Your most recent OKC messages. post em here!

[NovemberRain]

Originally Posted by ThatGirlInGray

<wonderful things>

There's a reason I like you.

[ThatGirlInGray]

Haha! I was just getting ready to say "JINX!" or "what NR said!" :P

[Helo]

Originally Posted by NovemberRain

hullo Helo,

I'm not drawing up a psych profile, I'm just saying to myself, well, he clearly hasn't bothered to get to know me (which he's indicated by not noting anything he read in my profile), and there's absolutely nothing there to inspire me to write back.

OKC, in particular, asks a lot of a profile. That I took the trouble to answer all that stuff, with thought and feeling, is gonna require more from a guy than an uncreative looks-like-a-copy-pasta message to get a reply from me. I don't feel any obligation to 'bang out a 10 second response.' That's not why I put up an ad. If he can't be bothered to try to present himself in the first message, why would I imagine he'll get 'better' later?

I totally see the wisdom in that and on some level I do agree with it...but then I start thinking about a young lady when I first joined OKC.

She was very nice but her first message was just terrible. It was two incredibly awkward sentences that must have been created by hacking up a dictionary, chewing it up with a swish of wood-grain alcohol, and spewing the whole mess out onto a page. Her profile also wasn't really that eye-catching and I just was completely uninterested but I was at that "first few weeks" stage that you're at when you want to respond to EVERYBODY.

I sent her a very quick message, essentially that I'm sure she was a great person but she just wasn't what I was interested in. She responded a few days later with a really heart-felt message which basically said that she had been sending out messages for weeks and gotten no response and that she was very happy to get a nice response, even if it wasn't of interest. She was just very appreciative and it made her feel a little more human to get a polite response.

Since then, I've endeavored to respond to every message I receive even if its lackluster. It takes me maybe a minute, costs me nothing, and it really does give the other person a good feeling. It also helps people not get burned out on the site or discouraged and like I said, it costs you nothing.

So I dislike just stamping REJECTED on lackluster messages unless they're really over the line. #2 is very close to that line.

[opalescent]

Helo, that's a kind thing you are doing responding to folks who message you on OKC. Good on you. In an ideal world that is what everyone would do.

However...

In online dating, there is no obligation to respond back. Why? Well, think about how many messages you get on OKC in a week. Don't tell me - just keep that number in mind. Ok, got it? Good. Now you just became a woman - Hela.

Your messages just tripled. Oh you are young, able bodied, and conventionally attractive? Quadrupled. Photogenic? In a major metropolitan area? Interested in casual sex? BDSM friendly? Submissive? Add a order of magnitude increase for each. You can see how many women - maybe most women - get overwhelmed with messages. And even if you are none of these, you will still get more messages as Hela than as Helo. (Create a dummy profile just like yours but flip genders - it will prove the point.)

It is nice to respond but I am under no obligation to do so.

Finally there is the Law of getting with Opalescent - Thou shalt not bore me. These messages are dull. They tell me nothing about the sender - and give me no reason to find out more. Not being dull does not have to be exotic. I don't need 'I winter in Casablanca and summer in my apartment above the Louvre while pursuing my passion of miniature horses.' A simple I like dogs too and they did such and such funny thing recently is more than enough for me to hit 'reply'.

[nycindie]

Originally Posted by Helo

I think you're both drastically over-estimating how much thought goes into these messages from the guy's perspective.

Oh, so you're basically saying "we guys are all thoughtless and lazy and that's the best you can expect." Don't lump all guys into that category, because it simply isn't true. Any guy with whom I've connected via OKCupid very obviously put thought into his messages, wrote at least a paragraph or two, showed that he read my profile, and exhibited not only a sense of humor but intellect and an understanding of grammar and how to communicate. I have no desire to reply to or meet with anyone who doesn't meet those basic requirements. It would not even matter if he is very good looking or if our match percentage is very high, if he isn't smart enough to know he should make an effort to entice me.

Those messages Mags quoted sucked, pure and simple, and do not deserve responses.

[Helo]

Originally Posted by opalescent

In online dating, there is no obligation to respond back. Why? Well, think about how many messages you get on OKC in a week. Don't tell me - just keep that number in mind. Ok, got it? Good. Now you just became a woman - Hela.

Your messages just tripled. Oh you are young, able bodied, and conventionally attractive? Quadrupled. Photogenic? In a major metropolitan area? Interested in casual sex? BDSM friendly? Submissive? Add a order of magnitude increase for each. You can see how many women - maybe most women - get overwhelmed with messages. And even if you are none of these, you will still get more messages as Hela than as Helo. (Create a dummy profile just like yours but flip genders - it will prove the point.)

Even if you're getting upwards of eighty messages a week, filtering out the sleazy messages and copypasting a basic "thanks but no thanks" takes a few seconds and it helps prevent the shotgun scatter type messages that are so common.

It is nice to respond but I am under no obligation to do so.

I never said you were but I think its better for people in general if you at least make an attempt.

Originally Posted by nycindie

Oh, so you're basically saying "we guys are all thoughtless and lazy and that's the best you can expect." Don't lump all guys into that category, because it simply isn't true. Any guy with whom I've connected via OKCupid very obviously put thought into his messages, wrote at least a paragraph or two, showed that he read my profile, and exhibited not only a sense of humor but intellect and an understanding of grammar and how to communicate. I have no desire to reply to or meet with anyone who doesn't meet those basic requirements. It would not even matter if he is very good looking or if our match percentage is very high, if he isn't smart enough to know he should make an effort to entice me.

I'm saying that a chronic mistake almost all people make is over-think what other people thought when doing something.

[nycindie]

Originally Posted by Helo

Even if you're getting upwards of eighty messages a week, filtering out the sleazy messages and copypasting a basic "thanks but no thanks" takes a few seconds and it helps prevent the shotgun scatter type messages that are so common.

How does an answer to one person help prevent anything from anyone else?

Sure, I send a "Thanks but not interested" message from time to time, but even those go to people who put thought and care into their communication with me. Really, the abundance of messages that only contain "hi how r u" or "nice eyes" or "mmm let's chat" can be mind-boggling. Who has time or energy to send replies to people who are such obvious dead ends?

You don't seem to understand that answering messages like the ones cited does absolutely no good. We don't have to write back if we don't want to. And it goes both ways. I take my time and compose very thoughtful messages and, certainly, only a small percentage of guys I write to ever respond back. <shrug> No skin off my nose. And most of the people that write me get Blocked and Hidden immediately. It's a crap shoot anyway, not a big deal. You can't get your hopes up that anything will come out of it, but yet you still have to make a good, intelligent effort (it's called putting your best foot forward) and figure that if something good comes out of online dating, it's a rarity.

Originally Posted by Helo

I'm saying that a chronic mistake almost all people make is over-think what other people thought when doing something.

Huh? I'm not sure what you're saying here at all.

Are you just defending guys who don't take the time to read profiles or write and proofread their messages, as if that is what they're all doing and no more should be expected? I don't get it. This thread is a hilarious goldmine of info on what not to do and what people look for in intro messages - have you read it from the beginning? There are some real doozies! Oh I have laughed hard reading this one. Yes, admittedly, it was created to poke fun at the eejits who send really lame or weird messages but I believe that somewhere here there is also a thread where we helped people to edit and tweak their profiles and messages, with examples of really good ones we've received.

[Anek]

I got a super creepy message yesterday. Someone from 1600 km away and just 37% match. He mentioned severed limbs and stealing from his girlfriend in the first paragraph. But he showed that he had read my profile, looked for common interests, and wrote a message based on that.
So he got a response, which was about not being interested, but I appreciate the effort he made into writing a real message and "rewarded" it with a polite answer.

If he would have just written a "hi how r u" message, effort is zero and deserves zero effort in return. Even just a "thanks but no thanks" is more effort than what copy-pastying message writers expend. So why should I make more of an effort than they did in the first place?


Hint for first contacts: don't mention severed limbs and blood in the first message unless the person you are messaging expressed interest for these topics in their profile. It's creepy.

[SchrodingersCat]

I don't receive these stereotypical introductions you gals all complain about. Nearly every message I receive is personal and mentions something specific from my profile. The frequency is better measured on a "per month" scale than "per week." Thus, I reply to all of them. I've received one generic message in the past year, suggesting I come over that night, to which I just replied "lol" and never heard back. Took me about 2 seconds.

Maybe it's the fact that my main picture is me wearing a tinfoil hat. Or maybe it's that I'm not your stereotypical "cute chick." Whatever it is, my profile seems to have a jerk filter.

Originally Posted by Helo

Considering how rare it is to get a response as a guy, I wouldn't be stunned if those are copypasta.

Originally Posted by ThatGirlInGray

I'm still not gonna bother responding to every halfway decent message. Rather than wasting my time on those, I'll save my time and energy for those who actually pique my interest.

How about just respond:

"generic response to generic greeting" and see if they catch on...

[Emm]

Originally Posted by SchrodingersCat

How about just respond:

"generic response to generic greeting" and see if they catch on...

I like it!