The dark secret of online dating for women

8Dec/0912

The dark secret of online dating for women

Horrible subject lines from many, many guys.

I stumbled across Matt from PlentyofFish's great blog post on terrible subject lines, which describes my online dating experience to a "T." (Then I commented on it, and then I realized it was from last year. Still, timeless.)

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chris
December 8th, 2009 - 20:49

Thanks for posting this find! My self esteem grew two sizes after reading the post and his follow-ups.

And I am so sorry that dudes are so worthless in general and online in particular.
N
December 8th, 2009 - 21:03

I think, actually, one of the commenters on that post kind of got it right: some men look for the most efficient way of approaching everything, including finding their soulmate (or whatever it is they’re looking for).

These guys are using the direct mail approach. At magazines I’ve worked for, you send out however many mailers, and you hope to get something like a 5% response rate. (Don’t quote me on that.) These guys probably write one email, send it to however many ladies, and get about a 5% response rate. So it’s working for them, in a way. But like with direct mail, it turns a lot of people (like me) off.
chris
December 8th, 2009 - 22:23

I like to think of myself like the handwritten note from the landscaper who noticed that your roses need some care, and left a number. Still get mixed in with the junk mail, but I’ll take my chances.
a girl that likes bread
December 11th, 2009 - 09:04

horrible horrible horrible. i never knew the statistic ran around 5% but that makes sense. now…watch out when boys start mass texting! is it bad that my standards have gotten so out of whack that all i ask for is a personalized message of my own?
Matthew
December 14th, 2009 - 08:02

This seems to be the path that a lot of men end up taking:

1. They make an honest attempt at contacting women, putting in effort into crafting their first messages and genuinely showing interest.

2. No response from the woman.

3. The guy makes several more honest attempts, putting in a good amount of time, we’re talking like 15-20 minutes per email. As you can imagine, crafting five emails per night is using up a lot of time.

4. Guy still doesn’t get any responses. He gets frustrated and believes that no one even has the decency to send a rejection message.

5. He either quits online dating or resorts to the “direct mail” approach, figuring that it’s a lot easier and efficient to cut and paste a generic message and send it out en mass.

Of course most guys don’t realize what’s going on on the other side of the screen and simply make bad assumptions. Also, it’s not just the men, women are also contributing to the degrading of online dating by not doing quick rejection messages. Sending a simple, “sorry, not interested,” message would do a world of wonders… I think:)

Anyways, thanks for the plug!
sabinfire
December 14th, 2009 - 16:29

Matthew above said pretty much exactly what I wanted to say. We take time to craft personalized messages to a select few choices and generally get no response. I can understand being busy and not always getting around to sending replies to every message you get, but if someone takes the time to type up a personalized message longer than a sentence or two showing they read your profile, I’d think that more often than not, it would deserve some type of reply, even if it’s brief and doesn’t leave open much in the way of future exchanges.

I guess it’s bad on both sides. Women have to plow through dozens of lame emails to find something worthy of the time and effort, while men have to do something to stand out from the pack. Although, from the example above, it seems like saying anything other than “hey” would distinguish you from the rest. So as to why anyone who takes the time to send personalized/thoughtful messages gets brushed aside more often than not, I’m at a loss.

I suppose something is being lost in translation here.

We all have to make due with limited resources (which is mainly time and effort in this case), so the most effective thing for guys to do right now is shoot out dozens of brief emails to see who is open and willing to communicate, and then proceed on a personalized basis from there based upon the responses you get. These short emails above are equivalent to a smile or a wink; we don’t get the benefits of subtly, situational cues, and body language when you initiate first-contact online. We all know the person on the other end is going to visit our online profiles and size us up before they even consider responding back to a message, and more often than not, the content of your profile will be the deciding factor that determines whether you get brushed aside or receive a real response.

Besides, if the content of messages were the primary deciding factor in online dating, writers and introverts would be all the rage.
N
December 14th, 2009 - 21:50

Matthew, I love that! And Sabinfire, it happens for women, too. When I started off on online dating sites, I crafted emails to guys who seemed appropriate, spending about 15 minutes on each email. And–nada. So it’s not just guys who feel like they’re sending emails into the great beyond. It’s girls over 30, too. Or maybe girls over 32.

As for why people don’t write back, I think there are a couple of things at play:
1. The person is not, in fact, an active user. I think this is a big issue with Match. I got two responses to emails in the entire three months I was on that @#$%! site.
2. You’ve fallen into the “maybe” zone. I often (not always) write back to a guy who’s a “no.” I write back to a guy who is a “yes.” But there’s a huge gray zone in the middle–”maybe.” I’m intrigued but not sold. I want to read their profile again before I write back, or reread their email, or double check that they’re in my area, or look at that third picture again to see if that’s a wedding ring or something else. Unless someone is actively committed to online dating, they might take time to think about it. I think “I’ll do that when I have time.” When I don’t have much free time, which is often, I don’t make time for a “maybe.”
3. The “15 minutes to craft a good email” stretches out over two weeks and the person chickens out. This is lame. But it happens.
4. The person thinks that ignoring someone is kinder than rejecting them. Theoretically, I disagree with this. But in practice, I have done it. Often. In one of the episodes of the Bros Roundtable, Gary Supermacho said that he’d actually prefer to be ignored than rejected. That surprised me, but it also kind of made sense.

Thinking it over, I think the ideal solution is to send a short, intriguing initial email that comments directly on something that’s in the person’s profile. That way, you don’t invest a lot of time, the person you’re contacting doesn’t feel that they owe you a well-crafted return response, and, even if you get the same return rate you were getting with the 15-minute emails, your ROI is better. Then who knows, maybe you feel more optimistic, that comes through in your messages, and you find your true love. Easy peasy, right? Haha.
N
December 14th, 2009 - 21:51

Also, all of you guys rock for these thoughtful comments. Thanks!
sabinfire
December 15th, 2009 - 11:28

You’re right, N. Now that I think about it, I’ve probably cast aside a few first-contact emails I’ve received and never really got back to replying to them. None of these emails were longer than a few sentences, but they usually personalized the message so I knew they read my profile.

It all depends on whether or not I have current “leads” in online dating, how busy my life is at the moment, and how committed I feel towards online dating in particular. I suppose it’s obvious that the same factors are at play on the other end… as with all meetings, there’s always the element of chance for meeting at the right time/place.

I had poor luck with Match also. Most users seemed inactive for long periods of time, but I suspect the subscription-based sites will have problems like that. Other sites would show “last current activity” and generally I would only notice non-responses if I came across that users profile days/weeks later and noticed they still visit on a regular basis, but never responded.

I’m currently on a hiatus from online dating, going on two years now. Still debating whether it’s worth the time and effort, but I suspect someday I might give it another go.
E
December 18th, 2009 - 13:02

Wow, I think of myself as average to above average looking but I got like 5 emails when I was on match. Maybe I didn’t do something right.
E
December 18th, 2009 - 13:13

N,

I did go on one date from match.com, not so much because I was really interested in the guy, but because I felt like I should. And he was a really nice guy, but kind of felt like an 18 year old despite being 29. (For example he argued heatedly with me about early British colonists being cannibals, even though I grew up in Colonial Williamsburg and told him it wasnt true, and finally I had to forcefully ask him to please drop the subject as I was very uncomfortable.) Anyway he wrote me a couple of very nice emails afterwards, and I spent so long trying to think of what to say back that I never wrote at all. I feel horrible and rude about this, but it was like your situation—-I was thinking, do I tell him why I don’t want to see him again so he gets feedback for next time? Do I try going out with him one more time? And then enough time passed and I got busy enough that I dropped the ball.
E
December 18th, 2009 - 13:23

OK last one, really. I guess I really needed a break from work.

I’m a writer, and so really attracted to funny/smooth writing. But often the people I am attracted to in person aren’t very good writers, and since its probably a lot better to be attracted to your mate verbally than on the page this creates issues with online dating. I only tried it briefly, but there were few profiles that caught my attention because most people just don’t write that well. In real life, I think I would give FAR more of them a chance.

On the flip side, I’m usually articulate in writing but not so articulate and person. So I am nervous about doing well in an email exchange and then having to meet in person.