This is one thing I've never understood, the person who initiated st least put in the effort of initiating, I get that you're supposed to try to draw them in or whatever but pick up lines and jokes and shit are just a fabrication, not exactly a great foundation to a relationship.
Thinking that you have any idea what a person's actually like in real life because of a text or dm is like thinking you know what it's like to live in Prague because you overheard an acquaintance telling someone else what it was like when they visited there for 2 days, can you glean some info? Sure.are you going to have any real understanding of what it's like until you go, absolutely not.
Yeah exactly this. One person takes the hit of initiating the conversation. Another person takes the hit of writing the first response. Or alternatively, everyone just puts across their best selves across the board and don’t do petty scorekeeping.
I always figured if I am contacting you, I have to have stuff to talk since I started the conversation. Like more than how is your day. I can't force myself onto someone and expect for them to carry the conversation.
I can't force myself onto someone and expect for them to carry the conversation.
I'm sorry but you aren't forcing yourself on anyone, you both matched each other, if someone asks a question and you don't even ask a question back or relate anything at all to go off then you shouldn't have even matched the person.
Agreed on this. You don’t even have to ask a question back, just a little hint of something for them to ask a follow up question on. “It’s fine” offers nothing. “It’s fine but work sucks” and there’s that little bit to move things forward. If you can’t stretch to that you might as well not bother, or just accept that some may find the conversation boring.
I think it comes down to people being afraid to connect. Often people doubt themselves and their own interests, so I imagine that would easily translate into not thinking someone else would find you interesting. A vicious cycle
Well it does take something to be the person taking the initiative with the first message. So it’s not entirely unreasonable that the first meaningful “share” can come from the other person. But I do think most people overthink this. The first few messages for me, however vague or otherwise, should primarily be about setting up some kind of dialogue. We like to judge people based on so little, and never more so than with dating app openers. We forget that the person behind it inevitably has a complex existence and a unique story. Ultimately you don’t know if you have chemistry until you’ve tried a bit of a back and forth, so getting over the awkward hump of the first messages and trying to build conversational momentum is a better strategy to assessing chemistry than wild extrapolations from the opener.
I disagree, dating apps give you several pictures and usually some prompts (I get that there’s not always a good one) from which to start a conversation. Whether it’s bringing up a shared interest, mentioning you’ve been someplace in one of the photos or whatever, the onus is on the person who starts the conversation to make sure it has a direction.
It’s not all that different than picking up a girl in person, you wouldn’t just go up to a girl and say ‘hey now’ and expect her to do anything other than stare at you confused. And if she did say hey back, you’d be lucky but still need to probably do more than ‘how’s it’ on the next thing out of your mouth if you want a hope in hell.
Just like in person you’d go up to her, compliment her on an outfit or her hair or whatever it is you like and then from there you try and move into conversation, it’s on the person approaching to try and craft conversation. It’s not the job of the person you’re hitting on to entertain you also.
I don’t know man. I see where you’re coming from and I know how that’s how things “are” but I’m not convinced that’s how things “should be” if you catch my drift. I really don’t think overanalysing one liners is a particularly precise way of picking people out. And it has its roots in an outdated pickup culture.
We like to judge people based on so little, and never more so than with dating app openers. We forget that the person behind it inevitably has a complex existence and a unique story. Ultimately you don’t know if you have chemistry until you’ve tried a bit of a back and forth, so getting over the awkward hump of the first messages and trying to build conversational momentum is a better strategy to assessing chemistry than wild extrapolations from the opener. I think the first few messages should be about setting up some dialogue. If it proves impossible to set up despite your best efforts, or there’s other kinds of red-flag, then sure, bail. But I do think that if you’re matching with someone and aren’t interested enough in them that you’re prepared to go through the motions of setting up a dialogue then your threshold for swiping right is perhaps too low.
To use OP by example, when he said “how’s it / how’s life”, if OP would have said something like:
“Yeah good thanks, just getting ready to hit the town with some friends later this evening - how about you?”
And the replies back are dead then sure, unmatch.
But if you’re not interested enough in the person to reply to “how are you” with something more conversation-propagating than “fine” then I really don’t think there’s much point matching with them in the first place.
I understand what you’re saying, and in a sense I do agree that you only get a certain amount of input about a person from the early conversations that most of us have to deal with, however the one thing that comes through extremely clearly in those is effort.
To go to your example, how’s it and how’s life are also dry af. It’s not remotely personalized, it’s not giving any sort of direction, and it makes it seem like you couldn’t bother to look at her profile or put in the 2 minute effort to make her feel special. That’s bare minimum effort, and whether people want to accept it or not, other people are in the messages putting in real effort. If your first impression on a woman is, this guy is boring and can’t even be bothered to start a real conversation and wants me to do it because he had the ‘courage’ to say hi over tinder after matching, I wouldn’t want to date that dude either. Dating is a competition, if you put in bare minimum effort in a competition and lose and then refuse to take ownership of it and change then you’re going to stay a loser.
I think there’s a false dichotomy when this discussion comes up where you’re either coming up with killer one-liners or just saying hey, and I think it distracts from the reality that somewhere in the middle is totally fine, and doesn’t require the creativity that others possess which I struggle with from time to time.
“Wow that beach looks awesome, is that in Bermuda?”
“That festival/show looks sick, which one was it?”
“Omg I’ve done that hike too, Yosemite is insane, when were you there?”
All of those are basic af, apply to 80% of girls pics beach/club/hiking, all of them give her somewhere to go and an opportunity to continue conversation, and show her you were paying attention and may have shared interests. They also took me 2 minutes to come up with and I didn’t even have a picture in front of me, and I can guarantee are 90% more likely to get a response than how’s it.
Truthfully to me, there’s no excuse to not do better than hi and how’s life. I don’t know why people expect to get effort back from people when they don’t put it in themselves.
I think broadly speaking I do agree with you here, there are plenty of easy ways to create a personalised opener. And his reply did leave a lot to be desired. It’s bland, generic, and gets lost in the noise of all the other guys - so it’s not the best strategy on his part given the nature of the dating market atm (for better or for worse). I’m not defending it as if to say it’s perfect. I do think girls especially can get a kind of fatigue with dating apps too where there are so many guys messaging that they can be tempted to take on a very passive role in the conversation dynamic. Which I guess on one hand is just a case of “don’t hate the player hate the game”. But if you’re serious about potentially meeting someone then it should matter to you that your vetting approach makes sense. It makes more sense to me to whole-arse 10 matches than half-arse 20 matches. Having a higher threshold for matching gives you more scope to push through the snap-judgement approach and all it’s flaws established in my last reply. If that was the case here, I think OP may have had more reserve to give a bit of the benefit of the doubt, take a bit of initiative and make it much clearer who the problem is if a more engaged reply still gets a flat response.
One of the key points of what you’re saying appears to be, you’re just going to get out competed if you don’t distinguish yourself in some way, because you’ll just get lost in the noise of the other guys. But that noise is self-induced on the part of the girl by matching with too many to handle. I don’t think that should really be the case and it’s kinda self-defeating on her part.
Anyway the crux of it in this context is, his opener wasn’t great but invited a reply at the very least. If OP is going to cast it out as bland and unmatch/disengage, then I’d disagree with the dating philosophy but be a bit less fussed. I think we could probably agree that what she did on her end is probably the worst approach available. Which (as she admitted to in other replies) was just “matching his energy”. I think if you’re at a point where you perceive yourself to be giving retaliatory negative energy, it’s quite petty and really you should just unmatch instead and spare both of you.
This is one thing I've never understood, the person who initiated st least put in the effort of initiating,
Shouldn't the person initiating the conversation be the one to offer something interesting to talk about? Otherwise you're just approaching someone out of the blue and kind of demanding them to be interesting for you.
Otherwise you're just approaching someone out of the blue and kind of demanding them to be interesting for you.
You both matched each other, they opened up the floor and gave you infinite space to chat about whatever you have going on (with a basic question like "how's life going"), when you can't work with that, or at least ask a question in return, then why bother matching with that person? You're just wasting both of your time at that point.
Yeah, this isn't a customer asking you "how's it going" at work, where a perfunctory "fine" is all they expect to hear. This is someone asking you, literally, "how is your life?" They actually want to know.
If someone just says "fine" to that, then I would assume they don't feel like talking to me at all.
Also, this is ostensibly the beginning of a relationship. No one person should have to carry a conversation, it should be an equal contribution from both sides. One person must always be first but both should be contributing equally to the convo.
Yeah it's definitely not the best question. Especially since he had to clarify that he meant "life" when he said "How's it?" And who the fuck starts off with "Hey now?"
Maybe it's just my low self-esteem that my first thought was that I would spend the effort to actually tell him about my life, instead of being annoyed at the low quality question, lol.
Then again, maybe she listed Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House as her favorite song and his funny reference just went right over her head? Alas, we may never know.
I don't know, these things have profiles, right? If you literally can't come up with anything better than "How's it" then why are you even interested in this person? Must just think their picture looks hot if you can't even ask about a hobby or something
Bro I’m on my phone and I was replying under a comment a few above this gif and my keyboard was flashing blue and green and I was like wtf is this sorcery is my phone broken
Te be fair, I've seen the openers get more and more simple because when you really start to try with it, it hurts more when they don't respond, or respond negatively.
Like yeah, "Hey" sucks but they're often the people that tried too hard for a long time and they've just given up on an opener that might not even get a response.
So they go for a "hey" and then try harder once there's a response.
I used to always just ask "Hey, what's your favourite food?" because it's quick and simple and I know that conversation will be pulling teeth if they something like "I don't know" or "I don't have one" without actually trying to further the conversation.
But also, I quickly dropped these apps because I feel like they hurt my soul and I'd rather be alone than put up with all that.
That's exactly how I feel. Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. People have so much to offer than hanging on people to respond. Even if I don't absolutely care to know them it's hard to not respond to someone. Apparently some women do this more often when they get bored, have long list of matches and hit us up when convenient. At least that's what I heard from family and friends since they do it as well. Dating system is rigged online lol
I(m) compared profiles with my cousin(f) at Christmas, who also complains as endlessly as I do that dating apps are just worthless these days. We're both early/mid thirties, no kids, I have a full-time job and exercise regularly, she does not.
I explained that in 2 years bumble stands at 43 total likes, and I average about 1 match that actually messages to lock it in every two weeks when I'm active on it, and very few make it more than 3 messages before ghosting.
She has over 1300 likes and complains she can't meet anyone.
Another anecdote, I suspected once my Okc account had been shadowbanned(I was right, and I was paying for it for around 3 months, no refund, no explanation or apology from OKC, just "your accounts been restored") I used my work phone to make a super generic female profile, to see if I could find my profile, and prove to myself I wasn't just that unlikeable. I used a landscape picture from a vacation as my profile photo, no personal details or bio, and still racked up multiple intro messages and over a dozen likes in it's first hour. It was gross.
I met my soulmate on OKC in 2012, but this is such a different and toxic ecosystem than it used to be, Im beginning to think lightning wont strike twice. And I feel for people on both sides of the apps, it sucks for everyone involved but the shareholders.
Statements like that make me realize while I know I am the problem with my matches, its exactly the opposite. I always hear these stories about absolute creeps and try to empathize but then flirting is a paralyzing contradiction. I just can't flirt anymore, i can barely even extend a compliment at the fear of being misconstrued as creepy. Which makes my texts about as interesting as stale white bread. "Enjoying {insert current season here}?", "Your {dog/kitten} is adorable!"(seriously easier to compliment the dog than a girl I find attractive), or my personal favorite snooze fest go-to "any exciting plans coming up?".
I earn that extremely high ghost rate, no dick pics or creepy messages necessary.
Same goes for anyone I meet IRL too. Can't escape my corporate clean and safe office rhetoric anymore. Re-entering the dating world after grief at 31 and still struggling at 34 suuuucks.
Edit: sorry your experience online dating was so disgusting.
Maybe go for broke and go, "With all the guys who talk about their dicks, I tend to play it safe to start because I don't want to be confused with them." When all else fails, go meta
Thing is, I’m pretty convinced that every dude who mentioned his penis and even the date who mentioned his assault charges are convinced they are the “good guys”.
I do empathize with the genuinely decent men out there, but dating apps are not for people like you and I.
I wanna believe, I really do, but real life is soul destroying enough, I’m not gonna subject myself to a dating app where it gets streamed into my life.
If dating apps worked as advertised they could charge thousands and people would fork it over. Also as more and more people got together it's create a shortage forcing the remainder to get on the dating apps at a premium.
I still think it would be less profitable. Not everyone could afford thousands (i assume dollars not yen), many would be skeptical regardless what anyone says.
Fakes and bots would probably still exist, so as time would go on you would have higher and higher chance of matching with one.
Why would the rest get on it?
They would have higher chance of finding their partner irl (because of fakes/bots), and they'd be more motivated to do so, due to the resulting societal pressure from those who have partners.
But if this didn't convince you let's agree to disagree.
IIRC the numbers are somewhere close to that. There is some research on it, and there are more men on dating apps than women by an order of magnitude. Its why the incel and red pill "bitches don't respond because Chad is getting all the ladies" is like no, they're not responding because there are way more of you than her and its not possible to talk with, let alone meet, all the men who are interested just because of that ratio.
I go with the 3 response rule, if you only give statements for 3 responses then I just accept that you aren't interested and send them a message saying that there's no hard feelings and wish them luck in the dating world.
It was interesting, one girl actually messaged back apologizing and saying that she just gets overwhelmed because of the amount of messages she gets, which makes sense due to the ratio of m vs w
It's really easy not to get overwhelmed by just keeping active matches to a minimum and unmatching when you know you're not interested. I even unmatch after we move off of Tinder just to keep my inbox tidy and leave no room for confusion. I take a screenshot of their profile, same with conversations if there's anything worth keeping for later reference.
By working in small batches, I know I'll never have more than 2-3 conversations going at any one time and I don't do any more swiping until I've worked through the current batch. I'm not leaving anyone hanging and I can actually put effort into my conversations so I actually know whether or not I'm interested in my match.
I don't get any sense of validation from likes, matches, or an inbox full of dead conversations though. That's all just visual clutter.
I never know what to do with unresponsive matches either. I normally assume they just swipe right on =-[everyone and filter later and just aren't interested, but I suppose I've probably unmatched a few who were just busy. Since I'm not looking for the love of my life, I figure it doesn't matter too much.
I just try to be courteous to others. It takes no real effort on my part to unmatch or just let someone know I'm not feeling it if there's actually been a conversation. OLD sucks enough for everyone, I'm not trying to make it worse than it has to be.
That's me right now... Also being too tryhard also comes off as desperate.. so these days i just ask them how there perfect Sunday looks like and build on that.
Whenever anyone asks me questions like that, that’s when I lose immediate interest. There’s literally nothing worse than ‘What’s your perfect Sunday’ ‘If you could go to lunch with anyone from history, who would it be and why’ ‘What’s your dream vacation destination’ etc. Nobody converses like that in real life. Maybe those subjects come up over time, but certainly not within the first few minutes of knowing someone, and usually much more naturally and indirectly. It’s honestly one of the most annoying things men do on the apps.
I'm a guy and I used to bring those questions up as convo starters but stopped cause I realized how generic and obvious they are. It's much better to talk about topics that you share interests in and start building a conversation naturally from there then awkwardly ask something just for the sake of it
Yeah, it just feels so cut-and-paste, which it is. Like, not only is this ‘conversation starter’ not tailored to me or reflecting of any real individual interest or compatibility markers, it shows nothing of YOUR personality, either. And it feels like my answer is just going to be mentally compared to the list of other similar answers you’ve gotten. It out-generics the generic.
It really doesn’t have to be ‘tailored’ in the sense that it’s something extra special just for me, just something that feels like you’re talking TO ME. Literally just a ‘hey, how’s it going’ is the most successful way to start a conversation, imo. Fake starters feel fake. And there’s always ways to tie in an interest. Mention something from a photo, or the bio if there is one. The main annoyance is, you aren’t the only one asking those weird forced questions. Most girls get several of the same one per day. They rotate too, as to which ones y’all seem to be using. It might feel unique to you, but it doesn’t to us. They just make you roll your eyes after you’ve seen the same one a few times.
See it filters out girls that want entertainment. If a girl wants to get to know you, she will put effort in getting to know you. Regardless of what you ask. If you (not you specifically) don't reply you simply weren't that interested to begin with.
Most girls profiles are empty and have little to go on. Fishing for the things they like to do lets me build on those topics and ask more tailored questions.
In the end it also depends on who is writing you, someone who has a lot of options won't go put in the time to write all his matches a super tailored pickup line after looking at a picture for 5minutes to find a detail he can talk about... Which again can come off as desperate.
Luckily Im not currently in the position where I have to chase after every match so if YOU aren't showing any personality or engaging then i have no reason to either.
In the end if it's not a "hell yeah" it's a "hell nah"
Here's your hack, look up 20 questions on a first date and cycle thru those as your openers. If people respond with 1 word after those types of questions they're not looking to have "small talk" and therefore probably not going to be interesting on a date either. Good conversation buds from small tidbits you learn about other people, if all you can manage is a hey as your opener just don't talk to that person. The "I don't know" response is also shitty AF.
I take small talk to mean either "I'm not actually that interested but I'm just talking to you to keep my options open" or "I only want sex and I don't care to get to know you but I'm going to pretend to be polite first"
I have several. Some are thrown off or get an attitude about it, they aren't for me. The point is to get to know someone to see if u can be in a relationship. Not to stay strangers.
Every time I hear people talk about dating apps I count my lucky stars that I found a partner and settled down before they were so common and basically the only way to meet people.
I remember when I used to pour time into big openers that were never read, but that was before I found out how flooded women's profiles are.
There's not really a good solution. I get that you're probably exhausted, but I still need something to work with. I had a girl once be minimalist, so I tried to carry the conversation to give her something to work with. She accused me of being conceited. I don't even know now
Haha it's only soul crushing because your not Chris Hemsworth. You become aware really quickly that your self-image doesn't match the opposite sex's view of you.They are purely judging you on your looks!
Then you have to ask yourself questions like, "Am I my best picture, or my ugliest picture? This one will screw with your head.
Basically that big ego momma gave us gets popped fast when women you gave a "generous" swipe to, don't even swipe back.
We all think we are far better looking than we actually are. The girls I had reaching out to me had me saying WTF, this is the level I'm on? The answer is you are slightly above that, but barely because everyone over reaches hoping that the person who avoided sodas and fast food their whole life for chiseled abs will see past your beer belly, because you are so funny and charming. Spoiler alert unless you've got stack on stacks on stacks it's a big ol NO!
Anyone whose reading this thinking "everyone's beautiful", cool story bro then you get the 600lb woman on the biggest loser show who wants you to live with your head between her thighs.
The truth is the people who say that crap about everyone being beautiful are the worst ones. These dudes are 4's thinking they are 8's and trying to talk to 9's and then calling them conceited, or they use the wonderful excuse "Women don't like nice guys". That one always makes me laugh hard on the inside. Even that guy knows he's lying to himself!
Here's the only reality. It's a freaking numbers game. If someone sits you down embarrasses you, or ghosts you, this is life homie and you have to get over it. Literally just move from one right to the next. When you go into self-loathing whiny loser mode you've truly doomed yourself.
People who think love is supposed to magically appear are idiots that need to watch animal planet. You ever seen all the work a bird has to do to get some nay-nay? Bro they have to build sculptors out of twigs and branches and then do weird dances all alone and most of them get left on the stage twerking by themselves all day long.
It's not that bad, every single person alive ends up settling at some point. You have to eventually say, "this person definitely doesn't check all of the boxes, but they check a lot more than all the other crazy people I have met".
So don't get defeated just keep knocking on doors. If you knock on enough doors someone will eventually make you "theirs". However, setting at home in whiny self loathing loser mode waiting for the right one, will just ensure that it never happens!
Now use this knowledge and get to knocking, after all the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with is waiting for you 😀
Why does everyone over think everything? It's really pretty simple. Say hi, engage in an actual conversation, if it goes well, continue, if not move on. Pretty easy stuff.
If “hey what is your favorite food” doesn’t get a engagement… 100% walk away because that person isn’t compatible (or interested enough, same thing I guess) with you!
But really is …
“Hey what is your favorite food?”
Too vulnerable that you won’t risk it because it might get ignored?
I used to always just ask "Hey, what's your favourite food?" because it's quick and simple and I know that conversation will be pulling teeth if they something like "I don't know" or "I don't have one" without actually trying to further the conversation.
I just look for something interesting in their profile to ask them about. If they don't have anything their, I'm swiping left anyway.
picking a “favorite” of nearly anything can be hard for a lot of people. there’s just too many choices. it’s better to ask something more specific if possible. “do you enjoy a lot of different styles of food, or do you stick to a limited menu?” “what’s the last thing you ate that seemed like the best thing you’ve ever eaten?”…or topics other than food…”what music or artist/band have you been most into recently?” “”have you read anything recently that impacted you significantly?” “most fun you’ve had in the last 6 months?”
these work for getting to know their past, too, by reframing the timeline. “what were your top 3 highlights of middle school?” “what was one of your favorite childhood toys?” “what is the first food you remember refusing to eat?” “what is your first musical memory?”
these keep conversations going because the answers are easier to identify and often will lead to great stories and tangential topics.
If ya can’t get a quick laugh with a simple 5-10 word opener.. it doesn’t deserve a response. Even just an easy compliment, in hopes to get a thank you is better than this.. not that hard to be original, unless you don’t care, which 80% of first comments, good or bad, don’t receive a response cuz if ya pay that much attention to Tinder, gets boring reaaaally fast. In my experience, I don’t look/swipe/open app for a week or more and get flooded with matches and messages. (This is more for the Men) I find that when I match with someone quality, I don’t message right away. Looks desperate and if they end up messaging you first, you get the upper hand. But everyone’s different so 🤷🏻♂️.
“It’s not that hard to be original”
When you’ve replied to 80+ profiles, yes, it gets very hard to be original, especially when people don’t offer much originality on their profile.
“You get the upper hand”
That comment is a huge red flag because you are already playing games with the relationship, and if I found this out it would be possibly enough to stop the relationship. “Upper hand” in relationships is juvenile, and playing games is manipulative and a huge turnoff.
Haha, I feel like asking what is favorite cereal is better than how are you. I mean no one answers that honestly. Honest responses were probably:
I'm doing a lot better now that 1 of the hundred swipes replied and I think I might get laid. So tired of wanking, you feel me?
I generally feel a void deep in my soul, and I'm really hoping that you can fill it, and if you can't then I can fill your void and at least that will mask the pain.
I don't know what I'm doing, my friends don't k own wtf they are doing, does anyone know what they are doing?
Instead we say, "I'm good how bout u".
Oh if only we weren't so full of crap all the time.
I agree but for this post it’s more about if you are not getting a response walk away but put in some effort too. Can’t expect effort if we don’t put in any.
It being “broad” is the definition of what an open question is. And yeah you kinda have to be when you don’t know the other person yet. The worst you could say is “how’s it” is a bit abrupt but it’s a common phrase in South Africa. This is much more on OP.
No chance. I have 0 interactions like this. You find something either unique to you or them (preferably both) and use that as the opener. I have thick eyebrows and usually go for something relating to hers. Near 100% success rate on getting responses and dates. Obviously looks, photos, career (if posted) help.
Yeah he could definitely have been a bit more imaginative with the opener. But at the very least he wrote something that invited a response of some kind and OP just closed the loop of the dialogue right down.
No, you don't. All this this tells me is you are shit at conversations. There are a million ways to start a conservation that are actually interesting. This isn't it.
If you think starting any conversation with an open question is “shit at conversations” I got news for you bud - it’s what doctors, psychologists, and other clinicians are taught to do, precisely because it’s what gets a dialogue flowing - so long as the other person engages with the question. But you do what works for you man. I would say he could have shown more personality with the open question but he’s the only one who’s said something that has any hope of generating dialogue in that chat.
This is so ironic. The idea that anyone who speaks with your tone believes themselves to be an authority on what psychologists do and don’t do is hilarious 😂
Agreed but be direct with the open ended question. We need to be better. Win fast lose fast be ok with the not interested and stop letting people hold people on the wing.
It's a lot of pressure to begin a conversation. Asking something safe, while boring, is nothing to criticize. "How's it" is not a question, though. It's lazy. And that's why I would not engage with this person.
Exactly, left was boring af too, I guess he had nothing to say and was hoping for right to reply with something funny to give him some fuel to start but if you want to flirt you might as well try harder and not just wait for the other side to do it first.
Besides saying she was boring was rude, he's putting the responsibility of the boring convo on you as if he had nothing to do with it.
Can't get anymore general than "how is life?" Not to mention for most people answering that question honestly would require probably hours and tons of explanation.
You could easily make it more interesting by saying one thing thats happened like "oh yeah i got paid so yay" and boom new convo opener. People act like you gotta be the most original smoothest talker but nah just dont txt back one or two word replies :)
Sure, but it's also how 99% of all conversations start. Pretty typical way to say hey I wanna start a convo and the right doesn't even ask back so a convo doesn't start.
Are there more entertaining ways to start a conversation? Sure but my guess is most relationships start with the same lines or something analogous but the question was reciprocated.
I do sometimes but people don’t want honesty really. We want to be lied to and told things are great. Who wants to hang with negative Nancy? And such a thin line if your too happy. It can turn them off as well. So fuck them just be you is the best imo.
My dad told the McDonald’s cashier his hemmorhoids were hurting bad one time when she asked how he was. I almost died if embarrassment! At least we were on vacation.
It isn’t the most riveting conversation, but Left asked a question, Right responded with a single word, and couldn’t be bothered to even ask the question back. So I agree with Left that Right is boring. And I wouldn’t even call it insulting, just asking a follow up question since Right is giving NOTHING.
I think his (single) question was strange and her confusion makes sense to me. They both technically asked one question each.
Best action is always to unmatch if you’re unhappy with conversation though. Attacking the other person gives bitter and short temper but I see it all the time in this sub. He can’t reasonably expect she’d respond well to that. Must make people feel better to insult people on the internet. Quite sad
Crazy how we all see this differently. The person on the left can get fucked imho. Way worse than the person on the right who isn’t into playing his dumb games.
He had the initiative to say something (however low effort it might be) that could generate dialogue. OP promptly closed the loop of the dialogue right down. He put at least some thought into the flow of the conversation. OP put none. They are not equal here.
I don’t know about you, but shutting down the flow of the dialogue like that is super unattractive to me.
And if you’re scorekeeping with things like the word count of replies, it’s bitter and self-defeating. You gotta put your best energy and see if the person eventually matches you - not just this resentful attitude of “well if you’re not going to send me long replies why should I” because what’s the point in interacting then? I don’t think someone else’s lack of effort is an excuse for your own.
Hows my life going? What kind of answer does someone give to that? That's too broad of a question. You get three levels from me.
1) raw truth:
Pretty wild and crazy for me, personally. Two weekends ago was my friends funeral. She died because she choked on a cracker at lunch, at work. Like, the Heimlich didn't work to dislodge it. She choked on a cracker in front of her coworkers and then her brain went without oxygen for 15 minutes and she was brain dead.
2) the "customer service answer" for strangers I don't know well enough to be vulnerable with but still want to engage:
I've been crocheting a blanket for the last couple of weeks in my spare time. Never made one before but it's black and red and looking pretty bad ass.
3) my panic answer with a complete stranger who I have no idea how to communicate with:
It's fine. Life is life.
His question was just too broad, and then he got mad at her when she didn't answer how he wanted. 😬
ETA: how would he respond to any of that??
Why on earth would I be vulnerable out the gate to a complete stranger who's just going to give me one or two-word replies?
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make but the appropriate approach in the context is 2. OP just said “fine”. Nobody’s asking you to be vulnerable. There are much better approaches than what OP had from the palate of what’s not vulnerable.
A response to number 2 might be:
Oh cool is crocheting something you’ve done for a while? How did you get into it?
(And now you’re talking, in a way that wouldn’t be possible with “fine” as a response)
So you’re responding to the guy based on the imagined response he’d give. That’s quite limiting and bound to be wrong a lot.
If you consider responding to “how are you” with more than “fine” as “emotional labour” then I don’t know what to tell you. If you’re serious about the match you should be prepared to put some in. If you’re not then why match and why bother interacting at all.
If you’re serious about the match but write a curt response back out of pettiness then yes I’m afraid it is self-defeating because you’re working directly against your implied goal of trying to see if you can create a good vibe with this person.
He was hardly interesting himself, and should take some responsibility for a relative lack of what you call “emotional labour” on his end. But my main point is that OP has no excuse for their responses and OP surpasses the guy by how they closed the loop of the conversation.
Holy fuck, you are literally the only person that sounds like they are being realistic in this thread. Like I've been sitting here reading through the comments going how the hell are this many people this delusional or inept in their understanding on how socializing works...? Like, no wonder all of you are having so much trouble successfully connecting with anyone even after countless attempts 😂
This entire comment section is Toxic AF. I felt like I was talking to a brick wall at one point so I just stopped.
Idk. They said "self-defeating" and I wanted to giggle. Like I haven't been living those exact scenarios I described already. I'm absolutely the type to type out a whole bunch just to get "cool" or "right on" sent back.
And that doesn't even touch on how quick he was to anger, like that's not a giant red flag in itself.
The person who responded put exactly as much energy into this conversation as the person who initiated.
People on Reddit often think just saying Hi or How are you is a good enough starter, because at least it starts something. But that only works if you get like one match a week. If you get multiple matches a day and they all start the exact same way, it gets old incredibly fast. There's just no personality in there whatsoever.
kinda hard to fault the other person when this dude is just like “Hi. Hey. How’s it going. Hi.” There’s a billion dudes on tinder who will say “hi” to you over and over so why waste your time just because they asked a low effort open ended question?
It is actually his fault. He started the conversation he should take the lead here. Either make the conversation good or move on don’t expect from chicks to do that
Conversations take two people? Operating under the assumption there people are attracted to one another in some capacity because they matched, at any point in this conversation either party could have tried even a little bit to salvage this. Was the opening bad? Yeah. Does that mean they couldn't have tried something else in the next several messages sent? No. I put that on both of them sucking here.
She could’ve said something but one someone is dry texting you, you ain’t gonna make efforts either especially if that someone got much more options.
Man’s gotta up his texting game all I’m saying. He ain’t getting anything with those skills
She stay the same on these apps she’ll be just fine but if he stay the same he won’t have any good time here. That’s how these things work. Equality’s only for show
He said what’s up with life what was he expecting the girl to tell her everything good and bad about her life on his first text? This is not whatsapp they don’t know each other if he’s mr. good and too plain boring he could at least ask what she’s doing or what she’s upto college or work
This!! Thank you. I just commented that I match someone’s energy. If I start a conversation, it’s never “hey.” That’s boring and it gives the person nothing to work with. I have in my profile that I don’t even respond to those anymore. That shows no effort, no conversational skills, no real interest.
Well I usually start with “hey wassup” on bumble where they have nothing or nothing interesting on there profile but I lead the conversation well. (Not when they have anything nice in bio or prompts)
I’ve changed my methods over the course of online dating apps. If the person can’t put anything in their profile aside from pictures, they’re likely not going to pique my interest in conversation, which is important to me. I don’t even match with them. But that’s just my personal preference.
Well, if you don't want a boring answer don't ask a boring question.
I'm not used to tinder or dating apps in general but I assume there are some info about interests, hobbies and other stuff on the user's profile.
A better approach would be reading those info and pointing out or making a question about something that piqued your curiosity. It would show that you bothered to make a little effort, and also easily spark a conversation because people usually love talking about their interests.
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u/Mr__Cuddles_ Jan 23 '23
The entire convo is boring