Why Girls Don’t Write Back
“I’m quitting this site. Nobody ever writes back.” In online dating, it’s the battle cry of the weary. “Why bother? There’s no one here for me.”
In most cases, this complaint seems to be leveraged against women. It makes sense: women outnumber men on most online dating sites, and women are both messaged more frequently and less likely to respond.
If you find that you’re getting ignored by women, your most powerful tool is understanding why. There are a million different situations that might cause a girl to ignore your e-mail, but when it comes right down to it, there are only three basic reasons girls don’t write back. Here’s how they break down:
The girl is overwhelmed or busy.
If she’s young or conventionally attractive, she’s probably getting tons of messages. It’s also pretty likely that she has a social life. This means she has too many emails and not enough time. While this sounds like a dream to the guy who’d kill for one message, it can be frustrating to weed through twenty-five poorly spelled, creepy, penis-describing e-mails to get to one normal note from a decent prospect. Under this deluge of attention, some women quit checking mail or stop visiting the site entirely, and some respond only selectively to their mail. A good-hearted few respond to everyone — even those who don’t pique their interest — but it’s more likely that if she’s super busy, you just won’t hear back from her. This is where an interest-catching header is useful. Your email may have been world-class, but if it was headlined “HEY,” the busy girl probably just skipped you.
The girl isn’t really interested in dating.
Some women sign up for dating sites looking for attention, not a relationship. This is cheap and unfair, but it happens.
If you’re totally flummoxed as to why anyone would go that far for attention, check out the first thirty pages of any newsstand women’s magazine. Those ads for makeup, beauty products and diet pills sell women on the idea that they’re not good enough. E-mails from strange guys telling them that they are good enough are addicting to women who need the attention.
That’s no excuse — obviously, using dating sites to get compliments is manipulative and scummy. But it happens. Sometimes these sorts of daters do reply initially and respond to flirtatious advances, but then they back off at the suggestion of a date. It’s complicated and selfish, and frankly, so is she, so — no matter how hot she may be — please console yourself with my assurance that you really, really don’t want to date that stripe of woman anyway.
Also under this category fall the dreaded Bots… spammers whose only goal is to lure you into their nefarious cam chats so that they can flirt (and more) for money. They’re often easy to spot, as they usually look like porn stars, haven’t bothered to fill out their profiles, are looking “for sex!”… and spend all of their time online.
The girl isn’t really interested in dating YOU.
Sometimes the girl has read your message, and she is interested in dating. She’s just not interested in dating you.
Rejection sucks, but it happens all the time. (Next time you’re walking down your block, ask yourself how many of the people you pass are people you’d date. 1 in 10? 1 in 25? Those same exacting standards and low odds apply to you.) Online, it’s true that you can search worldwide for your ideal mate, but that doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not she thinks you’re ideal for her.
Sure, it’s possible that she missed your message. But it’s more likely that you’re not her type. It’s also possible that she doesn’t want to date you for reasons that are entirely unrelated to you (her evil ex was also a Scorpio, or she hates clowns and you mentioned in your profile that you juggle). But if she doesn’t get back to you, and you see that she’s online regularly and seems genuinely interested in finding a partner, you have to accept the possibility that she just doesn’t want to date you.
Every once in awhile, I come across a forum or blog posting in which someone demands that the women/heartless wenches/stuck-up expletives on site X, Y or Z must write back and tell everyone who e-mails them whether or not they’re not interested, because it’s rude to ignore messages. (This argument seems to hold water for about five seconds until you realize that it’s also rude to demand a return e-mail from complete and utter strangers.)
There is no doubt that being ignored is frustrated and ego-bruising. But responding to each message saying, “Not interested, but good luck!” only occasionally achieves the intended result, which is getting the gentleman to go his merry way. More often, it garners an unwanted response. Some ask for critiques of their profiles or messages (“But why aren’t you interested?”), some ask if you can just be “friends” (she’s not on a dating site looking for friends, unless she’s made that curious fact explicit in her profile), and some people snap completely and fill your inbox with messages about how fat, hideous and undateable you are anyway. Those responses may sound absurd, but I have received all of them.
Remember that in online dating, as in real life, you’re going to get more No than Yes responses. Consider the reasons that women might have for not responding to you, and attempt to tailor your messages accordingly. (Do you always write to girls who have two college majors and a full-time job? Are you sending messages to women that stopped logging in three weeks ago? Do all of the girls you contact look like Brazilian supermodels?) The people you choose to contact have as much to do with your success rate as the quality of your messages, and figuring out why women have ignored you is the first step in identifying those who won’t.
Related posts:
- Online Dating Karma
- 10 Do’s and Don’ts for Picking Your Online Dating Profile Picture
- Shorter, Fatter, Balder: Men’s misleading online profiles
Or you came on as a creep, asking her to sleep with you right away. Or you said you loved her, just by looking at her picture. This author is being too gentle. Face it guys, you’re over 30 and living with your mother, trying to have immediate sex with someone you don’t know. GO GET A THERAPIST OR A HOOKER! When I used to do the online dating thing, honesty and a sense of humor always worked. Try just being yourself, and making it fun. If you go Jack Webb on her in the first email, guess who isn’t getting a reply? Yep, that be you! Don’t try to impress her, if you’re not impressive. Be who you are, anything else is being fake, and nothing lasting will come of it. Be honest. If you are 5’2″, be 5’2″. If you think tall guys have it all, think again. Growing up, you’re always expected to me more mature. In the business world you’re always chosen as the leader (even if you have no management skills) :), so it isn’t all roses being 6’2″. Plus short women will not date you.
reminds me of a dude on my dating site. on monday he friend-requested me,i accepted. then i fell sick and was off for a couple of days. what went on during my offline time was–he commented on all my pics, on my profile page and sent me messages. then more and more messages came every hour–finally he was upset and was “you said you are interested in me…if you don’t wanna become my friend why did you add me?” he deleted himself from my friends list.
all in two days. the only two days i was offline for the whole month.
here’s a tip guys; don’t act all desperate that even a prospective woman who were initially attracted to you, might be turned off immediately.
@janice allyson Yeah, desperation is definitely the biggest turn-off ever.
@MrMassolo It’s nice to hear some ‘be honest please!’ from a guy. There are definitely creepy guys on dating sites, but this is supposed to be advice for guys who are actually trying, instead of cut-and-pasting lame messages to 50 girls. :)
I disagree with the comments about women answering every email- men & woman should be considerate- just as in regular life- if the original email was well intentioned and considerate the receiver(man or woman)
should say “Thanks for your attention and compliment. However, you aren’t my type- no offense” or something nice.
Plus most sites have a 1 button you can push to do this – you could go through 25 in about as long as it takes you to see you got them.
Anyone on dating site IS inviting anyone & everyone to email-
if you don’t like that you shouldn’t be on one. Be real – you think only the guys or gals YOU want to email you are the ones going to?
If it is rude in real life – it is rude online(which actually is part of the real world)
If someone or many someones respond poorly or terribly – that is a whole other issue. Be real – just hit delete and now ignore them- wow big problem.
Maybe you should start sending emails & get no response- see how it
feels. I bet you will say what I’m saying.
I’m a woman and I USED to be polite reply that I was not interested or hit the button that says the same thing .. but mostly they write you back .. asking why?
So then you have this guy writing you all_the_time. :(
Writing a girl again and again will not make her want to date that guy. She will think he’s a nut. I have even broken this rule and written back to guys like this. In the end – they were nut cases and I wish I stayed with my first instinct. :(
If a guy writes me back (after I either ignore him or indicate I am not interested) 2 times .. I hit the button to block him completely.
Thanks for the insight. I did eventually get the hint on the ones who have been off the site for over three weeks. Who would have though Hi or Hey would not cut it in the subject line…
I understand the need to ward off the pyscho’s, however it would be nice to get a no thanks. I agree it is common courtesy, if they respond again then simply block from contact.
BTW, go Hawkeyes….
I actually had a guy contact me and in his e-mail he said “I notice you have two cats. May I ask how you handle living with that awful smell?”. So I ignored him. Then I get a message from him saying he complained to yahoo personals that he wasn’t receiving any responses and thought there might be a problem and that yahoo told him to contact a couple of women he was “really interested in” and let them know if he didn’t get responses.
I THINK the second message was supposed to make me feel flattered that he liked me or something but the first message was so offensive to me that I originally had to play the “if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all” rule. Unfortunately the second message made me feel like a response was required simply to get him to realize why he wasn’t getting the desired response.
Ever since I told him his first message to me was offensive in that it implied that I don’t know how to keep my home clean since I have pets I haven’t heard from him. Probably too much to hope he got the message and eventually found what he was looking for by going about it the right way.
Seriously who says that to a stranger especially someone you supposedly want to date?
Funny how the man is always refered to as a ‘creep’. No matter what, the woman is always placed in a position of authority and the man has to convince her his ‘okay’. usually by being any thing but himself. Men/boys are told to change everything about themselves to fit this very narrow model of acceptability for women .yet a woman can be any kind of way and its the man who has to change. It’s pretty messed up and shows how low women are. Many men have deep emotional ills as a result of being enslaved in this way. Even sexism could be fuled by this kind of inequality when it comes to male, female communication. Women are valued more i nthis society. That message is clearly sent to males from a very young age. it fuels a hatred and resentment of women. That grows as a man ages. Women allow this and participate in this system of ongoing male degradation. There is no even playing field. Its all about the woman. And that is why dating, family and everything else in the west is falling apart. The degredation of men and boys owes a lot to why things are as they are. online dating is completely anti male. its just one big competition. he who has the most money and can put up the greatest front wins. how is it that a man receives 1 to 0 emails and women receive so many they can barely sort through them. Its all unblanced. And OK cupid and all of these other Scams are laughing all of the way to the bank. Ripping out countless men who join these ‘sites’ only to receive a dose of self depreciation. And abuse from women. That all it is. There is no such thing as online dating for men. the percentage of men who actually find someone through this crap are far and few inbetween. One day men will wake up and realize they have been duped big time!
Its funny how its always about how the man isnt good enough. How she isnt into him. How he isnt good enough. Its funny how the negative is always directed at the man. There is never a comment made about female rudeness or mistreatment. In fact some of these articles go so far as to avoid blaming women for anything. No matter what its always the mans fault. And society wants to know why men hate, why men hate women, why men commit suicide. Why men are the way that they are. Soicety is unforgiving of men. Yet expects men to fight its wars, build its cities and be motivated to hold society togther. Well, that is all ending. As women attack and degrade men, men no longer feel a need to do anything any more. I hate women for hating men.
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2490335 beers on the wall.
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