Why Isn't Anyone Replying to My Messages on Match.com?

Match lists a few reasons. Not every member checks messages often, some members choose not to reply to everyone who writes to them, and only paying members can reply to the messages they receive unless the two of you have Mutually Matched. Its suggestions are to add more about yourself, write to lots of people, and widen your search criteria.

Before you blame yourself, look at the reasons Match itself names. None of them is about your message.

Some members do not check their messages often. A woman who opens the app once a week will not see what you sent on Monday until Sunday, if she opens it at all.

Some members choose not to reply to everyone who contacts them. On an app where anyone can write to anyone, a woman with a busy inbox answers a few and lets the rest go.

And some of the women you wrote to may not be able to reply at all. That one deserves its own section.

Match says only paying members can reply to messages they receive, unless the two of you have Mutually Matched.

Think about what that means for a message you sent to a woman who never Liked you back. If she is on the free version, she may have read it and had no way to answer. Your silence and her silence have nothing to do with each other.

This is the single most useful fact on Match's list, because it changes where you should put your effort.

After a match, messages can go back and forth freely, so the paying rule no longer stands in her way. That makes a mutual Like on Match worth more than a clever message to a stranger.

In practice, that means Liking the women you are interested in, and paying close attention to the ones who Like you. A woman who has already Liked you has told you she is interested. Like her back and you have a match, with a conversation she is free to answer.

If you are on Silver or above, you can see who Likes you, which makes this much easier. You are no longer guessing which of the women you wrote to might have been interested. Some of them have already said so.

Match's third suggestion is to widen your search criteria, and it points to what makes Match different from the swipe apps.

For a dating coach, search is the main reason to be on Match at all. It lets you go looking for the women you want and contact them yourself, rather than living with whoever an algorithm decides to put in front of you. He has pointed out that on swipe apps, a woman's age filter can hide a man from her entirely, even when they would get on well. Searching sidesteps that.

So use the search, and do not set it so tightly that you only ever see the same small group. If your age range, distance and other filters are narrower than what you would really date, loosen them. A wider search puts more women in front of you, and more of them will write back.

Match's second suggestion is to make lots of initial contact attempts. Take that literally.

If you write to three women a week and hear nothing, you have learned almost nothing, because three is too few to tell a bad message from a slow week. If you write to thirty with the same approach and hear nothing, you have learned a lot.

My approach to online dating is to test, adjust and test again. Send a batch of messages one way, note how many get answers, then change one thing and send the next batch. Change the first line, or the time of day you send, or the kind of women you write to. Over a few weeks the numbers show you what works, which is far better than guessing from a handful of silences.

Match also suggests adding more about yourself to your profile. A woman deciding whether to answer a stranger reads whatever you have given her. If there is almost nothing there, she has no reason to write back.

My view is that the goal is not to be acceptable to every woman. It is to be very appealing to some of them. A profile that a few women love will get you more replies than one every woman finds fine and forgets. So write something with a point of view: what you actually do on a Saturday, a strong opinion about something harmless, a detail that gives her an easy question to ask.

Your photos count here too. She only reads what you wrote if the first picture makes her curious, so lead with a sharp, well-lit shot of you alone where your face is easy to see.

Once the reasons Match gives are covered, look at what you are sending.

Keep it short. One or two lines is plenty for a first message. Make it about her: pick one real detail from her page and react to it, ideally with a little humor, rather than opening with "hi, how are you" or a compliment on her looks. Finish with a question or a guess that takes her ten seconds to respond to.

Then let it go. A message that gets no reply is a normal part of any dating app. The men who do well on Match are the ones who keep writing good messages to the right women, and who treat each silence as one data point rather than a verdict.