Online Dating Etiquette 101: Winks
Don’t be this guy.
He’s winking. Doesn’t that just look silly?
If you were a geek girl, wouldn’t you rather see a nice smile and read a few sentences about why he found you interesting?
I know I would!
Why You Should Never Just Wink
- Winks are lazy.
It’s one click. Isn’t your dating life worth more than one click? It certainly is! Slow down and decide – why is this girl special? – then write her an email to let her know just that.
- Winks tell her that you’re interested… but not THAT interested.
If you can’t muster up the motivation to send her a couple sentences of email, how can you expect her to think you were interested in being her partner in life and love?
- Winks are “tossing the net wide” without thought for what you catch.
No girl wants to be one in a sea of fish. She’s wondering, “How many other girls did he wink at?”
The key to making a girl yours is to make her feel like she’s the only girl in your world. Start that from day one and you’ll hook her fast!
- A wink without an email relays a lack of confidence.
Winks can sometimes say:
“I think you’re cute, but I’m afraid you’re out of my league. I’m hoping … maybe… possibly… you’ll write me? Please?”
Step up and email. Be a man!
I’m not saying totally bypass the wink. If you use it, follow it up immediately by an email.
Happy dating, geek friends.
E. Foley is a geek girl extraordinaire. She writes amazing online dating profiles for geeks and non-geeks, helping clients all over the world find love. Her writing can be found at Examiner.com, Dating Sites Reviews, and elsewhere as a ghostwriter. By day, she is the Copywriter at ThinkGeek. She lives in Maryland with DaveTheGame and her adorable cats, Mr. Peanut and Don Juan. (Email e, or follow @geeksdreamgirl on Twitter.)
No.. If possible eliminate the wink option from your profile.. Entirely.. : P
Seriously, with a vial of acid! (No, not that serious but you know what I mean)
That would be an interesting option. Have people be able to choose NOT to receive winks, only emails. If I’m not mistaken (I haven’t had a paid match.com acct in a while), you can still wink without a paid account, but can’t email or read email without paying.
A no-wink option would ensure you only get contacted by paid members (i.e. those you can actually contact!).
OkCupid’s wink-equivilent (woo-ing someone) can be turned off, which is a nice touch. I leave mine on because, in another one of those delicious unfair dating things, I have no problem with a woman throwing a wink my way. I see it as the equivilent of that “come over and talk to me” look you get.
On a somewhat related note, there are a fair number of girls’ profiles who’ll say something like “and don’t bother winking/woo-ing me”. While I agree with that stance 100% it always puts me off a little to read things like that on the profile. The same goes for “oh and don’t make comment X I’ve heard it all before”. Not quite sure why it triggers an alarm bell for it.
The phrase “and don’t bother” should never find it’s way into a dating profile… it’s so standoffish.
The ONLY people that should be winking are cute little old men in their 80s.
Exactly, e.
Congrats on deciding on the new tagline! I’m still making up my mind on it
Wha? Huh?
Have I gone colorblind?
Your site is blue now.
Heh, for colorblind people, there is no change!
Yep, trying out a new color scheme to see if the drive-by traffic will “stick” more. If it doesn’t work out, the purple is still saved in my themes folder.
Actually, your sight looks pretty good colorblind, at least using the filtering software at http://colorfilter.wickline.org/
The blue stays, and everything else becomes sort of sepia toned.
That is a pretty cool website, isn’t it? The purple site actually looked blue to colorblind people, too. Go figure.
It’s true – free accounts can wink, and only paid accounts can read and send messages on match.com.
Winking is definitely a bad idea for guys, and I’m beginning to think that it’s a bad idea for women, too. Now that I’ve got my profile writing skills to be pretty good, I get enough correspondence from women that I’m far less likely to respond to a wink than a well thought-out message.
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