To Reply or Not To Reply
I’ve been hearing lots of conflicting thoughts on how to manage an online dating profile inbox. Here are the top discussion issues and I would love to hear your thoughts on it…
1. To reply or not to reply when you have no interest in the person emailing you.
- First School of Thought: I have no investment in this person, so why bother sending them a dear john?
- Second School of Thought: I get hundreds of emails a week. I don’t have the time to reply to everyone.
- Third School of Thought: Its rude to not reply.
- Fourth School of Thought: Its rude TO reply since it might hurt their feelings!
- Fifth School of Thought: It may be rude, but I don’t care. I’ll reply to who I want to reply.
- Sixth School of Thought: Since every person is an individual, you should reply to each individual.
2. What to do when you’ve been emailing for a while and start to realize that you just aren’t interested?
- Write a dear john letter and “break up” with your online suitor
- “Fizzle it” A nice but slightly conflict avoident way of just letting the conversation die. Reply times become greater and greater and you engage less and less in the actual email conversation.
- Disappear. Just never reply
3. What to do after the first date is a dud?
- Dear John letter?
- Dear John call?
- Fizzle?
- Avoid?
- Try one more time to see if it might get better?
4. And the last issue… how “honest” should you be?
- Clear, precise and unemotional. Dish it to ‘em straight including your reasons why so they don’t have to wonder.
- Compassionate and gentle. Mix the truth in lightly.
- The old — its not you, its me line.
- No need to get all truth-telly … just say it isn’t a match for you.
- Don’t tell them anything at all (popular with the avoid and fizzle crowd)
I’ve noticed that guys and girls have really different takes on this. And it depends from site to site how people react. On Match and Yahoo! — its such an avalanche, most just use the avoid or ignore. Eharmony — ignore or close out with reason. Chemistry — no reply needed… it goes immediately to archive w/o notifying the other person. etc, etc, etc. What sites have you used and did you notice a difference in how people replied or didn’t reply? Do you have a reply policy?
Read Also
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