Blog

One of the biggest lies that online dating coaches tell is that there’s a magic opening line or online dating conversation starters that are guaranteed to help you break through the crowd and get a response from the person you are trying to meet. As someone who has been helping singles actually succeed at online dating for over 18 years, seeing the same lines pop up over and over and over again is almost as frustrating as the number of people who still think it is ok to post a bathroom mirror selfie on their profile.

The reality is that there is no perfect line. Why? Because the idea that you are using a line means that you are not engaging with the person you want to meet. You are just trying to win them over. That makes you a salesperson in a world where people don’t want to feel like they are being sold to. Let’s take a look at some real opening lines that dating coaches and relationship experts are telling their clients are guaranteed to get them a response to their first message on dating apps.

On its surface, this seems like a fairly harmless line. It’s better than this expert’s original version of the line which was “It’s Sunday morning, are you sleeping in, having brunch with the girls, or doing the laundry?” If you are a man who has ever Googled advice on dating conversation starters, you have probably seen this line… and you may have even used it.  If you are a woman, there’s almost a 100% chance that you’ve heard it at least once. We periodically post female profiles on dating apps to stay on top of the trends causing men to fail at online dating. In one 90-day test, we got this message 23 times.

The average female online dater is not going to be impressed with this line the first time they hear it. It assumes a lot about its target and provides no evidence that the sender has actually read their profile. As a result, this is a line that could be sent to everyone, so it doesn’t connect with anyone. Still, if a woman has never heard this line before, and she likes your photos and profile, there is always the chance that you might get a response… Now, imagine how she’ll feel about you when you are the 2nd, 5th, 10th, or 20th, person to send her this line. What do you think your chances are of getting a response then?

This is a line that a client of mine was given by a dating coach who had previously paid several thousand dollars for help. We aren’t going to say that the advice he got was bad, this coach also had him use a green screen to fake an on-stage speaking engagement.

Why doesn’t a line like this work? It’s simple. Just like the line before, there’s nothing here that says you paid any attention to the person you are trying to meet’s profile. You sound like every other numbers game dater just firing everything they’ve got until something sticks. It’s not clever, it’s just the same kind of garbage people used to use in bars back in the 80s and 90s.

Remember how we mentioned that we received one of the previous lines 23 times during a 90-day profile test? Well, we received this one 84 times over the same period. If you’ve ever seen the Aziz Ansari show ‘Master of None,’ you’ll recognize the line because it’s what he spammed out to every single match he got on Tinder.

Here’s a basic rule of thumb: If you see a line or conversation starter somewhere and you think it is clever, just remember that you are not the only person who has seen it. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of other people all saw the same line and had the same idea. You are not only not the first person sending this line to someone. You are not the first person to send it to the person you want to connect with.

There is no magic line or online dating conversation starters you can send that will work all the time, but there is a strategy that works better than anything else we’ve seen in almost 20 years of helping singles with online dating. It isn’t complicated and it shouldn’t take you more than two minutes to do it. Just follow these three very simple steps:

Stop trying to convince someone that you are worth their response. Instead, focus on just getting a conversation started. Most opening messages feel like a sales pitch. People don’t want to be sold to when it comes to love. They want to feel a connection.

Your message needs to be based on their words, not their photos. When you send someone a message about their photo it just tells them that you looked at them and you think they are attractive. But, when you send someone a message based on their words, they feel like you’ve listened to them and that you are more interested in them as a person.

Ask a question. The best way to start a conversation is with a question. Find something in their profile that interests you enough that you want to talk to them about it and ask them an open-ended question. Never ask a yes/no question because you’ll just get a yes/no answer. If you can’t find anything in their profile that you actually would want to talk to them about, move on to the next profile. You should be attracted to everyone you reach out to, but you should never reach out to someone just because you think they are hot. This doesn’t need to be a numbers game.

In the end, messaging is a very important part of your online dating success, but it doesn’t matter how good a first message you can send if your profile and photos don’t help you make a great first impression. That’s what I’ve helped over 40,000 singles do since 2004. If you need help with your profile, give me a call at 888-447-7634 or check out our Profile Writing Services. If you already have a profile, but you aren’t getting the results you want, we also offer a free profile assessment.