Wednesday, January 3, 2018

An Open Letter To Men On Dating Sites, Part 2: Chatting

So you like what you see on our profile and you'd like to strike up a conversation?  Great!  Please know...

8) Winks, likes, smiles, and similar reactions to our profiles with no further text are going to be ignored more often than not.  Tell us why you liked our profile.  What interested you?  What do we have in common?  Ask us a question so we have something to respond to.  But not, "Hey beautiful, how are you?"  Every other message we get starts with that.  And opening with an explicit suggestion won't get you too far, either.  Put a little more effort into it.  Let us know that the message you sent us was tailored for us and not the same text that was copied and pasted into messages to 50 other women that day.  Want to really rock our world?  Actually reference something you read in our profile.


Not the best choices for opening lines....
Asking about my Fender Mustang is a much better approach.

9) We get a lot of requests. Usually far more than we can respond to, and sometimes we resort to methods that you may deem "unfair" to sort through them. Sending follow up messages like "Hello?" or "What, I'm not good enough for you?" is not going to make us suddenly realize what we almost missed and come chasing after you. I cancelled my last account after 2 weeks. During that time, I responded to a few messages, deleted well over 100 requests, but still had over 900 waiting for a response. Was there anyone in that 900 worthy of my attention? Of course! But do I have time to read 900 profiles to find you? Unfortunately, no. And sometimes, I didn't respond YET because I only had a few minutes to check messages and was going to reply later. Don't jump the gun and burn that bridge!
How to turn a slow response into no response at all...

10) Don't initiate sexual conversations when you don't even know us. Really, just don't. I'm not a prude, but seriously, I can guarantee that if you haven't met me in person yet, you don't know me nearly well enough to feel comfortable asking me intimate questions or sending me photos of your little friend. If you DO choose to send an unsolicited dick pic, we may assume it is actually a request for feedback. Be prepared for an honest response.


11) Speaking of conversations, if you can only communicate during limited time windows, like the middle of the day, we will quickly figure out that dating is an extracurricular activity that you are fitting in between other commitments, like dinner with your wife. And please don't expect us to communicate with you all day long. I have had a few men tell me I wasn't "serious" enough about dating because I didn't talk to them all day long, or even every day. I have a full time job, it isn't dating.


12) When we do take the time to talk to you via text or online, please attempt to make it a real time conversation. Few things are more annoying than setting aside time to have a conversation and consistently waiting ten minutes for responses. Yes, we know that you are talking to multiple people and that is OK, but at least try to make us feel like we have your undivided attention for the ten minutes we are talking instead of dragging out an eight message conversation for over an hour. Nothing says "you're not that special" like knowing you are in a queue of women waiting for a reply... especially when you lose track of who you said what to and you tell us the same joke twice, or send us the same photo twice.


13) If you decide to exchange phone numbers, give the woman your real phone number, not one from an app like Google Voice. Again, this is a safety matter for women. If you have nothing to hide, then don't hide anything. This may be disturbing to know, but the honest truth is that us smart women who have agreed to meet you in person mostly likely not only know your full name, where you live, where you work, your family court drama, and whether or not you have a criminal record or any legal problems... but so do our three best friends.  And at least one is actively monitoring our location through our phone while we have a drink with you, and is prepared to call the police if our location varies from the planned agenda or if we don't check in by a certain time. A man who has no online presence related to his photos or phone number is almost always a man who is hiding something.


14) Don't expect a woman to do either of the things I mentioned in #'s 3 (Part 1) and 13. She isn't trying to deceive you or hide anything, she is protecting herself. One of my least favorite Facebook features is that when you add the phone number associated with our Facebook profile into your phone's contact list, Facebook starts advertising us to you as "People you may know." Thanks, Facebook. And here is how that has played out in one case.... My phone number or photo leads someone to my Facebook page which gives them my full name, which, when entered into a CCAP (Circuit Court Access Program) search brings up a summary of my divorce records, which include my full address. And suddenly, a guy who I turned down because he started getting creepy sends me a message suggesting I should be more careful with my information and maybe he'll stop by later.


15) This should go without saying, but don't be creepy. I can't speak for all women, but showing up at my house and being creepy when I never invited you is going to get you told off at best, or at worst, a chest full of lead. Ok, I know I'll have to apologize to a few people for that remark, but I do practice my second amendment right.

Don't be creepy...

To be continued...

3 comments:

  1. I was looking on the Internet the way, how better to spend a first date with a girl who I met on a chatroulette alternative https://coomeet.com/en/chatroulette. When I read this article I have understood how simple things are and how we are complicating everything. All of these tips I definitely need.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope your date went great! I agree, we over complicate. Really, it is all about being respectful and treating others as we want to be treated.

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