Be a Cyber Treater
How to be a Cyber Treater:
1. Look like your photo.
2. Tell the truth, especially about things a potential mate would want to know (relationship histories, children and families, disease or disabilities, or financial difficulties, for instance). If you have a secret that keeps you from dating, you need my article “Do you have a secret? How to tell your Sweetheart Your Worst”
3. Be polite, kind, responsible, and prompt in your communications. Kindness and courtesy cost nothing.
4. If you are not interested in pursuing contact, say so in an email. Be tactful. This process is hard enough on everyone. Rude and nasty need to take a hike.
5. Do not continue contact or date if you know that this person is not for you, just because you don’t know how to say “no” or don’t want to hurt the other’s feelings. It is cowardly, not kind. Exit graciously and free your date up to find someone who truly would appreciate them.
6. Take your share of the responsibility in keeping communications going and building a relationship. Dare to initiate contact, offer plans for meeting, and be ready to share expenses.
7. Show by your behavior that you treat the possible relationship as important. Groom and dress for meetings—neat and clean go a long way, as does freshly barbered or hair-styled. Show up when you said you would. Offer to help pay.
8. Try to relax and don’t push yourself in an attempt to impress. If you are interested in your date and ask questions, that will help you feel less in the spotlight.
9. Avoid alcohol and drugs, one drink at the most. You need your senses totally sharp so that you can decide whether you want to see this person again. And no one is more attractive drunk or high.
10. Expect and insist the same respect and honesty from your date as you are willing to provide for them. If your date misbehaves or you find that you have been lied to or misled, you are not obligated to see this person again or even endure the rest of the date.
Despite the “Trick or treat?” of Halloween, most of us want the treat part and would just as soon skip the trick. No one likes feeling tricked. If you’d like the option of a second date, improve your chances dramatically: make yourself into a treat.
P. S. If you are unsure if you are a “Trick or treat?” you could use my book “Find a Sweetheart Soon!” [ www.YourLoveTripPlanner.com ] It will take you through all the ways I could think of that singles undermine themselves in their search for love, and help you design your solutions. There is nothing like being ready when the right person shows up. “Find a Sweetheart Soon!” will get you readier than you can imagine.
Trick… Or Treat?
Anyone who has done any online dating or listened to other singles knows that dating horror stories abound. What you hear less of is the successes, and there are plenty, believe me. I’m one of them—I met my husband online. If people like me weren’t finding love online, Internet dating sites would have gone out of business years ago.
But if there is ever a time for horror, it’s Halloween. If you need a few lessons on how to scare the willies out of your cyber sweetheart, try some of these Trickster Tips. You won’t even need to yell “Boo!”
How to be a Cyber Trickster:
1. Lie—about your age, weight, height, or marital status.
2. Post an old or deceptive photo. (Most men have learned how far a “glamour shot” is from reality, but not all…)
3. Start writing/talking about sex in the second email or first phone call.
4. Neglect your personal hygiene. Do not have your teeth cleaned in recent memory. Or take a bath. Or clean your nails. Or have your hair cut. Or your gray roots dyed.
5. Treat your first date like a trip to the Laundromat. Dress accordingly.
6. Expect the worse and make it happen.
7. Take your time. Be late. Very late.
8. Forget your wallet.
9. Show up drunk or high, or proceed to get that way.
10. Say that you will call or email and then don’t.
Scary, huh? Well, if you’d like to more of a treat and less of a trick, avoid the boo-boos that so many others have made before you.
Texting. I don’t get texting any more that I get emoticons. Except that you can do it from a phone and you don’t have to be in front of a computer. But whatever, here are some guidelines for dating and texting from Geek Sugar.
Tech Dating 101: Decoding Post-Date Texts and IMs
by GeekSugar
The men of Swingers championed a rule that fundamentally changed how fellas of the ‘90s plotted post-date communication. They said a man should wait three days after a date to call a woman so she would want them more. Preposterous, right? Today the possibilities for contact are so varied — email, work email, IM, gChat, Facebook, Twitter, text and so on — that it can be harder to gauge interest or commitment based on the time frame and way someone reaches out. In this installment of my Tech Dating 101 series I will address how technology and texting have changed the moments and days after a good first date. To see what I think (spoiler alert: it’s complicated), read more.
* The same day text: Most women I have talked to say they like it when a guy follows up a first date with a short text. It doesn’t have to be sexy, or even offer the promise of a second date, but texting is a simple, quick and sweet way to say thanks, without an immediate call. If you had a great time and want him to know, text him yourself. It is one of the most relaxed forms of communication (no login required!) and will keep both of you from getting too wordy.
* The three-day text: Consensus among friends is that the day three text could be a cop-out (as in, he isn’t ready to commit to a phone call and he’s using the antiquated Swingers mentality to make you want him more), but it does count as contact and an effort.
* The instant reach out: If a guy initiates communication via instant messaging in any form (iChat, Yahoo Messenger, gChat, Facebook chat etc.) less than two hours after a date he can come off as eager to get the party started. Do with that what you will. I do; however, think it is polite for him to acknowledge he sees you online if you pop online right after your date or in the days following. It’s ridiculous to pretend you don’t see one another online. That being said, instant messages are not a phone call. If he really wants to talk to you he should still call you up, or at the very least send an email to plan your next get-together.
I really dislike emoticons. }:P I was going to write “hate” but that is a little too strong. They seem so silly to me, very junior high school. “Write what you mean!” I want to yell at the computer screen. In online dating, it’s best NOT to do anything that risks turning off the recipient, and emoticons are one of them. When in doubt, don’t.
Tech Dating 101: What’s Up With All the Emoticons?
I was out with a group of girlfriends last week when one of them received a text from a guy she’d gone on a few dates with. It read, “Great time last night ;)” — with the winking emoticon. Apparently after every single text he sends (and sometimes midtext, too), he includes an emoticon.
One of our friends thinks he’s just being friendly, but another is convinced he’s downright weird. And the friend-in question is not sure whether to accept his request to go on another date. “It’s too weird!” she says. “I’m not sure what he’s trying to do, but it’s sort of creeping me out.”
I’ve covered a few text-etiquette rules, like if it’s appropriate to get out of a date via text and how to decode post-date texts and IMs, but what about the little day-to-day exchanges you tend to have with a potential love interest? What do all of those smiley faces mean? For more of my emoticon advice,read more.
Generally, you seem to feel emoticons are fine for personal use but not for professional. What about dating? I can see where my friend is coming from, and I’ve definitely decided to check myself when it comes to text and instant-message emoticon use. Turns out I use them more often than I should! I received some solid emoticon advice recently: “Don’t ever use an emoticon smiley face with a guy you don’t want to make out with.”
I asked a few guy friends, and their answers varied from the seemingly obvious: “He types a smiley face because he’s actually smiling,” to the sort-of charming: “He really likes you and is trying to be endearing,” to the less virtuous, “He thinks you’re into him and is trying to charm you into another date.”
If his emoticon use really bothers you, you could always address it . . . but risk him feeling rejected. Until he starts adding the spoken equivalent of emoticons into regular conversation (think: “I’m sorry you can’t hang out later. Sad face.”), it’s probably not worth getting worked up over. If you simply can’t take it anymore, you could always try calling him instead. Have you ever dated an overzealous emoticoner? Is it ever cute? Or just annoying?
Sometimes I get questions from women who are dating or thinking about dating a man who is a widower. Divorced men and particularly widowers are prime candidates for remarriage, as the stats in the following article make clear. While it is ideal for the newly single men to have some time to adjust to their loss and figure out how to live single, in truth, these men may move quite quickly into a new relationship. These guys tend to like being coupled and married, and will start looking around to get that way pretty quickly. Even though they might still be a bit risky, for many women, it makes good sense to look at the recently divorced or widowed men seriously. They can be good mate material and likely will not stay single long.
Death do us part; then on to Match.com
Vicki Kennedy makes for a striking widow. Now that she’s said she won’t fill her husband’s senate seat, she has stepped firmly into the national conscience as a public figure of grief. The First Lady holds her hand at presidential conferences and liberals everywhere speak her name at prayer circles. At 55, she might some day remarry. But the odds are against it.
If things were different and Vicki passed before Teddy, chances are he’d be married this time next year. In fact, men are four times more likely to remarry after losing a spouse; 61 percent of men start dating within the first two years, compared to just 19 percent of women. It’s ironic that the same men who hem and haw about being dragged into marriage — there’s a reason women set ultimatums — are the ones who rush to find a ball and chain so soon after losing their spouse.
I’ve toured the circuit of grief groups; the women there often titter about the widowers who come to troll for dates. “They can’t do a load of laundry,” the women say, throwing their hands up in exasperation. “They don’t know how to cook for themselves.” With older widowers especially, men who served as breadwinners while their wives tended the home front, the transition to forced bachelorhood can be rocky. They’re suddenly left wondering who will fold their socks or dust the TV stand.
But, really, it’s more than the housework. My feeling is that there’s a companionship that develops in marriages, a profound understanding that’s hard to duplicate. We learn the most intimate details about someone over the course of a marriage: how they sleep with their mouth open or litter the sink with hairs after they shave. It’s these same details that grate on us over time, that drive couples to alcohol, recreational drugs and — worse — marriage counseling. But what we gain in this exchange, this soul-level knowledge of another human being, is a partner who knows us just as intimately.
Abel Keogh, who lost his wife when he was 26 years old, echoes this feeling.
“In my case, I really missed being married,” he says. “You can share your problems, your joys. You take pleasure in their life and they take pleasure in yours.” Mr. Keogh has gone on to write a book on grieving for men, “Room for Two,” and runs the online Facebook group, “Dating a Widower.” He tells men who have lost a spouse and are considering dating again to take a step back and evaluate the situation. “Make sure it’s for the right reasons,” he says, “and not just because you’re lonely.”
Which is good advice for all of us. So often we rush into relationships wanting to be known and we are quick to dismiss our partners when they fail to comprehend us fully. Instead of dashing headlong into a break-up at the first sign of discord, we would be wise to stick with some relationships for the long haul. To know someone fully — and to be known by them — takes time. For most of us, that means a lifetime.
Matchmakers, beware! And also, singles: just because the service claims to be matchmakers does not mean that you will find what you are looking for.
Woman sues dating service after several dates and no Mr. Right
CHICAGO (STNG)—A woman who signed up for a Chicago-based dating service hoping to meet her soul mate filed a lawsuit against the matchmaking company Thursday, claiming all the service brought her was heartache, disappointment and stress—and cost her $3,500.
In May, Sheena Finnegan signed a contract with Élan Relationships, which has been “Chicago’s premiere personal introduction service” for 18 years, according to its Web site.
Finnegan, who refers to herself as a “busy, professional Chicago single” whose “time constraints prohibit [her] from getting the kind of exposure necessary to find a life partner” claims she counted on Élan to find her a suitable life partner, according to the suit filed in Cook County Circuit Court Thursday.
In exchange for $3,500, the service allegedly promised Finnegan to find her “genuine, high caliber, professional” matches by setting her up with six “qualified introductions” in a six-month period, the suit alleges.
As opposed to Internet dating, Élan’s Web site claims they “value the significance of personal introductions based on true compatibility and priorities.”
In May, Finnegan met with the company’s director, Mary Harris and owner Eileen Messier for over an hour, explaining what she was looking for in a mate. Harris and Messier are also named as defendants in the suit.
On May 30, Finnegan had her first date scheduled with a man named Mark—he canceled due to “car trouble,” the suit said. On June 6, she went on a date with a man named Steve, who she felt was not a good match. On June 28, she finally met Mark—who bragged about his homes and money, which Finnegan was not pleased with. On June 20 and June 27, she was scheduled to go on a date with Chris—who canceled both times.
On June 26, Finnegan contacted Élan, asking that her membership be extended due to the cancellations. The company agreed to extend it for one month, the suit said. After a few more dates, and two more cancellations, Finnegan said she realized the men she was meeting were not serious about finding a relationship—and that one of the men did not even sign up on his own accord, someone else signed him up.
She again contacted the company, claiming the service was not what she was promised and asking for a full refund. The company refused.
Finnegan said the company’s contract was “misleading…false…fraudulent” and did not make any favorable matches for her. The suit claims Finnegan endured heartache, stress and disappointment and has nothing to show for the $3,500 she spent trying to find a committed relationship.
The suit accuses Élan, Harris and Messier of breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, deceptive business practices, intentional misrepresentation of material fact and negligence. The eight-count suit asks for an unspecified amount of money in damages as well as an injunction to prevent Élan from continuing to practice deceitful business techniques.
And she got married! Essence Atkins married the guy she met on Match.com two years ago. If you wonder about the quality of the men and women on dating sites, it’s hard to argue with this pairing:
ESSENCE ATKINS MARRIES HER INTERNET BEAU: Couple jumped the broom Saturday in Pasadena. G. Garvin provided the food.
*Actress Essence Atkins, best known for her role on the UPN sitcom “Half and Half,” has married her boyfriend Jaime Mendez after meeting him less than two years ago through an online dating site.
According to People.com, the wedding took place Saturday at the Ambassador Mansion and Gardens in Pasadena, Calif, The couple met on Valentine’s Day of last year through Match.com.
“I wrote him a quick little note that I had read his profile, and then I signed off, Happy SAD Day – that’s Single Awareness Day,” says Essence, 37. A week later the couple went on their first date, and they were engaged a year later.
The bride wore a Stephen Yearick gown for the ceremony and an Angel Rivera dress for the reception, according to People. “I felt like a princess,” she says.
Her former costar Valerie Pettiford performed original music at the reception. Plus, the bride surprised her husband with a salsa band to celebrate his Puerto Rican heritage.
“We’ve been taking salsa lessons. It’s part of what we’ve been doing together as a couple,” she says.
TV One personality, chef G. Garvin, blended Puerto Rican and traditional soul food dishes, which included mac and cheese, roasted pork, peach cobbler and plantains.
As party favors, guests received match books and travel-sized candles. But singles guests were given six-month memberships to Match.com.
If you think it is only losers who use online dating, get a load of this story:
ESSENCE ATKINS ENGAGED TO MATCH.COM DATE:
Actress puts profile on Internet dating service and strikes gold (as in a ring).
Actress Essence Atkins got herself a fiancé through Match.com.
The former “Half and Half” star got engaged to Jaime Mendez in February following a year-long courtship that started when they came across each other on the popular Internet dating site, reports TMZ.com. Their wedding is set to take place on Sept. 26.
Atkins, who started her career on “The Cosby Show,” says she preferred using Match.com because she didn’t have to post a picture of herself. She ended up sending Jamie a message on Valentine’s Day because they were 97% compatible.
Anyone who reads what I write for more than five minutes knows that I say “Don’t be cheap with your future—pay the bucks and join a good dating site.” Match.com is my favorite. But the free Plentyoffish.com is now the industry leader and there must be reasons why, beyond free. Here’s a report below by Dave Evans who writes Online Dating Insider. He critiques from the inside, actually using PlentyofFish for a few months. Markus is the developer and owner of PlentyofFish, which has made him marvelously wealthy on ad revenue alone. I’ve underlined in the article what I think is particularly interesting in Dave’s report.
Free Dating Overtakes Paid Subscriptions, Now What?
by David Evans on September 24, 2009
Markus at Plentyoffish let me know about his post today, Worlds top dating sites for August from comscore.
I’ve stopped using paid dating sites for a few months to gauge firsthand how effective free dating sites are. Basically I’ve been on Facebook dating apps, Plentyoffish and OKCupid. Someone asked me about mobile apps recently. I personaly don’t use mobile apps for the most part. Why squint at the screen when I can go home and view on a 24″ monitor. I’m not in that much of a rush to get a date. I know, thats just me, but mobile clones of the desktop just aren’t interesting anymore.
Based on a few months on Plentyoffish, here are a few personal observations, some of which go against what I’ve been saying for years, but things change as the online dating industry evolves.
I wouldn’t date 98% of the women on Plentyoffish, but the 2% I would date is getting to be a huge number and I can’t avoid this anymore. There seems to be a lot more attractive women on the site compared to a few years ago. Some people are going to hate me for saying that but it’s true.
Match says you are paying for customer service. Sure Markus has lots of complaints in the forums but if you don’t get in trouble and act accordingly, who needs customer service? How much customer service is related to billing at a site like Match or eHarmony? Can a free site with no paid help deliver results like a free site? I used to think not, and the fact is that people pay for assistance. Would you buy a free car if there wasn’t a dealership to take it to?
Plentyoffish is like crack, the whole site is built to keep you clicking on faces through a variety of means. The embarrassing “people who haven’t gotten email in 24 hours” display and the constant barrage of photos on every page keeps me clicking like crazy.
The more you click the more likely you are to come across someone you want to meet. This is what kills eHarmony. I’m hearing of people getting 7 matches a month, which is ridiculous.
I end up clicking on a lot of Plentyoffish profiles because so many women (men too) have terrible photos or one blurry photo and that has me moving on without a glance. If a photo isn’t up to par, it should be removed. I don’t know how that would be measured but it sure would help. I would also outlaw people who hold camera in front of themselves in bathroom mirror photos, personal pet peeve. Women, go ahead and continue to show too much cleavage on Plentyoffish. That’s why many men consider it a pickup site. If I could filter on women in suggestive poses I would, because they are 99.999% of the time not my type.
So what if the freemium model at Plentyoffish isn’t compelling? Does it really matter? I’m the first to admit that I sometimes need to get off my high horse when it comes to the perceived quality of dating sites. Most people just want a date and could care less what a site looks like or functions. They just want to be discovered.
A few constructive criticisms that no doubt Markus can refute. I am completely aware that on many sites, things that don’t make sense to me, or seem broken, are actually designed that way on purpose. This is why having access to dating site statistics is so incredibly important and why it’s unfortunate that generic dating sites never do anything with the wealth of information at their fingertips.
Fix the photo system, the display doesn’t work very well, I’m always mousing over the photos and having to readjust to view the profile. Go browse a few people and you’ll see what I mean.
The profile layout needs to be redone. Put everything above the fold, don’t make me scroll down on each and every profile. Match is brilliant, you see everything you need to see immediately. On Plentyoffish I have to focus, scan, scroll and interpret the text, which is a pain and takes too much time. Markus can afford a designer now, change the serious member logo, it’s awful. This is why I am not a designer and I outsource all client User Experience and UI stuff to Thought-Rocket. If it was up to me everything would have lots of whitespace around it and look like it was designed in Europe.
I despise the big-boobed ads for human pheromones next to every single woman’s photos. That’s tacky and crass. The crap-tastic ads for the competition are getting stale as well. Then again, I’ve been looking at the site for five years inside my little bubble. People will put up with a lot of junk if something is free.
I’m amazed at the amount of traffic Plentyoffish is getting, north of 100 million visits a month I believe. And the visits per month kicks everyone else off the chart. These numbers are so much higher than Compete reports it’s ridiculous, although Quantcast seems to peg them at 200 million monthly visitors.
The exact numbers don’t matter, what matters is that Plentyoffish is destroying the free dating competition and paid dating will now always be a smaller market than free. This doesn’t mean that free is better, just, free, which is enough of a value proposition for millions of singles to join free dating sites. There will always be those who will gladly pay for the privilege of meeting online for many other reasons. Do you want to go to a KOA Campground or a boutique hotel? The choice is yours to make.
Food for thought: anyone can go buy a boatload of traffic like Singlesnet and True and get into the top ten dating site list. How can we as an industry gauge how good a dating site is when not taking traffic into account as the sole metric by which success is measured?
One of my clients with a good sense of humor sent me this chart of the highs and lows in a guy’s life—unfortunately, only up til age 25. What about the next 50 years? Anyway, it is funny and worth a posting here just for the laugh.
If you are in a relationship, no matter how you met, your participation is needed in a new study on couples. It only takes a few minutes to fill out the online questionnaire (I took about 10 minutes, vs. what the suggested time was of 30 minutes). We need data comparing relationships that met online vs. those who did not. Either way, if you are in a relationship, go to this website and answer the questions:
http://lovestudy.yolasite.com/” title=“http://lovestudy.yolasite.com/”>http://lovestudy.yolasite.com/
Are Online Relationships More Successful than Offline Relationships?
OnlineDatingMagazine.com Launches Groundbreaking “Modern Love Study”
(September 29, 2009) Online Dating Magazine, a consumer watchdog publication for online daters, has just launched a new modern love study of the factors that determine relationship satisfaction and whether couples who meet online have the same or better quality relationship when compared to couples who meet through more traditional methods.
“We are seeing the media increasingly challenge the claims of dating websites that online matching methods produce high quality relationships for singles,” says Joe Tracy, Publisher of Online Dating Magazine. “In fact, the debate continues around the world as to whether online dating is really effective at creating successful long-term relationships. We want to see a conclusion to that debate through this study.”
The study will measure different aspects of committed, romantic relationships in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships and then determine whether relationship satisfaction and stability is different for couples who meet online compared to couples who meet using traditional methods.
“This type of study has never been conducted before, and a major goal of the research is to create the most comprehensive and valid measure of relationship quality in the academic field. Much research on compatibility is based on outdated questionnaires and theories,” said Dr. James Houran, spokesperson and feature columnist for Online Dating Magazine, who heads the team conducting the study.
According to Dr. Houran, “This project aims to bring cutting edge analysis to the question of what really defines a successful relationship, regardless of sexual orientation or how a couple meets.”
Anyone who is currently in a committed relationship or who has been in a committed relationship, is eligible to participate in the study. Participants are asked to respond to a series of questions about their current or most recent serious relationship. The basic results of the study will be released upon the study’s conclusion. The questionnaire has approximately 130 items and takes about 30 minutes to complete. It may be accessed via the link below:
http://lovestudy.yolasite.com/” title=“http://lovestudy.yolasite.com/”>http://lovestudy.yolasite.com/
One thing that is simply great about computers is their ability to count. OKCupid puts this skill to work in its analysis of what people are actually doing on their dating site. The following article is from the OK Cupid blog, and it is about optimum length for first email messages. Combine that with the earlier posting about what words to use, and you should be able to write a winner.
Online Dating Advice: Optimum Message Length
Picture this online dating scenario:
1. You see someone you like.
2. You read their profile, and wow.
3. You send them a long message.
4. You hang tight and…
5. …you never get a reply.
Sadly, this is a typical story. Even on a lively site like OkCupid, only about a third (32%) of first messages get any response.
Some people, however, get much better results.
In the next several posts here on OkTrends, we’ll be taking a closer look at messaging and finding some ways to improve your own message response rate. We will not be dispensing generic advice. No. We’ve done research, and we have actual numbers.
As we began to dig into OkCupid’s messaging data, the first thing we noticed was that most people’s contact attempts are way too lonnnng. Almost 16% of first messages are over 2000 characters (roughly 400 words), and the average is 743! At least in terms of using your time efficiently, your messages should be much shorter. Let’s start with this chart: [go to OKCupid’s blog to see the actual graphics]
The y-axis is reply percentage; the x-axis is message length, in characters; and the two lines are as follows. Red is the ratio of messages that get any reply. Green is the ratio of messages that get a reply that in turn gets replied to by the original sender. The idea is that this is the ultimate goal of the first message: to start a conversation with someone.
Messages sent by guys are, overall, only about half as likely to get replies as similar messages from women. But when you consider we’re including dudes who send out messages such as:
Your hot
DAm I got inch for you
and
Your people need to get out of Israel
a baseline reply rate of 22% is looking pretty darn great. (All those were actual first messages, by the way.)
Now, our graph clearly shows that in raw terms, it helps guys to write longer messages. But when we factor in the actual time it takes to compose a given message, it becomes clear that in terms of time put in vs. likelihood of starting actually having a conversation, shorter is actually better. If we imagine that people type messages at about 200 characters per minute, we get the following table: [go to OKCupid’s blog to see the actual graphics]
Of course, we shouldn’t forget that there’s a certain amount of overhead involved with contacting someone (scanning her profile for common interests, thinking of jokes to make, taking a deep breath, clicking around, and so on). If we include 5 minutes of forethought, we find that the actual ideal first message length is 200 characters, or 1 minute’s worth of typing for the average writer.
Yes, brevity is key. Something we learned building SparkNotes, in our pre-OkCupid days. If you’re the kind of person who spends a little more time reading a profile and thinking about your message, say, 10 minutes, then the optimal length goes up a few words (to 270 characters), but, still, short is better. Savor this advice, men, for there are not many things in your world that fit this paradigm.
For women, the most efficient message is even shorter.
The shortest messages get almost the best absolute response rate, and the reply rate actually goes down as messages approach extreme length. Apparently, after about 360 words (1800 characters), you start scaring people off. A message like that is the online equivalent of a face tattoo. Of your life story. Let’s generate our efficiency table for women: [go to OKCupid’s blog to see the actual graphics]
Incredibly enough, the optimal first outreach from a woman to a man is just 50 characters long! I’m willing to speculate that this graph is telling us that a guy decides whether or not to reply to a woman’s message regardless of what the message actually says, and that the first message’s true function is simply to bring her profile to his attention.
My guess is that he looks at her picture and if she’s his type, he writes back. On the one hand, such a superficial reality is depressing. On the other, over 40% of female-to-male first messages do get replied to, so, as a woman, if you’re writing to a few people who fit your basic demographic the odds are very good you’ll get a response. Anyhow, all this implies that the average woman’s time is better spent looking for the right people to write to, rather than composing detailed messages.
OK Cupid has been fooling around with some hard data that they have been combing out of their dating site. Here, they have boiled down results to some concrete rules for writing those first email. I can’t reprint the nice charts they have in the article, but you can try going to the blog website and see them there.
Online Dating Advice: Exactly What To Say In A First Message
Ok, here’s the experiment.
We analyzed over 500,000 first contacts on our dating site, OkCupid. Our program looked at keywords and phrases, how they affected reply rates, and what trends were statistically significant. The result: a set of rules for what you should and shouldn’t say when introducing yourself online. This is the second post of our statistical investigation into the optimal online dating message; a note about how we protected user privacy is here. Let’s go:
#1 – Be literate.
Netspeak, bad grammar, and bad spelling are huge turn-offs. Our negative correlation list is a fool’s lexicon: ur, u, wat, wont, and so on. These all make a terrible first impression. In fact, if you count hit (and we do!) the worst 6 words you can use in a first message are all stupid slang.
Language like this is such a strong deal-breaker that correctly written but otherwise workaday words like don’t and won’t have nicely above average response rates (36% and 37%, respectively).
Interesting exceptions to the “no netspeak” rule are expressions of amusement. haha (45% reply rate) and lol (41%) both turned out to be quite good for the sender. This makes a certain sense: people like a sense of humor, and you need to be casual to convey genuine laughter. hehe was also a successful word, but much less so (33%). Scientifically, this is because it’s a little evil sounding.
So, in short, it’s okay to laugh, but keep the rest of your message grammatical and punctuated.
#2 – Avoid physical compliments.
Although the data shows this advice holds true for both sexes, it’s mostly directed at guys, because they are way more likely to talk about looks. You might think that words like gorgeous, beautiful, and sexy are nice things to say to someone, but no one wants to hear them. As we all know, people normally like compliments, but when they’re used as pick-up lines, before you’ve even met in person, they inevitably feel…ew. Besides, when you tell a woman she’s beautiful, chances are you’re not.
On the other hand, more general compliments seem to work well:
The word pretty is a perfect case study for our point. As an adjective, it’s a physical compliment, but as an adverb (as in, “I’m pretty good at sports.”) it’s is just another word.
When used as an adverb it actually does very well (a phenomenon we’ll examine in detail below), but as pretty’s uses become more clearly about looks, reply rates decline sharply. You’re pretty and your pretty are phrases that could go either way (physical or non-). But very pretty is almost always used to describe the way something or someone looks, and you can see how that works out.
#3 – Use an unusual greeting.
We took a close look at salutations. After all, the way you choose to start your initial message to someone is the “first impression of your first impression.” The results surprised us:
The top three most popular ways to say “hello” were all actually bad beginnings. Even the slangy holla and yo perform better, bucking the general “be literate” rule. In fact, it’s smarter to use no traditional salutation at all (which earns you the reply rate of 27%) and just dive into whatever you have to say than to start with hi. I’m not sure why this is: maybe the ubiquity of the most popular openings means people are more likely to just stop reading when they see them.
The more informal standard greetings: how’s it going, what’s up, and howdy all did very well. Maybe they set a more casual tone that people prefer, though I have to say
You had me at ‘what’s up’
doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
#4 – Don’t try to take it outside.
Obviously, all successful OkCupid relationships outgrow our in-site messaging feature. But an offer to chat or of an email address right off the bat is a sure turn off. One of the things online dating has going for it is its relative anonymity, and if you start chipping away at that too early, you’ll scare the other person off.
Also, don’t ask for or give away a cell number (10%). I thought that was a no-brainer. For the brainless among you who are doing this, my best advice is to paypal me 25 dollars and never use a computer again.
#5 – Bring up specific interests.
There are many words on the effective end of our list like zombie, band, tattoo, literature, studying, vegetarian (yes!), and metal (double yes!) that are all clearly referencing something important to the sender, the recipient, or, ideally, both. Talking about specific things that interest you or that you might have in common with someone is a time-honored way to make a connection, and we have proof here that it works. We’re presenting just a smattering: in fact every “niche” word that we have significant data on has a positive effect on messaging.
Even more effective are phrases that engage the reader’s own interests, or show you’ve read their profile:
#6 – If you’re a guy, be self-effacing.
Awkward, sorry, apologize, kinda, and probably all made male messages more successful, yet none of them except sorry affects female messages. As we mentioned before, pretty, no doubt because of its adverbial meaning of “to a fair degree; moderately” also helps male messages. A lot of real-world dating advice tells men to be more confident, but apparently hemming and hawing a little works well online.
It could be that appearing unsure makes the writer seem more vulnerable and less threatening. It could be that women like guys who write mumbly. But either way: men should be careful not to let the appearance of vulnerability become the appearance of sweaty desperation: please is on the negative list (22% reply rate), and in fact it is the only word that is actually worse for you than its netspeak equivalent (pls, 23%)!
#7 – Consider becoming an atheist.
Mentioning your religion helps you, but, paradoxically, it helps you most if you have no religion. We know that’s going to piss a lot of people off, and we’re more or less tongue-in-cheek with this advice, but it’s what the numbers say.
These are the religious terms that appeared a statistically significant number of times. Atheist actually showed up surprisingly often (342 times per 10,000 messages, second only to 552 mentions of christian and ahead of 278 for jewish and 142 for muslim).
Though very few people actually do it, invoking the sky-breaking thunderbolts of zeus does help a person get noticed (reply rate 56%), but maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise on a site that is itself named for a member of the Classical pantheon. So if you can’t bring yourself to deny the deity, consider opening yourself up to a whole wacky bunch of them. But ideally you should just disbelieve the whole thing. It can help your love life, and, besides, if there really was a god, wouldn’t first messages always get a reply?
I love it when Forbes magazine writes about dating. Here’s an article below about the problems of high-powered women in finding love. While both high-powered men AND women have similar problems making time for romance, women have the additional dilemma of being too high powered for many—if not most—men. And while power makes men MORE marketable, it makes women less so.
The Dating Game
Kiri Blakeley
Attention eligible bachelors: Sabina Ptacin would like to meet you. She’s the owner of two successful companies and is energetic and sociable.
She looks a bit like the actress Kate Winslet, with green eyes and sandy blonde hair. There’s only one problem: She spends so much time working, she breaks more dates than she keeps. “I’m not going to marry either one of my jobs,” admits Ptacin, who nevertheless often puts in 100-hour workweeks.
Loretta Talbot, a senior project manager at Wyeth, the pharmaceutical giant, wants a relationship too. She has a zest for life and enjoys photography and sailing. But it’s not a sure thing that a man will call for a second date once he finds out how much real estate she owns.
Finding one’s soul mate is never easy. But for women who are pursuing influential careers—women like Ptacin, Talbot, even Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor—the course of true love can be especially tricky. It’s not just a matter of trying to find the time to date when you’re working around the clock. Women face far more complex hurdles. Unlike their male counterparts, who generally become more desirable in the romance arena as they achieve higher career status, powerful women are often handicapped by their success.
And antiquated social mores still dictate that no matter how commanding a woman is at work, she should let her date choose the wine in a dimly lit restaurant.
“Successful men are viewed as highly desirable for women, but successful women are viewed as really scary by men,” says Patricia Cook, who runs a boutique executive recruiting firm and has worked with hundreds of senior level executive men and women. “A man needs to be confident and secure in himself in order to be with a woman who earns more than he does.”
Time Is Not On Her Side
A compatible partner can be hard to find, especially when time is hard to come by. Justice Sotomayor married her high school sweetheart just before starting Yale Law School in 1976, but they divorced seven years later. She subsequently acknowledged the difficulty she faced as a young ambitious lawyer who often had to cancel dates because of late nights at the office or sudden business trips. “He begins thinking, ‘Gee, maybe she’s not that interested,’‘’ she has said. She had hopes of remarrying in her mid-40s, but that fiancé broke off the relationship and ended up marrying a younger woman. At 55, Sotomayor remains single.
The experience is shared by younger women like Ptacin, who turned 31 this year and spent the last half of her 20s co-founding a public relations firm, Red Branch, and a community for women entrepreneurs, Collective-E. She put off romance to focus on her personal and professional growth. Now both of her New York companies are humming along, and she’s ready to pursue a relationship.
But her seven-days-a-week workday begins at 7 a.m., and the e-mailing and problem-solving can go on until as late as 10 p.m., not to mention the evenings she’s out at business events or traveling to visit clients in Toronto, Washington and other cities.
As an entrepreneur, Ptacin has to “triage” her daily commitments by order of importance. Her businesses usually take precedence, especially when she suspects a prospective suitor isn’t going to turn out to be Mr. Right. “You don’t have the luxury of dating someone who might not be a good fit for you and just seeing what happens,” she explains. “There’s no time to date just for fun.”
Not surprisingly, she adds, “I end up canceling dates a lot.” Once, when Ptacin had rescheduled a get-together for the fourth time via text message, the man picked up the phone and “really went off on me,” she says. “He asked if we were ever going to go out or if he should just move on.” She let him move on.
Since the ‘70s women’s work hours have increased steadily, especially for those in managerial, professional or technical occupations. According to a study published in 2004 by Harvard University Press, 17% of women in those fields worked 50 hours or more each week, compared with 8% of women in other occupations.
When there are only so many hours in a day, something has to give, says Ann Smith, a Wernersville, Pa., marriage and relationship therapist. “It’s hard to be great at two things at the same time,” she says. “You can’t put 120% into the office and give the same amount of focus to your romantic life.”
The Achievement Dilemma
Even when they do reserve time to date, however, executive women may find that the very qualities they’ve needed to get ahead in business work against them in romance. Prevailing conventional wisdom—reinforced everywhere from the retro dating bible The Rules to the Bravo television series The Millionaire Matchmaker—holds that traits such as assertiveness and decisiveness are a turnoff to men.
“We tell women to let the guy call, let the guy decide if he wants to go out again, let the guy pick you up and don’t grill him on the phone about his background and whether he wants to have kids,” says Sherri Murphy, owner of Elite Connections, a Los Angeles matchmaking service.
Susan Posnick, a Dallas cosmetics executive in her 50s who looks at least a decade younger, thinks men where she lives view her success as a liability. It isn’t that Dallas men don’t like well-heeled women, explains Posnick, who is divorced with a 17-year-old daughter. It’s just that they’re more comfortable with women who have come into money through family or divorce. “They’re not so interested in successful businesswomen,” she says. “They’re more interested in trophies.”
Even younger women who were encouraged to compete with boys in school say they risk getting rejected if they too boldly tout their achievements. Wyeth executive Talbot went out with an information technology specialist who, after seeing her three-bedroom home in an upscale New Jersey suburb, commented, “I’d have to get another job in order to keep dating you.” The potential romance fizzled before Talbot could reveal that she also owned two rental properties and a boat.
Salary and asset differences are deal breakers for many a potential couple. But it isn’t just men who balk when a woman earns or owns more. Many women can’t envision marrying someone they view as lower on the financial and status totem pole, says Helen Fisher, a research professor at the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies at Rutgers University and the author of Why Him? Why Her? Finding Real Love by Understanding Your Personality Type.
“For evolutionary reasons, women have always looked for a partner who has status, resources and money, and can help her raise babies,” she says. “As long as our society holds money so dear, with men as the primary providers, successful women are going to have a problem in the dating market. Although this is changing,” contends Fisher.
Peach Reasoner, a divorced 58-year-old recording studio owner in Santa Monica, Calif., puts it this way: “You have this long laundry list of things you want a guy to be. And when you meet, you’re still computer processing: ‘Does he match up here? Check. Here? Check.’” She’s been dating—finance types, entrepreneurs, a photographer—but over the last two years, none has met all of her checklist criteria.
Love For Money
In order to increase their chances of finding a good match, many women are taking matters into their own hands and are joining online dating sites or hiring a matchmaker.
At the Internet service eHarmony, which caters to singles seeking long-term relationships, the number of female members earning over $125,000 has grown 85% in two years. For one-on-one dating coaches and matchmakers, who charge as much as six figures for their expertise, business has increased 8% since 2005, and the cottage industry now pulls in $260 million annually, according to research firm Marketdata Enterprises. Overall, the dating services industry, which also includes singles Web sites such as Match.com and in-person meet-up groups such as It’s Just Lunch, is a $1.8 billion industry.
Wyeth executive Talbot has been working occasionally with New York dating coaches Matt Titus and Tamsen Fadal, who charge $1,500 for six one-on-one sessions. Titus explains the difference between matchmakers and dating coaches this way: “Matchmakers bring the fish. We teach you to fish.” To that end, the couple advise Talbot on the best New York City watering holes in which to cast her line (Wall Street hangouts Wolfgang’s Steakhouse and Harry’s Café), how to bait a hook (approach a man confidently, hand him your card and then pretend you have somewhere else to be) and how to reel ‘em in (don’t talk too much about your busy schedule, which can make him feel like you don’t need him).
Talbot is still looking but thinks the coaching has been worth the price. “A year ago I wouldn’t approach men. I wasn’t as confident. But I realized unless I take control of things nothing will happen.”
Posnick, the Dallas cosmetics executive, is having fun dating men she has met while on business trips to different cities. And Ptacin, the public relations entrepreneur, now reserves one day a week—usually Sunday—to socialize, either on a date or with friends. “I won’t allow myself to look at the BlackBerry anymore when I’m out with friends,” she says. “And I’m meeting many more interesting people this way.”
She has also stopped dating men from her media and entrepreneurial circles, because that just leads to more work: “Who wants to talk about pitching angles on a date?”
Ptacin is hopeful she’ll eventually find her match because she has known men who enjoyed being attached to ambitious women. Her father, a physician, is her role model. When her mother started a catering business in her 30s, Ptacin’s father did everything from washing dishes to coming along on catering jobs. “I do want a family and a life, but I need someone like my father,” Ptacin says. “Or I need a wife.”
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