I agree with you. If someone just messages me hi or hello I will check out their profile. 9 times out of 10 under job they'll put "ask," they won't list their full location, and then in the description part they'll say "just ask, I'm an open book."

Don't make me do all the fucking work. At least list 2 or 3 things you're interested in: music, exercise, motorcycles, hunting, fishing, ANYTHING! How do I know if I'm remotely interested in you if you give me zero information and then just say hi? Sorry, I'd rather judge on more than just looks.

Also, in response to @Jacar, if you're at a party and you say hi to a woman and she says hi back. Do you have something you are going to follow up with? Or would you make her do all the work there too?

Thank you for having insight into what it is like for both sides on a dating site. I am currently on a site, and I made an extensive profile, spelled out what I am looking for and what I am not, what are deal breakers for me, how I like to spend my free time and much more. What do I get, a " hello" from men who never even opened up my profile or read a single word of it. When I respond with, I read your profile and we are not looking for the same thing, I have gotten some nasty replies back.

I am responding to all the posts from women deriding men for not doing as they want us too.

Repeatedly women are posting about how we are not adequate.

Perfect.

Yes exactly. Even simply putting "I see you like music, I too like music" is better than just saying hi. I don't expect poetry or a flipping book, but at least relate to something on my profile so I know you actually looked at it.

@ToolGuy I can only speak to messages that women receive.

"After all, why should I spend so much time/energy on a complete stranger that seems to think it's my job to sweep her off her feet like a fairy tale princess in a text message?" I have gotten the impression over the years that, that is what they (women) want more than anything else.

Oh yeeeeesss, why waste your precious time investing in, say, 3 sentences that indicate you actually Read their profile...........

@dahermit In principle, this does seem obvious, in the sense that one needs to stand out from the herd. I don't know that women much indulge the specific fairytale princess fantasy anymore, but if I were a woman and I had 10 men who said "hi" and 1 who said, I saw your profile and it's really interesting to me because [insert whatever here] and it makes me want to know more about you [insert specific respectful and genuine, non-creepy question[s] here].

So many men have performance anxiety around this that it's no wonder women have become cynical around it.

On the other hand one of the things that attracted me to my now-wife is that she took some of the initiative and approached me in just the way I described above. I found that rather rare and delightful. Cultural conditioning tends to make women stand around expecting 100% of initiative to come from men. However ... a lot of men here seem to want 95% of it to come from the women. So it goes. Someone has to take a risk and be vulnerable first, and in this society, it's generally us men. Rather than curse the darkness, I always tried to light a candle.

You spent 20-30 what on an initial response? Minutes? Seconds? If minutes then you are way overthinking it. If seconds then I don't think that is unreasonable.

You say you now give a very generic "Hi, nice pics and profile. How are you doing?" That is more than just Hi like @Jacar said in his post. While your generic doesn't actually tell me you read anything I wrote, it is at least a bit more than hi or hello. So I would say keep doing that, at least I feel less like you are a possible scammer

@dahermit Ya,Knights in shining Armor, on a white horse,knock on her door and take her away,maybe a cry for romance,or something missing in today's dating scenes?

@dahermit - I wouldn't have a problem with that, if it was mutual. Why shouldn't I also be made to feel like I am special and impressive too? Just seems a little one sided, guys do all the work with no appreciation reciprocated.

@AnneWimsey - I read profiles, and don't care to be involved with someone jaded that believes guys are only out for sex and put me through shit tests to prove I'm different. If she can't at least give me the benefit I am genuine and have integrity, I'm not interested.

@mordant - I don't mind putting myself out there, but I don't appreciate not even the most basic of courtesy and acknowledgement of my attempts. If she's not interested, fine...but be honest, graceful, and respectful. If an ugly fat woman paid me a compliment, I would at least thank her and try not to hurt her feelings during the rejection. Some women seem to go out of their way to humiliate after being paid this compliment of being found interesting and attractive.

@Marcie1974 - yes 20-30 min. Reading a 4-6 paragraph bio + all the checkbox "about me" things can eat up 10 min easy. Then there is typing the rough draft, then a proof/edit revision, 20 min can go by faster than you think. Thus why when I write my bio, I try to be succinct, yet still give someone enough about me to make an educated decision about who I am. Her profile caught my eye, "hello - I think you're cool" text, & then my profile should be enough to get the ball rolling. If she expects me to catch her attention, but can't give me 5 min of her attention to token care to find out who I am, I'm not interested in narcissism. I guess that could be called a shit test, to me it is more a personality/character indicator she has basic courtesy to others.

@jondspen I'm not sure your quibble is with women so much as with what social media has done to people generally. People's attention spans are tiny, their patience and ability to delay gratification near zero. They often don't seem to recognize they are interacting with actual humans.

That's the bad news. I regard this as good news too though -- because if you encounter someone who behaves kindly and respectfully online, where they have a degree of anonymity, then you can be pretty sure they're at least somewhat worth knowing.

There's a term for this BTW, it is TIFS -- Total Internet Fuckwad Syndrome. Give someone a platform, an audience, and anonymity, and it can turn otherwise socially functional people into fuckwads.

That said -- a woman is not a fuckwad if she doesn't acknowledge your PMs. She's just not both available and interested at the moment -- and that's not a crime.

Also if you are getting a lot of snark then you have to consider the possibility that what you see as "paying a compliment" or "showing interest" may need some work. The alternative view -- that most of the women you contact are lazy and/or asshats for absolutely no reason -- could mean your presentation needs work.

@mordant I would agree with people are generally more rude online than they are in person. I would disagree with your assumption that I feel most women I contact are lazy or asshats, or there is some defect in the way I present myself, or I expect anything from a complete stranger - you seem to want to judge me as being socially inept for some reason. All I said was that I no longer invest my time to try and impress a stranger, who I many or may not be interested in beyond a dating profile. Given my position as valuing myself and my time over the opinion of a stranger, I also respect them if they chose not to reply to a complete stranger...and contrary to your implied opinion of me...don't get all man ego butt hurt about it. If they don't want to fine...thus the reason I no longer invest much time into the initial text. I read a profile and sent her a message...if she takes the time to read mine and is interested...then fine. If not, I haven't invested much beyond a decent bio about myself, and a quick read and brief hello to her.

I would also say the specific site itself attracts different personalities - match, eharmony, craigslist, POF, agnostic.com. While not everyone is the same on here, there does seem to be a certain unique dating vibe in general for each site. For example, I don't even do eHarmony b/c it seems everyone puts so much faith into their "HR Personality Test" system, and come across as our first date should be at the wedding rehearsal. Craigslist was booty call land. Match was somewhere in between, with POF full of match people who were too cheap to ante up the membership fee.

@jondspen You are right that each site has its vibe; although my info on that is pushing 10 years old, it sounds like nothing has changed in that time, judging by your descriptions.

I accept your word that you're not "man ego butt hurt" but then do not really see the problem either. You write a short bio, put out whatever you wish to in terms of contact, get whatever response you get ... adjust if desired, rinse and repeat. Sounds about right to me.

My initial message to a woman is also pretty generic, like yours. Maybe the only diff is that I make sure to mention something individual I noticed about her profile essay, something in her interests or about one of her pictures that is unusual. The point is to let her know that I actually did read her whole profile and was intrigued by something. The rest of the message is the usual blurbs about mentioning some of our common interests, asking her to see my profile and message me if interested. But my cynical hunch, after sending out so many messages like this and getting responses to only about 2-3%, is that what you write in the message really doesn't matter much. When a woman is getting dozens of messages a week to maybe a hundred from different guys, your message will never even get read if your main profile pic doesn't look good enough. I know this because most of the women who didn't reply also didn't even bother to view my profile. So the initial view of your main pic by the woman really is almost everything, like it or not, when they are screening out so many all the time.

So, write a short message that shows some notice of their profile and individual info, but don't sweat it much. If you don't have the looks or impressive pic, it won't matter much.

@TomMcGiverin I couldn't agree more. Cracks me up women gripe about men being men (visual) and not reading the profile, but when you have a site that shows who visited your profile, it does tell off on them. What is the stat...that within the first 5 seconds she has already made up her mind if she will sleep with you or not? Yet half the bios admonish men from contacting them if they haven't poured over every word in their "War and Peace" novel - which typically includes something about not playing games! LOL

@jondspen Tell me about it. Most of the profile essays include what turn out to be hypocritical statements about: No liars, game players, etc. as well as all the other platitudes about wanting a man who is seeking more than physical beauty, etc. but usually leaving the woman a hedge about how "having chemistry" or "a spark" is also important to them. Let's be real, looks in a profile pic are just as important to women as they are to men.

And the photo next to your message is 95% more important in the end as to whether your message gets read than what you write, so don't spend much time or grief on it. Most women will see the pic and just throw it in the reject pile if you don't cut it, so you will end up on the sidelines no matter what is in your profile with those women. All about classes of looks at that point.

@TomMcGiverin Well...you and I might be wrong in our perception and opinion...but at least now I am pleased I'm not the only one that feels EXACTLY the same way! LOL In fact, it's been my experience that a woman who specifically posts the 'no games' 'no drama' etc. comments in her profile are 9/10 times that themselves!

@jondspen We'll see how slammed we get for making gender generalizations. Doncha think that many times the women with profile essays saying no games, no drama are maybe doing a little projection there?

I don't think any woman wants an essay, I sure don't want to read that much. But just say something like "hi, I see you're into music, I am too. What do you usually listen to?"

Other than pictures, why did you choose to write to any given woman? Is there anything you have remotely in common? If so, just give a quick sentence about that. Literally one sentence is fine with a lot of us.

I'm very average looking and I'm curvy so that eliminates a lot of guys because they all seem to want fit or thin. If a traditionally "hot" guy writes to me I assume he's a scammer. I'm looking for a guy that can spell and use grammar, is nice looking (not necessarily hot but nice) and actually prefer a "dad bod" or a little extra weight.

Also I've seen some guys responding saying that women get hundreds of messages. I get maybe 5-6 a week. Maybe I'm just ugly or something but I certainly don't get hundreds. So if the guy looks remotely interesting to me and just say hi, I may check out his profile. But if he has literally nothing about himself other than pictures and saying "just ask" then I'm not interested. Don't make me do all the work of getting to know you.

@Marcie1974 when I respond its because I read up, and I say exactly as you did, I bring up something in common, I think I'm just not fitting with their fantasies so it must not matter that I'm interested in a conversation, admittedly I probably respond to many of the wrong type of women, but I always read about them and see if it makes sense to say something, im not all that hung up on looks either I'm pretty open to what im attracted to so I'm not just trying to talk to models and such just plain girls mostly. Honestly I think it's other dudes that have ruined it for everyone with sleazy comments and unsolicited dick pics.

@Marcie1974 I get about your amount of messages per week in one month of my time, and I write a hell of a lot more messages than you write. I like to think I'm not that worse looking than you either. I write exactly the kind of messages you are suggesting after carefully reading all of the woman's profile. Some of them don't even read my profile, such as sending me a Like or a message when they are a conservative. What a fucking joke.

Try upping your game.. actually read there profile, and then make your first message based on something in their profile.. (it's not that hard)..
Depending on the site.. some of the ladies are getting +30 messages a day.. (when they first join especially).. many full of douchbag comments ("wan a fuck" ) or one word messages ("hi" )..
that would burn anyone out..

@hippydog lol it doesn't matter what you read or said to them if you're ugly lmao

@Eric_in_bham I would disagree.

Spot on! We don't expect an essay, just a sentence or two to show we have something (anything!) in common.

I am responding to all the posts from women deriding men for not doing as they want us too.

Repeatedly women are posting about how we are not adequate.

@Jacar I do not think of this as female demands. Rather than what works.
"I am responding to all the posts from women deriding men for not doing as they want us too." How far does this go? Shower, shave, clean and trim nails, change your sheets, go somewhere nice for a date? Of course you would do all those things to meet someone because if you didnt then you would deserve to stay alone.
Your post said basically "I say hello why is that not good enough?". Well its not working so lets look at why.
Men are 3.5 times more likely to msg a woman 1st on online dating sites. So women get dozens of msgs a day. This is not females calling the play. This is about what gets you laid. If you keep on just messaging "hello" and it doesnt work. Are you prepared to do something else? Let me put it this way. Your car won't start. The battery is ok, as is gas etc. So you figure out that its the starter motor. You hit the solenoid (I don't know if you yanks call it that) with a hammer. It has worked sometimes in the past but this time it does not. Do you keep hitting it or do you bite the bullet and get a new starter?
"Repeatedly women are posting about how we are not adequate." It is not we are inadequate, more like dumb or rather deaf. Women say they hate cock pics but guys keep sending them, they say that they hate msgs saying "Hi babe you look hot" but still they come. You have said that you just say "hello" and they say "Well I get loads of them why should I respond to yours?". You say well it should be enough....mmmm.
I posted some advice in my comment. Also there was a good post on here a few months back which was gay eye for a straight guy on profiles. Yours does not even have a picture of yourself. Do you really think that much of your allure that they will automatically beat a path to your door? Think again bud because there a plenty of fish in the pond but you have to use a decent bait.
You can get defensive about this or do something different? Up to you but if you choose the former then don't run out of kleenex.

@273kelvin . . i am with you all the way. My post is in response to all the women who are posting about how men are behaving like men do. What is wrong with them? We are men. We are stoopid. To think otherwise is silly. To admonish us to be what most of us cannot does nothing for them finding "the one" true whatever of their lives.

@Jacar I get your point but I do take umbrage with "to be what most of us cannot". What I was saying is not rocket science. You don't have to become suddenly metro-sexual to post a few good profile pics or mention something from their profile in your opening msg. Nor is this dishonest or out of character, simply pragmatic.
I have commented on on women who also complain about online dating. Much of their problems stem from waiting to be msgd 1st. This reduces their potencial pool and also means that they are competing with a greater number of women for a fewer number of men. Hence they get ghosted etc.

@273kelvin . . . I do not disagree with you. But, we are only in the beginning of this most profound change in human behavior modification. . . . Women want stuff that will require significant change for most men. It is not that most of us are unable. it is that this is new. And women have to be as patient with us that we are with them.

I really enjoy your responses.