You’ve made sure your profile is perfect. It’s filled out, interesting, honest, and you have a great photo. But still, you send scads of messages with barely any response.

What’s up, goddamn it?!

It’s an unfortunate reality that online, many women receive more messages than they want, or can often respond to. And men receive way less messages than they would want. Sucks all around.

So, collectively, we need to improve the situation. How do you, one man, do that? By being selective and brutally honest with yourself when you’re deciding who to send a message to.

Of course, select women you find attractive. We all see people that make us think, “fuck they’re hot!” and that’s cool. Physical attraction is important. But read her profile. Find out what she’s looking for. And if it’s not you—age, children, political views, etc—STOP. DO NOT SEND. It’s highly unlikely—almost 0% to be honest—that you are good looking/interesting/famous/funny/whatever enough to make her put aside her stated her wants and needs and give you a chance. And it’s kinda arrogant, too. It ain’t gonna happen. There are plenty of women who ARE looking for you, so keep searching until you find profile that you find attractive AND are also looking for someone similar to you.

Once you’ve selected a woman to message, there are a few tried and true dos and don’ts.

Don’t compliment her looks or talk about sex. It’s not interesting and her inbox is full of these messages, so you get lost in the crowd. Even if she’s stated she’s looking for a hook up, leave it out of the first message. Trust me. I know a guy who got laid any time he wanted while on Adult Friend Finder, and he was amazed how many women commented that he was the only guy they responded to, because he was the only one who struck up a friendly, normal conversation, like you would in a coffee shop. Even when sex is clearly implied or stated in her profile, don’t bring it up right off the bat.

Keep it short and simple. Find a commonality—a movie, book, place you’ve traveled, hobby—and mention it. You want to spark her interest enough that she goes to your profile, where she can read at her leisure and get a feel for who you are. No novels. 3-5 sentences. Make it clear that you have actually read her profile. Reference something she’s said.

If you’re comfortable with it, give her your name. It’s a subtle invitation for her to do the same.

Then hit send. After that, you are done. You don’t message again. YOU DON’T MESSAGE AGAIN. She doesn’t want it. If she’s interested, she’ll reply. If you don’t hear back, move on. That’s all you can do.