Online dating: How long should the first message be?

September 12th, 2009

Back from my holiday and catching up on my reading. OKCupid have just come out with some interesting figures on message response rates and the length a first message needs to be to get a good response.

Nothing particularly new in the figures (at least not to anyone with a basic understanding of the industry), but it’s good to see everything in numeric form.

Basically – women are twice more likely than men (just about) to get a response when they send a message, but they’re better off sending a shorter message – about 50 characters.

Men should put more effort into writing longer messages – 200-300 words was deemed best.

It seems women like to know a bit more about the man before deciding whether to reply, so men need to do more to stand out from the crowd when approaching women.

Men, on the other hand, don’t need so much text to make them decide to reply to a woman’s message, so saying too much can actually work against you, making you appear overly chatty.

Entry Filed under: Industry stuff,Online Dating News,Online Dating Tips

1 Comment Add your own

1. Aidan C | September 28th, 2009 at 1:17 pm

True! If you write too much about yourself you won’t become interesting enough to her, but with a too short message you won’t accomplish much either. You must practise what works and what doesn’t. Mistery is a great tool to attract women, use it wisely.
At one time I only wrote as a first message: “Hi! Are u the one?” . It worked, but it won’t for all kinds of women.
cheers,
Aidan C

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