Browsing through dozens of pictures in your favorite dating site, you see a girl or a guy that you like. Now is the time to contact them, and you know what they say – first impressions are the most important! When you write a first message to an interesting person on a dating site, you want it to be written well, and you want the recipient to be impressed by it and answer you.

How do you do that?

OKcupid, a popular dating site, has analyzed over 500,000 first contact messages and came back with interesting conclusions.

First of all, you wanna avoid netspeak, too much weird slang and typos. People tend to ignore messages that are grammatically incorrect.

Another thing to avoid is physical compliments. Yes, for many people it feels weird that you give them compliments without even seeing them. More than that, a “You are so HOT baby” message is almost sure to be ignored by the ladies, because it feels like harassment. The word “sexy” is especially problematic – so save it for when you really meet the person!

When writing a first message on a dating site, you also want to be original and interesting. Don’t go around and copy-paste the same boring, generic message to all potential partners. Read their profile, find points of mutual interest and write about that.