

            Once you have a good profile together the next step is finding women (or men) that interest you. My only advice is to not go off looks alone. I use pictures as a preliminary screen. If I’m not attracted to a girl I don’t even begin to read their profile. Who’s kidding who, looks matter. However, looks should only get a person in the door. After narrowing the pool of applicants to aesthetically datable people, decisions should be based on internal merits. This is true in all forms of dating not just online dating.

           

The next step is effectively messaging people. Again, I used to suck at this and have since gotten pretty good at it. Here are the key things I’ve learned: First, you’re messaging should be goal oriented towards setting up a date. I’m not on these sites for the purpose of finding pen pals. If you particularly enjoy typing back and forth then by all means however if your purpose is setting up dates then you should stay on task. As such you should be driving towards asking someone out and do it early on. To that end, my general goal is to get off the computer and phone as quickly as possible and get into the real world. People and their stories all blend in with each other when typing back and forth. I actually got to the point where I keep notes on people. That’s neither romantic nor fun. I enjoy meeting and getting to know people. Dates are generally fun even if a girl isn’t right for me. I don’t enjoy typing back and forth. It feels like work. Finally, I learn more about a person and whether I’m interested in them in the first five minutes of meeting them in person than I do with all the time spent online.

Along these same lines, I find it much more effective when I can catch a girl online and we can instant message rather than e-mailing back and forth. You can cover a lot more ground and can be a lot more playful with someone responding right away rather than the time delays of e-mail. I’ll generally try to instant message back and forth for 10-20 minutes and then ask the girl out. I see no reason to introduce an intermediary step between instant messaging and a date.

            When messaging a girl for the first time, I used to write these elaborate letters after carefully considering a girl’s profile. That was a mistake. Girls have claimed that guys should write high-quality initial messages because after all, the only thing they have to judge you on is your profile and your message. This seems logical enough. However, if you define “high quality” by what is most likely to get a girl to respond to you then you’ll write a different kind of message. I got a very bad response rate with my elaborate, thoughtful messages. The messages I send now with a high success rate are very simple. They follow this general format:

Subject: You seem like fun

You sound like a cool person. I also really like X. It’s interesting that you do Y.

what made you chose to get into that?

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This does a few things.

1)     It shows you that you took the time to read their profile rather than messaging people generically on mass. Also, maybe you choose to show that you have at least one thing in common.

2)     It asks a question so the person has something to write you about rather than putting the burden of generating conversation on them.

3)     It expresses interest but not too much interest. Unfortunately humans are repelled by people who want them too much. A short message with a minor compliment expresses interest while not seeming overly interested. If you seemingly put in too much effort and time, sadly girls seem to subconsciously think you have fewer options and therefore have less going for you.

4)     It pays the girl a minor compliment. This should subconsciously bias a girl to want to see you favorably in order to validate the compliment. If she see’s you as worthwhile then she can feel better about herself because you thought she was cool.

It is important that it’s only a minor complement. If you offer a strong compliment it undermines the credibility of both the compliment and you. You don’t know the girl beyond reading a paragraph about her so you’re not in a position to pass meaningful positive judgment.

I think the same type of message should be effective when girls message guys. Also, if you’re a girl messaging a guy you can take it a step further and be more direct. You can simply write “I liked your profile. You seem like a fun, down to earth guy. I’d love to grab a drink and get to know you.” If a guy likes your profile he’ll go out with you and appreciate your directness. Again, it will skip a lot of tedious messaging back and forth and when you meet in person, you’ll know pretty quickly if you like each other or not.

When initially conversing with someone through any medium, it’s best to not focus too much on what either of you do for a living. This doesn’t apply if what you do is wildly interesting and defining of who you are but for most people it’s good advice. Everyone naturally gravitates to the topic of occupation but it generally makes for far less interesting or inspiring conversation. You generally want a girl to be able to check off that you’re professionally successful and have direction in your life but then move on. It’s much better to focus on whatever it is that makes you interesting. For me, I’ve traveled to a lot of cool places, and compete in jiu-jitsu, and in my spare time I’m writing a book. I’ve also managed software companies which is impressive on some level but just makes for more boring conversation. In general I’ll once again say, telling is not selling. Don’t merely provide a girl with the facts about you. Focus on whatever you’re passionate about and can speak charismatically about. You’ve got to be excited about your story before you can get someone else excited about it.

Better still, it’s preferable if much of the conversation can be discussing ideas rather than either person’s background. This makes the experience more like two friends chatting and less like a job interview. You get to know each other by the way each person thinks, and communicates. You can get a feel for each other’s sense of humor. It’s difficult to take the focus away from each other’s backgrounds when you are initially getting to know each other but I find it’s both more enjoyable and more effective when you can steer the conversation that direction.

One challenge with online dating is that once you get good at it, you have too much choice. Of course this is much better than the alternative of not being able to find a date but the problem is that it’s easy to not give people a proper chance. I believe both guys and girls are too quick to write each other off because there are plenty of other options waiting for them. Similarly, I find with online dating, first dates are often spent evaluating each other rather than trying to make it work. Before online dating, I had fewer options available to me so I tried harder to make each date a success. My suggestion is to just be mindful of the problem and make a point to give people a proper chance. You can also be conscious to not compromise focus on creating and having a good time by worrying too much about evaluating the other person.

  Setting up dates online requires some skill much like setting up dates in the real world. Also, you need to have a thick skin and handle some rejection. However, again much like dating in the real world you get better at it with practice. Related to this point if what you’re doing isn’t working then start experimenting. If you keep doing the same thing then you should expect the same results. I once really sucked at online dating and I’m now pretty solid at it. I just needed to change my approach. I wish you the best of luck and remember dating should be fun.

 

Check out my post leading into this one about how to create a good online dating profile. 
Or if you're considering dating me and  reading this blog has made you nervous.