What To Write In Dating Site Message
How important is it to write a good online dating first email? The answer to that may seem obvious, but just in case it isn’t let me say: writing a great first message in online dating is critical to success or failure in your dating life. As I discuss in my free online dating guide, successful online dating relies in part on making great first impressions. Whether the first impression is in the photos you select for your profile, how you describe yourself, or the first email you write, taking time to make the best first impression is important.
The example above is more suited for an online dating site where longer messages are the norm, but what can get her talking about herself on a dating app with a short message like this. Weekday evenings online generally the examples time to send site online dating icebreaker. How to Write the Perfect Dating Profile in 2022 (with examples) what to write on dating sites How to Message Someone on a Dating Site: Examples and Tips European Women Trusted Since 2003 Verified Profiles Only Amazon Payment Products. In dating scammers.
Oct 23, 2017 Online dating second message. Avoid the patterns. The guy will have little chance of communicating with a girl if he uses pattern phrases such as: “How are you? Few people can resist the interesting humorist, so your communication should be rich with optimism and humor. Feb 10, 2014 Actually send a written message. Yes, send a written message — not a wink/smile or whatever your online dating service offers. Guys definitely can’t get away with the wink/smile — Women possibly. But, really, spend a few minutes and write an actual message – how hard is that?
For this discussion email refers to your first message in online dating. This will include whatever method the service you are using allows you to write a message to another member. It is also worth noting that most often discuss this from the point of view of a man contacting a woman, since that was my experience, but my hope is that the thoughts here are helpful to anyone.
What To Write In Dating Site Message To My Wife
This discussion is primarily for sites such as Match.com where you write the online dating first message yourself (see more on how match.com works if you’re not familiar with what I’m referring to). This advice may still be helpful for sites such as eHarmony or Chemistry.com, however these services guide the communication and there is less “emailing” early on.
Writing the online dating first email is the area where I made the biggest mistakes for the longest period of time when I was dating online. I would write overly long and, in my head, witty emails that very rarely received responses. Once, I wrote no less than two pages based on a girl’s heading to her profile. The HEADING! I thought I was making conversation but all I was making was a girl scared. I really did mean well. I just didn’t know what I was doing.
Writing a Better First Email
My rule here is very simple: keep your first email very short. Give anything longer than three sentences a good, hard look before sending. There are several reasons I’m for short first emails.
- Your profile is what you use to sell yourself, not your first email. While I feel that your profile should be a constant battle between brevity and substance, it should definitely hold enough for someone to make a decision about communicating with you. If it doesn’t, don’t try and fix it in your emails: go back to your profile and improve that first. The email should be the bait to get someone to view your profile.
- If they don’t like your profile, long-winded emails are wasting your time.
- You have to keep your weird factor low. Never forget that you are working against the bad impressions created by every weird person who has come before you (or even the good intentioned people who just come off odd like I used to!).
- Short emails can come off as confident. Worded wrongly they can come off as cocky but even that is more acceptable than crazy/weird.
With online dating, the first message can make or break your chances of a successful first date. Based on my experience, I think the above are good guidelines to improve your odds of getting the conversation going.
Okay…So What Should I Include?
So what do you include in this short, introductory email? As I’ve said, in online dating a first message can have a huge affect, but what helps the most? Here’s my short 4-point list of easy to follow ideas:
- First, try to include something in your first email to prove you read their profile. Many guys out there spam the same email to every girl they find attractive; most girls catch on to this and then look for it in other emails. Obviously, women can be initiating emails too, so this rule applies to them as well…but I’ve never heard of women who spam like this.
- Second, if you find something in a profile that you have in common or there is something you like about the profile, mention that area in your email (if there are multiple things you really like, just mention one).
- Finally, I’d recommend that you ask a question in your first email. That might seem obvious but I’ve been surprised at how many people don’t do this. Often this question can be about a common interest you mention but any question is better than none. If you can’t think of any questions, why not ask them out on a date? As I’ve discussed in my thoughts on the first date, better to ask too soon than waiting too long.
- Never, ever, ever title the subject of your email as “Hi” or “Hello” or whatever. A large majority of emails sent are titled this way and if you contact a woman who received 15 email contacts since the last time she logged on, your email is going to get lost in the mix. Sure, she might review it and respond but why not try to stand out even before she opens your email?
Exaggerating Your Thoughts on Shared Interests
One optional approach to emailing that I recommend is something I learned worked well: if I had something in common with the profile I was reading, I would sometimes express more excitement about the similarity than truly existed. I wouldn’t flat-out lie but I would go out of my way to emphasize the shared interest.
For example, I enjoy an occasional day walking around a big city. If a woman mentioned this interest in her profile I wouldn’t say “I like going to big cities, too.” I would say “I love walking through the city too…although some days I think I must be the only one!”. Saying that I love walking through the city is a stretch but I would want to add some strength to my statement.
Why? Most emotion is lost in online communication (and anyone who has used a 🙂 in emails agrees with me). To avoid this, I would try to show my true level of interest by exaggerating it. Also, I felt that making someone feel “liked” early on would help them feel more comfortable and more likely to respond. Even though sometimes I felt like I was going over the top, I still saw a lot of success going with this type of emphasis.
Example Online Dating First Emails
Giving advice on writing a better first message in online dating is good, but I think examples make it better. Let’s look at a few real profiles, although I am shortening them, that I’m pulling from a popular dating site. I’ll write a first email that I would send if I were interested in meeting the woman. The first profile is what I would consider a “normal” email where contact is made but not much else. The next two are special cases where asking the girl out occurs in the first email.
In my experience with online dating, first messages where I asked the girl out were uncommon for me but I felt that in both the second and third first email example, it was the best option based off of the profile. So don’t see this as a suggestion that you should be asking women out more often than not in a first email; that’s not my point. These are just examples and ideas on writing a first email and you should go with what your comfortable with.
I’ll be changing some profile details to avoid intruding on someone’s life, but I will keep the general ideas expressed in these profiles the same.
Profile 1:
This young lady devoted half of her profile to talking, in some fashion, about being social. This seems like one of the better points of focus when writing the email:
Response 1:
What To Write In A Message On A Dating Site
Subject: Just sending that message!Hi – I’d like to get to know you so here’s your message! I love being sociable too and liked what I was seeing in your profile. Have you ever gone swing dancing?
My approach here is to be positive but brief. I make it clear I read her profile (even in my subject) and let her know that I’m interested in who she is. I don’t ask her out but the swing dancing reference is there to say “If you write back, I just might”. I chose swing dancing because I’ve done it a few times and by mentioning it I’m backing up the statement that I enjoy social activity. The goal here is to get her interest, have her look at my profile and if she likes what she sees, move forward.
Profile 2:
Now this is someone I would not likely contact but I’m trying to be fair by grabbing profiles at random, not just those I can write an email to easiest. She openly admits concern over stalkers (enough concern that she’s included no photo of herself) so not coming off as weird is very important. However, something about her profile makes me feel like she may not respond to many emails, perhaps due to her confidence in what she wants, so I’m more willing to take a risk. The important parts again are: don’t appear like a stalker and to be brief. In this case I’m going to play off her professed “likes” by attempting to be unique and creative when I write my email:
Reponse 2:
Subject: Mirror, Mirroreeffoc fo puc a gninrut tuoba leef uoy dluow woH !ecap fo egnahc taerg a si euqinu
?keew siht retal erutnevda na otni
Hopefully right now you’re saying, “Ah, I see what you did there”. Would this work? Maybe yes, maybe no. Chances are it would be the most unique email she’ll get that day and I bet she’d really enjoy it. Even in the case where she decides it is horribly corny, she might appreciate the unique quality it had. I still keep the email short and include information that proves I’ve actually read her profile. I also ask her out in the first email because:
- someone adventurous doesn’t want to email for long, they want to meet people
- I’m asking before I’ve seen a picture which may improve my odds of not being stalker material.
Profile 3:
This is an example of how sometimes profiles are too short and give you no clues to who the person is. With this type of profile, I always felt like simply asking them out on safe date in the first email is fine. There’s not too much to work with here aside from asking travel questions which, by looking at her profile, probably already happens in every email she receives. In this case, I’d just flat out ask her out. I know this looks like nothing but I’ve had success with these types of emails (my wife being the best example…although her profile was actually good!):
Response 3:
For all these examples, I’ve intentionally chosen profiles that were very short to keep the examples to a reasonable size. Most profiles should have much more information for you to work with but you can apply the exact same ideas:
Also, regardless what any book or person tells you (including this guy), you need to be making decisions for yourself. I spent too much time blindly follow good-intentioned advice and not thinking for myself early on when dating online. So better to listen to your gut and break any “rules” (such as keeping the email short) when you think it would work to your favor. For example, in the Profile 3, creating an invitation to have a drink that looked like a travel itinerary might work well if she had mentioned enjoying creativity or if her profile was very creative. Sometimes we can get so caught up in following “rules” that our online dating first messages don’t end up reflecting us very well and…
[Read more: Read more first email examples from my working with a reader of this site]
What If I’m Still Struggling with My Online Dating First Emails?
I hope my advice here is helpful for you however I also realize success is also often easier said than done.
My advice in this article is based mostly on sites like Match.com where we find ourselves having to initiate contact all on our own. If you continue to struggle writing your first emails or struggle with getting responses with a service like this, trying a service like eHarmony might be helpful.
Why This Service?
eHarmony operates in a different way where they control much of the early communication for you. I have discussed the features of this service a lot on my site so I don’t want to cover all of that again here but I will point out that:
- eHarmony is very friendly to those new to online dating as it helps guide you through the process.
- The service makes the first contact easy for both men and women since it’s more of a process than a traditional first contact.
- Because communication is controlled, making mistakes (like writing a 5 page first email!) are much harder or impossible.
Now it’s not all rainbows and butterflies: eHarmony does tend to aim for what they measure as quality over quantity, which at times can limit the opportunities you have on occasion. However, while I met my wife using Match.com I felt that it was eHarmony that really helped me become more comfortable with online dating.
If you read my online dating guide you’ll know that my first 6 months or so I had very little success. However, during this “bad” phase of my dating life eHarmony was the service where I was having some success (even if limited). You can learn more details on my thoughts on this service in my article on How eHarmony Works.
No matter what service you choose, I hope my advice here will help you with your first messages. Online dating can be unforgiving and for many of us it is easy to make mistakes without even realizing it. I hope the steps included here are helpful for you in avoiding problems in this area!
Learn more in my free online dating ebook…
Breaking the ice is hard anytime but when you’re sending online dating messages, it can feel impossible. Most of the time you have so little to go on—just a few photos, or maybe a short description about someone—so it can be hard to come up with something worthwhile to say. Other times, you’re busy trying to introduce yourself to a lot of people at once, so it’s hard to put together a perfectly crafted message for every single person. To help inspire your own messages and to give you a place to start, we put together a few online dating first message examples you can pick and choose from.
Ranging from a simple hello or an interesting question, to funny and flirty messages that help you stand out; there are over 100 online dating first message examples to help you get the conversation started.
Great Examples of Online Dating Messages
Ways to Just Say Hi:
- Hi, how was your weekend?
- Hey, how’s your week going so far?
- Hi. What have you been up to lately?
- Hey, how are things with you today?
- Hi, any fun plans for the weekend?
- Hi, I hope your week is going well.
- Hi, how are you? 🙂
- Hi there. How’s life treating you today?
- Hey, what are you up to today?
- Just stopping by to say hello. Hello!
- I just had to say hi to you. Hi!
- What’s up? How are you?
- How’s your day going so far?
- I hope you’re having a nice day 🙂
- Hi there, how are you?
- Just wanted to say hi!
- Hey there! 🙂
- Hi, I hope you’re having a great day.
- Saw your profile and just had to say hi.
- Hey, what are you up to right now?
Flirty/Funny Hellos:
- I can’t think of anything better than getting a reply from you.
- I want this message to be the reason you smile at your screen.
- Do you ever feel like something really great is about to happen? I kind of feel that way now.
- If you respond to one message today, let it be mine.
- I kind of, sort of, well, pretty much think you seem amazing. Want to chat sometime?
- If you wanted to talk, it’d definitely make my day… or maybe year.
- Hello. Also, you are amazing.
- Could you please reply to this message and make me feel like the luckiest person in the world?
- You have no idea how happy it would make me to talk to you.
- You had me at It’s a Match.
- I tend to wear my heart on my profile. 🙂
- Hello, bonjour, aloha, salut! (I wasn’t sure how to say hi, so I tried a bunch.)
- Rawr means hello in dinosaur. RAWR!
- That awkward moment when you try to message a guy/girl and all you can think of is hello.
- Just saying hi. Because I’m annoying like that.
- I’m willing to risk the cooties if you are.
- I like how your nose is in the middle of your face. That’s really cute.
- I like hugs.
- I will always tell you when you have something in your teeth. That’s just the kind of person I am.
- I’d love to talk to you. For reals. No fakesies.
- I think I quite fancy you.
- You seem super duper.
- Double thumbs up to you.
- Anyone can be cool but awesomeness like yours takes practice.
- You (yes, you) are the person I want to talk to.
- I don’t flirt, but I will totally seduce you with my awkwardness.
- I’m looking for someone I can be a complete nerd with. You interested?
- I like it when a guy/girl talks nerdy to me.
- I’m the good kind of weird. How about you?
- You deserve a whole sheet of gold stars.
- The truth? I like you a lot. And I don’t even know you yet. I just have an idea.
- I passed by your photo too many times not to stop a say hi.
- My atoms are attracted to your atoms. It’s chemistry.
- Hello amazingness.
- You make me smile. That is all.
- You had me at online now.
- I want to be the reason you look into your phone and smile.
- I was more excited to see your profile photo than pizza. And I really like pizza.
- I bet my dog would like you.
- I bet my cat would like you.
What To Write In Dating Site Message For A
Questions to Break the Ice:
What To Write Dating Site Message
- What’s something you could talk about for hours?
- What type of stuff do you like to do on the weekend?
- What kinds of things do you like to do for fun?
- What’s a typical day in your life like?
- If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
- What do you like to do when you go out?
- What type of stuff do you do in your spare time?
- If you could be a character in any movie, who would you be?
- What actor/actress would play you in the movie of your life?
- What’s your favorite book?
- What’s one thing I should know about you that’s not on your profile?
- What’s your favorite sports team?
- How did you pick your display name?
- What’s one saying you try to live by?
- Do you have any tattoos? If you got one what would you get?
- Are you close to your family?
- If you could choose a superpower what would it be?
- What’s the nerdiest thing you’re willing to admit?
- What are you most likely to stay up all night talking about?
- I love hearing other people’s stories. Do you have a good one to tell?
- What’s your idea of the perfect day?
- When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
- What’s one city you want to travel to?
- What’s your favorite band?
- What’s your favorite movie?
- What’s your favorite song?
- What’s one great book you’ve recently read?
- Are you an adventurous person?
- What’s your favorite cocktail?
- What’s your favorite restaurant?
- Would you describe yourself as a romantic person?
- Yes or no: Do you like to dance?
- Yes or no: Do you believe in love at first sight?
- Yes or no: Are you romantic?
- Do you have any pets?
- Do you have any nicknames?
- Where did you grow up?
- Are you an outgoing person or are you on the shy side?
- Do you like working out?
- What’s your favorite TV show?
- What are your favorite things to do in your spare time?
- Do you have any hobbies you’re passionate about?
- Are you an outdoorsy person?
- Do you play any sports?
- What’s one thing you’d bring with you to a deserted tropical island?
- What’s the fondest memory you have?
- What’s your favorite place in the whole world?
- Tell me one random fact about yourself.
- If you had three wishes from a genie, what would you wish for?
- If you could redo a year of your life over again, what year would it be?
These are only meant to inspire you to write your own online dating messages – there’s an endless amount of ways to spice up your next flirty chat! Get practising, and be bold!
What To Write In Dating Site Message To My
Subscribe to our newsletter
By clicking Submit you agree to Zoosk’s terms of use and privacy policy.