Wednesday, September 8, 2010

First Message Dealbreakers

The world of online dating is a mixed bag and these days it's rare that I even get excited for a date anymore.  But before we ever make it to the date, we have to get through the exchange of messages and there are a number of crimes that are surefire ways to get their messages sent straight to the trash.  Here are a few:

  • The first message is fewer than 5 words.
    • i.e. what's good?  wats up?  hey sweetie.  wanna chat?
  • You mention my looks. 
    • If you're sending me a message, I can assume that you find me at least moderately attractive.  I don't need you to tell me that I'm hot or that I have a great smile or that I'm beautiful.  I look in the mirror; I already know that. 
  •  You tell me that you'd rather just talk on the phone and you include your number or ask for mine.
    • Yes, before we go on a date I need to know that your voice doesn't sound like you're going through puberty (that's actually happened), but I need to exchange a couple of messages to know that you have a brain and there aren't going to be crickets on the phone line. 
  • Your primary picture is you with your shirt off.
    • You're a douchebag.  But I might make an exception on this one if your message is especially  witty...but I'll still let you know I think you're a douche.  
  • You mention money or your car. 
    • You're a douchebag. 
  • You don't mention a single specific thing about my profile. 
    • My profile is awesome, so there are lots of things to comment on.  If you mention none of them then I will assume that you copy and paste the same message to every woman you find even slightly attractive.  
  • You can't form a sentence. 
    • If you can't write out the word "you", there are excessive typos, or I can't figure out what you're trying to say then I don't want to talk to you.  Also, if you have to write lol after every other sentence, you're probably not funny.  
  • You don't give me anything to respond to.  
  • You're self depricating.
    • This isn't a dealbreaker 100% of the time, but if you send me a message about how you're not expecting me to respond because no one ever writes back to you, I'm going to reply with some variation of this message:  "There is a reason women don't respond to you."
  • Your username sucks. 
    • I don't care if  your username is boring, but if includes any of the following, you're not getting a response:  69, hotcakes, sexyluvr4u, imsuprrich. 
  • You address me by using a pet name.  
  • You're old enough to be my father...or grandfather. 
  • You were born and raised in Miami and you've never lived anywhere else. 
    • You don't know that you're a whack job and I'm not going to bother telling you why.  But for the sake of the rest of the world, please stay your ass in Miami. 

1 comment:

  1. Oh, my kindred spirits in online dating. Sooo glad to know I'm not alone. All of these make my dealbreakers list. Glad to see that I'm not the only one who values punctuation and grammatical correctness in emails. If you can only use text-speak, I'm going to assume you're only going to increase my odds of carpal tunnel and text me to death. Move on! And I got one where, in the initial email, he said "I may be chunky, but I have a big heart." As a plus-sexy girl myself, I can appreciate bigger guys, but self-depricating guys get overlooked every time.

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