U1987 Posted January 7, 2011 Posted January 7, 2011 I thought about posting this in "My POF Journal" but I felt this warranted it's own thread. I'm not talking about expectations in the personalities or actions or characteristics of specific girls. What I mean is, what is a reasonable response rate for guy's response rate? Meaning, what percentage of girls should I expect to write back after I send out some first emails? What is a reasonable response time? How long should I wait for girls to write back? Also, how long (in day or number of messages) should I wait before going for the phone number and asking for a date?
oaks Posted January 7, 2011 Posted January 7, 2011 What I mean is, what is a reasonable response rate for guy's response rate? Meaning, what percentage of girls should I expect to write back after I send out some first emails? It seems to vary wildly with some guys reporting that they never ever get replies and some getting a very high response rate. OKCupid have some stats on their blog - overall 32% of first messages on that site get some sort of response. I didn't measure this accurately, but I think I get 1 or 2 messages for every 10 I send, and about half of those responses are polite "no thanks but good luck" messages. What is a reasonable response time? How long should I wait for girls to write back? If you don't get a response within a week at most then you probably won't get one at all. However, since (statistically speaking) most girls won't respond anyway then you shouldn't spend any energy actively "waiting" or worrying about whether an individual girl will respond, so if there are several girls who catch your eye then contact them all, and instead of "waiting" you can look at some more profiles and find some more girls to contact... or go and do something else. Also, how long (in day or number of messages) should I wait before going for the phone number and asking for a date? It depends. Do what you feel is right. There comes a point where, unless you just wanted a pen pal, you need to move beyond messages and either talk on the phone or meet in person or both. Or maybe listen to some responses from the women on here for better advice on this one.
Emilia Posted January 7, 2011 Posted January 7, 2011 once you send a message to someone, just forget about it and look at other profiles, never sit around waiting for a response, more often than not you won't get one. there is no need to get upset about that either, there is no way you can tell what the other person is looking for exactly. they can have the best profile you have ever read, you might even be convinced that you two would get on but the reality is that people write what they think they should write and often that doesn't truthfully reflect who they are. personally - as a woman - if we don't 'click' from the first few messages and I don't see potential, I move on. I like to move communication offline as soon as possible. once we have some banter established and a couple of funny comments/jokes from either side, I offer my number of I take the guy's. I don't treat someone as a real person until I start talking to them over the phone. there are thousands of people on most sites, just keep chatting and be friendly and see what works for you.
OceanGirl Posted January 7, 2011 Posted January 7, 2011 I probably respond to 2/10 messages. I generally prefer to initiate first with guys I like and have had better luck that way. Guys that message me first are mostly either creepy or 50 year old or blatantly looking for sex.
zengirl Posted January 7, 2011 Posted January 7, 2011 I thought about posting this in "My POF Journal" but I felt this warranted it's own thread. I'm not talking about expectations in the personalities or actions or characteristics of specific girls. What I mean is, what is a reasonable response rate for guy's response rate? Meaning, what percentage of girls should I expect to write back after I send out some first emails? What is a reasonable response time? How long should I wait for girls to write back? Also, how long (in day or number of messages) should I wait before going for the phone number and asking for a date? As a woman, generally, if I don't write back within a few days, I'm not all that interested. If I haven't logged in (most sites let you see that), then that might be a different story---could be vacation or something. I always posted a little note at the top of my profile if I was going to be away an extended time and not checking it, back when I was on. I used to write back to everyone who bothered to write me a real message (2 sentences or more) and wasn't crude, offensive, or grossly inappropriate (i.e. if one of those sentences was about my boobs or vagina or something, or if they wrote an angry, "Why are all the women on here bitches?" kind of thing). Most of those were, "Aw, thank you for writing, but I'm not interested. Good luck!" type messages, but that's just the way it goes. Some people I don't dig their looks; many more, we didn't have much in common. And, anyway, a lot of women don't write back at all. I was just taught that kind of thing was polite. It seems like my male friends on dating sites tend to do pretty well for the most part. About half of what they send out gets them something---a sincere message, etc---but they are very picky, write real messages, and are generally great guys. So, I'd say that might be high. My current BF and I met on OKC (I contacted him), and he said he used to barely get anything back from the messages he sent out but a fair amount of girls contacted him first. I think that's also rare, but everyone seems to have different experiences.
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