On dating sites, would you rather someone message you back saying "No, thanks" or just ignore your message?

Give them a “No, thanks” and add some tips with it. Maybe they’ll get something from it.

Never would even consider being on a dating site. I would not think any of it to be honest and sincere. I would probably not respond.

I prefer to ignore them. The No thanks line is too blunt.

I used to just ignore them. Usually, the ones like you’re talking about only wrote to you because they looked at your picture and never bothered to read your profile. I have a strong suspicion that many guys just look at the pictures and that reading the profiles before responding is a girl thing.

I learned this when some guy who had VERY strong opinions about things asked me out on a date. And when I looked at his profile, he wrote all about the kind of women he didn’t want to hear from and he hated. His description was basically an exact description of my personality, political, social values and religion.

So I wrote to him asking why on earth he would ever consider going out on a date with me. He wrote back with “OMG LOL… I never read your profile! lol!!!” He didn’t sound mad or anything. It was more like .. oops. I am sure that he was as grossed out by me as I was by him.

So when you get those weirdos who write you and seem to have nothing at all in common with you, just ignore them and think to yourself.. I must be a hottie because he liked my pic so much he never bothered to look at my profile.

@keobooks Yeah, I receive quite a few where they either don’t seem to have read my profile at all, or skip some really important things – that I’m bi, so if you hate gays, I’m not for you, that I have cats, so if you hate/are allergic to cats, I’m not for you….

I think it would be great if you explained in a very straightforward manner why they’re not a good fit.

Ex: You are a close-minded bigot and therefore not worth my time, so I am choosing not to begin a dialog with you. Goodbye.

I honestly don’t know. I can see an argument for both options. If you open up a dialogue with them, some people have cast iron egos and might just harass you to change your mind. I think in some ways saying nothing is the best option. The fact that they don’t get a response says “no thanks” without hurting them but doesn’t open up the possibility of any further correspondence.

If the response sounds canned I wouldn’t reply. If they at least tried I would say ‘no thanks’.

I’m sure we have all had job interviews where they never called back to at least tell you that you didn’t get the job. It kinda sucks.

@johnpowell Huh, see, I’ve always assumed that if I never heard from them again, I didn’t get it, and on the few occasions I did get a formal rejection, it seemed like they were taking time to tell me I suck instead of just saying I wasn’t good enough. But this is why I ask the question.

Just say no thanks.

@MyNewtBoobs I agree with you dating sites are not like job interviews. There is very little effort and risk you put into asking for a date as compared to applying and asking for a job. Some people do the dating site service in such a way that they just cast a very wide net and see what comes in. They are expecting at least half of the people to never write back. And they don’t put in a canned response—they personalize it.

I’m trying to find a delicate way to say this, but if someone’s feelings get hurt by someone not replying to a message they sent, they may be trying to hard or a little too self conscious. This will SHOW in a message and can be a big turn off. You don’t want to go out with someone who is acting like the last puppy in the pet store.

You have to go into online dating with the attitude that you are in sales, selling yourself. When you put out a message, it’s a cold call and most of those will get ignored. If you’re sending out messages with the thoughts “this is the one.. this could be the woman of my dreams” or “Oh I hope this one picks me!” You may unintentionally come off too strong.

I usually give them a nice thank you but I am not interested email and if this does not get the point across I ignore then I will block contact if the site allows it.

I try not to offend but sometimes they take offense and if that is the case I go right into the blocking of contact, some men think you should bow down just because they are men and are interested in you.

I wouldn’t respond to someone who obviously didn’t take the time to read my profile and have the sense and decency to see we had little to nothing in common….but that was IF I ever had a profile on a dating sight.

In general (because I don’t gon internet dating sites), if I send someone a messae, I want them to reply back, even if it’s a “No, thanks,” type response…

I always put at the top of my profiles that they should actually read what I wrote if they expected a response. If people didn’t bother to read even that, I’m not going to be bothered by responding to them. Especially if the message is something like “hey sexy” and nothing else. If they can’t take the time to read anything that you put out there, if they don’t take the time to compose a message that shows thought and time invested in it, they don’t deserve my time responding to them. If they do, however, I did respond that I wasn’t interested or something along those lines.

I met my fiancee on match.com. He read my profile and liked what he saw. I figured out how to get a free trial membership to message him back and the rest is history. :) Even with him, I wasn’t sure after the first date. It was the flowers on my car at work the next day that cinched it.

Just went to edit my profile to say “you should message me if… you have actually read my profile.” Turns out, I already put that in there.

I also wrote a whole lot. If someone went all the way to the end and found out a lot about me, they’re worth responding to even if its just a “not gonna happen.”

@keobooks You are exactly right….your entire response.