Back in the day I used to try all sorts of email strategies to meet women online. I'd send them an email trying to get the ball rolling, only to find out that they usually didn't respond. The problem with trying to start something over email is that you are all too often at a disadvantage. You have to say something "clever" or "witty" to get her interested, not look like you're trying too hard, and at the same time stand out from all the other boring emails she gets. There is very little room for error here.

When it comes to internet personals, the commonly accepted email "strategy" is to read her profile and based on that come up with an opener that shows you are interested in something about her, would like to know more, and segue from there. Unfortunately, this is very hit or miss, since many women write little about themselves anyway, and the ones that do write a lot often don't give you a lot of material to work with, so you end up "grasping". It tends to make you look try hard, which will work against you. Unlike real life where it is common social courtesy to stick out a boring conversation for the first minute or two, until things click, over email there is absolutely no incentive for her to put in any effort to get to know you if you start off with something boring like, "hey, how are you?...soo...what did you do this weekend?" This is a basic example of how normal conversation starts anyway. Stick it out until (hopefully) you find common ground, and then the rapport starts to flow.

Regarding email openers, what does tend to work best is if the girl has a specific interest, like a travel destination, and you happened to be there on a past trip. Then you can make a comment on that and an email exchange is much more likely to succeed. But this is usually not the case.

I have found that the best way to deal with the email "opener" is to avoid it altogether. Nowadays, I get them on my messenger. I personally use msn mostly. But other ones like yahoo or ICQ are also popular.

For example, let's say I send a wink or smile to a girl on the internet personals, to show I'm interested. She winks or smiles back, meaning she's interested too. I then shoot her an email saying either, "hi, do you have msn?", or "hi, feel free to add me to your msn, if you have it, xxx@hotmail.com". Most times they do, or they suggest chatting on another messenger program, like yahoo, for example, which is fine too. And then when they log on it's easy to start communicating. I like to start things off with a "hi, what are you up to?", and it just goes from there. Then I usually get them on the phone, and set up a meet. Very easy.

Now some internet personal sites don't have the smile or wink feature, so in that case I will send out a bunch of messages, consisting of either "hi, do you have messenger?", or "hi, feel free to add me to your msn, if you have it, xxx@hotmail.com", like before. So out of 10 messages I send out, I get maybe 1 or 2 adding me. Now, some girls won't have messenger, but that's not a big deal if they don't. They can choose to get it, since they are free to download, and it's obvious they have access to an internet connection. I know at least one woman who downloaded msn just to be able to talk to me.

I never try to get to know them over email. I invite them to chat with me on messenger, period. If they want to get to know me they are forced to talk to me on messenger. And once on there I can flirt, attract, run rapport etc, before setting up a meet.

Now the way some women will respond to your initial message will be with either a, "ok, I added you. Talk soon", or whatever. Or they'll give you their messenger address and ask you to add them instead. Not a problem, I add them.

Other women still, will say they don't have messenger but will give you their email address instead and ask that you write them. I personally never do, since I can't be bothered with it, so I normally just forget about them. And I personally find that many women that do this are uptight anyway, and hung up on small details like having the man chase them (go through hoops), even over the internet. This is one way to help weed out "rules" girls. But, in a few cases, it might be that she really doesn't have messenger, but you can tell she's interested (ie. she gives you a valid reason for it, like she only has internet access at work and messenger isn't allowed). So in that case try suggesting a phone conversation, and offer your number, as a last resort. And if she declines or ignores you, then just move on. It is not your job to babysit a woman. She has to be adult enough to step up to the plate, just like you.

Hopefully this clears up a lot of the mystery for some on how to write the "perfect" email. Don't. Get them on messenger, is my advice.

Copyright 2005 Vittorio Norman