In the early days of October we thought it would be a good idea to introduce a loose guide that would shed light upon the often dark and obscure corners wrought by the world of online dating. There are a million places from where we could kick this off as there’s so much that’s interesting and fun about the way people are using the internet to find their perfect partner, meet new people or even just to do something social on date night. However, we have to start somewhere so, as the King told Alice, “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end”.

You Had Me at Hello

This brings us on to opening lines, that first message you send out after you’ve completed your “filtering” process of potential people you would want to strike up a conversation with. What messages are guaranteed to get a response? How should you introduce yourself? What type of things should you mention and what should you leave out? There are certain words with negative connotations so therefore have a negative response rate. Other words don’t really say anything at all. Sometimes saying too much can be damaging whereas saying too little doesn’t entice anyone.

Hanks was on to something in "You've Got Mail"

A recent study of online openers showed that the more generic ways to greet people like “Hi”, “Hello” or “Hey” fared extremely badly. This might seem strange but when you think about it, these types of openers are impersonal and have a very “copy & paste” feel to them. One of the inevitabilities of meeting people online is that you are exposed to more people on a much grander scale than if you were say, meeting people at your local bar, therefore the ubiquitous “hi” has long outworn its welcome. You need to introduce yourself in a way that’s informal, interesting and a little bit different. With face to face encounters, first impressions count for everything. Don’t assume that this isn’t case here just because you’re shielded by your computer screen. Originality is key. The more personality you can put across, the more likely you are to receive a positive response and also responses from the kind of people you want to hear from.Greetings like “How’s it going”, “What’s up” and even “Howdy” are more successful than the standard hello.

Choose your words carefully. A good example of how the different usage of one word in two different ways, is the word “pretty”. When used to reference someone’s physical appearance, like “I think you are pretty”, “You’re pretty” etc. this word is terrible. Its failure has been proven time and time again. Yet, when used to set up other words like in “pretty much”, “pretty good”, it works incredibly well. It’s informal and keeps things casual. If you do find it in yourself to compliment someone, be specific. Words like “awesome”, “fascinating” and “interesting” are winners every time.

Lastly, don’t forget your personality. Tell people about yourself and your interests. What do like to do at the weekend…Exhibitions? Cinema? Club? Boozy lunches? Either way, it’s by far the best way to engage with people. Being impersonal is never the right way to go about this. The best thing about being specific about your interests is that you will receive responses from people like you, who are interested in the same things and the net result of that is you will invariably get on better. Essentially, it’s the most effective way to connect with someone when you’re not meeting for the first time face to face.

The first message is all important and of all the advantages of meeting people online, the one that stands out here is the possibility to take measured steps to put your best foot forward and present yourself favourably. Begin at the beginning and then let the rest fall into place!