1 VERY Important Reason Women Should Make the First Move on Dating Apps
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As a woman in the digital age, it's easy to wait for the dudes to message first on dating platforms. After all, they're just so damn thirsty, am I right? Why bother sending a monotonic "hey" when chances are, your inbox will get spammed anyway?
It just so happens you should, in fact, bother: women are 2.5 times more likely to get a response than men who send that initial "What's up?" And here's the real kicker — not only will you receive more messages overall, but also, you'll converse with hotter guys in general.
OkCupid provides the (totally fascinating) science behind it. In an effort to figure out just why women were refusing to make the move (which is still something of a mystery, though speculations abound), the dating website concluded that the ladies who let the guys do all the work were at a major disadvantage. It boils down to this: as humans, we're reachers, meaning we shoot for higher when searching for an attractive mate. As a result, men are contacting women 17 percentile points more beautiful. Basically, if a woman doesn't reach herself, she's collecting messages from dudes who aren't as good-looking.
The simple solution? Don't wait! OkCupid sums up the major perk of being the one to lead the opener:
Most women on OkCupid are still waiting to be messaged, which means they're settling and not even realizing it. Let's break that down: based on what we know, if you're a woman and receive a message, the man who sent it is about 5 percentile points less attractive than you. But if you send the first hello, the man is about 7 percentile points more attractive than you. So if you typically wait to be approached, you could elevate your game by about 12 percent points just by sending the first message.
Boom. Welcome to 2016.