| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 5:05:56 PM | OK I have wanted to start a debate on this for a while. I have been on all the popular dating sites one time or another and like a lot of men noticed the ratio is way off. A lot more guys than gals. I also noticed early on, I was wasting my time reading the womans whole profile in depth, letting it soak in, then writing a long and well thought out email to her. I realized the Wink or the sites equivilent, was great for us guys! Why? Because we could simply and easily let the girl know we were interested, and if she liked us back she could wink and let us know. Then I could write that nice email that she wanted to begin with! Why do I feel this way? Well because I was getting about a 3-4% response to my emails! (A lot of men had similar experiences so it was not just me)
Now the problem is MOST women hate winks, and will outright delete or ignore the guy who uses them! They really do not know how hard it is for us to even get a reply back. They feel the guy is being lazy, or that he doesn't care to even send out a nice perfect email to her. So I feel writing emails is a waste of time on the larger sites, it is better to wink and hope she winks back. Since POF is smaller I just send off an email usually, but on the larger ones I don't even bother anymore! What are your thoughs? Do the men feel me? Women disagree? Why? ;) | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 5:23:36 PM | Flirts are like standing on the side of the interstate waving to the women as they pass by during a high speed rush hour.  | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 5:24:57 PM | | Hmmm 3% w/ email 0% with winks. Sounds about right. I'm just wondering how many emails you've sent that you can actually caclulate 3%. Thats what, 1 in 30. And you'd have to hit atleast 60 before you can draw a conclusion. Maybe not sending out so many messages will give them time to read them. | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 6:58:12 PM | winks take no effort! I am (was anyway) one who would ignore them.
emails are better, although the pre-made copy & paste emails are reallllllllllly bad (delete & block!!)
short but witty and interesting is what gets us.
PLEASE REMEMBER: if a woman is not interested and is not attracted to you, don't hold it against her. sometimes we don't even write a "not interested" email back..... it's part of this whole online dating game.
and just so you know, going on the forums like this, helps and increases your chances in finding someone who will see you and write to you! most guys I ended up dating from online, I found them and made first contact. | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 7:29:38 PM | | I have tried out those sites too that have winks. I have to say i hate winks. I never usto respond to them because to me it showed that the guy was just being lazy .If someone was interested enough then send an actuall message . | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 7:44:55 PM | Some girls will wink back even if they are not much or not interested. Then you will write an email and you will get no reply back. :o It happens to me a few times.
Or a girl might see that you looked at her profile but didn't write. So, she will wink you, then you will write an email, then you will get no replies.
Some girls that might have been interested, might be turned off by the wink.
From my experience, I never found them much useful.
I am assuming that you go with a quantity approach. I use that technique early on when I didn't have much online dating experience.
You can go by a quality of match approach. Be more picky in who you write to. Look at the type of guy the girl is looking for. Try to do match both ways.
This should give you a much higher rate of replies, less emails to write. You still need to send more than one but not hundreds of them.
From my experience, a few good sentence works as well as a few paragraphs. No need to write lengthy email for the first email. Experiment with a few different things to see what works best. Different lengths, style, content, etc.
Sometimes also profile tweaking helps. | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 8:56:19 PM | I like the smile/wink features.
I feel what you are saying... it is not actually beaing lazy, but being polite i believe.
Sending to a wink to someone and having it deleted is better than spending the time to write a message to someone and having it deleted.
With a mutual smile, it is a good indication that the other person would be interested in communicating with yourself.
Basically the smile/wink features were set up for the reason to say, initial: "hey i have seen your profile, have a look at mine" responce: "thankyou for your wink, i have seen your profile and would like to communicate"
saying that there are people who just wink at anyone, and later on you waste your time when sending them an email anyway.
i think that if someone got offended with a smile/wink they have issues (i dont say this to be nagative towards a person, but towards their attitudes that surround the offending attitude)
also,
PLEASE REMEMBER: if a woman is not interested and is not attracted to you, don't hold it against her. sometimes we don't even write a "not interested" email back..... it's part of this whole online dating game.
i agree with the 1st statement about not holding it against another person for not being attracted to you, but not sending a reply (and playing a game as you stated) is rude to say the least, and in reality takes 5 seconds to type "not interested sorry" but its nice to see who the 'game' players are out there i guess. | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 9:45:43 PM | Thats my point! If a guy has to write 100 emails to get 4 replies back why have to do that?! Not very encouraging. Women need to realize that we are NOT LAZY, just smart! Wink and get a wink back, then I will write a kick butt email that you will love!  | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 9:50:56 PM | Oh heavens, OP, I wish there was an easy answer to this. There is no one answer to it, but may I give you some thoughts for men to ponder. (And, I'll bet that many women will agree with me.)
First of all...AND MOST IMPORTANT...PLEASE READ OUR PROFILES. I spent hours working on mine...to make it easy for the men to know as much as possible about me. If you smoke...don't even bother to wink...I'm allergic and can't get near ya. I have a statement concerning loving life without interference from alcohol....if ya drink heavily every day...don't contact me. I gave serious thought to the age parameters...for heaven's sake, I'm 70. If you're in your 40's, I may be flattered for the moment, but we're certainly not on the same wavelength. I specifically mention that I'm not into motorcycles. If your profile has a pic of you standing next to your bike, we won't be hitting the road together.
Second, PLEASE WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE. Guys, cool your jets. Be gentle with the ladies. I don't blush easily, but I can't believe how some of you men approach us. Without knowing to whom you're speaking, you're asking for a delete and block.
Third, don't immediately rush us onto yahoo or the other sites. There's plenty of time for that later. Don't you know that the first thing in our mind when you do that is that you're likely a scammer or a player. We're thinking you're in a rush to get out of here because you suspect you're going to be deleted soon and want to gather up all your prospects before that happens.
Forth, REMEMBER THAT YOU NEVER GET A SECOND CHANCE TO MAKE A FIRST IMPRESSSION. I know that many people just don't type or spell well, but, a typo or two is one thing. Chat speak and ruptured grammar just won't work when you're trying to impress someone beyond a high school education. If you can't use Spellcheck, go to the bookstore and buy a tiny book called, "Webster's New World Word Book" It has 30,000 most used words in it. That will make you at least 30,000 words better spelled than before.
This is probably a good start as to why some men are not getting a good percentage of replies. If you have really read her profile, go ahead with that longer letter, bringing up points she put in her profile. Tell her something about yourself. Chances are you only wrote "Send me a message" in your profile . Offer her your picture...Why should she have to beg for it. Of course she wants it. What does she know about you? Why should she spend the time to ask all the questions that she feels you should have taken time to put in your profile. You can send a wink AND a message....I love to get both.
ADMIN: If I'm allowed to do so, I'd be happy to critique some letters from those who are serious. After all, I spent many years as an Editor.
I don't expect everyone to agree with all that I have posted here, but so that I can make happy those who wish to criticize, I have planted a typo in here. Find it.
I have learned soooo much from these Forums.....hope I've been helpful to some of you.
Lovingly,
KNITTIN KITTEN
Queen Mum Judy
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 10:18:55 PM | You're asking the women to understand something that just seems logical to the guys. Your description of it's use is spot-on yet the female responses indicate they just don't get it.
I have tried out those sites too that have winks. I have to say i hate winks. I never usto respond to them because to me it showed that the guy was just being lazy.
And why should the guys have to put a lot of effort into crafting a nice email only to get no response in return? Do you know how frustrating that is?
I understand your point about the laziness but not getting a wink back is much easier to handle than not getting an email reply. Not getting a reply feels the same as if a guy approached you at a bar and you just turned your back to him - it's rude.  | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 10:28:46 PM | | I found that the winks worked, I'm no longer on the site, why pay if you don't have to..lol. A message cost more credits than a wink, Actually I think the winks were free, been awhile ,2 years, correct me If I'm wrong. On a pay site you can't send messages like you can here and therefore winks get a little more attention than they would here. | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 10:46:44 PM | tjlazah,
seems to me like you're totally over-analyzing all this and making online dating way too complicated. so what if you send out 100 letters and get on 4 responses? It's not a contest, there's no quota you have to reach. is your self esteem somehow based on the number of responses you get? I hope not! You should be looking for quality, not quantity - so if you only get a few responses, what if they're quality responses as opposed to 100 flaky/boring/lame responses? So what if you write to someone and they don't respond - the world will still go on, the sun will still set in the morning. Sounds like you're far too focused on 'numbers' and percentages. You need to lighten up, I think. | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 10:49:05 PM | It won't be until men actually STOP writing emails or sending winks PERIOD that the women will actually start responding.... That's the way anybody ever responds to ANYTHING in life.... when they are not getting what they want, or the attention they need. It's human nature.
Of course it's never going to happen. But then, why complain about something that will never change???? | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 10:49:47 PM | A wink doesn't mean anything to me...
There is one site that I get winks all the time... if I reply I find they NEVER sent the wink in the 1st place... the site actually sends them.... the site charges men but doesn't charge women... HMMMMM something fishy there! | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 10:55:14 PM | | (((And why should the guys have to put a lot of effort into crafting a nice email only to get no response in return? Do you know how frustrating that is?))) Actually yes i do understand how frustrating it is. I send out messages all the time to guys. I almost never get anything back at all . At least i can say i have always sent back a message even when i was not interested . This is by no means only limited to one gender .Maybe you would get better results if you stopped trying to date outside your league. | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/12/2007 11:08:05 PM | the op is absolutely right,
The thing most men dont get is women can get hundreds of emails and simply cant go through all of them
The thing women dont get is its insanely frustrating to craft a cleaver well thought out email only to have zero response to it, in fact its hard as hell for a guy to any kind of response, so why bother with a quality message when qunatity will get better results?
to the op a middle ground that has had some results for me is to craft a basic hello message with your name a few things about your self and such, then find one or two things from their profile to comment about, so a short but personal message gets the point accross without a huge amount of effort, and if their interested then they'll reply
One thing to rember is not to take it personaly or get too frustrated when you get no reply, its just not worth the pain you cause yourself, remember also that your a great guy and you gave this girl a chance to know you, she lost out big time, and you'll move on to someone who knows a good thing when she sees it
good luck
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/13/2007 7:15:57 AM | I find the winks/smiles ideas great for letting someone know that you're interested, and I've always taken them as such when I've received them. It's similar to making eye contact with a person across a crowded room...a way of showing the other person that you see them and are attracted. However, I think sometimes people use them a little too freely, or they send them even when it's clear that they have nothing in common with the other person (other than liking their profile picture!)
I think Knittin Kitten's response covers everything else that I would say on this subject.
First of all...AND MOST IMPORTANT...PLEASE READ OUR PROFILES.
Many of the winks/emails I get make it quite clear to me that they haven't even taken the time to read my profile. They'll have things on their profile that completely contradict some of the things that I've clearly expressed I'm not interested in. I'm not going to respond to someone if I read their profile and there is nothing in their profile that clicks with me.
Second, PLEASE WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE.
You would not believe some of the things that have been said to me in an email. Men have been rude to the point of being obnoxious. If men think that's funny, or a way to catch a woman's attention, then they are so wrong. It always warrants a delete and block from me.
Forth, REMEMBER THAT YOU NEVER GET A SECOND CHANCE TO MAKE A FIRST IMPRESSSION. I know that many people just don't type or spell well, but, a typo or two is one thing. Chat speak and ruptured grammar just won't work when you're trying to impress someone beyond a high school education.
This one is pretty much the most important for me, but then again, I majored in English at university, so I can't seem to help myself. To me, when you meet someone online, all you have to go on is the written word. If someone hasn't taken the time to write clear, full sentences, use good punctuation, and decent grammar, it says to me that they aren't all that worried about the impression they are making. It's like making sure your shirt is ironed and your hair is combed when you go out in public.
In an email, I'd gladly overlook a few mistakes, as it's usually written a little more quickly. But if I read a person's profile, and it's also filled with typos, misspellings, bad grammar, etc., then I'm less likely to be interested. Because a person has lots of time to write, edit, and proof their profile (at least I've spent a lot of time on mine!), so they should have taken care that they were making a good first impression. And when it comes to spelling, this site makes it easy, with the spell check being built in!
Just my 2 cents worth... | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/13/2007 8:16:34 AM |
but not sending a reply (and playing a game as you stated) is rude to say the least, and in reality takes 5 seconds to type "not interested sorry" but its nice to see who the 'game' players are out there i guess.
no actually.... and people who have an issue with girls not writing back simply have a rejection problem.
When you get the wink, or the copy and paste email, it doesn't deserve a reply (they guy was too lazy to start with, why would the girl put in any effort back?)
Other emails, when the guy is clearly not what you are looking for (AS STATED IN YOUR PROFILE) the girl will also not write back. This can be solved by not writing to every single girl with a picture up.
The few left over others, when you just don't want to talk to them for whatever reason..... if you write back with "not interested" as most men say they want when they aren't getting replies....... will HAGGLE YOU. 
YES. When I reply with "not interested, thanks anyway"....... I'd say about 80% of the time the guy tries AGAIN (and again), asking what is wrong or ask why I'm not interested. Sorry but I don't have time for that crap. It always ends with the girl telling the guy off and probably blocking. To avoid that annoying situation, we don't reply.
Get over it. Rejection issues are NOT appealing and won't get you dates.  | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/13/2007 9:01:22 AM |
I find the winks/smiles ideas great for letting someone know that you're interested, and I've always taken them as such when I've received them. It's similar to making eye contact with a person across a crowded room...a way of showing the other person that you see them and are attracted.
I totally agree with this statement. And on those pay sites, as mentioned before, the winks are free ice-breakers that let someone know you're interested. It's really no different than the websites where you mark someone as a YES and if they mark the same person as a YES, then the system lets them both know the other is interested.
If a girl gets a wink and doesn't take the time to review the profile that sent it, then it is her lose if she overlooks a great guy. You would hope that most women would consider the fact that guys don't tend to write as much as girls do.
So - guys, continue to send the winks. If you find a profile that really really interests you, then send an email. But don't write a novel...just a short note that mentions something in the girls profile so they know you read it.
Happy fishing.  | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/13/2007 11:46:19 AM | I didn't realize that "MOST" women hate winks....How do men feel about winks? I mean, how do MOST men feel about them?
From my experience, most of the men that wink at me are outside of the description I've made and not very interesting to me. I wonder why? Could it be because they don't take the time to read my profile? On the other hand, I've gotten some nice letters from men that interest me as well as those that don't. A nice short introductory letter that addresses the profile is a good opener as is a wink. A lengthy letter that assumes an interest or an introduction that has yet to be made is a waste of time. It's a case of putting the cart before the horse.
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/13/2007 11:56:50 AM | | Irritating, loathsome little things...quite upsetting actually. But I try to be strong....I will overcome these wretched abominations! | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/13/2007 12:10:13 PM | the girl next door39 .........
The sun sets in the evening. Sorry....had to laugh at the statement.
What in the heck is wrong with a wink, woo, ice breaker, whatever? Why does every dating site offer them in one form or another? We all need to understand it is the same as a smile from across the room, a friendly hello.....whatever.
Lazy has nothing to do with it. When one writes a letter only to get NO reply of any sort, is that lazy also?
He is not focusing on numbers or percentages, he just want to valdidate his statement, which is true, in my opinion. If the tables were turned, I venture a guess the ladies would voice up the same issues and concerns. | |
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| Dating sites: Winks vs emails
Posted: 5/13/2007 12:32:43 PM | Well, how about a nod, then? Will that work?
A Nod is As Good As a Wink to a Blind Horse
~Rick | |
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