How To Be Interesting on Messages: 4 Tips From A Dating Coach
If there’s one dating skill that you need to master in 2020, it’s how to write messages that are attractive and interesting.
You want to be the person who makes someone smile when your name flashes up on their screen.
You don’t want to get left on read, or archived to oblivion, for sending too many boring messages.
Boring really is at the crux of why some messages don’t get a response. Creating messages that make someone want to invest (that’s emotionally, not cash money people!) have never been more important.
Boring really is at the crux of why some messages don’t get a response. Creating messages that make someone want to invest (that’s emotionally, not cash money people!) have never been more important.
We all know that 2020 hasn’t been the easiest year, especially in our love lives. With lockdown upon us, some of the usual channels to meet people in real life have vanished, meaning you may be using online dating more than ever before. The good news is, a lot of other people are too.
Online dating is booming. Now Hey Saturday can help you look good in your dating profile photos, however once you start getting those matches, you really want to work on maintaining someone’s interest with good messages that lead to dates.
(Or at least video dates, thanks C19!)
If you can start to create a messaging style that’s more playful and fun, you will also have the dual benefit of finding online dating less of a chore, and more energising.
So let’s take a look at 4 ways you can make your messages more interesting to read and receive.
Don’t ask how their dating life is going
No one ever, ever needs to hear the question, ‘So how’s the dating going?’ ever again. Apart from being repetitive, it also shines a big awkward light on the question, ‘So why are you single?’ This is a messaging mistake you’d do well to avoid.
Don’t ask people how they’re finding the app, how their dating is going during covid, and how long they’ve been single for. Broach these topics in person where you can nuance how you phrase things, rather than going for this sledgehammer of a first message.
And whilst we’re on this topic, I’d also avoid asking how many other people they’re messaging. In 2020, on dating apps, it’s safe to assume everyone is messaging quite a few people. This is okay.
Asking about how many people someone’s messaging, before you’ve met in real life (or even had a video date) will come across as insecure so park that message too.
Do create a unique message structure
At the risk of sounding a bit like a school English lesson, the structure of your messages makes a difference as to how exciting they seem when they’re received.
Let me explain this a bit!
If you begin your message, “Hey (name) how’s your week going…” right from the get-go you’re presenting yourself just like everyone else: and if there’s one rule for online dating it’s be different!
Instead you want to shuffle the order in which you present information, and start with the best piece of information you can glean from their profile. For instance, if you’re an avid yoga fan, and see they are too, zoom in on the piece of information and let that become the start of your message:
“Yoga! I really like that too…”
Go right into the fun part of your message.
Don’t be TL:DR
Too long didn’t read.
Sometimes, when we really want to express our interest in someone, we can end up sending long messages to show that we are sincerely interested and to provide some back story about ourselves.
However, in the rapid fire world of online dating this can seem like too much interest too early on. Just like if you were to ask someone out on the first message you send them, you could be inadvertently telegraphing, “you don’t have to do anything to win me over, it’s already a yes from me…”
And someone should ALWAYS have to win you over. You never want to choose to invest your time and energy in someone because of their looks.
So keep your opening message to a low pressure 2-3 lines and then wait for their response. If they come back to you, then you can build things up from there, and if they don’t you can save your effort and move on.
Do choose a unique detail from their profile to comment on
A big part of being successful at online dating, is just being different. So when you’re scanning someone’s profile trying to work out what’s the best first message to send them, gravitate towards a unique detail.
Unique details are usually where someone expresses themselves in a turn of phrase, or says something unusual about themselves. Let’s imagine someone wrote a profile like this:
A ball of energy! I like travel, reading, and a good excuse to escape the city!
Here the not so good details to latch on to would be ‘travel’ and ‘reading’, because they’re very common things people like. The better parts of this profile to comment are in fact the bit where they say, ‘ball of energy’ (keep it clean folks!) and ‘a good excuse’.
Both of these parts of the profile show more originality: maybe you could think of a good excuse for them to leave town, or ask if their ball of energy is more sunshine or nuclear hazard, either way you’ll be steering the conversation into a more interesting direction.
And remember by keeping your messages interesting you’re not only giving yourself the best opportunity to capture their interest, you’re also making sure that online dating becomes fun for you too.
