The following was sent to me from a guy, who shall remain nameless, in response to my initial post on how much I hate stock messages. Prepare to have your mind blown. Mine was.
A while ago, when I was bored, I started up an OKC profile to amuse myself.
I spent most of the time on there experimenting with stock messages I could send to 20 or 30 girls at once. You see, there are two big issues with OKC. One is that any remotely attractive girl gets tons of messages, so the signal-to-noise ratio is garbage and it's just not worth the time to craft something unique to every girl. The second is that 90+% of those girls basically have identical profiles with the exact same shit written in them and the exact same kissy-face out-at-the-bar-with-friends picture.
The solution to both is to send something slightly shocking but amusing to large swaths of women at once. You might be surprised how well it works. You might really be surprised that it works FAR BETTER than sending personalized messages that actually show careful reading of your profile. The fact that stock messages are irritating, as you point out, is actually beneficial - irritating at least prompts an emotional reaction in the reader, which is a better outcome than the complete indifference to the competing messages she received.
The best stock messages accuse the girl of something off-beat, prompting both humor and a defense response.
I repeatedly used the "bet with the friend you're male" message, a little tweaked for individuality (it's been floating around the internet in various versions for about 4 years). My "friend" was female, a fact that 0 of the recipients called out despite the messages usually being sent between 11 PM and 12:30 AM (if “she” was “looking over my shoulder,” we’d be in bed together…). I also added one fact from the recipient's profile as a reason why she was "totally a dude" - usually “a profile with so little information,” or that "only a dude would really like" The Big Lebowski/Dexter/UFC/whatever. The message had roughly a 75% response rate, with the vast majority of those being positive/willing to maintain the conversation. Only ONE girl (out of maybe 100-150?) said she had seen the message before, and she still messaged me back numerous times afterwards.
Occasionally, I got lazy, and didn’t bother tweaking the “reason she was male” between profiles, often resulting in a “reason” that made no sense for the profile I was messaging. Another time, I accidentally copied and pasted less than the full message to several girls, cutting off a portion of the message in a strange manner. These errors made no difference in response rate or receptivity to further contact.
By now, you're probably wondering what kind of lady falls for this crap. In truth? All sorts. I met several. They ran the gamut from brick-dumb to smart as hell, snarky to cheerful, ultraflaky to responsible.
So not only are stock messages effective in their own right, they are actually more effective than personalized messages. I am shocked. Women of OkCupid I think we need to talk.
A while ago, when I was bored, I started up an OKC profile to amuse myself.
I spent most of the time on there experimenting with stock messages I could send to 20 or 30 girls at once. You see, there are two big issues with OKC. One is that any remotely attractive girl gets tons of messages, so the signal-to-noise ratio is garbage and it's just not worth the time to craft something unique to every girl. The second is that 90+% of those girls basically have identical profiles with the exact same shit written in them and the exact same kissy-face out-at-the-bar-with-friends picture.
The solution to both is to send something slightly shocking but amusing to large swaths of women at once. You might be surprised how well it works. You might really be surprised that it works FAR BETTER than sending personalized messages that actually show careful reading of your profile. The fact that stock messages are irritating, as you point out, is actually beneficial - irritating at least prompts an emotional reaction in the reader, which is a better outcome than the complete indifference to the competing messages she received.
The best stock messages accuse the girl of something off-beat, prompting both humor and a defense response.
I repeatedly used the "bet with the friend you're male" message, a little tweaked for individuality (it's been floating around the internet in various versions for about 4 years). My "friend" was female, a fact that 0 of the recipients called out despite the messages usually being sent between 11 PM and 12:30 AM (if “she” was “looking over my shoulder,” we’d be in bed together…). I also added one fact from the recipient's profile as a reason why she was "totally a dude" - usually “a profile with so little information,” or that "only a dude would really like" The Big Lebowski/Dexter/UFC/whatever. The message had roughly a 75% response rate, with the vast majority of those being positive/willing to maintain the conversation. Only ONE girl (out of maybe 100-150?) said she had seen the message before, and she still messaged me back numerous times afterwards.
Occasionally, I got lazy, and didn’t bother tweaking the “reason she was male” between profiles, often resulting in a “reason” that made no sense for the profile I was messaging. Another time, I accidentally copied and pasted less than the full message to several girls, cutting off a portion of the message in a strange manner. These errors made no difference in response rate or receptivity to further contact.
By now, you're probably wondering what kind of lady falls for this crap. In truth? All sorts. I met several. They ran the gamut from brick-dumb to smart as hell, snarky to cheerful, ultraflaky to responsible.
So not only are stock messages effective in their own right, they are actually more effective than personalized messages. I am shocked. Women of OkCupid I think we need to talk.
