I'm going to take a break from the drama of "med student guy" for a moment to discuss the issue with emailing with others through an online dating site.
Most sites (Match.com, Eharmony.com, and PlentyofFish.com for sure) have some sort of way to let someone know that you've seen their profile and you're interested. Match.com has "winks", Eharmony.com has "icebreakers", and PlentyofFish.com has an option for you to add someone as a "favorite".
Once you get past this initial interest, or if you are very interested in someone and want to cut to the chase, then you can either IM or email them. Most people tend to email first. IMs we can cover in another issue.
With email you have the ability to think about what you want to say and also check for tone. It's also a comfortable method of communication as most people utilize email for their jobs and personal life.
However, sometimes taking the chance at emailing someone you would like to get to know better doesn't always end with a return email. Oftentimes, the object of your interest won't email back. This occurs for a number of reasons:
1. They looked at your profile and don't think that based on your preliminary information that you are compatible.
2. They checked out your picture and don't think you're attractive in return.
3. They either just met someone and want to see how things go or they are involved in a relationship now but their profile is still up regardless of whether or not they pay for it. (Apparently Match.com leaves your profile up and if someone emails or winks and your subscription is up, you need to pay again to respond.)
Now, I don't take it personally if someone doesn't write back. In fact, I find that it's actually a good thing to not waste my time or excitement if you're not interested or are seeing someone else. However, I just discovered the other day that there are some people who take the lack of a response very personally and actually take out their aggression on you.
Picture this: PlentyofFish.com, a guy I don't particularly find attractive and how lives in West Virginia (not even the same state as me!) sends me an email. I'm currently only using PlentyofFish.com to email "med student guy" since he doesn't use his Gmail anymore. Obviously at that time, I wasn't interested in meeting anyone else and definitely not some dude in West Virginia. A few days later I guess this random guy noticed that I had been online recently but had not yet answered his email. Instead of considering one of the four reasons listed above, he fires off this message to me telling me that I was rude and at least he didn't judge me by my picture.
Obviously, this guy has some serious self-esteem issues. My self-esteem issues aren't even that bad!! So I wrote back, annoyed, to tell him that he did judge me by my picture if he's assuming that I'm just a snobby bitch. I said that he was the one who was rude, emailing like he did when he didn't know me. Additionally, I said that if he knew me, he would know that I've only been using PlentyofFish.com to email one guy in particular and no one else. I ended the email with "Good luck" and hit send. While it sucks that not everyone you find attractive and interesting doesn't always think the same about you, there is no reason to act inappropriately and fly off of the handle.
So if you are trying this online dating thing, please remember to not commit such an unacceptable use of the email function like West Virginia guy. You're not going to win over any hearts that way!
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2 comments:
Sorc, I do have to say in my experience I think it is very nice to write back and let the person know that you are not interested. I guess maybe if they just email 1x its ok to let it go, but if they email again or try to contact you another way, it is nice to set the record straight so you don't have to waste time reading their email and they know to remove you from their consideration set :-)
DD - If I had initially responded, I would have written back to say that I wasn't interested. However, he only sent me one and it was just the "liked your profile would like to get to know you" kind of thing. So he should have realized that if I didn't respond that I wasn't interested instead of jumping to conclusions, being offended, and feeling the need to take it out on me. I think it's perfectly ok to not respond to the very first request if you're not interested because if he had 2 funtional brain cells, he would have removed me from his consideration set when I didn't respond. :)
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