Online Dating Guide & Blog

A reader recently wrote in with the following question after she had received a large number of emails after signing up for online dating:

The challenge that I have is that when I go online, I get so many views, flirts, im and email requests that it is impossible to finish my profile, search or anything else.

I did hide my profile for now so that I can work on my profile. Thanks. Is there a strategy for handling all [...]

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Photo by The Welsh Poppy
Writing online dating messages can be frustrating. Spending the time to write the “perfect” email only to receive no response can cause many of us to ask if we’re doing something wrong.

Below are some online dating message tips, most of which I also cover in my online dating guide. Hopefully these will help you with communicating on online dating services and might even help you realize that a problem you think you have isn’t a [...]

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Photo by D Sharon Pruitt

I recently read an article AskMen.com that covered five mistakes men make early on that scare women away. I think this article is well worth reading regardless of how you are meeting women. I also wanted to offer my take in this area, but specifically for online dating.

Most of my thoughts revolve around one idea: not coming off as strange or the stalker-type. Appearing strange or appearing like someone who might stalk the woman is [...]

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A reader recently wrote in to ask about dating conversations where the person you are talking with responds but with little or no apparent interest:

If you are conversing with someone via email (regardless of who initiates the conversation) and you respond with a short paragraph and question and they always responds with one or two sentences, does this mean that they are really not interested. If asked a question I answer the question plus give some background and ask another [...]

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Photo by °Florian
In my article on writing first emails using online dating, I discuss what should and should not be in your emails. I wanted to expand on that topic to include a pattern I’ve seen recently: apologizing or making excuses when contacting other singles.

Apologizing in First Emails

For whatever reason, some people see apologizing as the preferred way to start an email. It will often begin something like “Sorry to bother you…” or “I’m sure you get lots of emails [...]

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When I first started providing dating advice, I had assumed that I would have more visitors to my site on the weekends. My thinking was that people would be reminded of being single the most on the weekends and therefore would be looking to solve that problem then. Well, that theory turned out to be incorrect – at least as far as my site statistics are concerned. For as long as I’ve been tracking the traffic to my site I [...]

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What is a VIP email message? It stands for “Very Interested Person” and this is a new type of message that Match.com is testing at the time of this writing (right now only some users are currently able to use). You should see a “Use Your VIP Email” button when you’re writing an email if you’re in the group of users who have this feature enabled.

A VIP email has a few rules and features that make it significantly different than [...]

Filed under: dating advice, online dating guide

Some Dating Email Dos And Don’ts
Quick tips on CNN provided by the site TheFrisky.com for sending emails and overall I found the advice good. In some ways I was surprised as I find myself shaking my head more often than not when the main stream media dives into the dating advice business. Maybe it made sense since someone else wrote it (although I’m not actually familiar with TheFrisky.com). I will say that number 5, which says you should wait at [...]

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Is it better to ignore unwanted contact or come right out and tell someone that you’re not interested? I’ve had this question asked a few times…always by women but I assume some men find themselves asking this question as well. On one hand, simply ignoring people is generally considered rude but on the other explicitly rejecting someone isn’t something most people like to do. For many of us, especially early on in our online dating, this creates something of a [...]

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Several times I’ve been asked if a girl should email first in online dating. First things first: yes, it’s absolutely fine for a woman start the email conversations in online dating. However, I think when this question is asked what these women really want to know: “Will writing first be worth my time? Are men open to this?” This is where the questions get a little more difficult to answer.

Before I get into the advice, it’s probably worth mentioning [...]

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A reader wrote in asking if it is worth his time to send a second email when a woman didn’t respond to his first.

First things first, not getting a response after the first email is normally a sign to move on. If the woman is using the site actively, reads your email and then doesn’t respond there’s normally a reason. In “real” life, it is not uncommon for a man to pursue a woman who turned him down the first [...]

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With completely free online dating services out there, you might wonder how it is that sites that require you to pay have stayed in business. It’s not because there is some hidden price with the free services (they really are totally free). It’s not because the free sites don’t offer similar services (they do, if not always as polished as the pay sites). I believe that pay services continue to thrive along-side free services because of how poorly members of [...]

Filed under: online dating services

Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say.
- William W. Watt

OkCupid.com has some interesting statistics on online dating emails, specifically some numbers on who gets responses to their first email. Creating good first emails is something I’ve discussed in my online dating guide and also in some posts. My advice has always been keep your first contact brief and OkCupid agrees with this…but for some very different reasons.

My [...]

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In my online dating guide, I discussed how first contact should be made. To quickly sum it up: keep the email brief with some type of proof you read the profile.

I’ve covered those points several times in the past so why bring them up again? Primarily because I’ve always been providing second-hand information (that is, bad experiences I have heard about from the women I dated). Today, however, I found a blog post that speaks directly to the points I [...]

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I briefly described what I thought a good email looks like in my online dating guide. Basically, my opinion is keep things short and simple while proving you actually read the profile. Today, I found a site called I Liked Your Profile that is a collection of weird, scary or just out-right funny emails people have received at their online dating accounts. There are many opinions to be found across the internet stating what your message should look like. While [...]

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