Are Dating App Openers Worth Using?

Yes, as long as you treat a prepared opener as a shape and not a script. A line you could paste to any woman gets read as exactly that, and the matches that go quiet are often the ones who got it. A good opener keeps its frame and changes one detail each time, so the woman can tell you read her page. a dating coach works this way, and so can you.

The usual mistake is sending the same line to everyone. A woman who has a screen full of matches notices when a message could have been sent to anybody, and she replies to the ones that could not.

That covers a line you copied from a list, a conversation starter suggested to you, and a joke you found online. They all share the same failure: nothing in them proves you looked at her. She may have seen the line already from another man this week.

a dating coach's method starts before he types. He reads her whole page for something unusual to comment on, ideally something he can tease. If he finds it, that is his opener.

If he finds nothing, he reaches for a stock line he has written before. He says this may be a pure copy and paste, but more often it is a line tied to the kind of woman she seems to be. He may keep one message for sporty, athletic women and another for outgoing women who like to go out. Once a line works on one type, he keeps using it on that type.

So he does use prepared openers. He prepares them by type, and he reaches for them only when her page gives him nothing better.

In one case a dating coach gives, a woman's prompt said she had always had her own businesses. He is an entrepreneur himself, so he had a real similarity to use. He did not gush about how alike they were. He replied that he has never had a boss either and is bad at taking orders.

Notice what he did. He shared the similarity but named the unruly part, not the impressive part, so the line read as a little cocky and a little funny. The frame, a shared trait said with a tease, is reusable. The detail changes with every woman.

First, shorter is better. If you can say it in fewer words, do. A first message is read in a few seconds, and three lines from a stranger feel like homework.

Second, comment on something she wrote rather than on a photo. a dating coach says it seems more genuine and less superficial, because anyone can remark on a picture. There are exceptions, but it is a good rule to start with.

Keep a short note with a few shapes, each for a kind of woman or a kind of detail. Under each, write the frame and leave a blank.

• She wrote a strong opinion: tease the opinion lightly, then ask which other one she defends.
• She is clearly into something specific: ask a narrow question only a person who cared would ask.
• Her page is nearly empty: use the setting of a photo or the city she lists.

Then fill the blank with her real detail every time. If you could swap her name for any other woman's and nothing changed, it is not finished.

Sometimes a woman likes your photo or one of your prompts and gives you little to work with. a dating coach's habit is to thank her for the like. It puts the frame on her choice, since she picked you, and it accepts the compliment without gushing.

Keep it short and easy to answer. Thank her, add one line she can respond to in a sentence, and stop.

Count. If you match often and few women reply, the opener is a good suspect. If you rarely match, look at your photos first, because no first line can rescue a lead photo nobody stops on.

Change one thing at a time. Send a new style of opener to the next ten women and compare it to the last ten. Keep the one that gets more answers.

A good first line only buys you the next message. Aim to move toward a plan within a handful of exchanges, then get her number so the plan survives. An opener that leads to a month of chat with no date is worth less than an ordinary one that ends with a coffee on Thursday.