3061

Your sense of scale is off. “Established interest” means they respond at all. Message sent. Response received. Successful handshake. Proceed with actual personalized conversation.

Alas, too many people seem hung up on craving the personalized greeting.

3062

Nobody is expecting [nor wants] a one page message describing why you think you’d be a match for that person. Let them know that you’ve actually read their profile, looked at some of their pictures and fire off a quick message.

Here’s a message I sent about a week ago to a woman who teaches in the city, and later received a response:

Subject: Hello quickmatch!

Things I liked about your profile:

  • You want to start your own school (+) serving low-income areas (how many pluses can I give for that?!)
  • You’re a teacher (++) in San Francisco (+++). From what I’ve heard, it’s not easy!
  • You have a picture of yourself holding a plastic cup (-) of beer (+) that has Stella Artois printed on it (+).
  • You want to go exploring the city! (+)

Things I didn’t like about your profile:

[ This space intentionally left empty ]

Feel free to message me if you’d like to talk politics, education standards in California (ugh!) and the US, or about anything! Hope to hear from ya!

I was originally going to go for “doubleplusgood” speak but I wasn’t sure she’d get the 1984 reference. Overall it’s a nice, friendly message that is pretty outgoing and open-ended. I didn’t ask a question but telling from her profile, I felt that we’d have something in common to talk about. At the very least, it got her to check out my profile to see if she found me interesting.

3063

Fuck you Zylon. So when I get the “Hi I really like your profile, let’s meet at the nearest hotel” message, I should be what? Flattered? Perhaps pass it on to you who would be flattered? These messages are so very obviously canned bullshit, except maybe the one where the guy said he was married and looking for company. I should certainly respond to that one because I’m 100% sure that he was looking only for me.

3064

Dammit, I can demand whatever the fuck I want to!!! One thing I demand is that you at least personalize it, if only to use my name. I think that’s reasonable, but hey I’m special, don’cha know.

3065

Hello <insert name here>, I like you, do you like me?

[ ] Yes
[ ] No
[ ] There is not enough information provided to answer the question.

Please note that this is personalized message and not a form letter.

Thank you for your time.

3066

You jest, but I would totally respond to that.

3067

In thinking about this, I don’t know how many people involved in this thread get mail from heterosexual guys (or at least they think they are heterosexual) on these services.

I have gotten the following messages on OKCupid.

Dear ma’am, I am married and am looking for company. Will you meet me soon?

Dear ma’am, I would like to meet you at a hotel.

Dear ma’am, I have read your profile and you look really young, thin (I weigh over 200 pounds) and sexy. Can I go out with you?

No one in their right minds can possibly think I’m supposed to respond to these messages? C’mon, I’m just not that desperate.

3068

What the hell. Are you sure those aren’t Nigerian scambots?

3069

I didn’t get it as a 1984 reference, more as just a kind of clever “scoring as you go” shorthand. It shows personality, which is always good.

I’ll echo Warren’s question: Have you ever tried internet dating? If you send a generic first message, there is no response. Unsuccessful handshake. Full stop.

Nothing turns a woman off faster than generic spam, except generic spam that’s also creepy. If you don’t say something about her profile, she’ll assume you haven’t read her profile, which implies that you don’t actually care about her as an individual. It’s equivilent to walking up to a woman in person and saying “you’ll do”.

3070

The female population gets spammed large amounts of messages, especially the ‘hot’ girls, by actual guys, not spambots, who don’t read profiles and just send a message based upon a pic. Which is why as a rule of thumb they just toss anything that doesn’t mention at least their name.

edit: beaten, in fact I was going to ask him if he’d done online dating as well and was successful, but thought it might be too harsh =P

3071

Yes and yes, actually. For varying degress of “yes”.

3072

I went out with the lawyer again last night, and she said she’s gotten more than one message that just says “Hi.” And not IMs, this is POF with its shitty mail system. Would anyone reply to that? It seems to be it’s almost equivilent to just showing up in their stalker log and not saying anything. I dunno, maybe the reply rate is lower with spam, but not so much lower that you don’t come out ahead by spamming a whole bunch of women rather than wasting time reading profiles and crafting a personalized message.

However, since I’m looking for women with brains and self-esteem, I doubt it’s a viable option.

3073

I’d actually bet that would get a fair number of responses. It’s different and pretty funny. And the format invites a response.

Hell, next time I decide to carpet bomb a dating site, I might buff that up a little bit with a few more questions and see how it works.

3074

What have I done?

3075

Speaking of not much to work on, I just received a message on POF. The subject line reads “Hi”. The message body is completely blank.

The sender adds me as a “favorite” a few minutes after sending the message.

I check out his profile. He is seeking a woman for “Long term”.

uh…

3076

Well, apparently he’s, um, flexible.

3077

Apparently. After pointing out that I am, in fact, male, he wrote back with “are you up for some gay fun”. And then “what part of van are you”.

THE PART YOU’LL NEVER FIND, MISTER.

3078

Took me far too long to figure out that was an abbreviation for Vancouver and not some sex question thats origin I was as yet unfamiliar with.

3079

Now, see, this sort if distrustful attitude is why you are still single. Live a little bit. Be adventurous. Have some gay fun.

3080

I listened to ABBA earlier today. Does that count?