Diff b/w personal and non-personal online dating 1st message

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Another thread inspired me to have more of a think about why I don't reply to online dating messages that don't indicate that the person has read my profile - that is, they are not personalised.

Why not reply to a simple, funny, copy & paste message? I think it is because of a difference in the perceived objective of the sender.

So, this is how I see it. Say a dude sends a cute, amusing message to me, that gets a chuckle out of me but doesn't show that they have read my profile. They are probably trying to send this message out to a substantial number of women, with the objective of finding one who replies in a way that indicates compatibility, and go from there. There's nothing sinister in that, and the guy could be genuinely looking for their soulmate or whatever. There's certainly the possibility that this method could work out really well.

But...

The reason this doesn't sit well with me is because the sender is looking to have the compatible women come to him, before he puts in the effort. So, he will send off a bunch of messages to who really cares who (the more the better?), then when he gets replies, THEN he can read the profile and actually get to know this individual.

I would much prefer that he messaged me because he actually found me appealing, from the start. He chose me specifically because something (or hopefully many things!) about me caught his attention and he wanted to get to know me better. Otherwise it sort of comes across as "hey, look at me, and if you like what you see, I'll look at you".

Do with this insight what you will. I'm not sure if I'm unique in my opinion here, but if not, I guess be aware that you might be sending your adorable impersonal message to people like me, and this might be why they are not replying.


(Apologies for the hetero nature of the post. I wrote it this way just for ease of typing. Switch sexes around as you see fit.)

In real life, humans start conversation with a simple "Hi / Hello"....and things go with the flow.

And not with "Oh I saw you reading over there a Danielle Steel book, I am her fan too! And oh, I like your shirt, I am I am a fan of that band too!".

Last edited by The_Face_of_Boo on 14 Mar 2016, 2:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes but it's obvious they came to talk to you because they liked you, rather than calling out across a crowded room to everyone and seeing who talks back.

Male birds sing to the whole pasture, females choose.

Sure, that works for them. Like I said, it's not necessarily a bad option. In the bird scenario, presumably the male bird doesn't care who chooses him. I'd rather date someone who cared about that.

Thing about online dating is, it appears to be a number's game.

Spending too much time crafting your message to personalize it for other people is an unnecessary waste of time when your chances of actually being compatible with them are extremely low.

Like Boo says, most people in real life DO start with a 'Hello, how are you?' or a cute/amusing/cheesy/bad pickup line, and some women even say they actually like being messaged something just like that on a dating site.

I find your analogy a little silly.

It's not like a man calling out saying 'Who wants a boyfriend?!' to every woman in the room, it's more like a man going around town saying 'Hello, how are you?' and trying to chat-up a ridiculously high amount of women in a small span of time in the hopes he'll eventually meet one who is friendly and he is compatible with.

A method that, for the most part, can and does for some men work.

Problem with online dating is, the rules change socially.

Honestly, I'd see nothing wrong with someone who initially showed no signs of reading my profile at first, but in subsequent messages they'd have to show me some evidence.

Making the very first message personalized? Unnecessary to catch my attention, and i'm sure this is true for many others.

But by the 2nd to 5th message, they better have brought up a topic I'm interested in by now.

Since i'm a male and usually take the initiative, I usually personalize the 2nd to 5th message, not the first. Hopefully it doesn't penalize me too much.

"Hey, how are you today? "

"I'm good thanks, what about you?"

"I'm great. Going to meet some friends later tonight, what about you?"

"I don't have much planned."

"So I see you like X music, I'm into that stuff too. Who's your favorite artist and song?"

"X and X. And that's cool. I also like a bit of X music."

"Ah, true. Blah blah"

A few messages later...

"So you're in town? Well, I know this cool place that plays great X music all the time, want to meet up with me there at 6 before I meet my friends later on?"

Hook, line and sinker...

I was actually expecting Boo to try to pull me up on that before someone else did

The difference, still, is that he has walked up to someone he has seen and presumably liked. It could be the smallest thing. She's blonde, she has a nice smile, she's reading a cool book, whatever. But there's this assumption that he went up to her specifically. Even if he went up to a bunch of women, he didn't go up to EVERY woman, he did make choices based on observations. If he didn't, then I have the same opinion as I do with online dating. I'd rather he didn't approach me if he just approached me randomly.

So, with an online message, he could comment on a physical feature, that's fine, it doesn't matter what it is, just do SOMETHING that shows he looked, rather than sending the message to the first 150 profiles on the list, whoever they are.

And of course he might not have done that, but I don't know. If he personalises the message I at least know he went to some effort to acknowledge me personally, rather than just based on proximity.

I thought I covered this in the original post, but maybe not. I'm not saying impersonal first messages don't work. I'm just explaining one reason why they might not work for some people. Possibly the sort of person you'd like to attract. I don't know. I'm just putting it out there.

I believe investing time in personal first message essays is useless, it all depends whether she finds my picture attractive or not.

Impersonal messages like "Hi I am X, what's your name?" actually worked better than the personal messages and with much less wasted time, sometimes I may crack a joke about something in her profile - those worked too.

How do you know? How do you know she declined to reply because she didn't like your picture, rather than because your message wasn't personalised, or some other reason? If I don't reply to someone, obviously I'm not telling them why.

But if someone with an attractive profile picture sends me a message "Hi I am X, what's your name?" only, I will not reply.

If you crack a joke about something on their profile, that's personalising it.


If you don't personalise your message, you won't get a reply from the sort of person who wants you to personalise it. You'll miss out on them, if you ever did have a chance with them. That's the effect. That might be of little to no importance to you - that's fine.

I don't care whether you reply or not.

The thing is, any average girl would receive like 100 "personal" messages per day (it is the most common tip found out there) - do you think she will read all of them and reward those who made it right with a reply?

No, she will simply skim the thumbnail pics, in a tinder-mode way, hot or not hot, and reply to the ones they like. PS. as long the first message isn't inappropriate.

I was asking how do you know why women who didn't reply didn't reply? You said it with certainty that they didn't reply because they didn't like your picture, but they never told you that so you don't know. Some of them might be like me in the sense that they don't receive many messages, so they read them all. I've seen a number of people on this site say they don't receive many messages, including women, if you want to go down the gender path.

Some people on this site might not be looking for the "average" girl, or even a female at all. I'm not trying to advise the masses, this isn't an NT forum.

For those seeking the "average woman", granted, nothing I've said is likely to be relevant. But I don't think it's fair to argue against my insight just because it doesn't apply to "seeking the average woman". In fact that might be a reason some people here struggle...because they are trying to do things the "normal" way, when the "normal" person is not an ideal partner for them. *shrug*

Oh give me a break....

When she doesn't rely without even checking my profile (okcupid shows visitors) then the most likely reason is because of the looks.
And when a girl whom I wrote a personal short message, checks my profile, and despite having almost the exact overlapping same interests, hobbies and values and yet still ignores it, then it's most likely because she didn't like the looks.

Btw, I got ignored more often when I was used to put effort in writing personal messages, yet simple, messages - when I looked very skinny and geeky back then.

Some people browse anonymously. OkCupid doesn't show those visitors.

You have to have a paid account for that, if I am not mistaken.

This isn't common, you know.

No, I do it, and I don't pay. I've no idea how common or uncommon it is, as I can't see who visits my profile either. I believe even if you pay, you still can't see anonymous browsers' visits.

I don't know how much clearer I can be in saying I didn't write my post to talk about the "common" and "average" and "usual".