Why Not to Say Hi On OKCupid

Did you know that OKCupid has a filter which allow users to filter out messages which don’t meet their criteria?
I could choose to have any messages which are fewer than five (or what ever number I choose) words get filtered out so that I wouldn’t ever receive them. I could also enter specific keywords or phrases which I don’t want to receive, so if anyone were to use text speak or call me “babe” or use any number of sexual words I could have those messages filtered out and they would never hit my inbox.

So many women do not want to respond to messages of, “Hi, how are you?”, “What’s up?”, “How’s it going”, “What are you up to tonight?”, “You’re beautiful”, etc. There are a number of reasons for this. Many men think that they are just starting a conversation and that it’s easy for the woman to just respond to their innocuous message. However, it’s not as simple as they think.

First of all, the short message isn’t even a message. At least it’s slightly better than, “Hi” and does include a question, “How are you?”. However, this question has become so cliche that it hardly ever is even a reflection of truth anymore. It’s not possible to tell if the asker truly wants to know how the person is feeling. So when giving a response, one doesn’t know whether to give a polite, “I’m fine” or give a more in-depth but accurate and truthful response as to how one is really feeling, which might not come across so well.

But the reason I say it isn’t even a message is because there’s no meat to it. There isn’t any real conversation starter, it doesn’t provide any information about you or your interests nor does it give me anything to actually respond to. It’s essentially leaving the burden of starting a conversation squarely in my lap IF there is going to be any conversation started at this point.

I also understand that many men will send this sort of short message as a feeler to see if they get any response. However, this is a very bad idea because often times this sort of message is exactly the sort of thing which convinces women not to respond. One reason is that women get so many messages that at some point it becomes necessary to start deciding which ones to respond to and which to ignore. Even for those who think that they would/could/should respond to every single message, they reach a point where they realize that it’s not feasible. How bad could it be? One message, one response. Even one hundred messages, if the response is just, “No thanks” or “Fine, thank you.” It surely can’t be all that bad, could it?

But nobody leaves that single response alone, and those one hundred messages become two hundred messages as they write back and ask, “Why?”. And then two hundred becomes three hundred, and the count continues on. And worse yet, more often than not, the tone becomes hostile very quickly as many people haven’t learned how to accept rejection and they instead try to deflect it, and now a mini war has erupted just from saying, “No thank you.” Women are told that they haven’t given suitors a chance, all the way to being called the c-word with lots and lots of additional verbiage thrown in there as if to give the cursing enough padding to stay afloat longer. Examples of melt-down messages from men in the online dating world.  And if they’re really unlucky their profile is shared on some loser forum so that streams of other loser guys can come and harass them and treat them like an object, making it that much more fun to be online in the first place.

So, this just gives women even more resolve to want to weed out the simple messages which don’t actually say anything. They want proof that the person they are receiving communication from is actually somebody who does take them seriously as a person of substance. They want somebody who can communicate effectively. And they dream of somebody who can actually read their profile and understand what they are looking for and respond to them effectively with something which shows that the person did read their profile, is interested in them for more than just their pictures and their bodies, and who is serious and committed to putting an effort into any relationship enough to put some thought into what they say to her in their first correspondence to her. Is it really too much to ask for that a potential match be capable of reading, writing and carrying on a conversation? Women want to date a civilized human man, not an imbecile orangutan (no offense to actual primates as I think they are better behaved than today’s single male population).

If you were preparing for a job interview, would you put more effort into constructing your resume, putting together a cover letter, preparing for an interview, and put your best effort into presenting yourself as best you can? I would expect the answer to be that you would. Then if you would do this for a job, which is what you spend approximately 1/3 of your life and waking hours involved in, then why wouldn’t you do the same for someone whom you would be presumably spending the rest of your life with the majority of the time you are away from work, which is more time than you actually spend working? I do understand that not everyone is searching for a life partner, but many people are at least searching for a deeply fulfilling relationship to last several years. Which is again quite similar to a career. So once again, I find that the level of seriousness should be equivalent to that given to pursuing a job.

It should be taken very seriously, and people should try very hard to ensure that they have their bases covered lest someone else get the position instead of them. Yet the majority of men behave like jackasses or at best they put minimal effort into making an impression. I’m not saying to embellish or act in ways which are outside of one’s personality. But for gosh sakes, be polite, if you do actually get to meet in person, actually take her on a date, a real, good old-fashioned date so you can spend some quality time with one another getting to know one another better. And don’t push getting physical. But I’m getting off track.

Lastly, so few men know exactly what women are exposed to on a regular basis while on the internet, and why they become so jaded so easily. Imagine if you were bullied, berated, tormented and abused so repeatedly and thoroughly how it might affect your desire to participate in any activity. Most people develop a bitter attitude after dealing with this sort of behavior before long, and most people collapse under the pressure and simply cannot handle it. That’s one reason you won’t see many women’s profiles remain online for any duration of time.  Here are a couple of perspectives of what it’s like for women on the internet, especially on dating sites:

Incognito male on OKCupid realizes it’s not so neat-o to be a female in the dating world

Law enforcement authorities are useless in providing protection or enforcing protection laws associated with internet abuse crimes

Just some food for thought for you.

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