Dating Tips and Advice | Dating Blog

Some men write messages that are guaranteed to end up in the trash can and they repeat the same mistakes over and over again, all the time wondering why women aren’t responding.

A dating site message is the hopefully the beginning of a conversation so if you wouldn’t walk up to a stanger in the street and say it why on earth would you write it in a message.

For a message to be read it needs to have an interesting subject heading and the content needs to be polite, informative and personal, not just a copy and paste effort.

Here are the 5 most common mistakes men make with online dating messages:

1. Sexual Content

Unless you have joined an adult dating site designed for sexual content then DO NOT send naked pictures of yourself, ask if she wants to attend a swingers party or send rude, suggestive messages. Women who are just looking for casual sexual encounters register with adult sites, the rest are looking for something more.

2. Too Brief

Unless you are Brad Pitt or Richard Gere messages like “Hi I’m Ian, if you like my profile message me back” or “Hi I’m Ian, my number is call me” will usually find their way rapidly to the trash can. It’s not interesting, not original and not going to get them diving over to view your profile.

3. Too long

So you have done your homework and know not to write a message that is too short .. so you now go to the other extreme and launch into war and peace. An ideal first message should be between 4 and 8 sentences.

4. Invading Privacy

Women take their privacy online very personally. Sending messages with pictures attached or your phone number and msn details, with a request to chat on webcam feels like a total invasion of privacy. Wait to be invited to share pictures or a webcam chat, at the very least ask if you can send her pictures but never in a first message.

5. Desperation

Saying things like, “you probably won’t answer this but ..” or “I can’t believe I’m doing this but .. ” or simply sending the same impersonal message to everyone on the site makes you look desperate and it’s not going to get the women flocking to your profile.

Jokes in Type

This is not a mistake, just a word of warning. Have you ever make a joke online or in an email and someone takes offense? Most of us have, without a tone of voice and facial expressions the words you type will be read very literally. Once you have written a message try to read it back to yourself without any tone of voice in your mind, read it exactly as a stranger would. If you are going to make a joke then add a laughing smiley at the end to indicate it is just a joke.