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Apocalypso -> RE: Form Letters (5/1/2009 6:00:16 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DesFIP
Guys don't get responses. If a guy sends out 20 letters a week and gets three responses over a year, he's doing well. So if it takes half an hour per perfect friendly, tailored to the person, letter then he's wasting 10 hours a week, 520 hours a year for three emails tops. And he probably won't be compatible with those three.
That's a very common belief on here, but my personal experience suggests otherwise. I get replies to a bit over half of my initial mails on here. And on average about two initial contacts sent to me. I'm not going to do some false modesty crap and claim I think I'm physically repulsive (if somebody likes my 'type', I'm a decent representative of that I think), but I'm hardly Johnny Depp either.
Not all of those have relationship potential, but I'm at least as interested in chatting to cool people anyway.
So while there's an imbalance, I think it's possible to even it out a fair bit at least.
Click on ten male profiles at random. You'll be lucky if one of them is decently written. (To be fair, there's as many rubbish female profiles. But yes, a female can have an empty profile and no photo and she'll still get messages). Even moreso with journals. I see very few guys using these to even a bit of their potential. Endless whining about fakes doesn't cut it.
This is how I approach it.
I. I send out, at most, one mail to someone new a week. That gives me the time to carry on chatting to people I've been in contact with for a bit. But it means that the mails are completely individual. As opposed to being the slightly subtler form letter where you just add a couple of lines about the other persons' profile.
2. Before messaging someone I carefully read both their profile and a representative sample of their blogging if they do it.
3. I'll only message if I think that there's a high chance I'd get on with the person in terms of common interests (and I'm not talking kink).
4. I don't talk explicitly about BDSM in the first mail. Or a good number after that. If it happens, I let it develop naturally. If messaging a domme specifically I make very sure to make clear that I'm messaging them to chat without romantic intentions. (That shouldn't be necessary. I think it sadly is though).
5. I also don't try to dom or give out orders through the medium of text. Because I'm not an idiot.
6. I absolutely do not ask for IM addresses (let alone a phone number) unless we've been getting on really well for a significant period of time. At which point I'll offer mine first.
In summary, I start from the position that I need a good reason to message someone, not that I need a good reason not to. Obviously, I can't say this approach will work for everyone. All I can say is it works well for me. I might not have a relationship currently but I've made several good online friends this way.
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