Here are five very typical and bad mistakes that so many guys make when responding to a girl’s dating profile on OkCupid/Match that must be avoided if you want to have real chances for receiving a response and connecting with any of them:
1. Stop saying “hi” or “hello”.
A female friend of mine logs into her OkCupid account in front of me, and I see dozens of messages, that all start exactly the same way – “Hi” or “Hello”. Even though it’s just a simple, innocent greeting, it must be getting old when you see it in every message. So, skip the greeting. Don’t worry – she won’t be offended by your lack of greeting, if the rest of your message is worth reading.
2. Don’t refer to her by any pet-names.
You don’t know her, and she doesn’t know you. Referring to her as “dear” or “babe” or or “beauty” is guaranteed to toss your message to her message trash bin right away, even if she doesn’t mind being called any of those nicknames by the guy she knows. Recently, one gentleman in his early 40’s from Colorado asked me why he never receives a response from the women he writes. It took me about three seconds to figure out the problem – he started every message with “Hey, Love”. No comments necessary.
3. Don’t use smiley faces if your humor is obvious.
Smiley faces and emoticons make obvious humor less compelling. There is no need for “lol” or “:)” or “just kidding” or “jk”. Any humor is far more effective when it forces the reader to be a bit more proactive about getting it. When you immediately say that you are joking after you write something that’s intended to be funny or sarcastic, you are defeating the purpose of your humor. Smiley face or lol has the same downgrading effect on your humor as it does on a comedian’s joke when he laughs at it himself, instead of letting the audience figure it out and enjoy it.
4. Don’t write like a teenager.
Spell the words out and spell them correctly and keep the slang out of your messages.
“I liked what you said in your profile about walking through big cities” is much better than “I like what u said in ur profile about walking thru big cities”. If you are using a mobile map for writing messages and are too lazy to spell every word out, then wait till you get to a computer. There is no rush in writing that message. It’s much better to write it the right way than doing it quickly.
5. Don’t write anything generic or cliche.
Over half of the messages that girls get say “how is your day?”, “how are you?” and “how is your weekend going?” Imagine being bombarded day in and day out with essentially the same message from a difference guy. Wouldn’t you be annoyed? This is particularly a big turn-off to a girl, if she has put an effort into her profile to make it interesting and compelling. This means that she has higher standards and higher expectations from the guys’ writing as well, and she expects the messages that she receives to be at least somewhat responsive to what she says in her profile. Also, there is no excuse for not writing something unique and interesting in response to a profile that’s unique and interesting.
If every way these immature girls are contacted on these sites is so damn frustrating and inconvenient for them, how about they just GTF off of them then? I mean, maybe writing an entire detailed paragraph to 100 immature bitches every night is ALSO just as, if not MORE time costuming to us men who don’t want to waste our time, than sifting through “hey” or “hi” messages for them…stupid feminist cu-nts ruining everything in this country.
Nobody can filter out from the dating sites those who are there for the wrong reasons, and this applies both to men and women, but one could have an idea of how serious a person is based on how their profile is written and their communication style once you contact them. If they look lazy and apathetic, then you know that they are online because they are just bored. If they pay attention, respond promptly and write well, then chances are they are someone worth getting to know.
Great tips. I think I most guilty of #3 and #5. I use smiley faces because I am afraid that the girl is not going to know whether I am joking or not, since she doesn’t know me and isn’t familiar with my humor.
#5 is the problem because some girls don’t say much in their profile, so it’s hard to come up with anything interesting or unique to say right off the bat.
#3 This of course depends on the kind of humor or joke you include in your message. If it’s super obvious, then it’s best to keep away any kind of lol or smiley faces. If it’s not that obvious or if it’s super sarcastic, then you may consider to include “)” to make sure that what’s meant to be funny doesn’t come across as offensive.
#5 – that’s a great point, and that’s the reason that I encourage both men and women to write interesting profiles. Besides the fact that a good profiles makes its author more attractive, it also makes it much easier to respond to.