So you stumbled across an online dating profile which seems to be your perfect future husband or wife. But how do you make that first contact so good that they cannot resist replying?
When it comes to online dating tips sending messages is an often ignored skill. People do everything right on their own dating profile, but then bash out any old rubbish when they start contacting other members.
Get Your Online Dating Profile Perfect
Before you make contact, double check your profile to make sure it’s the best it can be. Are your photos really as good as they can be? Do they convey you in the right way? Do you look at your est or a bit shabby?
Does your profile text really explain who you are, hook people in and make them curious?
It’s worth spending half an hour flicking through other profiles to pick up tips for improving your profile. Remember, you will usually only get one shot at contacting somebody you really like, so it’s worth making sure you do everything you can, through your profile photo, headline and text, to hook them in.
Make Sure Your First Contact Message Is Pitched Correctly
Both guys and girls receive messages on dating sites that contain one-liners nearly all the time.
For example:
“Hi there.”
Or:
“Hey, u r nice, wanna chat?”
As you can see, there’s not a lot to reply to and the message comes across as lazy. You need to make your message polite, give some detail and entice them to reply to you.
This means thinking about it, rather than just hammering out the first thing in your mind.
Especially when it comes to guys contacting women, which let’s face it is 95% of first message contact on dating sites, most are incredibly lazy or unimaginative. Simply by not being lazy, you can get ahead of the group.
How To Craft The Best First Online Dating Message
The golden rule has to be read the profile! Women get incredibly upset if you go just on the strength of a photograph. You need to make sure you find a detail from their profile to mention.
Men don’t care if you’ve read their online dating profile or not, they will be so bowled over that the lady conquered her princess syndrome long enough to act like a 21st century equal that they will jump to reply quickly.
So always mention that you contacted them because of something they wrote in a profile.
You should also ask them a question based on something in their profile. By showing an interest, and hinting at common ground, through showing an interest in something they have mentioned, you have already increased your chances of a reply by about 10%.
You don’t need to tell her your life history either. And you don’t need to tell her you had great or bad luck dating online so far.
You don’t have to tell her, or him, about your kids, dog or Ex either.
Just keep it to a handful of paragraphs, with each paragraph consisting of one or two sentences. Try to make two major points in your first message. Both of these points should be designed to hook her or him into wanting to reply, or at least giving them something to respond to.
Keep Your First Online Dating Message Light Hearted
As well as keeping your first message to a handful of very relevant paragraphs, try to blend in some humour.
Keep it clean, try to keep it relevant to something on their profile and don’t use abbreviations such as LOL to highlight the fact it’s a joke. If it feels forced, delete it.
If you make a relevant joke they are more likely to respond if they find it funny. It is building an instant rapport which encourages them to respond, just as if somebody tells a joke in a pub, people often try and create a follow-up by ad-libbing.
Double Check Your Spelling And Tone
Nothing will turn somebody off more to your first message than poor spelling or grammar. Okay, sometimes they will be so thick they will not even notice, but believe me most people will notice and judge you on it. People just don’t like thickies.
So if you are not great at spelling or grammar make sure you check it out before hitting send.
And watch the tone of your email. It is very hard to understand emotion and context in the written word sometimes.
You need to do everything you can to come across as light-hearted and intelligent, rather than ignorant and full of poor humour.
And finally, when it comes to sending that first online dating message to someone, don’t ask for any personal details. Asking whereabouts they live is for a little further down the line, and should always be done in conjunction with you giving your own location details as a sweetener for the deal.
By following these very simple tips and doing a little research and double checking before you make that initial contact, you can ensure you create the best opportunity for allowing someone to reply and striking up a conversation.
And finally, do not under any circumstances follow up with a “well you didn’t reply” message. People have lives. They also sometimes read and then walk away to consider a response. Or if you are a man sending a woman a dating message, they could just be overwhelmed with messages.
Coming across as aggressive and impatient is not cool.