I certainly wouldn't use the term "opener". It comes off to me as PUA lingo.

Wutang, I've gotten many lines like that and I never respond to them. It comes off as lazy and generic and annoys the hell out of me.

This chick shares an alma mater with amichele15.... Probably going to avoid...

That's what I thought too, but Dean said personalized openers don't give you that much better of a return on investment. I'm just experimenting now. What's your reccomendation?

" i still have a crush on my first grade teacher but thought id give you a chance to compete" something like that.

Tested and worked ( sample size 1 though)

It's the smiley faces that annoy me most.

I don't think generic is necessarily bad, but a message stating what you're not going to say is so overdone and irritating.

You'll waste more time, but you'll have a higher percentage of responses. There's probably a difference in the quality of women too.
Listen to this guy

This chick mentioned in her profile that she was majoring in dietics, so I sent her this message, and thought I was a mortal lock to get a reply:

But she viewed my profile yesterday and has yet to reply. So I guess based on this, generic is probably the way to go.

Its written too seriously, her sarcasm meter might be confused by that. Its sarcastic but not very funny imo because its too focused on the same joke. Not a very good first message at all.

I do agree with thedean that the biggest part of her decision will be based on profile and picture, but a good first message does matter.

It also matters in terms of where to go with the conversation after. If you send whats up, she'll reply nm you, and very often it dies out. A nice message with a bit of humor sets a much better tone for the exchange.

Wutang,

Be generic or reference their profile in a normal conversational way. But don't try to be funny, because you're not.

Wutang, your message is too explanatory imo.

I find this hard to believe. The difference between a decent generic message vs. personalized one really makes a huge impact?

Here's what I do when I get a message.

1) Look at girl's pictures. Is she good looking?
2) If possibly yes I'll message back. If I'm not sure I'll message back if she seems amicable based on her profile.

That's it. I decide if I want to meet a girl based on 95% her pics 5% her profile and 0% her message which normally doesn't even register w/ me.

Surely the selection process is somewhat different for girls, but is it really THAT far off? Does getting a profile specific joke really affect your desirability to meet up w/ a guy? I'm genuinely curious here.

edit- I mean outside of not sounding lame of course. I recently got this reply:

And decided the girl was a weirdo bereft of EQ and didn't respond. But any message that sounds normal is cool w/ me, and no girl has ever had a message that stood out as particularly good to me.

This one seems easy. I don't think girls usually want to date guys who "continuously shovel food into their face".

TD,

I have lots of female friends who online date. Their message filtering goes like this:

1) Does the message look like it's written by a ******? Delete

2) Is the pic unattractive? Delete

3) Is the pic really attractive? Go to profile and decide to write back or not based on that.

4) Is the pic decent attractive but not amazing? Go to profile only if the message is some level of funny/interesting.

The profile plays a way bigger part than the message - the main point of the message is just to get them to check out the profile.

OKC: how do you guys think your selectivity in responding affects whether someone will click on your profile or just keep scrolling?

When i'm searching for women, it is a huge factor to whether I click their profile or not as I figure, obviously, the better looking/higher quality women both get a lot of messages and cannot respond to them all and are able to be more selective. I suppose though, it's a possibility that, for a fear of rejection (not getting a response) a prospective female messager may not wanna send a message to you if you are "very selective"

Really? She sounds fun and witty to me.

Really? I plagiarized it from an Onion article that had me in stitches.

I think if you should definitely send a personalized message if you can immediately figure out what you want to send a message about from reading their profile.

There is a difference between a "personalized" message where you just mention something in their profile to prove that you actually looked at it, and a message where you genuinely share something in common with a girl that very unusual. I've found the second type of message will almost always get a response. However, even the second type of message will not necessarily get you a date. And of course, it is a relatively small minority of girls for which the second type of message is even possible.

For instance, a couple months back, I messaged a cute 22-year old girl; I was way out of her age range (I think she said 21-25 or something like that), so I normally wouldn't have bothered to contact her. But she mentioned in her profile that she was synesthetic, and I send her a message describing my own synesthesia & asking about her's. She send an enthusiastic response, and we messaged back-and-forth a couple times before I can her my number and suggested we meet. But she flaked on me after that, and deleted her profile a week or two later. So I think this sort of message will get a response even from girls who are unlikely to date you, but it doesn't make then likely to date you.

Do you know for a fact that you are "very selective"?...this is usually uncommon among men.

It depends on the type of woman. When I say generic, I mean messages like: Hi, How are you? What's up? You're pretty. I automatically ignore these. I also ignore the really awkward and/or long messages. I'm most likely to respond to something that's relatively short and references something on my profile. If it's obvious that a guy didn't read my profile (like by asking questions that have already been addressed on there) I will not take the time to message him back. I find intelligence very attractive, so if you're coming off as a social or intellectual idiot, you will not get a response from me.

The problem is that your message was almost funny. I bet the original onion article phrased it differently. Or has something in between:

"I just continuously shovel food into my face throughout the day."

and

"I'm growing a little concerned that this may not be the best approach. What do you think?"

which consisted of two or three ridiculous examples of excessive eating and the effects it has had on your life.

Something like what you sent, but much funnier is more much more likely to elicit a response.

No, i actually just joined and am curious. I suppose if you really wanted to you could artificially inflate your selectivity (creating accounts and messaging yourself) if it was a huge factor. I don't nearly care enough to do that, though.

What we find really funny ourselves is rarely shared by females. I like self deprecating humor for example but its almost never good to go for it to large extents with girls.




A good first message wont turn a frog into a prince, but lets say two equally attractive females message you. One said " hi hru" and the other says "hey you like photography! Always wanted to learn" (lame but still). Which one will you be more excited or comfortable or optimistic about?


( they have equal size boobs)

I don't think this is really a factor for men at all, because they almost all "reply often".

Did everyone else get this email too?

nop just you