The 6 Biggest Mistakes Men Make When Contacting Women Online For The Very First Time
May 8, 2010 
20 Comments
Do you desire success with online dating? Online dating can be easy and fun if you avoid these six mistakes that men most often make when dating online. Here are the six biggest mistakes men make online when contacting a woman for the very first time.
1.Not Reading A Woman’s Profile: Of all the mistakes guys make, this is one of the biggest. Guys will not read a woman’s profile, then proceed to email her anyway — even if they are not in her age range and don’t like any of the same things she likes. It’s amazing how many men will just look at a picture of a woman and send her an email, when that woman would be 100% not interested based on what she said she’s looking for in her profile. When you do that, you’re just wasting somebody’s time.
2.Being A Winker: If you actually read women’s profiles online, you would see that a lot of women request not receive winks or say flat out that they don’t respond to winks. Since a lot of men online are very lazy, though, they will go online and send out a hundred winks in a night hoping that one woman will respond. When you do that, do you know what that tells a woman right from the get-go? It tells her first that you didn’t read her profile, and second that you’re pretty desperate. Winkers are desperate. They don’t care who responds; they just want someone to respond.
3.Sending A Generic or “Cut ‘N Paste” Emails: Sending just a generic or “cut ‘n paste” email when you haven’t read a woman’s profile is one of the biggest turnoffs to women online. Guys will send an email to a hundred woman saying something like, “Hey, you and I are really a match. Read my profile and check it out, and let me know what you think. Looking forward to hearing from you.” When a woman reads this, she knows you have put no effort whatsoever into it. She knows it is a generic email, and she is not going to respond to it.
4.No Follow-Up: Lack of follow up is another huge mistake men make online. A man will send an email to a woman, she will send one back to him, and then he will wait and not respond to her email right away. He doesn’t follow up until three weeks later when he’ll email her and give some kind of excuse about being really busy at work. Do you know what a woman thinks when this happens? She thinks, “Well he obviously emailed ten people, and I was number four on his list. He was talking to three others, they blew him off, so no he’s decided he wants to go out with me.” You don’t make her feel important that way. If you email a woman, you had better follow through with it — both in terms of returning her emails and asking her out on a date. Women want men that act like men, have a plan and follow through it.
5.Commenting On Her Picture: Commenting on a woman’s picture shows her that you didn’t read her profile. If you write, “Boy, you look really great in that dress” or “Wow, you look hot in that bathing suit” it shows a woman that you are solely a visual guy. Doing it is too overtly sexual right from the get-go. It turns women off. Women want you to not only read their profile, but to comment on something she says in it. It shows them that something in their profile connects with you emotionally in some way.
6.Talking About Yourself In Your First Email: Talking about yourself in your first email (and first contact) with a woman and before you even ask her a question is a big mistake. It looks to a woman like you just cut and paste part of your profile into an email and sent it to her. What you are doing when you do this is being a “lister” — what I call men who have to list all their good qualities to sell themselves to a woman. What you should be doing in that first email is to flirt and get to know her better.
Online dating is a lot of fun, but you need to look at it differently. You need to look at your first contact with a woman as if you were meeting her live and in person.
If you look at it this way, you would never send a woman a list of all your good qualities or make a comment about how hot she looks in her swimsuit on the first conversation.
Think that way, and you may have greater success online and not turn any women off.
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I liked #5 the best and will keep that in mind
I’m having alot of trouble getting responses to my first email. I try to customize, but not write a novel on my first email. I usually pick out one or two things in common and ask questions. Short and simple. David helped in writing my profile, but I’m still having trouble. Is it a numbers game? Anyone have some success they can share? I’m getting to the point where I think just getting out there and meeting people is the best way. Online just doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve heard this from others. What are your experiences?
David I am with Michael.I purchased your online dating product and I applied all of your advices one by one including these 6 hints as well.You can`t believe how much efforts I made to change my profile to a unique one by lots of supporting funny stories for the facts I talked about.To be honest none of them worked and I have experienced that when it comes to online dating,women just care about your appearance ,so if you are an average looking guy you can`t win this battle as long as celebrities are there.I found out I should have accepted the fact that online is waste of time and money because it`s about demand and supply disequilibrium.Nothing works more than meeting people in person.
I am ready to share more details on my online experiences if anybody interested.
These tips are really good!
Before you even email, why not work out your dating expectations. If you are looking to to see who might be interested in you when you have shown no interest (see David’s list…) then that is not so smart (I am not preaching here – I have also done that and learned from it!).
Are you genuinely looking to find out more about the person, and also get to know yourself better and what you might like in a partner? If that’s it, then just say it. Whatever you put out there you will attract.
Your intention most likely will be obvious. Intentions are like decisions – even not making a choice is a choice!
Michael: At my peek, I was getting around a 60% response rate. Sure, only about 5-10% of those turned into numbers, but I was tackling it one step at a time. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point. She is getting tens, maybe even a hundred emails a day. The shorter the better.
Good formula for me: Catchy title, fun comment that talks about her profile, usually a line or two and typically a question. Sometimes a call to action, sign my name. Make sure to only ask one question, though, don’t pepper them.
As David says, online dating should only be a small piece of the pie, about 20-25% of your dating repertoire. Don’t get down on yourself, keep working at it, and your percentage will go up.
Some interesting stuff here. I’ve seen women make mistake #4 too. I’ve messaged them and they’ve replied about a week later. We all want to keep our options open.
I’ve met some interesting characters online. Most people are decent & respectable. I’ve learned something new about myself and the other person each time.
Since around Christmas, I’ve taken a break from online dating. Sometimes you need to follow your gut and stop…
A frequenter of coffee shops, I can usually tell when a people are meeting from a dating site. The conversations are very recognizable!
Makes you smile…
I thought the problem would be solved just by going on line. It turns out that it becomes this whole new world that you have to learn and it isnt easy either. I’ve learned to have it is ok, but just like stocks you need to diversify and not just stick with online dating. The biggest thing I learned is that it becomes too easy for women to get picky and ignore you for the smallest thing on line. I would like to think that women will respond more strongly by meeting them in person confidently in public as opposed to being a profile on the internet who is trying to talk to them. YOU in person are still your best salesman.
In a perfect world, all of David’s tips would solve any issue you are having with online dating. But the reality is you have to take stock of one thing, how good do you look in your picture. Really, woman aren’t any different than us. We look at their picture and decide “are they cute/hot enough for us.” They do the same thing. You must look really good in your profile for online to not struggle with it. For instance, this Josh guy above, if he was getting 60% response rate, I can absolutely guarantee, without even having met or seen the man that, he is good looking. Maybe not leading man Hollywood good looking, but he is someone that has received from women plenty of compliments on his appearance. It is not the emails, although they may have been the icing on the cake.
I tried David’s approach, I have his online product and I could not make it work. My profile was reviewed by Kheim and his girlfriend and got good marks. I sent out non generic emails that were short and witty. All I got was a whole lot of nothing. Interestingly, in a prior stint with online, my profile was generic and I sent out the standard generic email and had 5X the success in terms of response rate. So I am left wondering if the non generic email looks a litter try hard. I mean, most women put very little effort into their profile as most most guys do. Most guys send generic emails. Then along comes you with this different email that shows you put some effort into it and I have to wonder if they don’t think to themselves “why is this guy putting so much effort into this” “what is wrong with him that he has to try so hard online”
John, When you say you sent out 5 non generic emails to women, was it something that had to do with what in thier profile? Short and witty, like making a joke about something they like? Send out emails that really make them think and take something you can build off of. Woman : I like sailing,fishing and hanging out with friends” If your into sailing as well you can always say “When your out on the ocean sailing, How do you feel? What is it about sailing that interests you? Something along those lines. Instead of trying to be witty like “I hope Jaws isn’t around next time your on the water” That’s not really going to intrigue her,she’ll laugh but that’s about it.
Does this apply to social sites as well like facebook or myspace?
Sometimes people will leave a profile up on-line, but are no longer dating or tending to it. It’s like a ghost ship out at sea, luring people onto it, but nobody is at the wheel. You may not get a response for that reason. I’ve talked to some attractive women who get on a dating site, then get overwhelmed with messages and give up. (But their profile will stay up for a while depending on the site.)
When I did Match.com they had a 6 month special. I did it actively for 2 months then stopped…but my profile sat up there for 4 more months without me visiting the site.
As far as the generic message vs being more specific, I’d go with a short message mentioning something specific about her. I think witty is good. Trying to be TOO WITTY can back fire, but if someone gets your sense of humor that’s a plus. The problem is when you come off too corny or your humor doesn’t translate well to text. (Sometimes voice inflection and tone can make all the difference. A dry or sarcastic sense of humor doesn’t always work in a written message.)
John: Thank you for the compliment…I think. I have been told I’m above average, but I’m only 5’9, which hinders me. I have tried boosting it up to 6’1 just to see the difference, and yes, the responses went up, but I didn’t pursue any of those women because I felt it would be falsifying. I had maybe two comments on my pictures and a few more on my profile. Mostly it was just related to the email I sent.
I cheated a bit, because I am amazing with one particular type of woman (the party girl), but not as good with the women I actually want to attract. I have had great conversations with extremely attractive women, but I wouldn’t want to date them. I used a generic message and had a better response rate, too.
The short and sweet worked best for me either way. Anything longer than a paragraph never got responded to.
I always recieve David Wygant’s newsletters and enjoy reading them as a matter of social meaning not as chasing girls,the reason is that my culture and faith are totally difference than his,such as eye-contact,going clubs itc but I don’t deny there are still some universal things.
My opinion towards Online dating,I do believe it is just like gambling with a gun,I had one year experience of online dating.At first it seems that it can work out for me,but unfortunately my dream that I had had 12 months ended there.
I do believe David’s newsletter good at certain points but not all the time since you can not have him as a reference.
I think DW is right on most issues but NOT on generic emails. I used to do online game and send out well crafted highly personalised opener emails to get little if no response. After checking out other online help I used highly generic with a *little* personalisation openers and get better response. So what’s happening here? Firstly as other people have pointed out too much personalisation smacks of try hard. Secondly a good opener email is good whether you send it to 1 girl or 100 – for them it is unique. Lastly generic mails save LOTS of time, why should you spend a lot of time on them? You don’t even know the girl yet!
To all those guys that say that women just care about your appearance – NOT true – well they certainly are less obsessed than men. How do I know this? I gamed WITHOUT a profile picture (long long story) Women are more interested in what you say and how you say it. They will ask for a photo but at that time they are likely to be interested regardless – they will fit you into their type. However just like in the real world good looks DO help.
Lastly guys if you realise how much mail women get you will appreciate how overwhelmed they get – Helpful hint – if they don’t respond it maybe because of this – send a follow up opener. Do NOT harrass but be persistent.
I always recieve David Wygant’s newsletters and enjoy reading them as a matter of social meaning not as chasing girls,the reason is that my culture and faith are totally difference than his,such as eye-contact,going clubs itc but I don’t deny there are still some universal things.
My opinion towards Online dating,I do believe it is just like gambling with a gun,I had one year experience of online dating.At first it seems that it can work out for me,but unfortunately my dream that I had had 12 months ended there.
I do believe David’s newsletter is good at certain points but not all the time since you can not have him as a reference.
Here is my take on the matter. I consider myself to be above average in regards to looks and I tend to do well out in the field. However, the online dating world has been very difficult for me to flourish in.
I too ordered David’s online material, and spent countless hours trying to update my profile, read profiles and send out various types of short/witty responses and I had very little success. If my only source of meeting women was online, I’d be a mess.
Yet, like others have stated, I also believe David’s newsletters are informative and educational. The hitch that I’ve encountered is his online dating material just hasn’t lived up to the expectations I envisioned. Maybe I need to put more time into it and continue to face rejection. I’m not sure but I do know that at this time, online dating just isn’t a viable option for me in meeting women to date.
Just because you see someone on a site and send them a great email, doesn’t mean that they will, or are even able to respond.
I found that on certain dating sites, there are more “lurkers” with free trial offers than there are paying customers. If you are attracted to one of them and they don’t have full access to the service, you’re not going to get a response.
I found that the best approach is to wink at them first, then about 10 or 15 min later, send them an email. Timing on this is everything. They can look at the time that you sent them, so don’t make it too far apart. Make it look like you saw them, you winked, but really wanted to communicate and wrote the email BEFORE browsing for other contestents.
On another note about time… You can look, you can save profiles, but whatever you do, don’t contact anyone at 2 or 3:00 am. Just because you’re home alone, wishing you could be with one of the women here, she’s just going to think that you’re a desperate looser home alone. Same thing applies to 9:00 Saturday night. Can’t get a date,? then go out with friends.
I found the best time to make contact is between 8:00 and 10:00 pm on week nights. Some are home watching TV. Some are surfing the net. No one expects you to be “out” then, so it’s the perfect time to browse. Let her know that you have a life. She can and should be PART of it, not ALL of it.
BTW, great success with Match
I’d like to connect with that girl in the pic above.
Yess! read the profile! Commenting only on pictures is as bad as the “cookie-cutter” email men send.
guys, I know that this is an old post, but if anyone reads this, I was wondering,,,
What about opening up with IM?? is that considered rude? I’ve never had a woman send me an email, and no woman has ever responded to a mail I sent out, but I have had a couple of women send me an IM. It is usually, “hi, how are you tonight?”
It doesn’t bother me, because I am a guy, and any contact from a woman beats none, but I am wondering if women get offended by the IM approach.