When I first started online dating in 2008,  I basically totally ripped Dave M’s game, borrowing his insider internet dating email template and profile and tweaking it to my needs. It was crazy effective, and because of the template approach I was able to easily send 20 emails in 30 minutes, getting 4+ responses from that on a regular basis.

For those of you who don’t know, that first response is somewhat of a wildcard; like approaching in person, there is no perfect approach, and no one can go 5 for 5 on a regular basis. That said, once a girl responds to you, you should be getting her number upwards of 80% of the time, and if you have time and you’re text game is good, there is no reason why 80+ percent of those numbers can’t convert to dates.

Back to 2008 for a second, because back then, the top of my dating funnel was full, but I was still learning how to bring girls through the funnel in a way that would lead to sex. Initially, I would get them on AIM first, figuring that they needed to have a conversation with me before meeting, and I was insecure about my phone voice. This approach had pros and cons to it. It made it extremely easy to get deep with a girl, especially if you got her into an AIM conversation around bedtime, often leading to cybersex, phone sex, nudie pictures and quick sex when I finally did get her out. On the other end, the conversion rate was quite low, and it would take up a lot of time to have these types of conversations, time that once I was gainfully employed I just didn’t have.

For the next three years, I took the opposite approach. I figured, my game is tight enough that I should just focus on getting them out and working my magic in person over drinks. This had mixed results. I had a lot of dates that led second dates and/or sex, but I also had a lot of dates that went nowhere. If the goal was to get good at going on blind dates, I probably achieved that, but obviously that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to start sexual relationships with women, and for this, my approach was just too inconsistent and inefficient. It was expensive, time consuming, and just involved kissing too many frogs.

Recently, in reflecting on this history, it became apparent that I needed to build more interest before going out with women, but in a way that is not a time suck for me. I needed to find a way to get just enough emotional investment going that the dates became layups, not three-pointers. Of course, the obvious answer was text, both because it is the primary form of communication in 2012 and because it shares a lot of the advantages of AIM. The problem is that it is just too easy to set up dates via text, and if you want to build the level of emotional investment that we’re talking about, you are going to need at least 40-100 text messages spread out over the course of at least a week to get there.

Alright, enough background. Let’s get into the meat of this thing. The following represents my most successful online dating method to date. I am not going to make any promises as to whether it will work for you, but this is exactly what I have been doing for the last two months, and it has been wildly successful.

 

Strategy

Profile

-          Imagine yourself as a character in a movie. Your whole profile should be set up to convey what that character is like

-          Use at least 5 pictures, and keep it under 10. Don’t just throw on pictures for the sake of it, select your pictures to carefully tell a story about you. If you have two pictures that are similar, pick the better one

-          Your headline can be either an obscure movie quote that is not going to be on anyone els’es profile,

-          Have at least one picture in a sharp suit, and at least one social picture with multiple people in it, including women.

-          Have one action photo in some kind of athletic pursuit, and if you’re in good shape, this is a good opportunity to not have a shirt on. Generally the no shirt pic is a bad idea, but if you’re surfing or jumping up to spike a volley ball or something like that, it’s good as long as you look good without your shirt on.

-          Here’s a general format you can borrow, each representing a paragraph: 1) short personality description 2) what I do for fun 3) what I’m passionate about 4) what I am looking for in a relationship 5) call to action

-          You’ve got to convey personality in your profile. The absolute worst thing you can do is try to be generic. Don’t apologize for who you are. Intentionally put in things that will turn off girls you’re not interested in, and draw in girls who are.

-          Offhandedly mention your Myers-Briggs type, especially if you’re interested in professional women who have probably had it done at their job. It’s like astrology for rational people.

-          Include hooks in your profile that women can easily latch onto and ask you about. Compare yourself to one or more famous people (e.g. I’m kind of a cross between Ted Danson and Tony Hawk)

-          Stick to the 1,500-3,000 character range. Less than that and it’s just going to seem like you suck, more and it’s too long. My current profile is just over 2,300 characters.

-          Fill in the favorite things section with books, tv shows, music and movies

-          Leave any other profile fields blank if they’re not going to help you paint the image you want to paint

 

Emailing

-          Most girls can read and send emails. If you are not getting your emails responded to, it’s because the women you’re emailing don’t want to respond to you. Don’t believe me? Sign up for the read notifications and see for yourself.

-          Come up with a creative subject line and just use it over and over again. The only purpose of a subject line is to get the email opened ahead of a sea of “hey” emails. The subject line doesn’t have to have anything to do with your email, though if a creative one comes to mind as you’re writing the email feel free to use it instead.

-          Timing matters. The absolute easiest thing to do is just send out 2-5+ emails a day, every day. Sort by newest first and just be one of the first people into her inbox. If you have time and are feeling motivated, feel free to sort by last activity and email others, but know that you will be running into higher standards and more attention seeking behavior. Get to her before other dudes have jaded her.

-          I highly recommend taking a personalized approach to your emailing. One short 3-5 sentence paragraph is all you need. Your two major techniques here are relating and color commentary. Relating is like “Oh, you have X experience? That’s great, I have Y experience that is similar in the following ways.” Color commentary is more like “Haha it’s so funny that X happened to you, I can’t even imagine what that experience was like. I’ll bet you’d be totally prepared if Y (an order of magnitude more ridiculous than X) happened!”

-          Always end in a question. If she is on the fence about responding to you, the energy that it will take to figure out what to say is going to be the difference maker. Make this part easier by giving her a topic to go on.

-          Don’t invest more than two minutes emailing her unless you find her profile interesting, no matter how hot she is. If she didn’t invest the time and energy in filling her shit out, she’s not taking the dating process seriously. If you have a copy paste template, emailing these types should be its primary use.

-          Never seem rushed or over-eager to talk or meet up. You’ve lived without her your whole life, if it doesn’t work out between the two of you, you’ll keep going on. Enough said.

-          Gauge her level of investment based on the length of her emails. If her emails are longer than yours, you’re in good shape. If they’re shorter but still relatively long, you’re in good shape. If you write three paragraphs and she replies with two sentences, you have work to do.

-          Don’t try to transition to text until she seems invested, and not before two emails each. Ask her if she wants to grab a drink, and give her your number suggesting that she text you to work something out. It seems counterintuitive to give her your number rather than ask for it, but I have found it to be more effective. Some girls will text you introducing themselves, which is ideal because it puts it in their mind that they are chasing you. Others will reply back with something like “A drink sounds good, my number is…” If your timing is right, you shouldn’t have many girls just never responding again, but if you do, know that it’s because she just wasn’t that interested.

 

Texting

-          The goal of texting is to get her more emotionally invested in you prior to the date. You should be aiming for at least 40-100 texts combined between the two of you, the low end being if she’s particularly busy and unresponsive. In most cases, this will take upwards of a week, which is exactly what you want.

-          Text is the perfect medium to get all of the small talk out of the way, like what she did last weekend, how many siblings she has, how awesome the weather is, etc.

-          A good conversation starting text format: 1) Greeting 2) statement about something interesting in your life 3) question about her. Don’t worry about the 160 character limit, phones thread messages now and it’s not a big deal if it goes through as two instead of one.

-          Bust her balls occasionally, but don’t be a one trick pony. If she tries to banter battle, your options are to diffuse or escalate. Don’t try to escalate unless you are experienced at it or willing to crack a few eggs.

-          Don’t play games with text timing unless there’s a cliffhanger involved. When she responds to you, you know she is on her phone at that moment. This is going to be your best opportunity to get into a conversation with her, which is what you want. You won’t come off as needy if you have everything else on point, and hopefully there are times in your life where you actually don’t see her text until a couple of hours after it’s sent, making the delay inevitable and natural.

-          First dates should be drinks only. Having an activity for if things are going well (like a live show or a pool hall or something) is a good move, but this should not be a part of the expectation.

-          To get a date on the books, the magic phrase is “What’s your schedule like this week?” Your first conversation with her should end with an attempt to schedule a date, but I highly recommend that if you’re under the 40-100 text threshold, you sabotage this, putting it off for about a week. The right way to do this is to be busy on the days she is free, and suggest talking later in the week about scheduling something.

-          Once you have a day picked out for a date, suggest a time that makes it clear that you are meeting for after-dinner drinks.  Anything after 8pm should make this pretty clear.

-          Finding out what neighborhood she lives in makes you seem considerate. If you live in a cool neighborhood, the vast majority of your dates should be within 5 minutes of your house. If not, make it very convenient for her. Don’t meet halfway, there is no reason for both of you to travel.

-          Ultimately, you should be picking the spot, and it should seem like you were in complete control of the situation in doing so. You took the time to collect all of the relevant information, and then based on that information you made an informed decision.