Exactly What To Say In A First Message

September 14th, 2009 by Christian Rudder


Ok, here’s the experiment. We analyzed over 500,000 first contacts on our dating site, OkCupid. Our program looked at keywords and phrases, how they affected reply rates, and what trends were statistically significant. The result: a set of rules for what you should and shouldn’t say when introducing yourself. Online dating advice at its best. Let’s go:

Rule 1
Be literate

Netspeak, bad grammar, and bad spelling are huge turn-offs. Our negative correlation list is a fool’s lexicon: ur, u, wat, wont, and so on. These all make a terrible first impression. In fact, if you count hit (and we do!) the worst 6 words you can use in a first message are all stupid slang.

Language like this is such a strong deal-breaker that correctly written but otherwise workaday words like don’t and won’t have nicely above average response rates (36% and 37%, respectively).

Interesting exceptions to the “no netspeak” rule are expressions of amusement. haha (45% reply rate) and lol (41%) both turned out to be quite good for the sender. This makes a certain sense: people like a sense of humor, and you need to be casual to convey genuine laughter. hehe was also a successful word, but much less so (33%). Scientifically, this is because it’s a little evil sounding.

So, in short, it’s okay to laugh, but keep the rest of your message grammatical and punctuated.

Rule 2
Avoid physical compliments

Although the data shows this advice holds true for both sexes, it’s mostly directed at guys, because they are way more likely to talk about looks. You might think that words like gorgeous, beautiful, and sexy are nice things to say to someone, but no one wants to hear them. As we all know, people normally like compliments, but when they’re used as pick-up lines, before you’ve even met in person, they inevitably feel…ew. Besides, when you tell a woman she’s beautiful, chances are you’re not.

On the other hand, more general compliments seem to work well:

The word pretty is a perfect case study for our point. As an adjective, it’s a physical compliment, but as an adverb (as in, “I’m pretty good at sports.”) it’s is just another word.

When used as an adverb it actually does very well (a phenomenon we’ll examine in detail below), but as pretty‘s uses become more clearly about looks, reply rates decline sharply. You’re pretty and your pretty are phrases that could go either way (physical or non-). But very pretty is almost always used to describe the way something or someone looks, and you can see how that works out.

Rule 3
Use an unusual greeting

We took a close look at salutations. After all, the way you choose to start your initial message to someone is the “first impression of your first impression.” The results surprised us:

The top three most popular ways to say “hello” were all actually bad beginnings. Even the slangy holla and yo perform better, bucking the general “be literate” rule. In fact, it’s smarter to use no traditional salutation at all (which earns you the reply rate of 27%) and just dive into whatever you have to say than to start with hi. I’m not sure why this is: maybe the ubiquity of the most popular openings means people are more likely to just stop reading when they see them.

The more informal standard greetings: how’s it going, what’s up, and howdy all did very well. Maybe they set a more casual tone that people prefer, though I have to say, You had me at ‘what’s up’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

Rule 4
Don’t take it outside

Obviously, all successful OkCupid relationships outgrow our in-site messaging feature. But an offer to chat or of an email address right off the bat is a sure turn off. One of the things online dating has going for it is its relative anonymity, and if you start chipping away at that too early, you’ll scare the other person off.

Also, don’t ask for or give away a cell number (10%). I thought that was a no-brainer.

Rule 4
Bring up specific interests

There are many words on the effective end of our list like zombie, band, tattoo, literature, studying, vegetarian (yes!), and metal (double yes!) that are all clearly referencing something important to the sender, the recipient, or, ideally, both. Talking about specific things that interest you or that you might have in common with someone is a time-honored way to make a connection, and we have proof here that it works. We’re presenting just a smattering: in fact every “niche” word that we have significant data on has a positive effect on messaging.

Even more effective are phrases that engage the reader’s own interests, or show you’ve read their profile:

Rule 5
If you’re a guy, be self-effacing

Awkward, sorry, apologize, kinda, and probably all made male messages more successful, yet none of them except sorry affects female messages. As we mentioned before, pretty, no doubt because of its adverbial meaning of “to a fair degree; moderately” also helps male messages. A lot of real-world dating advice tells men to be more confident, but apparently hemming and hawing a little works well online.

It could be that appearing unsure makes the writer seem more vulnerable and less threatening. It could be that women like guys who write mumbly. But either way: men should be careful not to let the appearance of vulnerability become the appearance of sweaty desperation: please is on the negative list (22% reply rate), and in fact it is the only word that is actually worse for you than its netspeak equivalent (pls, 23%)!

Rule 6
Consider becoming an atheist

Mentioning your religion helps you, but, paradoxically, it helps you most if you have no religion. We know that’s going to piss a lot of people off, and we’re more or less tongue-in-cheek with this advice, but it’s what the numbers say.

These are the religious terms that appeared a statistically significant number of times. Atheist actually showed up surprisingly often (342 times per 10,000 messages, second only to 552 mentions of christian and ahead of 278 for jewish and 142 for muslim).

Though very few people actually do it, invoking the sky-breaking thunderbolts of zeus does help a person get noticed (reply rate 56%), but maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise on a site that is itself named for a member of the Classical pantheon. So if you can’t bring yourself to deny the deity, consider opening yourself up to a whole wacky bunch of them. But ideally you should just disbelieve the whole thing. It can help your love life, and, besides, if there really was a god, wouldn’t first messages always get a reply?

A word about user privacy on OkCupid

Though this post talks in detail about the content of people’s messages on OkCupid, all messages have been anonymized, with sender and recipient data and all IP and timestamp information stripped out. In addition, our analysis program looked at messages only two or three words at a time, to track the success of certain words or phrases (like “what’s up” vs. “wats up”). The program then aggregated results by phrase before presenting the data. No one at OkCupid read any actual user messages to compile this post.

523 Responses to “Exactly What To Say In A First Message”

  1. Danielle says:

    What a great idea. As a female, I would love if the men using this site would take a peek at this article. I’ve been using this site for a couple years now and I cannot count the many, manyyyyy times that I’ve received instant messages or messages in my inbox, and the entirety of the message is “Hi” or “Wats up”. Once I edited my line “You should message me if..you have something to say other than ‘hi'”. This lead to getting cynical, resentful messages in regards to my request to help them avoid appearing lazy, unoriginal or that they had at least appeared to have read anything in my profile.
    So, hopefully the clueless out there read something in this article to help them get responses. There are some great people out there and it would be a shame to miss out on one of them because the sender got the wrong idea.

  2. Harvey_HiPoint says:

    Yes! This proves I’m a social genius on the internet. If only that applied to social interactions IRL. :’P

    :: sigh ::

  3. Aizyk says:

    Vegetarian zombie metal band? Pretty awesome!

  4. semidry says:

    Very interesting, thank you!
    Quite surprised by how bad “hi” fared. What about the use of smileys? In general and also: the “traditional” ones vs. the “manga” ones? Are they as bad as netspeak?

    As to #7, I did have the impression that there was a skew towards atheist and agnostic position in the female OKC profiles I looked at. Just one of peculiarities of the demographic here.

    PS I shall immediately join a vegetarian zombie metal band.

  5. Isaac says:

    How’s it going, Christian Rudder? You’re pretty much awesome, and your band Bishop Allen is almost as cool as your interest in math. You mention being an atheist, that’s kinda cool. Sorry for the last message, I got carried away.

  6. slam says:

    Interesting report! I’ve been more or less following these rules all along; although I’ve been using “cutie” in a salutation, or did earlier, though I stopped after reading some women’s journals where they complained of this practice.

    I use words like “cutie” all the time with my friends, and they with me, so it feels very natural to me. However it’s important to keep in mind that people on a dating site don’t know you or your friends; instead they will be comparing you to the most average, lame, sexist, crude, sex-starved male on the internet; and that women are used to, and sick of, getting these messages from crude dudes. Consider how what you say would sound if it came from a typical crude dude, and adjust the content accordingly.

    I’d also like to see how “heya” faired in the salutations. I bet it did better than “hey,” but not as well as “howdy.”

  7. slam says:

    Danielle, interesting point!

    OKCupid should set an “minimum word count” to the email preferences; “you must write at least 20 words to make it into my inbox.” Hee hee.

  8. Aaron COllom says:

    They want me to give up religion? Oh my goddess!

  9. Devenshur says:

    Those are good tips, and and I’ve done a lot of those things intuitively in my more successful first emails. Something it doesn’t really address is the role of the other person’s profile in all this. It’s a lot easier to write specifics, with an eye-catching subject heading, when the person gives you something to play off of.

    I sent two emails out recently. One of the women made statements like: I adore watching movies. The other one said that her favorite film was The Fisher King. The one with the more generic statements got a much more generic email. The other one got a clever email (and gave a reply!.

  10. sdk says:

    I started using LOL in my chats, and things just took off. It works wonders with women. LOL makes them feel comfortable. It lightens the conversation. It makes me look less serious. Girls like that. It turns them on.

  11. sdk says:

    Harvey Hipoint is gay.

  12. self says:

    Hey, looks like I was already following all the guidelines you’ve set forth. Too bad it isn’t working for me in the least. Must be my pictures…

  13. Justin says:

    Harvey Hipoint is indeed gay. How astute of you to notice.

    I find it funny how often zombies come up on this website. In fact, I have used zombies in a few first contacts, and I do believe I had a 100% reply rate for those. So weird.

    Also, the whole physical compliment thing is kind of a complex subject. One can have pretty good success with it if one does it right. The key is to say your thing about it, then move on. “You’re very pretty, but what is really attractive about you is the fact that you graduated college in a single semester.” It’s either that or make it less superficial. “I like the way you dyed your hair. Your eyes play off that color very well.”

    Finally, what about smiley faces? I hear tell bitches love smiley faces. On a serious note, I’ve had decent success with manga smileys. ^_^,

  14. Bradley says:

    For #4, what if inviting someone to an outside chat service was just SO SUCCESSFUL all the time that reply rates plummet as the conversation moves to MSN/Gmail? Huh? Huh???

  15. Chris says:

    So when will there be an article on the Subject line? I never know what to put there.

  16. JonK says:

    This is quite interesting, although it cannot be taken as a “do this and you’ll succeed” guide. Since the data was not derived from a controlled experiment, and is purely observations of behavior derived from existing motives, it’s only showing trends. It is NOT showing a direct cause and effect.

    In other words, if ones stops using the word “beautiful”, there’s no certainty they’ll get more responses, since the users underlying motives are still tainted by themselves.

    But, with that said, I’m sure one can still learn a bit from this (I know I did).

  17. capt_carl says:

    Fact: becoming an Atheist will get you laid. Or it seems according to that blog post. Very informative! Thanks guys.

  18. Hmm says:

    I’m not sure how I feel about these posts. Messages like “omg ur hot” help us to recognize morons quickly and effectively.

    If they read these blog posts and start running their posts through spell checkers, we might waste 2 or 3 messages on them before realizing we’re talking to an idiot.

  19. scifigal says:

    :) My friend sent me several first messages he’d sent to girls and the first thing I mentioned was that every one had something like “let’s chat” and had his gmail address listed. heh

  20. AWellin says:

    Great update! I was wondering when this would get updated again. Very informative! Coyne &Co, you guys rule rule the internet!

  21. Misinformed says:

    Atheist is a crowd pleaser ? I specifically avoided mentioning my atheism thinking it would give a bad vibe :s
    I guess “bad” is the magic word that I missed out!

  22. Killersmarts1 says:

    Thanks, Christian, for writing these blog posts. I find them incredibly interesting (though I don’t really need the help you’re offering). I hope that lots of OKCupidians are reading them, but I suspect that the guys who send first messages of “hi, wats up? nice tits” won’t be looking at the blog.

    What do vegetarian zombies eat?

  23. dev says:

    The atheist thing isn’t paradoxical to me. Orthodox christianity in all its forms (yes i’m counting you catholics!) is dying and the younger generation, that’s us, is abandoning it for real morals and common sense (see Atheism). As such, most people that are not religious view churchies as mindless sheep. I may be from the country, but I’m not into sheep.

  24. Hmm says:

    And yes, “vegetarian” IS an important criteria for a lot of people, especially the demographic on OkCupid.

    I’ve asked you in the past to include “diet” alongside “drinking” “smoking” and “drugs”, but my pleas were ignored.

    :'(

    I’m not even veggie. It’s just a really important issue to some people and, like the other criteria, is especially applicable to activities that we commonly do on dates.

  25. ablondecouple says:

    Being an atheist who knows how to write and spell has sure worked for me!

  26. justanotherinterdimensionalclown says:

    Zombies are that popular? I wonder how well velociraptors would do…

  27. dto1984 says:

    Actually God isn’t an ATM or a genie in a magic lamp. He wouldn’t necessarily have to make every girl you message answer you back. If you’re not an atheist, here’s a tip: Don’t message an atheist. Message someone from your own religion. I’m certainly not going to give up my beliefs just so someone will answer my messages, particularly when the people I message usually answer anyway.

  28. Siridean says:

    From this I have formulated the perfect opener that according to your data, cannot fail!

    “Hey, sorry to message you out of the blue
    like this, but it’s pretty much awesome
    that you mention some of the same bands that
    I like in your profile and that we’re both
    atheists.

    So, how’s it going?”

  29. Katastrophecy says:

    Denounce my religion and become an atheist? Blasphemy!

    Hmm… what about “hai” as a greeting? I use it quite a bit because it sounds playful and says I’m not overly serious.

    Very curious about that word.

  30. nataysha says:

    This article is one MANY should read. Countless times a guy that seems interesting to me in his profile messages me with “Hi”. If I wanted to say Hi to someone id go to the mall and wave at people.

    Some of the men on here are relentless, okay, obviously you like my pictures, stop complimenting me until we meet and vaguely do it please. It takes the excitement out when a guy refers to me as cutie. “what cha up to cutie?” or “hey beautiful”. Maybe im just cold but, I am not dating you, and we haven’t met. Conversations are higher than Compliments.

  31. Justin says:

    Bradley makes a good point. I feel silly for not thinking of that.

    Also, being an atheist may not be a good thing. People may be mentioning “You aren’t like… an atheist are you?” or “Let’s stone all atheists,” instead of “I’m an atheist.”

    Also, I am dying to drop this line “I know I kinda don’t have to apologize, but I’m sorry I’m pretty awkward.”

  32. Who is Good Will? says:

    Ooooooh, Dev. You are so cool. And so independent and non-conformist. Do you wear black? And have tattoos? And listen to bands that aren’t on the radio?

  33. austin says:

    This was all very helpful. I just wanted to point out, though, that Cupid is actually in the Roman pantheon; The Greek version is Eros.

  34. monkey says:

    I hate lol … = LAME

  35. John Sebold says:

    Thanks for attacking people of faith! Sheesh. If one’s faith is so superficial they would give it up just to get a date it was no real faith to begin with. Sorry to break the news but atheists are in a tiny minority. In America most people are Christians and in the world most people have some type of faith.

  36. John Sebold says:

    Wow dev, congratulations, everything you said was totally wrong. Well done.

  37. chris says:

    I adore you guys :)

  38. telmesrin says:

    Uh, you do realize that “wont” is an actual word, don’t you? I felt obligated to point that out, as is my wont.

  39. Wimsey70 says:

    “lol” ? Seriously? Well, I suppose it must work for someone, but I tend to think it’s the sign of an inexpressive moron. Plus, it’s subject to horrible acronym abuse! I mean, have you read some of the men’s profiles around here?

    I like to watch movies lol and sometimes i listen to music but lol im not really into books lol im really easygoing and laidback lol

    *tears out hair*

  40. Mostly says:

    Whatevs. I’m still sticking with “why don’t you people get out of israel”

  41. EllinikosGreen says:

    @killersmarts1 What do vegetarian zombies eat?

    I believe you’ll find it ‘GRAAAAAAAAAAINS’.

  42. Saint Gasoline says:

    Now that I know the formula for success, I am just going to create a form letter, with a few blank spots to include specific interests from her profile.

    Also, the atheist thing isn’t surprising. It is hard to meet other atheists, and OKCupid really has become the de facto atheist dating site. I tell all the single guys and ladies at the atheist and skeptic meetups I go to that OKCupid is the best bet for atheist lovin’.

    Here is a good generic form letter, though. If anyone else wants to use it, feel free:

    How’s it going? Your profile is pretty fascinating. You mention that your favorite band is ______. They’re effin’ metal! They are so cool that they can turn blood-thirsty zombies into vegetarian physics majors and hit power chords to make the guitar bleed for weeks.

    Sorry about that. I guess my incessant rambling can be a bit awkward, haha!

    Anyway, I noticed that you have good taste. I’m curious, what’s your favorite movie?

    It’s also nice to meet another atheist. Of course I’m only atheist about Zeus. I am a thorough believer, however, in the Invisible Pink Unicorn. We know she is invisible because we can’t see her, and we know she is pink through faith!

    As for me, I hope to one day go back to grad school as soon as I stop playing video games and blowing my money on tattoos.

    My name’s ________, what’s your name?

    I am going to get laid so hard now.

  43. Tom says:

    “So when will there be an article on the Subject line? I never know what to put there.”

    Ditto! Please do an analysis on message subjects!

  44. LZA says:

    Yeah, I would be interested in an analysis of how the lol count affects response rates. Does it hinder your chances to use many of them, instead of just one?

    Once again, OkTrends rock my world. These last two blogs have been atheistically awesome (and by this I mean ungodly fascinating) in that they are so relevant to the immanent complaints of having a single-digit response rate. I don’t think any causation needs to be established for the advice to be well worth considering.

    Interesting how poorly the word “god” fares. I wouldn’t expect that to be true if usually people who are interested in that message others who are interested in the same. From what I’ve seen I suspect the problem is that too many people talk about their god without giving enough thought to how welcome that will be, especially right off the bat.

    Speaking from experience, talking about metal (the music, not the material) is effective because it’s typically a love-it-or-hate-it interest. When that interest is shared it often scores a lot of points.

    I think the trouble with “please”, as opposed to the other equivocal or submissive terms, is that it is usually a sort of request. I don’t think making requests in a first message makes a good impression. You should be trying to motivate the person to respond, not making them feel obligated to do so.

  45. Kyle says:

    This is all pretty useful stuff. It’s a shame that 99% of women on this website reply “very selectively” (never) to even the most thought provoking messages. In fact I’ve come across more profiles that say “I’m only here for the quizzes” and ‘You should message me if: “you shouldn’t message me”‘.

    I consider myself an athiest, and I’m in two bands, one of which is a metal band, and I consider myself a pretty intelligent person… there should be some sort of filter to keep girls from using this site if they’re just going to waste time instead of talking to people.

  46. CRM__114 says:

    Interesting. Regarding the surprisingly poor results for “Hi” and “Hello”, my first thought is that I get a fair number of clearly phony/spam emails, and they all start with one of those two words (sometimes both). Real people use them, and I never hold it against people (if this result applies to subject lines I use them too), but real people also use other openings, whereas the spammers, as far as I’ve seen, don’t. Since I assume the spammers have a response rate far below 32%, they could be dragging down the average.

    Also, what Bradley said.

  47. Wimsey70 says:

    ^ I think that’s actually why “God” and “Yahoo” fare so poorly. They’re almost universally mentioned in spam mails. (Usually he’s a “god-fearing man”).

  48. Felipe D. says:

    I wonder if “god” faired so poorly because it was in lowercase, as it fails the first advice: “Be literate.” Christians are careful to use it as a proper noun, God. So if the word christian faired well, and god did not, it seems like it’s a turn off because you’re not really a Christian as opposed to the fact you mentioned God.

  49. Loui says:

    It’s good to hear that in truth that some are just not getting it.
    I do agree about asking for email too quickly will have a negitive respone ( and it seems REALLY needy).

    YAY to hola! Will use more often :P

  50. Thom says:

    Really, with LOL? I would be curious whether that is much more effective with a younger age group than average. I can’t imagine too many people in their mid-20s responding to something with lol in it.

    Also, what about capitalization and punctuation and stuff like that? It seems that, contrary to what everyone thinks, most people actually use pretty decent correctness when they write online, from what I’ve seen.