Online dating wait to respond

Just like any of us it is easier to date average people. I waited three days to say anything to my now boyfriend. I would normally respond when I saw it, whether it was if I liked the person or not. He was not what I was looking for, and he was pretty far from where I was looking to drive.

I kept going back and looking at his profile and he seemed to be a pretty down to earth nice man so I finally said something to him and so glad I did. Dude, I respond when I have time. That might be a week from the original email. Sometimes I take a while because I might be going on dates with three or four different guys, and I don't want to add someone new into what is already a confusing picture.

Originally Posted by burgler If I was too busy to date, I wouldn't get on a dating website. If I was on there, I would respond right away if I liked the guy. I don't understand why people play games and wait.

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When I dated online, I gave it a day or two, especially if I knew they read my email. After two days, I moved on. As someone stated if they liked you or were interested they would have responded right away. Sometimes it's just "I have this computer with internet access in front of me and I'm bored, so I guess I'll go to one of my default sites. You have no way of knowing, so try not to stress about this at all.

I have no idea if she's waited a couple days because she's not interested or because she wants to take some extra time to write a good message. If it's the latter, she might still intentionally log in for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with you. Since you haven't even gotten to the first-date stage yet, it's entirely possible she's actively interested in someone else Or maybe she just got an email alert with a preview of a message from some random guy, and it's so horribly written that she wants to log in to read the message for a good laugh.

Maybe she just quit smoking and logged in purely to change the smoking field in her profile to "no. It would take a pattern of instant enthusiastic responses for me to be freaked out by a short response turnaround time. For example, this would be both classic and alarming: Him, 7am - Hi you seem neat Me, 8pm - blah blah blah Him, 8: I am easily smothered.

And I mostly get creepy, non-thought-out booty call messages on OKCupid. And I'm not a "you seem neat, let's go out this weekend, person I don't really know" girl. Think about it, but don't over think it. It helps to keep sending out messages to other people.

Don't focus entirely on someone awesome in the early stages. I try to wait at least a day to compose a message, so that I have time to calm down and not say something stupid. But I let freaking voicemail greetings marinate in the same way, so. I don't understand this rule you are talking about. What's wrong with being excited about communicating with someone and responding quickly?

Honestly, if I knew the same was going through a potential date's mind while communicating with me, I would be extremely disappointed, because it strikes me as very disingenuous. If this sounds overly harsh, don't take it personally, since I don't really know you, but consider it a data point when it comes to the kind of mindset that would lead you to overthink the issue as you have. Thank you for all the responses. If anything, the message would get shorter if I remove digressions.

I am hearing the advice on not overthinking things. The first two responses came in so fast I thought I was being stalked. I am gaining it. They become the perfect FakeSelf, because it's what everyone seems to think they're supposed to do.

Then they go on dates with people and continue that pattern of attempting to be the "perfect" and "attractive" FakeSelf, and then wait 72 hours to talk to the person again because that's the rule. At this point, one of two things generally happens: FakeSelf, over time, becomes frustrated and angry at online dating, because gosh darn it, it seems like FakeSelf just puts FakeSelf out there over and over, and nothing ever comes of all that effort.

I mean, what would it be like if you just wrote what you wanted to write to someone, when you wanted to write it?

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And then, what if you went out on a date and said what you actually thought and felt about things?! Then when we went out, he was being RealSelf with me. I knew I would never have to wait 3 days before he would call me back. I knew I would never have to wonder whether he was playing me while he was actually into someone else. I knew I would never have to think, "is he just saying that because he thinks it's the right way to respond?

Being RealSelf, however, isn't the thing that takes all of the energy and effort--it's being FakeSelf that does. So do the thing that's easier, stop wasting your own time, and just be RealSelf from the beginning. I reply pretty much as soon as I get a message - otherwise I'll forget. I basically treat the OKCupid message system like email, or facebook, or text messages. I don't use any voodoo or Jane Austenian social codes or whatever.

I also don't set any stock in how quickly or slowly anyone replies to my messages. It's really all about what they say. Also about getting to the point and asking me out rather than stringing it along for a million rounds. Don't care, don't notice, and don't use any special rules for my own behavior. Well, even if men and women think about things the same way all other things being equal, all things are not equal with online dating. If two people are inherently the same but are in two different situations, it isn't surprising if they act in different ways.

Nthing don't overthink this.

As someone who has been on OkC for a while now, people are often very different in real life than their profiles would seem to indicate. And its not because they are all trying to be deceptive, its just that its very hard to accurately convey who you are via that kind of medium. So don't get too excited about anyone person. Am I the only one who finds the whole concept of dating "rules" really stupid? Why must there be rules??

You don't have special rules for other social interactions, right? After five messages back and forth on the first night she will feel like she knows you less than she would if you had portioned those five messages out over the course of a week.

But even though time and the number of messages you've exchanged are important factors in building the trust the girl needs to meet you, you still shouldn't wait too long. As the weeks pass, your online relationship runs the risk of becoming stale and awkward; the excitement disappears, and you window of opportunity closes.

Most guys have experienced something like this; you met a girl at a party and added her on Facebook, or you started saying hello to a girl at school, but time passed, nothing more happened and things became weird. The same phenomenon occurs on dating sites. Don't reply more than once to each girl each time you check in, even if she responds instantly; leave it for your next session in other words, the next day. Your daily routine should also contain some other tasks. For instance, many sites will let you access a list of new members; be sure to go through it every time you log on, contacting girls you find attractive.

A lot of them are just popping in without a subscription to see what the site is like, deleting their profiles a few days later; if you're quick, you can catch them before they do. Every once in a while, you should also go through your inbox, looking for conversations that started in a promising way but ended abruptly because the girl didn't reply to your last message; she may just have forgotten to do so, and a lot of times you'll be able to bring her back by reminding her.