# Okcupid: What to do when nobody is messaging you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 11, 2005, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258 "2005-01-11T19:27:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/21 "2005-01-12T02:38:50Z")
Well, while we’re comparing, here’s [my profile.](http://www.okcupid.com/profile?tuid=10282800252820643264)🙂 Any helpful hints to make it better? ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/22 "2005-01-12T03:18:48Z")
Yeah, change the location to Chicago suburbs 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/23 "2005-01-12T03:19:32Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > Well, while we’re comparing, here’s [my profile.](http://www.okcupid.com/profile?tuid=10282800252820643264)🙂 > > Any helpful hints to make it better? Not really. The thing that drives me nuts about most women’s profiles is that they don’t write enough, or if they do, it’s generally about how much of a good date they would be. You’ve got the writing thing down, and I definitely see a couple things that I could write a message based on–and if you were more like 50 miles away from me, I would. > [@twickster](#): > > **Ultrafilter** – if you have any interest in women twice your age, drop me a line! Great ad! Unfortunately, about 8-10 years older is my limit. But I’ll probably bump into you at a dopefest sometime… ---
**Author:** ![fruitbat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@fruitbat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fruitbat)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/24 "2005-01-12T03:20:28Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > Well, while we’re comparing, here’s [my profile.](http://www.okcupid.com/profile?tuid=10282800252820643264)🙂 > > Any helpful hints to make it better? Really it is very, very good. I would assume you are having no problem getting responses. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/25 "2005-01-12T03:29:44Z")
> [@fruitbat](#): > > Really it is very, very good. I would assume you are having no problem getting responses. Well, I’m getting some, but quite a few are “ur cute lol” sort of things, which are insta-deleted. I was hoping to get some intelligent men interested, but so far the only decent ones are from far away. That’s fun too, because I like to chat with new people and you never know where I may end up in a couple of years, but I’d like to meet some local boys. I’m scared to up the smarty-pants factor, though, in case I get nothing but strange antisocial klingon-speaking computer geeks. ---
**Author:** ![malkavia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malkavia/32/5621_2.png) [@malkavia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/malkavia)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/26 "2005-01-12T04:33:11Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > Well, I’m getting some, but quite a few are “ur cute lol” sort of things, which are insta-deleted. I was hoping to get some intelligent men interested, but so far the only decent ones are from far away. I’m not a guy, but I just wanted to say that > [@](#): > > Today: Studying in laboratory technology and working part-time. > > Tomorrow: Mad scientist. cracked me right up. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/27 "2005-01-12T04:45:57Z")
My response to **Incubus’** ad: “Though I am not above working an unpleasant job if it makes ends meet.” This is a sentence fragment. “I also play the piano, I’ve been doing that for years and years” - comma should be a semi-colon. Yes, these are tiny details, but the love of your life may be as impressed as I am when I see something written flawlessly (I married a guy with an English degree who I met at [Loveataol.com](http://Loveataol.com)). I get the impression that you’re sort of in limbo career-wise, but at 24, that’s not a make or break. Otherwise, your ad is great. I like the picture - you’re hot, baby. I’d message you back in a heartbeat. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/28 "2005-01-12T04:49:44Z")
Ooh! Do me now! (By which I mean, “please review my profile”) [Here 'tis.](http://www.okcupid.com/profile?tuid=5539887273992495300) **Incubus** , there’s still some more copy-editing you might want to do on the text in your profile. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/29 "2005-01-12T04:51:18Z")
**Ultrafilter** - great profile. Really, really great profile. I couldn’t even find any grammatical errors. You are also someone I would respond to ASAP. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/30 "2005-01-12T04:52:45Z")
**Incubus** , your profile is much better now, and the 6 Things are wonderful! You sound much more interesting and a lot less…reliable, on-time, organized. All of which are great attributes, but not the primary selling points. Now get a non-nekkid picture and you won’t be able to answer all the responses! ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/31 "2005-01-12T05:02:25Z")
**Antigen** - good profile. It lacks a little bit of the personal touch, though - it seems a little sterile (ha! I make joke!). You sound like someone who has a very organized, very disciplined, very scheduled life. If I were a guy reading your profile, I would be wondering where I would fit into it. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/32 "2005-01-12T05:02:30Z")
> [@Hunter Hawk](#): > > Ooh! Do me now! (By which I mean, “please review my profile”) > > [Here 'tis.](http://www.okcupid.com/profile?tuid=5539887273992495300) Paragraph tags are your friend. It’s tough to read a big block of text. Just in case you’re not familiar with HTML, stick \ at the beginning of your paragraph, and \ at the end. That makes a long essay a lot easier to read. Other than that, from this guy’s perspective, it’s all right. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/33 "2005-01-12T05:10:58Z")
Okay, **Hunter Hawk,** I’d do you…I mean, I’ll do you…I mean, here’s my review of your profile. Pretty good profile overall, but the lignonberry photo makes you look like a middle-aged guy into gardening, and it’s not flattering. The other two are fine. Your list of authors is a bit intimidating, even for those of us for whom reading is life. The fact that you have all those authors’ names (and spellings) at the tips of your fingers will drive off all but the most geeky women, either in fear of your massive intellect or in fear of struggling to remember their favorite authors. You came down a bit heavy on Hollywood movies. This will scare off the women who, while they love a great foreign film, still can appreciate the entertainment of a good chick-flick. They will fear that you will never go to one with them, or that you will mock them if they cry when David Duchovny finds out who got his wife’s heart in the transplant surgery. So maybe de-emphasize that until, say, the third date. Good use of humor, and self-deprecation. Overall, a B+. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/34 "2005-01-12T05:18:35Z")
**Hunter Hawk** - “Primus” and “Secundus” have to go. You sound like a really nice, well-rounded (no joke intended) kinda guy, with lots of varied interests. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/35 "2005-01-12T05:31:41Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > **Incubus** , your profile is much better now, and the 6 Things are wonderful! You sound much more interesting and a lot less…reliable, on-time, organized. All of which are great attributes, but not the primary selling points. Now get a non-nekkid picture and you won’t be able to answer all the responses! Working on getting an at least semi-normal pic of me up. The one on right now was always intended as a ‘placeholder’ picture anyway, so I could show people what I looked like while looking for and/or getting a better picture. **Hunter Hawk** - What would you suggest copyediting-wise? ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/36 "2005-01-12T05:36:35Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > Take a break for a week or so. Seriously, why are you expecting an instant response? I can’t speak for him, but as far as I’m concerned, some kind of response would be polite. Even a terse “Thanks, but I’m not interested” would be preferable to being completely ignored. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/37 "2005-01-12T06:09:30Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > **Hunter Hawk** - What would you suggest copyediting-wise? Here are a few thoughts… **In your self-summary:** The comma after “laugh” should be a semicolon. Okay, so you like to laugh at funny stuff–but what do you find funny? Different people have different senses of humor, so just saying that you like to laugh isn’t real helpful. You might want to change the period after “true” to an em dash. What is it about you that makes other people think you’re a workaholic but makes you think you’re not? It should be “it’s crunch”, not “its crunch”. “Self” should have a lower-case s. The comma after “self” should probably be a colon. There should be a period after “summaries”. Re “Whoops!”: I don’t get it. **In your “What I’m doing” section:** Do you _choose_ to always be passionate about what you do for a living, or do you pick things that you’re passionate about? The fact that you specifically note that you’re not above working an unpleasant job seems to imply that you may not be so passionate about it after all. What’s really going on around this issue? The comma after “jobs” should probably be either a colon or an em dash. You claim to be passionate about your jobs, but you don’t say anything about what’s great about them or what you get out of them. Re the small part in the play: So why are you exuberant about it? **In your “I’m really good at” section:** Re “People at work describe me”: Umm, okay. What do _you_ think about yourself? Why do you put a lot of personal emphasis on being reliable? **In your “My favorite” section:** You could safely delete the words “the authors”. You’re a professional music teacher who claims to be passionate about his work and you’re not talking more about music??? I’m not sure “King Crab” needs to be capitalized. There should be a space after the close parens. In the “films” sentence, you might want to use semicolons to separate the items. **In your “Six things” section:** Again, you might want to use semicolons to separate the items. A good book _who_ can’t put down? **In your “I spend a lot of time” section:** “Director” doesn’t really need to be capitalized. **In your “private thing” section:** Uh, okay. So there’s nothing you’re willing to admit here? **In your “message me” section:** This is kinda the first time you’re bringing up the “tell it like it is” issue. Why is it important enough to mention here but not important enough to bring up in any of the other sections? Also, throughout your text (not just in this section), you kind of go back and forth on whether you use contractions or not. In this case, you use “You are” rather than “You’re”, and it ends up sounding a bit stilted. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/38 "2005-01-12T06:14:38Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > Pretty good profile overall, but the lignonberry photo makes you look like a middle-aged guy into gardening, and it’s not flattering. The other two are fine. > > \ Urgh. Okay, maybe I’ll pull that picture. I’ll give some thought to the book & film verbiage. > [@featherlou](#): > > “Primus” and “Secundus” have to go. Dang, and here I thought that was kind of a clever lead-in to the “Um, third” phrase (i.e., I can be a pompous intellectual twit sometimes but don’t really take it too seriously). I guess that didn’t come across, though. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/39 "2005-01-12T06:25:46Z")
Well, **I** liked the primus/secundus bit. And for the record, there is nothing wrong with middle-aged men who like gardening. But you’re not trying to attract women like me, so glad you’re thinking of changing it. ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258/40 "2005-01-12T06:36:21Z")
I gave you a good review, so maybe some girls will message you now! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okcupid-what-to-do-when-nobody-is-messaging-you/284258.md?page=3)